Shrewsbury: topography and domestic architecture to the middle of the seventeenth century

This thesis began as an attempt to relate the topography and domestic architecture of an English town to its general history, to see, that is, how far the present street plan and surviving buildings reflected the various stages in growth from its origins to the time when, with the coming of the railway, distant influences suddenly became more powerful than the historic regional environment, Shrewsbury was chosen because it has both a wealth of old houses and extensive corporation records which it was hoped would throw light on the buildings, in particular on their dating. However, fieldwork investigations led to plans and structure of historic housing became the main consideration since so little was known about them, and to this end a much smaller number of houses had to be examined in greater detail. The extra work thus involved necessitated a further limitation in date which was clearly defined by the nature of the buildings; the change from timber-framing to brick is the biggest break in the continuity of architectural tradition in Shrewsbury