Shuts of Shrewsbury No 7 - St Julian's Shut
St. Alkmund's Square - Wyle Cop/High Street

A nice long shut right in the middle of the town centre, which twists around the churchyards of both St Julian's and St Alkmund's churches. It was once known as "Old Fish Street" (the present Fish Street being "New Fish Street") and was part of the market area (the "King's Market") of Shrewsbury in medieval times, before the Square was built. Halfway along the shut is the little known St Julian's churchyard, which is very small, as well as a pizza restaurant and one of the entrances to the St Julian's craft centre. We start our shut journey on St Alkmund's Square.



The shut twists and turns a bit, but it's all outdoors, until a long straight section appears.



At the end you can see where Wyle Cop and High Street meet. On the left is Foresters Hall and on the right is St Julian's church. To get down to the High Street (or if you're going the other way, going up to the shut from High Street) you have to use St Julian's Steps, which are shown in the next photo.



The shut and steps are no longer named by road signs, which is silly considering what an important link and a historical shut it is. It would be nice if the shuts and passages of Shrewsbury had their own special series of signs, which would make it easier for tourists to navigate the town and keep the names in people's minds. Talking of road signs, in the first photo there are two mistakes with the road sign for St Alkmund's Square - see if you can spot them. :rolleyes:

it should be st AlkmUnds not st AlkmOnds.i dunna know what the second'un is unless it is summat to do with the dot.

you are right,there should be proper signs.can't shropshire forum twist a few local business mens arms and get em to fund it.it would be a good bit of PR for 'em.

They've missed out the apostrophe, which is a common mistake on many signs these days. The dot's fine - it differentiates (is that a word?!) between "saint" (with a dot) and "street" (without a dot). Best example of this is only a short walk away from this square on Saint Mary's Street, which has a road sign (sadly with the missing apostrope again) "St. Marys St".

I was thinking of special touristy signs for shuts and passages, with perhaps a symbol for steps, so that people know if steps are going to come up, and where the passage leads to. They would also be in a different colour to normal road signs (say brown or green).

In fact - some of the smaller streets in Shrewsbury like Butcher Row and School Gardens have green notices on their entrances with shops found along them... so I'm sure the borough council or the Civic Society could conjure something up for the shuts.

those green boards were put up a few years ago now,and they start to look a bit tatty as soon as a few business' change,but they replaced worse looking A-boards.

I've found that on some old maps St. Alkmund is spelt with a 'O' instead of a 'U' so maybe the spelling of that street sign isn't too out of order..

<_<