Mountfields, Shrewsbury

Historically famous for pubs and brothels frequented by barge pullers after being paid on Frankwell Quay,[1] Mountfields is now better known for Shrewsbury's Theatre Severn, pop-up restaurants that refuse to advertise their existence (such as Boaty McBoat Plaice), street parties and the Annual Frankwell Rounders Match, a community event that has run for nearly 20 years. Artist Ann McCay has a studio there.[2]

Mountfields forms part of the Frankwell area and has a rich history, much of which relates to the original Welsh Bridge (a.k.a. St George's Bridge) which crossed the Severn opposite the medieval street 'Mardol', 70m upstream from the current bridge. The quayside, from which a shanty-type industrial area known as 'Frankwell Forge' was regretfully cleared in 2004, still houses 'The Stew', a derelict building named after a nearby brothel that is the area's only remaining link with the town's history as a river port. The Stew has notoriously been trapped in planning controversies regarding renovation since 2004.[3]

Anarcho-CinderPunks in Mountfields, circa 1998

Occasional Mountifields happenings are thought to be organised by the secretive Tim Cooke, one of the originators of the Anarcho-CinderPunk movement, and Guy Holmes, who as a community psychologist became well known for Psychology in the Real World[4] events. Their 'Hats on/Hats off' party famously disturbed the 2017 Shrewsbury Folk Festival.

The Darwin Trail passes through Mountfields, following the River Severn along the track used by the barge pullers, from the theatre to Charles Darwin's childhood home on The Mount. It passes through fields that Darwin explored when escaping from Shrewsbury School, which he hated. His father Robert Darwin and mother Susannah Wedgwood built the house on land originally earmarked for Shrewsbury prison (The Dana). They constructed a 'thinking path'[5] from the house down to the river and encouraged Charles and his siblings to utilise this and become 'self-educated', recognising the defects in education provided by private schools with their bullying and perverse norms and treatment of children as empty vessels needing to be filled with unconnected facts.[6] In 2014 Shropshire Wildlife Trust purchased and attempted to renovate the overgrown, overpriced slope that the Thinking Path winds through.[7]