The Old Market Hall, Shrewsbury

We are in Shrewsbury to meet up with our friends from Oxford and go to the Shrewsbury Flower Show tomorrow. We spent this afternoon and evening pottering around this lovely town. This building is the Old Market Hall which was built in 1596 by the Corporation of Shrewsbury. In front of the Market Hall in the Square there was once a pool or bog. According to tradition this pool was called the Bishop's Pool and it would be the ducking pool for nagging wives and dishonest traders. The offender was tied to a chair called the cucking stool or ducking stool, exposed to public derision and then immersed in water. It appears this custom was carried into the late 17th Century as in 1669 the Corporation accounts show the purchase of a new stool.