Oswestry in Shropshire is one of Britain’s oldest continually inhabited settlements. The oldest part of the town is the 3000-year-old Iron Age Hill Fort – one of the most spectacular and best preserved such sits in Britain—which was first populated around 800 BC.
The town centre has many beautifully preserved ancient buildings, including the Visitor and Exhibition Centre which dates from around 1407. Numerous other timber-framed buildings, dating from the 15 and 16th centuries, are still in use as public houses and inns.
Oswestry has a population of around 17,000 and is the third largest town in Shropshire.
The Domesday Book of 1086 records a castle being built by Rainald, a Norman Sheriff of Shropshire: L’oeuvre (“the work” in French),and the town changed hands between the English and the Welsh a number of times during the English-Welsh wars. The castle was reduced to a pile of rocks during the English Civil War.
