The puzzle in this photo is: when were these loggerheads put up?
This is the early nineteenth-century building, in Dogpole in central Shrewsbury, which is still known as the Mountford Carriage Works, even though Mountford & Company had left by 1916. (Edward Burd, the owner of next-door Newport House, seems to have disliked the noise the works made, and forced them out).
In 1917, the new owners of Newport House were the local Borough Council (who then resurrected the house’s old title - The Guildhall) and then (in the 1940s?) took over this adjacent former carriage works building.
Did they put up the loggerheads as a 'proprietorial' sign at this time?
The second theory is that the Dogpole roadway was widened outside Newport House, some time, by the borough’s engineers - who put up the loggerheads as a sign of their work - a kind of latter-day mason’s mark.
However, I’ve never found proof of either theory. Does anyone have thoughts to add?
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There is an 1888 photo of this carriage works, which you will find in Shropshire Archives, and you'll see no loggerheads on the building then. Instead, you'll see the original round window, which was filled in, presumably when the loggerheads were installed.
ReplyDeleteThe roadway looks the same width in the 1888 photo, so the best guess is that the loggerheads went up when the Borough Council moved in. (??)
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There is a photograph of the cariage works, taken in 1888, which one can find at Shrewsbury Archives. It shows no loggerheads, but a roundel window where the loggerheads are now. So - they are later than 1888!
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