MUCH (more) WENLOCK….

The summer Olympics 2012 start to-night in London in what is billed to be a ‘spectacular’ opening ceremony. We are told it will be watched all over the World.  One name you may well hear is that of “Wenlock”….he is in fact one of the 2 Games Mascots for 2012.  So why Wenlock? So just in case they don’t mention why and with so much else going on let me explain. The date is 1850 and Dr. William Penny Brookes had the inspiration to establish Wenlock Olympic Games for the betterment of the health and well being of the people of Much Wenlock. This was the rebirth of the Olympic movement. 

Much Wenlock is a small town in Shropshire, middle England.  Small it may be but it also has much history…far more than I can relay here. But as a taster….

Wenlock Priory

Originally an Anglo Saxon Monastery (Circa 680) and later rebuilt as Priory in the 1100’s, it modestly hides away to one side of the town yet it is far from modest in size, an indication as to its importance over the centuries.

The Priory ensured that Much Wenlock became an important centre and Market Town of some wealth as can be judged by the number of Elizabethan timber buildings of some substance.  The Guild Hall and Butter Market is just one such building that still dominates the towns High Street….

Guild Hall and Butter Market.

One of the other imposing buildings has to be Holy Trinity Church most of the current structure dates to circa 1150 but possibly its location is o the site of an even earlier church.

The Church and Nave

 

 

So if you are watching the  Opening Ceremony of London 2012 Olympic Games, with over 80,000 people in the Stadium watching and surround by the metropolis that is London….and when you here them mention Wenlock, remember where he came from…..

 

Much Wenlock, Shropshire 

 

 

 

 

27th JULY 2012