Shrewsbury, our favourite shopping town, 90 minutes from Llangunllo,
is the county town of Shropshire. It sits upon a hill protected within a loop of the River Severn and is packed with just over six hundred listed buildings. Above are the spires of two, with Old Saint Chad's in the foreground. "With the spires of St Mary and St Alkmund, the towers of St Chad, St Julian and the New Market Hall . . . it is still easy to sense the prosperity and vigour of the Elizabethan and Stuart town, in the small market square half filled with the Old Market House, the twisting streets and attractive and curious courtyards and alleyways. Everywhere the street names are tempting and mysterious: Shoplatch and Murivance, Wyle Cop and Dogpole. Then, on the slope up from the centre to the park towards the west, genteel Georgian streets, of houses with spacious hidden gardens" (Pevsner and Newman’s The Buildings of England (2006 ).