Discovering the Flax Mill Maltings social history

The main focus of the project is the social history of the people who worked in the Flax Mill Maltings, and of their neighours in the community that grew up around the site. A range of useful work is now in progress. This includes:

• Shropshire Archives have identified all the material they hold that has potential to tell us who these people were and how they lived their lives.
• A visit has been made to Leeds University Library where the papers of the Marshall Company are held. Copies of a number of items in that collection have now been requested so that we can study them in detail and share them with the Friends.
• Details of every individual recorded in the Castlefields and Ditherington area in the 1841 and 1851 Censuses have been transcribed and loaded into an Access database, along with details of those buried in St Michael’s Churchyard (now the Masonic Hall) and those who owned or occupied land in the area, as recorded in 1851 Tithe Map and Schedule for the area.
• The land parcels recorded on the 1851 Tithe Map have been captured as a GIS (computer mapping) dataset using some Open Source software called Quantum GIS. This has confirmed the potential of this type of data capture for helping us produce maps showing, for example, where people lived, where some of them rented allotments or gardens and who the major landowners were.

This is just the beginning of discovering the history of the Flaxmill Maltings. If you would like to join our volunteer team please email me.

Penny Ward
[email protected]

01743 360213

Friends of the Flaxmill Maltings
Flaxivity
Spring Gardens
Ditherington
Shrewsbury
SY1 2SZ