Shuts of Shrewsbury No 19 - Drayton's Passage
Shoplatch - Market Street

This passage today cuts the corner between Shoplatch and Market Street though historically it used to carry straight on to The Square. It's still a useful shortcut, for instance if you are walking down Market Street and you want to head to the Mardol Head area or go under the Market Hall to Claremont Street. We start on Shoplatch, opposite the Market Hall, where the entrance is large and a cafe (called "The Drayton") occupies the corner of the passage with the street.



Walk down to the end and look back and the view looks like this. The passage, which is actually quite wide down this stretch, was restored in the 1980s.



The passage these days (at least for the past two centuries though) takes a turn right towards Market Street. It comes out next to Games Workshop there, almost opposite where Swan Hill joins the street.



The building on the right of the photo has recently been renovated. On the ground floor is Goldsmiths - which has quite frequently (it seems) been the scene of jewelry heists!

The passage was known as Eddowes's Shut, because of the Eddowes Printers business located there, until they left in 1750.

"The passages and shuts in Shrewsbury provide the pedestrian with the opportunity to take many short cuts. There is the aura of times past in many of these narrow alleyways which have stood the test of time. Although the word "Shut" implies a cul-de-sac, this is not so, the word may have derived from the Shutte family who once owned a dwellling in Drayton's Passage. Miss Georgina Jackson writing in "The Shropshire Word Book" published in 1879, suggests that such passageway enables a pedestrian to "shoot" or move quickly from one street to another."

I've always held the belief that shuts are called so because they were shut at night. But who knows!

I think that you might have a case there.Gullet Passage has a sort of hinge on it at the Square end.

It's the reason why many shuts have arched "doorways" on either end.

Hopefully Seventy Steps will be able to remain open this way, ie only being shut at night.

I think that we need someone with a bit of clout around town to start a campaign to save the Seventy Steps,surely they could be locked when the shopping centre does.
talking of which,there were four people trying to get everyone to vote for the new name.they were so brash and acted like the cast of Alan Sugars "Apprentice" that most people seemed to give them a very wide berth.

I know - I saw them on Pride Hill yesterday... :(

Rubbish people campaigning for rubbish names.