All Round the Wrekin - Wellington

The Birth of a Market Town

In 1244, Giles de Erdington, who was by then Tenant-in-Chief , successfully obtained a Royal Charter for Wellington, enabling him to operate a Thursday market and a three-day June fair. As a consequence of the improved commercial prospects afforded by the new Charter, Church Street was extended past The Green towards the current Market Square and New Street was also laid out, when burgage tenements were established along the course of the road. These large, distinctive plots of land consisted of long, slender strips with merchants houses built at the narrowest end and evidence of this style of development can still be traced in some of the street's shop frontages. The creation of burgage tenements was an important consideration of gaining a charter and offered benefits and advantages to the tenants and the Lord of the Manor. Apart from providing the commercial impetus for the town's development, the merchants owed suit to the Lord's Manor Court, providing an important source of income for his fee farm payments - the annual sum paid to the Exchequer for the King allowing him to administer the town's affairs while the advantage to the tenants was that the plots could be sold or inherited more freely than other types of property.