Bishop’s Castle Heritage Resource Centre is a volunteer run heritage store and research facility, housed in an old chapel in the centre of the town, celebrating local history and keeping it within the area for everyone to use and enjoy.
Our volunteers carry out research on a wide range of local topics ranging from law and order and the Rotten Borough to the many pubs the town has hosted over the years, and have produced numerous publications which can be viewed or bought at the Centre.
We are open on Saturday mornings as a Local History Centre for help with family and house history enquiries and research. We hold a wide range of parish records and maps as well as a Shropshire reference library.
Our secure museum standard store holds the reserve collection of the House on Crutches Museum as well as heritage items belonging to individuals and organisations who want to preserve their archives.
As well as a small meeting venue we are also the “back office” for the House on Crutches Museum and can organise heritage visits for small groups.
The House on Crutches Museum is housed in a unique timber framed building behind the Town Hall, and dates from the early 1600s. The interior of the house, apart from furniture and perhaps a couple of windows, is little changed from the time it was built.
The rooms are filled with displays which reveal both the social history of the town and the lives of the people who lived here.
Open every Saturday, Sunday and Bank Holiday from Good Friday to September Michaelmas Fair 1.30 – 4.30pm.
In her book Slow Shropshire, travel writer Marie Kreft writes “One of the best town museums in Shropshire, it’s housed in a picturebook-perfect Elizabethan timber-framed building with wooden posts propping up a 17th century upstairs extension, which feels wonderfully crooked inside”.
House on Crutches Museum is located behind the Town Hall and accessed from a cobbled walkway. The address is The Cobbles, High Street, Bishop’s Castle, SY9 5BG www.hocmuseum.org.uk
Bishop’s Castle Heritage Resource Centre can be found in Chapel Yard, Bishop’s Castle SY9 5DE. This is the postal address for both organisations and both can be contacted via the phone number and email address below. www.bchrc.co.uk
