title: Shrewsbury

text: The British Army's Light Infantry has been associated with Shrewsbury since the 17th century when the first regiments were formed and many more regiments have been raised at Shrewsbury before being deployed all over the world from the American Revolutionary War to the recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Today, after several major reorganisations, the Light Infantry now forms part of the regiment known simply as the Rifles. Shrewsbury's Copthorne Barracks, spiritual home of the Light Division, ultimately housed the Headquarters of the British Army's 143 (West Midlands) Brigade before it moved in 2014, while that of the 5th Division disbanded in April 2012 as part of the reorganisation of the Army's Support Command.


title: Shrewsbury

text: Between 1962 and 1992 there was a hardened nuclear bunker, built for No 16 Group Royal Observer Corps Shrewsbury, who provided the field force of the United Kingdom Warning and Monitoring Organisation and would have sounded the four-minute warning alarm in the event of war and warned the population of Shrewsbury in the event of approaching radioactive fallout. The building was manned by up to 120 volunteers who trained on a weekly basis. After the breakup of the communist bloc in 1989, the Royal Observer Corps was disbanded between September 1991 and December 1995. However, the nuclear bunker still stands just inside Holywell Street near the Abbey as a lasting reminder of the Cold War, but is now converted and used as a veterinary practice.


title: Shrewsbury

text: The tourist information centre is situated in the Shrewsbury Museum & Art Gallery in what used to be the old Music Hall theatre in The Square. The three main museums are Shrewsbury Museum & Art Gallery, Shrewsbury Castle (which houses the Shropshire Regimental Museum) and the Coleham Pumping Station. There are various private galleries and art shops around the town, including the Gateway Education and Arts Centre. Another notable feature of the town is Lord Hill's Column, the largest free-standing Doric column in the world.


title: Shrewsbury

text: The Quantum Leap is an abstract sculpture unveiled in the town centre in 2009 to mark the bicentenary of the birth of Shrewsbury biologist Charles Darwin.


title: Shrewsbury

text: Shrewsbury's town centre, being almost entirely encircled by the River Severn, has nine bridges across the river and many that cross the Rea Brook.


title: Shrewsbury

text: Working downstream from Frankwell Bridge, a modern pedestrian footbridge spans the River Severn between Frankwell and the town centre. Welsh Bridge was built in the 1790s to replace the ancient St George's Bridge. Further along from the Welsh Bridge is the Porthill Bridge, a pedestrian suspension bridge running between The Quarry and Porthill, built in 1922. The next bridge along the river is Kingsland Bridge, a privately owned toll bridge, and the subsequent bridge is the Greyfriars Bridge, a pedestrian bridge between Coleham and the town centre. Following the Greyfriars Bridge is the English Bridge, historically called "Stone Bridge", which was rebuilt in the 1920s. Beyond it is the railway station, which is partly built over the river. After the station is Castle Walk Footbridge, another modern pedestrian footbridge. The last bridge to cross the river within the Shrewsbury bypass area is called Telford Way, which has separate lanes for vehicles (A5112), bicycles and pedestrians. A. E. Housman wrote of the area this verse, which mentions the bridges of the town:


title: Shrewsbury

text: There are many churches in Shrewsbury, including Shrewsbury Abbey, founded by Roger de Montgomery in 1083. Shrewsbury Greek Orthodox Church, a former Anglican church building, is off Sutton Road to the south. Shrewsbury is home to the Roman Catholic Shrewsbury Cathedral, by the Town Walls, as well as two other parishes in Harlescott and Monkmoor, within the Roman Catholic Diocese of Shrewsbury. One of the , facing St Alkmund's Church, was the site of John Wesley's first preaching in Shrewsbury; a records the date as 16 March 1761. According to legend, the spire of St Alkmund's Church was damaged by the Devil in 1553, and climbed four times by a drunken steeplejack in 1621.


title: Shrewsbury

text: There are several Anglican churches in Shrewsbury. Methodists, Baptists and the United Reformed Church are also represented, alongside newer church groups including Elim Pentecostal and two Newfrontiers, which are:


title: Shrewsbury

text: Shrewsbury Evangelical Church met in the former Anglican parish church of St Julian at the Wyle Cop end of Fish Street, later moving into the Springfield estate in the eastern suburbs. Shrewsbury's first non-Christian place of worship, a Muslim centre, was approved in 2013.


title: Shrewsbury

text: Many community projects in Shrewsbury are based in, or have been started by local churches, including the Isaiah 58 project, which is the primary work amongst homeless people in the town, whilst 'Churches Together in Shrewsbury' works to help homeless people through the Ark project. Shrewsbury Food Bank, based at Barnabas Community Church Centre and part of 'Food Bank PLUS,' provides debt relief for local people, as well as a wide range of social action initiatives including 'Money Advice' (a confidential, not for profit debt, benefits and financial help service) and Eclipse Child Bereavement, which works with local schools to help children who have experienced losses to overcome their situation. Also run by Barnabas are projects including '360 Journey to Work,' which help people gain skills in applying for jobs and basics like CV writing, and 'Cage football,' an initiative that is lent out to local community groups, youth clubs and other churches.


title: Shrewsbury

text: There have been a number of notable Salopians, and people otherwise associated with the town of Shrewsbury, including Charles Darwin, the biologist and evolutionary theorist. Darwin, one of the most important thinkers of the 19th century, was born in Shrewsbury on 12 February 1809 at the Mount House, baptised at St Chad's Church and educated at Shrewsbury School. He spent his formative years in the town, the town's river and proximity to the countryside inspired his interest in the natural world and the abundance of ice-age boulders within the town sparked his interest in geology. When he was a teenager, he worked with his father at the Royal Salop Infirmary. After leaving the town, Darwin frequently returned and stayed at the Lion Hotel on Wyle Cop.


title: Shrewsbury

text: Shrewsbury has been home to many contributors to literature. Thomas Churchyard (ca.1523–1604) son of a farmer, was an author of autobiographical or semi-autobiographical verse collections. Before the First World War, the poet Wilfred Owen lived in the town, and there is a memorial to Owen at Shrewsbury Abbey. Classicist Mary Beard was educated in Shrewsbury and her father was a prominent Shrewsbury architect. In the early years of the 18th century, the Irish dramatist George Farquhar resided in the town while acting as a recruiting officer for the Army. He drew on this experience in writing the comedy "The Recruiting Officer". The romantic novelist Mary Webb lived in and around Shrewsbury and was buried there upon her death. Other actors with associations with the town include Nick Hancock, presenter of "They Think It's All Over", who, like Palin, was educated at Shrewsbury School. Actor Jason Bateman's mother was born in Shrewsbury. Comedian George Robey lived in the town, near Lord Hill's Column, before and during the Second World War.


title: Shrewsbury

text: People with political associations have connections with the town. Leo Blair, the father of former Prime Minister Tony Blair, was a resident of the town. Former residents have included Michael Heseltine, a Conservative politician who was educated at Shrewsbury School, and Sir William Pulteney, 5th Baronet, who was once Britain's richest man, and was MP for Shrewsbury. He lived in apartments at Shrewsbury Castle. Robert Clive was MP for Shrewsbury, and also the mayor.


title: Shrewsbury

text: Ian Hunter (or Ian Patterson), the lead singer of the 1970s pop group Mott the Hoople, was a resident of 23a Swan Hill in the town centre, and wrote a song of the same name. Lange, a DJ and dance music producer, who was born in Shrewsbury. The 1980s pop group "T'Pau" was formed in the town and the band's vocalist Carol Decker was born and educated in the town, along with other members of the band. Notable music historian and composer Charles Burney was born and educated in the town.


title: Shrewsbury

text: Sporting Salopians include footballers Danny Guthrie of Newcastle United and Shrewsbury Town youth academy graduates and England goalkeeper Joe Hart and Wales midfielder David Edwards. Sheffield Wednesday and Scotland striker Steven Fletcher was born in the town, where his serviceman father was stationed. Four FA Cup Final winning players who took part in the first decade of the Cup's history were born in or lived in Shrewsbury: John Hawley Edwards, Henry Wace and John Wylie, of the Wanderers and Clopton Lloyd-Jones of Clapham Rovers. Sandy Lyle, a professional golfer, was born in the town.


title: Shrewsbury

text: Other notable people of the town include; comic book artist Charlie Adlard was born in Shrewsbury and is most known for illustrating "The Walking Dead"; Robert Cadman, a performer and steeplejack, who is buried in the town, at St Mary's Church; Simon Gosling, a visual effects designer was born in the town, and was resident there until 1994; John Gwynn, an 18th-century architect, who designed the English Bridge and the bridge at Atcham was born in the town; Percy Thrower, the gardener and broadcaster lived in Shrewsbury, where he set up the garden centre near Meole Brace and just down the road from the football club. Justin Pearson, an award winning stunt performer and stunt coordinator currently lives in the town.


title: Shrewsbury

text: Flight Lieutenant Eric Lock DSO, DFC and Bar was born in nearby Bayston Hill and was educated at Prestfelde preparatory school on London Road. Lock became internationally recognised as a high scoring fighter ace of the Royal Air Force in the Second World War with 26 victories before his death in combat at the age of 21. He was the RAF's most successful British-born pilot in the Battle of Britain. One Victoria Cross recipient is known to have lived in Shrewsbury; Arthur Herbert Procter, who was decorated in 1916 during World War I and retired from his later full-time clergy ministry in 1964 to briefly live at Mytton Oak Road, Copthorne, before relocating to Sheffield.


title: Shrewsbury

text: The forerunner of "Private Eye" was a school magazine edited by Richard Ingrams, Willie Rushton, Christopher Booker and Paul Foot at Shrewsbury School in the mid-1950s. Michael Palin, the writer, actor and comedian; John Peel, the tastemaker and radio DJ also attended Shrewsbury School.


title: Shrewsbury

text: Shrewsbury celebrates the intrinsic links to Darwin with an annual Darwin Festival in February. The two and a half week multi-media event celebrates the town as the 'Origin of Independent Thinking' with activities including lectures, dance performances and live music.


title: Shrewsbury

text: The town is home to the 'longest running flower show in the world'. The annual Shrewsbury Flower Show is a two-day event, which takes place in mid-August, has been running for more than 125 years. The event attracts around 100,000 visitors each year and offers a multitude of events, exhibitions and gardens, with a fireworks display at the end of each day.


title: Shrewsbury

text: The Shrewsbury Folk Festival has been held in Shrewsbury since 2006. Held annually over the August bank holiday, the event is very popular, with people travelling from across the UK to attend.


title: Shrewsbury

text: Other events held in Shrewsbury's busy spring and summer of events include the Shrewsbury Bookfest, Shrewsbury Regatta, Cycle Grand Prix, Shrewsbury Carnival, Food Festival, Dragon Boat Race and the Coracle World Championships. Since 2017, Shrewsbury International Comedy Festival has been held over the third weekend of July in multiple venues across town & featuring acts previewing material prior to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.


title: Shrewsbury

text: Comics Salopia (formerly the Cartoon Festival) is a large biannual festival of the comics arts, attracting over a quarter of a million visitors. In format and scope it aims to rival on a smaller scale the world-famous Angouleme International Comics Festival in mid France.


title: Shrewsbury

text: The Old Market Hall cinema opened in 2004 in the prominent Tudor market hall positioned in The Square. The independent cinema features daily screens of films from around the world along with a cafe and bar.


title: Shrewsbury

text: Theatre Severn is the town's main performing arts complex, it is situated in Frankwell next to the Welsh Bridge on the bank of the River Severn. The theatre includes two performance spaces, the 635 seat Main Auditorium and a smaller studio space, the Walker Theatre which can accommodate 250 seating or 500 standing. The venue includes a full sized dance studio, function rooms and a restaurant. The new complex replaced the old theatre, the Music Hall, which itself has been refurbished and expanded in preparation for its current use as home to Shrewsbury Museum and Art Gallery (opened 2014).


title: Shrewsbury

text: Further museums in the town include the acclaimed Shropshire Regimental Museum, renamed in 2019 Soldiers of Shropshire Museum, based at Shrewsbury Castle, and the restored 19th century steam-powered Coleham Pumping Station, which opens for tours on specific days each year. Nearby National Trust properties include the last remaining Town Walls Tower which dates from the 14th century and, just outside the town, Attingham Park, former home of the Noel-Hill family, Barons Berwick.


title: Shrewsbury

text: There are some very old public houses, which have been continuously open, such as the Golden Cross in Princess Street, the Dun Cow in Abbey Foregate, and the King's Head in Mardol. The Golden Cross is reputed to be the oldest licensed public house in Shrewsbury and records show that it was used as an inn as far back as 1428. Its original name was the Sextry, because it was originally the sacristy of Old St Chad's Church.


title: Shrewsbury

text: Famous literary figures who have lived in or visited the town include (in the 17th century) Daniel Defoe, Celia Fiennes, the Shrewsbury School-educated Arthur Mainwaring and Ambrose Philips and playwright George Farquhar whose 1706 play 'The Recruiting Officer' was set in the town.


title: Shrewsbury

text: The town appears in the "Brother Cadfael" novels by Ellis Peters (pen name of Edith Pargeter). The novels take Shrewsbury Abbey for their setting, with Shrewsbury and other places in Shropshire portrayed regularly, and have made Medieval Shrewsbury familiar to a wide worldwide readership.


title: Shrewsbury

text: Later, in the 18th and 19th centuries, the likes of John Wesley, Thomas de Quincey and Benjamin Disraeli the latter of which was MP for Shrewsbury 1841–47, would visit the town. Charles Dickens once visited to present a series of lectures at the Music Hall, staying at the Lion Hotel. However, in this period the town's most prolific literary figure and famous son was born – Charles Darwin. Darwin was educated at Shrewsbury School and later, with the development of his 1859 work "On the Origin of Species" became the pre-eminent naturalist of the 19th century. Although Darwin's work was both revolutionary and highly controversial at the time, his teachings and beliefs have become ever more globalised and he is today widely recognised as the father of the modern theory of evolution.


title: Shrewsbury

text: In his 1910 novel, "Howards End", E. M. Forster makes a brief reference to "astonishing Shrewsbury", an impression he received after having visited the town in the early 20th century. In the same century, Shrewsbury became famous for its poets. The Great War poet Wilfred Owen was a resident. Mary Webb, the novelist, much loved the town and referred to it many a time in her works under the guise of "Silverton".


title: Shrewsbury

text: In film, Shrewsbury was used as the setting for the popular 1984 film, "A Christmas Carol", which filmed many of its interior and exterior shots in and around the town. The gravestone prop of Ebenezer Scrooge (played by George C. Scott) that was used in the movie is still present in the graveyard of St Chad's Church.


title: Shrewsbury

text: In early 2017, Shrewsbury BID, The Hive and GRAIN Photography Hub organised an outdoor Magnum Photos exhibition. Inspired by Shrewsbury's links to Charles Darwin, this exhibition showcased the theme of evolution through the eyes of international photographers. The 10-week exhibition was free to the public and staged at St Mary's Churchyard and The Square.


title: Shrewsbury

text: Two newspapers are published for Shrewsbury – the local edition of the county's "Shropshire Star" and the more traditional "Shrewsbury Chronicle", which is one of the oldest weekly newspapers in the country, having produced its first edition in 1772. There are three radio stations that specifically serve either the Shrewsbury area or encompass it as part of a Shropshire-wide broadcast. They are: Free Radio Shropshire & Black Country;, BBC Radio Shropshire, which is based in Shrewsbury; and, as of September 2020, Greatest Hits Radio Black Country & Shropshire, which broadcasts from the Shropshire Star building in Telford.


title: Shrewsbury

text: In 2009 an online independent media company launched covering Shrewsbury and Shropshire. "shropshirelive.com",


title: Shrewsbury

text: Shrewsbury is well known in culinary circles for being the namesake of a classic English dessert. Shrewsbury cakes (or biscuits) are typically crisp and brittle creations that may incorporate fruit. They can be small in size for serving several at a time, or large for serving as a dessert in their own right. Traditionally Shrewsbury cakes have a distinct hint of lemon.


title: Shrewsbury

text: The playwright William Congreve mentioned Shrewsbury cakes in his play "The Way of the World" in 1700 as a simile (Witwoud – "Why, brother Wilfull of Salop, you may be as short as a Shrewsbury cake, if you please. But I tell you 'tis not modish to know relations in town"). The recipe is also included in several early cookbooks including "The Compleat Cook of 1658". A final reference to the cakes can be seen to this day as the subject of a plaque affixed to a building close to Shrewsbury's town library by the junction of Castle Street and School Gardens. The aforementioned plaque marks the spot where the Shrewsbury Cake's recipe is said to have been pioneered in 1760 by Mr Pailin; a further quote, drawn from Richard Harris Barham's "Ingoldby Legends", reads:


title: Shrewsbury

text: Shrewsbury is the origin of the most popular Simnel cake recipe. Different towns had their own recipes and shapes of the Simnel cake. Bury, Devizes and Shrewsbury produced large numbers to their own recipes, but it is the Shrewsbury version that became most well known. Shrewsbury had a large cheese market in Victorian times.


title: Shrewsbury

text: Shrewsbury is home to Shrewsbury School, a public school, on a large site (in Kingsland) just south of the town centre overlooking the loop of the Severn. The school was once in the town centre, in the buildings that are now the main county library on Castle Street. Opposite it on the other side of the river is Shrewsbury High School, an independent girls' day school.


title: Shrewsbury

text: The long established Prestfelde School is an independent preparatory school, on London Road, close to the Lord Hill's Column. As part of the Woodard Schools group, it is affiliated to the largest group of Church of England schools in the country. Whilst originally a school for boys it diversified and, in the late 1990s, started accepting girls between the ages of three and thirteen. The school is set in of grounds on the outskirts of the town. The town's other long-established boys' preparatory school, Kingsland Grange (on Old Roman Road in Kingsland, Shropshire|Kingsland), merged in 2007 with the junior department of Shrewsbury Girls' High School, sharing the two sites with some classes remaining all-boys or all-girls, but others switching to a co-ed format.


title: Shrewsbury

text: Adcote School is an independent day and boarding school for girls, northwest of Shrewsbury. The school was founded in 1907 and is set in a Grade I listed country house built in 1879 for Rebecca Darby – a great niece of Abraham Darby and a member of the iron-master family who built Ironbridge.


title: Shrewsbury

text: However, the majority of the town's pupils attend one of the seven comprehensive schools. The Priory School, formerly a grammar school for girls; Meole Brace School currently carries the status of Science College; The Grange School the status of Arts College; Sundorne School the status of Sports College and Belvidere School has the status of Technology College.


title: Shrewsbury

text: In 2016, The Grange and Sundorne officially merged to form Shrewsbury Academy. The school has two campuses however it is planned in the next few years for all pupils to move to the Corndon Crescent site, formerly Sundorne. In the future, a new building will be constructed in Shrewsbury to house Shrewsbury Academy.


title: Shrewsbury

text: The Wakeman School, which was geographically the closest school to the town centre 'loop', next to the English Bridge, was previously called Shrewsbury Technical School, and was attended by the notable First World War poet Wilfred Owen. It closed as part of reorganisation in July 2013. Additionally, two other establishments outside town serve town students – The Corbet School to the north-west at Baschurch; and Mary Webb School, in the village of Pontesbury to the south-west.


title: Shrewsbury

text: Post-16 education is handled by Shrewsbury Sixth Form College, previously the Priory School for Boys, ranked 17th in the top 20 of sixth form colleges nationally by the "Sunday Times" newspaper in November 2012, and Shrewsbury College of Arts and Technology, which handles primarily vocational courses.


title: Shrewsbury

text: During the Commonwealth which followed the execution of Charles I, a Shropshire man, Richard Baxter, a puritan minister suggested the establishment of a university for Wales at Shrewsbury and thought he could obtain the support of Cromwell and Parliament for the scheme. In the end the scheme came to nothing and it was not until the 2000s that higher education institutions were established in the town: University Centre Shrewsbury has been offering postgraduate courses since autumn 2014 and undergraduate students are being welcomed to the institution from autumn 2015. Established by the University of Chester and Shropshire Council, the University Centre is focused on high-quality teaching and research, fostering entrepreneurship, contributing to the community and, ultimately, making a global impact.


title: Shrewsbury

text: Shrewsbury is the county's public transport hub; it has road and rail links to the rest of the county and country.


title: Shrewsbury

text: Five railway lines connect the town to most corners of Shropshire and the region. Shrewsbury railway station is served by Transport for Wales Rail and West Midlands Trains with trains running north to , , and , south to and , west to , and east to via , and . Heart of Wales line trains also operate to .


title: Shrewsbury

text: In May 1998, Virgin Trains West Coast introduced a service from Shrewsbury to London Euston; it was withdrawn in 2000. On 28 April 2008, open access operator Wrexham & Shropshire commenced services from Wrexham General to , restoring the county's direct rail link to the capital; previously, Shropshire had been one of only two mainland English counties without a dedicated service to the capital, the other being Rutland. However, the service ceased on 28 January 2011. Virgin Trains reintroduced a service to London Euston in December 2014.


title: Shrewsbury

text: The main railway station building of includes a clock tower, imitation Tudor chimneys and carved heads in the frames of every window. There is a small British Transport Police station within the building.


title: Shrewsbury

text: Bus services in the town are operated by Arriva Midlands and serve most parts of the town from Shrewsbury bus station, adjacent to the Darwin Shopping Centre, and a short walk from the railway station. Arriva also operate county services both independent of and on behalf of Shropshire County Council. There are other bus companies operating around the Shrewsbury area, including Boulton's of Shropshire, Minsterley Motors and Tanat Valley Coaches with the last operating services crossing from over the Welsh border from nearby towns including Llanfyllin, Montgomery, Newtown and Welshpool.


title: Shrewsbury

text: Shrewsbury has a park & ride bus scheme in operation and three car parks on the edge of town are used by many who want to travel into the town centre. The three car parks are at Harlescott (to the north, colour-coded blue), Oxon (to the west, colour-coded pink) and Meole Brace (to the south, colour-coded green). It is proposed that a fourth one be built to the east of the town, at either Emstrey or Preston.


title: Shrewsbury

text: Shrewsbury has been an important centre for road traffic. In 1815, Thomas Telford designed a new coaching route from London to Holyhead in order to improve communications with Ireland. He routed the new road via Shrewsbury, which opened in 1830. The road is now the A5. The road connects the town northwest to Oswestry, and east towards Telford, where it joins the M54. The A5 once ran through the town centre, until a bypass was built in the 1930s. Subsequently, in 1992, a 17-mile (27 km) dual carriageway was completed at a cost of £79 million to the south of the town and was made to form part of the A5 route. This dual carriageway was built further out of the town to act as a substantial link to Telford, as well as a bypass for the town.


title: Shrewsbury

text: The A49 also goes to Shrewsbury, joining the A5 at the south of the town, coming from Ludlow and Leominster. At this point, the road merges with the A5 for , before separating again to the east of the town. From there it runs north, passing Sundorne, then Battlefield, before heading out towards Whitchurch. At Battlefield, the A53 route begins and heads north-east towards Shawbury and Market Drayton, then onwards towards Newcastle-under-Lyme and Stoke-on-Trent.


title: Shrewsbury

text: The A458 (Welshpool-Bridgnorth) runs through the town centre, entering in the west and leaving to the southeast. The A528 begins in the town centre and heads north, heading for Ellesmere. The A488 begins just west of the town centre in Frankwell and heads out to Bishop's Castle, Clun and Knighton crossing the border in the southwest of Shropshire.


title: Shrewsbury

text: Major roads within the town include the A5112, A5191 and A5064. The A5191 goes north-south via the town centre, while the A5112 runs north-south to the east of the town centre. The A5064 is a short, one mile (1.6 km) stretch of road to the southeast of the town centre, called "London Road". Additionally, the A5124, the most recent bypass, was completed in 1998, and runs across the northern edge of the town at Battlefield (connecting the A49/A53 to the A528), though it did exist before as Harlescott Lane (which has since become unclassified).


title: Shrewsbury

text: Construction of a major new artery referred to as the North West Relief Road (NWRR) was granted central government funding in April 2019. Together with the existing A5 and A49 by-passes, the Battlefield Link Road (A5124) and the Oxon Link Road (construction expected to be completed by 2021), this will result in the completion of the ring road around the outskirts of the town. The NWRR will involve the construction of a new bridge over the River Severn, upstream from the town centre.


title: Shrewsbury

text: Shrewsbury has a comprehensive network of on-road and traffic-free cycle routes. In 2008 the town was awarded Cycling Town status by Cycling England; as a result, it benefited from £1.8 million of grant funding from the Department for Transport between 2008 and 2011. The funding was used to make improvements to the cycle network in Shrewsbury, and to provide cycle training, information and advice to people to help encourage them to cycle to school and work.


title: Shrewsbury

text: Shrewsbury is home to a professional football club, Shrewsbury Town Football Club. The team currently competes in the third tier of English football, Football League One and since 2007 has played their home games at New Meadow – from 1910 to 2007 the club played at the Gay Meadow stadium. Shrewsbury Town's achievements include winning the Welsh Cup six times, a record for an English club, a 10-year run in the old Second Division now known as The Championship from 1979 until 1989, a Third Division Championship in 1979, a Division 3 Championship and victory in the Conference National Playoff Final 2004. The town is also home to a semi-professional football club, Haughmond, who take their name from the nearby Haughmond Hill. The team currently compete in the Midland Football League and play their home games at Shrewsbury Sports Village, in the Sundorne area of the town.


title: Shrewsbury

text: The River Severn in the town is used for rowing by both Pengwern Boat Club and the Royal Shrewsbury School Boat Club (RSSBC). More recently these have been joined by rowing students of Harper Adams University, University Centre Shrewsbury and some crews from other local schools. There in an annual rowing regatta in the town in May.


title: Shrewsbury

text: Shrewsbury Sports Village is a sports centre in the Sundorne district of the town, aimed at providing a wide range of sports facilities for townspeople. There are a number of motorsports and golf facilities (including Meole Brace Municipal Golf Course) in the area. The local motorsports heritage includes the Loton Park Hillclimb and Hawkstone Park Motocross Circuit near Shrewsbury. Shrewsbury Motocross Club has staged motocross events in the area for over 30 years.


title: Shrewsbury

text: Shrewsbury holds its own annual Sprint Triathlon which takes place each September at the West Midlands Country Showground and organised by SYTri (Shrewsbury Triathlon Club) and permitted by the British Triathlon Federation.


title: Shrewsbury

text: A free weekly parkrun takes place in the centre of Shrewsbury. Shrewsbury has also seen activity in the physical discipline, Parkour.


title: Shrewsbury

text: Shrewsbury has no twin towns. Until 2018 Shrewsbury was twinned with Zutphen, Netherlands, a move inspired by the fact Sir Philip Sidney, an alumnus of Shrewsbury School, was fatally wounded there in 1586. At the end of the Second World War Shrewsbury's then Mayor, Harry Steward, who was made in 1946 an honorary citizen of Zutphen in return, launched an appeal for second-hand tools, clothes, bedding and other materials towards the town's post-war reconstruction after Nazi German occupation and war damage. The association was ended in late 2018 when the municipal council of Zutphen chose to review all of its global twinning arrangements due to budgetary constraints.


title: Benjamin Hornigold

text: Captain Benjamin Hornigold (1680–1719) was an English pirate who operated during the tail end of the Golden Age of Piracy.


title: Benjamin Hornigold

text: Born in England in the late 17th century, Hornigold began his pirate career in 1713, attacking merchant ships in the Bahamas. He helped to establish the "Republic of Pirates" in Nassau and by 1717 was the captain of one of the most heavily armed ships in the region, called the "Ranger". It was at this time he appointed Edward Teach, best known in history books as "Blackbeard", as his second-in-command. Mindful not to attack British-led ships during his career, his crew eventually grew tired of the tactic and Hornigold was voted out as captain. In December 1718, Hornigold accepted a King's Pardon for his crimes and became a pirate hunter, pursuing his former allies on behalf of the Governor of the Bahamas, Woodes Rogers. He was killed when his ship was wrecked on a reef near New Spain during the hurricane season of 1719.


title: Benjamin Hornigold

text: Hornigold's early life is unrecorded, although sometimes people claim he was born in the English county of Norfolk, where the surname Hornigold or Hornagold appears. If so, he might have first served at sea aboard ships whose home port was either King's Lynn or Great Yarmouth. His first documented acts of piracy took place in the winter of 1713–1714, when he employed periaguas (sailing canoes) and the sloop "Happy Return", alongside Daniel Stillwell, John Cockram, and John West to menace merchant vessels off the coast of New Providence and its capital Nassau, where he had established a 'Privateers' or 'Pirates' republic. Hornigold himself sailed a ship named the "Marianne". After a mutiny in the summer of 1716, he and his supporters were left with a captured sloop. By 1717, Hornigold had at his command a thirty-gun sloop he named the "Ranger", which was probably the most heavily armed ship in the region, and this allowed him to seize other vessels with impunity.


title: Benjamin Hornigold

text: Hornigold's second-in-command during this period was Edward Teach, who would later be better known as the pirate Blackbeard. When Hornigold took command of the "Ranger", he delegated the captaincy of his earlier sloop to Teach. In the spring of 1717 the two pirate captains seized three merchant ships in quick succession, a Spanish one carrying 120 barrels of flour bound for Havana, another a Bermudian sloop with a cargo of spirits and the third a Portuguese ship travelling from Madeira with a cargo of white wine.


title: Benjamin Hornigold

text: In March 1717, Hornigold attacked an armed merchant vessel sent to the Bahamas by the Governor of South Carolina to hunt for pirates. The merchantman escaped by running itself aground on Cat Cay, and its captain later reported that Hornigold's fleet had increased to five vessels, with a combined crew of around 350 pirates. In April 1717 Hornigold is recorded as operating alongside Captain Napin (or Napping), looting several ships off Jamaica, Puerto Bello, and Cuba before being chased away by the warship "HMS Winchelsea". Hornigold had earlier forced aboard a surgeon named John Howell but released him on Nassau; when French pirate Jean Bonadvis tried to force Howell aboard his ship later in April 1717, Hornigold accepted Howell back aboard to protect him. After parting ways with Napin in June or July they sailed together sporadically until October 1717.


title: Benjamin Hornigold

text: Hornigold is recorded as having attacked a sloop off the coast of Honduras, but as one of the passengers of the captured vessel recounted, "they did us no further injury than the taking most of our hats from us, having got drunk the night before, as they told us, and toss'd theirs overboard". In September 1717, Hornigold and Teach met Major Stede Bonnet and his ship "Revenge". Bonnet, having been wounded in battle, ceded his command to Teach. In October, another sloop was added to the fleet.


title: Benjamin Hornigold

text: Despite his apparent maritime supremacy, Hornigold remained careful not to attack British-flagged ships, apparently to maintain the legal defence that he was a privateer operating against England's enemies in the War of the Spanish Succession. This scrupulous approach was not to the liking of his lieutenants, and in the summer of 1716 a vote was taken among the combined crews to attack any vessel they chose. Hornigold opposed the decision and was replaced as captain of "Marianne" by Samuel Bellamy, whose friend Paulsgrave Williams was elected quartermaster. Hornigold and his supporters were left with a captured sloop which was commanded by Teach after Hornigold acquired the "Ranger". He continued piracy operations from Nassau until December 1717, when word arrived of a general pardon for pirates offered by the King. Hornigold sailed to Jamaica with the "Ranger" and one of the other sloops in January 1718 and received a pardon from the governor there. He later became a pirate hunter for the new governor of the Bahamas, Woodes Rogers.


title: Benjamin Hornigold

text: On 5 September 1717, King George I Issued the Proclamation of 1717 "For Suppressing Pirates in the West Indies". This document granted a pardon to all pirates who surrendered themselves to any colonial governor or governor under the domain of the British Empire safe passage and were guaranteed a "clean slate" of their record. However, word of this did not get out to the West Indies and so in December 1718 another proclamation, or more famously known as the King's Pardon of 1718, was issued for the same purpose. In both of these documents, not only were pirates granted a clean slate on their record, but they were also offered a large sum of money for the capturing of other pirates who were guilty of piracy, murder, and treason against His Majesty. More specifically, for every captain who was captured, the person responsible would receive £100, , and for every lieutenant and boatswain a reward of £40 (£) was offered. Each level of member on a pirate ship had a reward placed on their heads from this point on.


title: Benjamin Hornigold

text: Rogers commissioned Hornigold to hunt down any and all recusant pirates, including some ex-comrades such as his former lieutenant, Teach (Blackbeard). He stalked but could not apprehend Charles Vane, capturing Vane's associate Nicholas Woodall instead, followed by John Auger, both of whom had accepted the same pardon as Hornigold, but later slid back into piracy. In December 1718 Governor Rogers wrote to the Board of Trade in London commending Hornigold's efforts to remedy his reputation as a pirate by hunting his former allies.


title: Benjamin Hornigold

text: At some point late 1719, Governor Rogers commissioned Captain Hornigold and a few other of Rogers' most trusted captains to help safeguard and facilitate the trade of valuable wares with the Spanish. During the voyage Hornigold's ship was caught in a hurricane, somewhere between New Providence and New Spain, and was wrecked on an uncharted reef. The incident is referred to in the contemporary account "A General History of the Pyrates" by Captain Charles Johnson, which states, "in one of which voyages ... Captain Hornigold, another of the famous pirates, was cast away upon rocks, a great way from land, and perished, but five of his men got into a canoe and were saved." The specific location of the reef remains unknown.


title: Calais

text: Calais ( , , , ) is a port city in the Pas-de-Calais department, of which it is a subprefecture. Although Calais is by far the largest city in Pas-de-Calais, the department's prefecture is its third-largest city of Arras. The population of the city proper is 72,929; that of the urban area is 149,673 (2018). Calais overlooks the Strait of Dover, the narrowest point in the English Channel, which is only wide here, and is the closest French town to England. The White Cliffs of Dover can easily be seen on a clear day from Calais. Calais is a major port for ferries between France and England, and since 1994, the Channel Tunnel has linked nearby Coquelles to Folkestone by rail.


title: Calais

text: Due to its position, Calais since the Middle Ages has been a major port and a very important centre for transport and trading with England. Calais came under English control after Edward III of England captured the city in 1347, followed by a treaty in 1360 that formally assigned Calais to English rule. Calais grew into a thriving centre for wool production, and came to be called the "brightest jewel in the English crown" owing to its great importance as the gateway for the tin, lead, lace and wool trades (or "staples"). Calais remained under English control until its capture by France in 1558. During World War II, the town was virtually razed to the ground: in May 1940, it was a strategic bombing target of the invading German forces who took it during the siege of Calais. The Germans built massive bunkers along the coast in preparation for launching missiles at England.


title: Calais

text: The old part of the town, Calais proper (known as Calais-Nord), is situated on an artificial island surrounded by canals and harbours. The modern part of the town, St-Pierre, lies to the south and south-east. In the centre of the old town is the Place d'Armes, in which stands the Tour du Guet, or watch-tower, a structure built in the 13th century, which was used as a lighthouse until 1848 when a new lighthouse was built by the port. South east of the Place is the church of Notre-Dame, built during the English occupancy of Calais. Arguably, it is the only church built in the English perpendicular style in all of France. In this church, former French President Charles de Gaulle married Yvonne Vendroux. South of the Place and opposite the Parc St Pierre is the Hôtel-de-ville (the town hall), and the belfry from the early 20th century. Today, Calais is visited by more than 10 million annually. Aside from being a key transport hub, Calais is also a notable fishing port and a centre for fish marketing, and some 3,000 people are still employed in the lace industry for which the town is also famed.


title: Calais

text: The early history of habitation in the area is limited. It is sometimes claimed that the Romans called the settlement "Caletum" and that it was the departure point for Julius Caesar's invasion of Britain. However, the name "Caletum" does not appear in Caeser's accounts of the invasion. Caesar describes his departure point as "Portus Itius", which is believed to have been near Boulogne. At that time Calais was an island in the North Sea.


title: Calais

text: Calais was an English outpost for many centuries while it was an island surrounded by marshes, and difficult to attack from the mainland. At some time before the 10th century, it would have been a Dutch-speaking fishing village on a sandy beach backed by pebbles and a creek, with a natural harbour at the west edge of the early medieval estuary of the river Aa. As the pebble and sand ridge extended eastward from Calais, the haven behind it developed into fen, as the estuary progressively filled with silt and peat. Afterwards, canals were cut between Saint-Omer, the trading centre formerly at the head of the estuary, and three places to the west, centre and east on the newly formed coast: respectively Calais, Gravelines and Dunkirk. Calais was improved by the Count of Flanders in 997 and fortified by the Count of Boulogne in 1224.


title: Calais

text: The first document mentioning the existence of this community is the town charter granted by Mathieu d'Alsace, Count of Boulogne, in 1181 to Gerard de Guelders; Calais thus became part of the county of Boulogne. In 1189, Richard the Lionheart is documented to have landed at Calais on his journey to the Third Crusade.


title: Calais

text: English wool trade interests and King Edward III's claims to be heir to the Kingdom of France led to the Battle of Crécy between England and France in 1346, followed by Edward's siege and capture of Calais in 1347. Angered, the English king demanded reprisals against the town's citizens for holding out for so long ("obstinate defense") and ordered that the town's population be killed "en masse". He agreed, however, to spare them, on condition that six of the principal citizens would come to him, bareheaded and barefooted and with ropes around their necks, and give themselves up to death. On their arrival he ordered their execution, but pardoned them when his queen, Philippa of Hainault, begged him to spare their lives. This event is commemorated in "The Burghers of Calais" ("Les Bourgeois de Calais"), one of the most famous sculptures by Auguste Rodin, erected in the city in 1895. Though sparing the lives of the delegation members, King Edward drove out most of the French inhabitants, and settled the town with English. The municipal charter of Calais, previously granted by the Countess of Artois, was reconfirmed by Edward that year (1347).


title: Calais

text: In 1360 the Treaty of Brétigny assigned Guînes, Marck and Calais—collectively the "Pale of Calais"—to English rule in perpetuity, but this assignment was informally and only partially implemented. On 9 February 1363 the town was made a staple port. It remained part of the Diocese of Thérouanne from 1379, keeping an ecclesiastical tie with France.


title: Calais

text: The town came to be called the "brightest jewel in the English crown" owing to its great importance as The Staple a gateway port for the tin, lead, cloth and wool trades (or "staples"). Its customs revenues amounted at times to a third of the English government's revenue, with wool being the most important element by far. Of its population of about 12,000 people, as many as 5,400 were recorded as having been connected with the wool trade. The governorship or Captaincy of Calais was a lucrative and highly prized public office; the famous Dick Whittington was simultaneously Lord Mayor of the City of London and Mayor of the Staple in 1407.


title: Calais

text: Calais was regarded for many years as being an integral part of the Kingdom of England, with its representatives sitting in the English Parliament. The continued English hold on Calais however depended on expensively maintained fortifications, as the town lacked any natural defences. Maintaining Calais was a costly business that was frequently tested by the forces of France and the Duchy of Burgundy, with the Franco-Burgundian border running nearby. The British historian Geoffrey Elton once remarked "Calais—expensive and useless—was better lost than kept". The duration of the English hold over Calais was, to a large extent, the result of the feud between Burgundy and France: both sides coveted the town, but preferred to see England control it rather than their domestic rivals. The stalemate was broken by the victory of the French crown over Burgundy following Joan of Arc's final battle in the siege of Compiègne in 1430, and the later incorporation of the duchy into France.


title: Calais

text: In 1532, the English King Henry VIII visited Calais and his men calculated that the town had about 2400 beds and stabling to keep some 2000 horses. Following the royal visit, the town's governance was reformed in 1536, aiming to strengthen ties with England. As part of this move, Calais became a parliamentary borough sending burgesses to the House of Commons of the Parliament of England.


title: Calais

text: In September 1552, the English adventurer Thomas Stukley, who had been for some time in the French service, betrayed to the authorities in London some French plans for the capture of Calais, to be followed by a descent upon England. Stukley himself might have been the author of these plans.


title: Calais

text: On 7 January 1558, King Henry II of France sent forces led by Francis, Duke of Guise, who laid siege to Calais. When the French attacked, they were able to surprise the English at the critical strongpoint of Fort Nieulay and the sluice gates, which could have flooded the attackers, remained unopened. The loss was regarded by Queen Mary I of England as a dreadful misfortune. When she heard the news, she reportedly said, "When I am dead and opened, you shall find 'Philip' [her husband] and 'Calais' lying in my heart." The region around Calais, then-known as the "Calaisis", was renamed the "Pays Reconquis" ("Reconquered Country") in commemoration of its recovery by the French. Use of the term is reminiscent of the Spanish Reconquista, with which the French were certainly familiar—and, since it occurred in the context of a war with Spain (Philip II of Spain was at the time Queen Mary's consort), might have been intended as a deliberate snub.


title: Calais

text: The town was captured by the Spanish on 24 April 1596 in an invasion mounted from the nearby Spanish Netherlands by Archduke Albert of Austria, but it was returned to France under the Treaty of Vervins in May 1598.


title: Calais

text: Calais remained an important maritime city and smuggling centre throughout the 17th century. However, during the next century, the port of Calais began to stagnate gradually, as the nearby ports of Boulogne and Dunkirk began to rise and compete.


title: Calais

text: The French revolution at the end of the 18th century did not disturb Calais and no executions took place.


title: Calais

text: In 1805, Calais hosted part of Napoleon's army and invasion fleet for several months before his aborted invasion of Britain.


title: Calais

text: From October to December 1818, the British army used Calais as their departing port to return home after occupying post-Waterloo France. General Murray appointed Sir Manley Power to oversee the evacuation of British troops from France. Cordial relations had been restored by that time and on 3 December, the mayor of Calais wrote a letter to Power to express thanks for his "considerate treatment of the French and of the town of Calais during the embarkation."


title: Calais

text: The population in 1847 was 12,580, many of whom were English. It was one of the main ports for British travellers to Europe.


title: Calais

text: In World War I the British Expeditionary Force or BEF arrived in Calais on its way to the nearby frontline cutting through Nord-Pas-de-Calais and Flanders. Calais was a key port for the supply of arms and reinforcements to the Western Front. In the 1930s, the town was known for being a politically socialist stronghold.


title: Calais

text: Calais was virtually razed to the ground during World War II. In May 1940, it was a key objective of the invading German forces and became the scene of a last-ditch defence—the siege of Calais—which diverted a sizable amount of German forces for several days immediately prior to the Battle of Dunkirk. A total of 3,000 British and 800 French troops, assisted by Royal Navy warships, held out from 22 to 27 May 1940 against the 10th Panzer Division. The town was flattened by artillery and precision dive bombing and only 30 of the 3800-strong defending force were evacuated before the town fell. This may have helped Operation Dynamo, the evacuation of Allied forces at Dunkirk, as 10th Panzer would have been involved on the Dunkirk perimeter had it not been busy at Calais. Between 26 May and 4 June 1940, some 330,000 Allied troops escaped from the Germans at Dunkirk.


title: Calais

text: During the ensuing German occupation, it became the command post for German forces in the Pas-de-Calais/Flanders region and was very heavily fortified, as the Germans generally believed that the Allies would invade there. It was also used as a launch site for V1 flying bombs and for much of the war, the Germans used the region as the site for railway guns to bombard the south-eastern corner of England. In 1943 they built massive bunkers along the coast in preparation for launching missiles on the southeast of England. Despite heavy preparations for defence against an amphibious assault, the Allied invasion took place well to the west in Normandy on D-Day. Calais was very heavily bombed and shelled in a successful effort to disrupt German communications and persuade them that the Allies would target the Pas-de-Calais for invasion (rather than Normandy). The town, by then largely in ruins, was laid siege to and liberated by General Daniel Spry's 3rd Canadian Infantry Division between 25 September and 1 October 1944. On 27 February 1945 Calais experienced its last bombing raid—this time by Royal Air Force bombers who mistook the town for Dunkirk, which was at that time still occupied by German forces. After the war there was little rebuilding of the historic city and most buildings were modern ones.


title: Calais

text: Since 1999 or earlier, an increasingly large number of illegal immigrants and asylum seekers started to arrive in the vicinity of Calais, living in the Calais jungle, the nickname given to a series of makeshift camps. The people lived there while attempting to enter the United Kingdom by stowing away on lorries, ferries, cars, or trains travelling through the Port of Calais or the Eurotunnel Calais Terminal, or while waiting for their French asylum claims to be processed. The people were a mix of asylum seekers and economic migrants from Darfur, Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Eritrea and other underdeveloped or conflict-stricken countries in Africa and Asia.


title: Calais

text: The Calais migrant crisis led to escalating tension between the UK and France in the summer of 2015. The UK blamed France for not doing enough to stop migrants from entering the Channel Tunnel or attempting to scale fences built along the border. The British Prime Minister David Cameron released a statement saying that illegal immigrants would be removed from the UK even if they reached the island. To discourage migrants and refugees from jumping on train shuttles at Calais, the UK government supplied fencing to be installed around the Eurotunnel complex, where the vehicles are loaded onto train shuttles in Calais.


title: Calais

text: On 26 October 2016, French authorities announced that the camp had been cleared. By January 2017, 500–1,000 migrants, mostly unaccompanied minors, had returned and were living rough in Calais and there has been a presence ever since.


title: Calais

text: Calais is located on the Pas de Calais, which marks the boundary between the English Channel and North Sea and located at the opposite end of the Channel Tunnel, from Dover. On a clear day the White cliffs of Dover can be viewed across the channel. Aside from being an important port and boarding point between France and England, it is at the nucleus of many major railway and highway networks and connected by road to Arras, Lens, Béthune and St. Omer. Dunkirk is located about to the east. Calais is located north of the French capital of Paris, or around by car. The commune of Calais is bordered by the English channel to the north, Sangatte and Coquelles to the west, Coulogne to the south and Marck to the east. The core area of the city is divided into the Old Town area within the old city walls, and the younger suburbs of St. Pierre, which are connected by a boulevard.


title: Calais

text: Calais is part of the Côte d'Opale (Opal Coast), a cliff-lined section of northern French coast that parallels the white cliffs on the British coast and is part of the same geological formation. It is known for its scenic cliffs such as Cape Blanc Nez and Cape Gris Nez and for its wide area of dunes. Many artists have been inspired by its landscapes, among them the composer Henri Dutilleux, the writers Victor Hugo and Charles Dickens, and the painters J. M. W. Turner, Carolus-Duran, Maurice Boitel and Eugène Boudin. It was the painter who coined the name for this area in 1911 to describe the distinctive quality of its light.


title: Calais

text: Calais has a temperate oceanic climate ("Cfb" in the Köppen climate classification). Temperature ranges are moderate and the winters are cool with unstable weather. It rains on average about per year.


title: Calais

text: Changes in the number of inhabitants is known throughout the population censuses conducted since 1793 in Calais. Note the massive growth in population from 13,529 in 1881 to 58,969 in 1886, a growth of 335.9%; this is because the city of Saint-Pierre-lès-Calais merged with Calais in 1885. According to the INSEE census of 2017, Calais has 73,911 people (a decrease of 4.4% from 1999). The town's population ranked 60th nationally, down from 53rd in 1999.


title: Calais

text: The city's proximity to England has made it a major port for centuries. It is the principal ferry crossing point between England and France, with the vast majority of Channel crossings being made between Dover and Calais. Companies operating from Calais include SeaFrance (currently in liquidation), DFDS Seaways, and P&O Ferries. The French end of the Channel Tunnel is situated in the vicinity of Calais, in Coquelles some to the west of the town. Calais possesses direct rail links to Paris, to the south. More than 10 million people visit Calais annually.


title: Calais

text: From medieval times, English companies thrived in Calais. Calais was a particularly important centre in the production and trade of wool and cloth, which outweighed the costs of maintaining the town as part of England. In 1830 some 113 manufacturers were based in Calais and the St Pierre suburbs, the majority of which were English. There are still two major lace factories in Calais with around 700 looms and 3000 employees. The town exports in the early 20th century were lace, chemicals, paper, wines, especially champagne, spirits, hay, straw, wool, potatoes, woven goods, fruit, glass-ware, lace and metal-ware. Principal imports in the early 20th century included cotton and silk goods, coal, iron and steel, petroleum, timber, raw wool, cotton yarn and cork. During the five years 1901–1905 the average annual value of exports was £8,388,000 (£6,363,000 in the years 1896–1900), of imports £4,145,000 (£3,759,000 in 1896–1900).


title: Calais

text: As a fishing port, Calais has several notable fishing markets including Les Délices de la Mer and Huîtrière Calaisenne on the Boulevard La Fayette, the latter of which is noted for its oysters, lobster and crabs from Brittany. The Emile Fournier et Fils market on the Rue Mouron sells mainly smoked fish including salmon, trout, herring and halibut.


title: Calais

text: The mayor of Calais has been Natacha Bouchart since 2008, first for the Union for a Popular Movement and then its successor The Republicans. From 1971 to 2008, the mayor was a member of the French Communist Party (PCF): Jean-Jacques Barthe (1971–2000) and Jacky Hénin (2000–2008).


title: Calais

text: Place d'Armes is one of the largest squares in the city of Calais. It adjoins the watchtower, and during medieval times was once the heart of the city. While Calais was a territory of England (1347–1558), it became known as Market Square (place du Marché). Only at the end of English rule did it take the name of Place d'Armes. After the reconquest of Calais in 1558 by Francis, Duke of Guise, Francis II gave Calais the right to hold a fair twice a year on the square, which still exists today, as well as a bustling Wednesday and Saturday market.


title: Calais

text: The town centre, which has seen significant regeneration over the past decade, is dominated by its distinctive town hall (Hôtel de Ville) at Place du Soldat Inconnu. It was built in the Flemish Renaissance style between 1911 and 1925 to commemorate the unification of the cities of Calais and Saint Pierre in 1885. A previous town hall had been erected in 1818. One of the most elegant landmarks in the city, its ornate 74-metre (246 ft) high clock tower and belfry can be seen from out to sea and chimes throughout the day and has been protected by UNESCO since 2005 as part of a series of belfries across the region. The building parts have also been listed as a series of historic monuments by government decree of 26 June 2003, including its roofs and belfry, main hall, glass roof, the staircase, corridor serving the first floor, the rooms on the first floor (including decoration): the wedding room, the VIP lounge, the lounge of the council and the cabinet room. The hall has stained glass windows and numerous paintings and exquisite decor. It houses police offices.


title: Calais

text: Église Notre-Dame is a great church which was originally built in the late 13th century and its tower was added in the late 14th or early 15th century. Like the town hall it is one of the city's most prominent landmarks. It was arguably the only church in the English perpendicular style in France. Much of the current 1400 capacity church dates to 1631–1635. It contains elements of Flemish, Gothic, Anglo-Norman and Tudor architecture. In 1691, an 1800 cubic metre cistern was added to the church under orders by Vauban. The church is dedicated to the Virgin, and built in the form of a cross, consisting of a nave and four aisles— The old grand altar dated to 1628 and was built from Carrara marble wrecked on the coast, during its transit from Genoa to Antwerp. It contained eighteen figures, the two standing on either side of the altar-piece—representing St. Louis and Charlemagne. The organ—of a deep and mellow tone, and highly ornamented by figures in relief—was built at Canterbury sometime around 1700. The pulpit and reading-desk, richly sculptured in oak, is another well-executed piece of ecclesiastical workmanship from St. Omer. The altar-piece, the Assumption, was often attributed to Anthony van Dyck, though in reality it is by Gerard Seghers; whilst the painting over the side altar, once believed to be by Peter Paul Rubens is in fact by Pieter Van Mol. A high and strongly built wall, partaking more of the fortress than a cathedral in its aspect, flanks the building, and protects it from the street where formerly ran the old river, in its course through Calais to the sea.


title: Calais

text: The square, massive Norman tower has three-arched belfry windows on each face, surmounted by corner turrets, and a conically shaped tower of octagonal proportions, topped again by a short steeple. The tower was a main viewing point for the Anglo-French Survey (1784–1790) which linked the Paris Observatory with the Royal Greenwich Observatory using trigonometry. Cross-channel sightings were made of signal lights at Dover Castle and Fairlight, East Sussex.


title: Calais

text: The church was assigned as a historic monument by decree of 10 September 1913, only to have its stained glass smashed during a Zeppelin bombardment on 15 January 1915, falling through the roof. General de Gaulle married Yvonne Vendroux on 6 April 1921 at the cathedral. The building experienced extensive damage during World War II, and was partially rebuilt, although much of the old altar and furnishings were not replaced.


title: Calais

text: The Tour du Guet (Watch Tower), situated in Calais Nord on the Places d'Armes, is one of the few surviving pre-war buildings. Dating from 1229, when Philip I, Count of Boulogne, built the fortifications of Calais, it is one of the oldest monuments of Calais, although the oldest remaining traces date to 1302. It has a height of 35–39 metres (sources differ). An earthquake in 1580 split the tower in two, and at one time it threatened to collapse completely. The tower was repaired in 1606, and then had the purpose of serving as a hall to accommodate the merchants of Calais. It was damaged in 1658 when a young stable boy set fire to it, while it was temporarily being used as royal stables during a visit of King Louis XIV. It was not repaired for some 30 years. In 1770, a bell identical to the original bell of 1348 was cast. Due to its height, from the late 17th century it became an important watchout post for the city for centuries until 1905; the last keeper of the tower was forced to leave in 1926. Abraham Chappe (a brother of Ignace Chappe) installed a telegraph office in the tower in 1816 and operated for 32 years. It was this office which announced the death of Napoleon I to the French public in 1821. It also had the dual function as lighthouse with a rotating beacon fuelled by oil from 1818. The lantern was finally replaced by a new lighthouse on 15 October 1848. During the First World War, it served as a military observation post and narrowly missed destruction during World War II. This tower has been classified as a historic monument since 6 November 1931.


title: Calais

text: The Calais Lighthouse (Le phare de Calais) was built in 1848, replacing the old watch tower as the lighthouse of the port. The tower was electrified in 1883 and automated in 1992. The staircase has 271 steps leading up to the lantern. By day it is easily distinguishable from other coastal lighthouses by its white color and black lantern. The lighthouse was classified as a historical monument on 22 November 2010.


title: Calais

text: The Citadel, located on the Avenue Pierre Coubertin, was built between 1560 and 1571 on the site of a former medieval castle which was built in 1229 by Philippe de Hureprel. Its purpose of its construction was to fend off would-be invaders, but it wasn't long until the city was successfully invaded by Archduke Albert of Austria on 24 April 1596. Both Louis XIII and Cardinal Richelieu at one time considered expanding the citadel and Calais into a great walled city for military harbour purposes but the proposals came to nothing.


title: Calais

text: Fort Risban, located on the coast on the Avenue Raymond Poincaré at the port entrance, was built by the English to prevent supplies reaching Calais by sea during the siege in November 1346 and continued to be occupied by them until 1558 when Calais was restored to France. In 1596, the fort was captured by the Spanish Netherlands until May 1598 when it was returned to the French following the Treaty of Vervins. It was rebuilt in 1640. Vauban, who visited the fort some time in the 1680s, described it as "a home for owls, and place to hold the Sabbath" rather than a fortification. During World War II it served as an air raid shelter. It contains the Lancaster Tower, a name often given to the fort itself.


title: Calais

text: Fort Nieulay, located along the Avenue Roger Salengro originally dated to the 12th or 13th century. During the English invasion in 1346, sluices gates were added as water defences and a fort was built up around it in 1525 on the principle that the people of the fort could defend the town by flooding it. In April and May 1677, Louis XIV and Vauban visited Calais and ordered a complete rebuilding of Fort Nieulay. It was completed in 1679, with the purpose to protect the bridge of Nieulay crossing the Hames River. By 1815 the fort had fallen into a ruined state and it wasn't until 1903 that it was sold and improved by its farmer tenants. The fort was briefly the site of a low-key scuffle with Germans in May 1940.


title: Calais

text: Calais contains several museums. These include the Musée des Beaux-Arts et de la Dentelle de Calais, Cité internationale de la Dentelle et de la Mode de Calais and the Musée de la Seconde Guerre Mondiale (World War II museum). Cité internationale de la Dentelle et de la Mode de Calais is a lace and fashion museum located in an old Boulart factory on the canalside and contains workshops, a library and a restaurant and regularly puts on fashion shows. The World War II museum is located at Parc St Pierre opposite the town hall and south of the train station. The building is a former Nazi bunker and wartime military headquarters, built in 1941 by the Todt Organisation. The 194-metre-long structure contains twenty rooms with relics and photographs related to World War II, and one room dedicated to World War I.


title: Calais

text: Theatres and cultural centres include Le théâtre municipal, Le Centre Culturel Gérard Philipe, Le Conservatoire à rayonnement départemental (CRD), L'auditorium Didier Lockwood, L'École d'Art de Calais, Le Channel, Le Cinéma Alhambra and La Médiathèque municipale. Le théâtre municipal or Calais Theatre is located on the Boulevard Lafayette and was built in 1903 on a plot of land which was used as a cemetery between 1811 and 1871. The theatre opened in 1905. On the first floor of the façade are statues which represent the performing arts subjects of Poetry, Comedy, Dance and Music.


title: Calais

text: Directly in front of the town hall is a bronze cast of "Les Bourgeois de Calais" ("The Burghers of Calais"), a sculpture by Auguste Rodin to commemorate six men who were to have been executed by Edward III in 1347. The cast was erected in 1895, funded by a public grant of 10,000 francs. Rodin (who based his design on a fourteenth-century account by Jean Froissart) intended to evoke the viewer's sympathy by emphasizing the pained expressions of the faces of the six men about to be executed.


title: Calais

text: The "Monument des Sauveteurs" ("Rescuers' Monument") was installed in 1899 on Boulevard des Alliés, and transferred to the Quartier of Courgain in 1960. It is a bronze sculpture, attributed to Edward Lormier. The "Monument Le Pluviôse" is a bronze monument built in 1912 by Émile Oscar Guillaume on the centre of the roundabout near the beach of Calais, commemorating the accidental sinking of the submarine "Pluviôse" in May 1910, off the beach by the steamer "Pas de Calais". Armand Fallières, president of the Republic, and his government came to Calais for a state funeral for its 27 victims. One of these victims, Delpierre Auguste, (1889–1910), drowned at age 21 before the beach at Calais; a dock in the city is named for him. The monument was dedicated on 22 June 1913.


title: Calais

text: Monument "Jacquard" was erected on the square in 1910, opposite the entrance to the Calais theatre. It commemorates Joseph Marie Jacquard, popular in Calais because of his contribution to the development of lace through his invention of the Jacquard loom. A tall column in the Courgain area of the city commemorates a visit by Louis XVIII.


title: Calais

text: "Parc Richelieu", a garden behind the war memorial, was built in 1862 on the old city ramparts and redesigned in 1956. It contains a statue designed by Yves de Coëtlogon in 1962, remembering both world wars with an allegorical figure, representing Peace, which clutches an olive branch to her breast. Another monument in the Parc Richelieu, erected on 23 April 1994, marks the approximate site of Emma, Lady Hamilton's last resting place. She died in Calais on 15 January 1815.


title: Calais

text: For many years the most famous hotel in Calais was the Hôtel d'Angleterre, often called Dessin's or Dessein's, after the family which owned it for almost a hundred years. Its popularity increased after Laurence Sterne set the early chapters of his 1768 novel "A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy" there. With the arrival of the railway fewer British visitors stopped in Calais and Dessin's closed in 1860.


title: Calais

text: Hôtel Meurice de Calais is a hotel, established in 1771 as Le Chariot Royal by the French postmaster, Charles-Augustin Meurice, who would later establish the five-star Hôtel Meurice, one of Paris' most famous luxury hotels. It was one of the earliest hotels on the continent of Europe to specifically cater for the British elite. The hotel was rebuilt in 1954–55. It has 41 en-suite rooms.


title: Calais

text: The main centre of night activity in Calais is at the Casino Le Touquet's on the Rue Royale and at the 555 Club. Every month, Casino Le Touquet hosts a dinner and dance cabaret. The casino features slot machines, blackjack, roulette, and poker facilities.


title: Calais

text: There are several schools in Calais. These include Groupe Scolaire Coubertin, Eglise Saint-Pierre, Universite du Littoral, Centre Universitaire, Lycée HQE Léonard de Vinci on Rue du Pasteur Martin Luther-King, École d'Art de Calais on Rue des Soupirants, and the Centre Scolaire Saint-Pierre on Rue du Four à Chaux which provides education in the primary grades, high school, and vocational school.


title: Calais

text: There are at least seven colleges in the city, such as Collège Martin Luther King on Rue Martin Luther King, Collège Nationalisé Lucien Vadez on Avenue Yervant Toumaniantz, Collège Les Dentelliers on Rue Gaillard, College Jean Mace on Rue Maréchaux, Collège République on Place République, Collège Vauban on Rue Orléansville, and Collège Privé Mixte Jeanne d'Arc on Rue Champailler.


title: Calais

text: Calais was represented in association football by the Calais RUFC, who competed in the Championnat National. The club was founded 1902 as Racing Club de Calais and in 1974 was renamed as Calais Racing Union Football Club.


title: Calais

text: Calais RUFC had a good reputation in French cup competitions and went as far as the final in the 1999/2000 season, losing out finally to Nantes.


title: Calais

text: Since 2008 they played at the Stade de l'Épopée, a stadium which holds about 12,000 spectators. Calais Racing Union was liquidated in September 2017.


title: Calais

text: The rugby club in Calais is Amicale Rugby Calaisien. Basketball is popular in Calais with the teams Calais Basket (male) and COB Calais (female) as is volleyball with the Lis Calais (male) and Stella Calais (female) teams. There is also the SOC club which caters in a range of sports including athletics, handball and football and Yacht Club de Calais, a yachting club. Calais also has Les Seagulls, an American football team.


title: Calais

text: The Port of Calais was the first cable ship port in Europe and is the fourth largest port in France and the largest for passenger traffic. The port accounts for more than a third of economic activity of the town of Calais. Cargo traffic has tripled over the past two decades. In 2007 more than 41.5 million tonnes of traffic passed through Calais with some 11.52 million passengers, 1.4 million trucks and trailers, 2.249 million cars and 4,700 crossings a year. Passenger numbers for the Dover to Calais route in 2018 were 9,168,000. On average, ships sail from the port every 30 minutes. A new 400 million euro project is underway at the port to create a breakwater protecting a pool of 700 meters long, thus allowing virtually all types of ships to stop at Calais.


title: Calais

text: As well as the large port, the town is served by three railway stations: Gare de Calais-Fréthun, Gare de Calais-Ville, and Gare des Fontinettes, the former being the first stop on mainland Europe of the Eurostar line. Gare de Calais-Ville is the nearest station to the port with trains to Gare de Boulogne-Ville and either Gare de Lille Flandres or Gare de Lille Europe.


title: Calais

text: Local bus services are provided by STCE. Free car parking facilities are available in front of the Calais ferry terminal and the maximum stay is three days.


title: Calais

text: Calais is served by an airport and an airfield. Calais–Dunkerque Airport is located at Marck, east north east of Calais. Saint-Inglevert Airfield is located at Saint-Inglevert, south west of Calais.


title: Front-engine, front-wheel-drive layout

text: In automotive design, a front-engine, front-wheel-drive (FWD) layout, or FF layout, places both the internal combustion engine and driven roadwheels at the front of the vehicle.


title: Front-engine, front-wheel-drive layout

text: Historically, this designation was used regardless of whether the entire engine was behind the front axle line. In recent times, the manufacturers of some cars have added to the designation with the term "front-mid" which describes a car in which the engine is in front of the passenger compartment but behind the front axle. The engine positions of most pre–World-War-II cars are "front-mid" or on the front axle.


title: Front-engine, front-wheel-drive layout

text: This layout is the most traditional form and remains a popular, practical design. The engine, which takes up a great deal of space, is packaged in a location passengers and luggage typically would not use. The main deficit is weight distribution—the heaviest component is at one end of the vehicle. Car handling is not ideal, but usually predictable.


title: Front-engine, front-wheel-drive layout

text: In contrast with the front-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout (RWD), the FWD layout eliminates the need for a central tunnel or a higher chassis clearance to accommodate a driveshaft providing power to the rear wheels. Like the rear-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout (RR) and rear mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout (RMR) layouts, it places the engine over the drive wheels, improving traction in many applications. As the steered wheels are also the driven wheels, FWD cars are generally considered superior to RWD cars in conditions in which there is low traction such as snow, mud, gravel or wet tarmac. When hill climbing in low-traction conditions RR is considered the best two-wheel-drive layout, primarily due to the shift of weight to the rear wheels when climbing. The cornering ability of a FWD vehicle is generally better, because the engine is placed over the steered wheels. However, as the driven wheels have the additional demands of steering, if a vehicle accelerates quickly, less grip is available for cornering, which can result in understeer. High-performance vehicles rarely use the FWD layout because weight is transferred to the rear wheels under acceleration, while unloading the front wheels and sharply reducing their grip, effectively putting a cap on the amount of power which could realistically be utilized; in addition, the high power of high-performance cars can result in torque steer. Electronic traction control can avoid wheel-spin but largely negates the benefit of extra power. This was a reason for the adoption of the all-wheel-drive quattro system in the high performance Jensen FF and Audi Quattro road cars.


title: Front-engine, front-wheel-drive layout

text: Early cars using the FWD layout include the 1925 Alvis, 1929 Cord L-29, 1931 DKW F1, the 1948 Citroën 2CV, 1949 Saab 92, the 1957 Trabant P50, and the 1959 Mini. In the 1980s, the traction and packaging advantages of this layout caused many compact and mid-sized vehicle makers to adopt it in the US. Most European and Japanese manufacturers switched to front wheel drive for the majority of their cars in the 1960s and 1970s, the last to change being VW, Ford of Europe, and General Motors (Vauxhall - UK and Opel - Germany). Toyota was the last Japanese company to switch in the early 1980s. BMW, focused on luxury vehicles, however retained the rear-wheel-drive layout in even their smaller cars, though their MINI marque are FWD.


title: Front-engine, front-wheel-drive layout

text: There are four different arrangements for this basic layout, depending on the location of the engine, which is the heaviest component of the drivetrain.


title: Front-engine, front-wheel-drive layout

text: The earliest such arrangement was not technically FF, but rather mid-engine, front-wheel-drive layout (MF). The engine was mounted longitudinally (fore-and-aft, or north–south) behind the wheels, with the transmission ahead of the engine and differential at the very front of the car. With the engine so far back, the weight distribution of such cars as the Cord L-29 was not ideal; the driven wheels did not carry a large enough proportion of weight for good traction and handling. The 1934 Citroën Traction Avant solved the weight distribution issue by placing the transmission at the front of the car with the differential between it and the engine. Combined with the car's low slung unibody design, this resulted in handling which was remarkable for the era. Renault is the most recent user of this format - having used it on the Renault 4, and the first generation Renault 5, but it has since fallen out of favor since it encroaches into the interior space.


title: Front-engine, front-wheel-drive layout

text: The 1946 Panhard Dyna X, designed by Jean-Albert Grégoire, had the engine longitudinally in front of the front wheels, with the transmission behind the engine and the differential at the rear of the assembly. This arrangement, used by Panhard until 1967, potentially had a weight distribution problem analogous to that of the Cord L29 mentioned above. However, the Panhard's air-cooled flat twin engine was very light, and mounted low down with a low centre of gravity reducing the effect. The air-cooled flat twin engine of the Citroën 2CV was also mounted very low, in front of the front wheels, with the transmission behind the axle line and the differential between the two. This became quite popular; cars using this layout included the German Ford Taunus 12M and the Lancia Flavia and Fulvia. This is the standard configuration of Audi and Subaru front-wheel-drive vehicles. In 1979, Toyota introduced and launched their first front-wheel-drive car, the Tercel, and it had its engine longitudinally mounted, unlike most other front-wheel-drive cars on the market at that time. This arrangement continued also on the second-generation Tercel, until 1987, the third generation received a new, transversely mounted engine. Other front-wheel-drive Toyota models, such as Camry, and Corolla, had transversely mounted engines from the beginning on.


title: Front-engine, front-wheel-drive layout

text: The 1966 Oldsmobile Toronado (along with its sister model the Cadillac Eldorado) used a novel arrangement which had the engine and transmission in a 'side-by-side' arrangement with power being transmitted between the two via a heavy-duty chain, and a specially designed intermediate driveshaft that passed under the engine sump. This family has the distinction of being the highest engine capacity (8.2 L) front-wheel-drive vehicles ever built. The Saab 99 and “classic” Saab 900 also used a similar arrangement. The Eagle Premier used a similar powertrain arrangement found in the Renault 21 and 25 – later becoming the basis for the Chrysler LH sedans produced until the 2004 model year.


title: Front-engine, front-wheel-drive layout

text: Today, Audi is the most prominent user of this mechanical layout, having used it since the 1950s in its predecessor companies DKW and Auto Union, and it can be found in its larger models from the A4 upward. The latest evolution of the format in Audi's MLB platform attempts to address the long-standing drawback of uneven weight distribution. This is done by packaging the differential in front of the clutch, allowing the axle line to be further forward in relation to the rear face of the engine block.


title: Front-engine, front-wheel-drive layout

text: The first popular transverse engined FWD cars were the DKW 'Front' made from 1931, which had a twin cylinder two-stroke engine.


title: Front-engine, front-wheel-drive layout

text: Saab copied this design on their first car, the 1949 Saab 92. The Trabant in 1957 was also one of the only cars to have a transverse mounted engine, being a sort of DKW successor. This was a novelty, especially for a car being made in a communist country.


title: Front-engine, front-wheel-drive layout

text: Issigonis's Mini of 1959 and related cars such as the Maxi, Austin 1100/1300 and Allegro had the four-cylinder inline water-cooled engine transversely mounted. The transmission was located in the sump below the crankshaft, with power transmitted by transfer gears. Other models that used the "transmission-in-sump" layout included the Datsun 100A (Cherry) and various applications of the PSA-Renault X-Type engine such as the Peugeot 104 and Renault 14. The 1955 Suzuki Suzulight also introduced a front engine with a transversely installed two-stroke twin-cylinder engine (using DKW technology) in a city car/"kei" car application, based on the German Lloyd LP400.


title: Front-engine, front-wheel-drive layout

text: Dante Giacosa's Autobianchi Primula of 1964, Fiat 128 and Fiat 127, put the transmission on one side of the transversely mounted engine, and doubled back the drivetrain to put the differential just behind the transmission, but offset to one side. Hence the driveshafts to the wheels are longer on one side than the other. This located the weight just a bit in front of the wheels. It is this system which dominates worldwide at present.


title: Front-engine, front-wheel-drive layout

text: Front-wheel-drive vehicles tend to suffer from "torque steer" under heavy acceleration. This is caused by differing drive shaft lengths which in turn results in different incident angles at the joints of the driveshaft. The farther these joints are articulate, the less effective they are at delivering torque to the wheels.


title: Front-engine, front-wheel-drive layout

text: In front wheel drive vehicles, the drive shafts transfer the drive directly from the differential to the front wheels. A short inner stub shaft is splined to the differential side gear and an outer stub shaft is splined to the front wheel hub. Each stub shaft has a yoke, or housing, to accommodate a universal joint, at each end of a connecting intermediate shaft.


title: Front-engine, front-wheel-drive layout

text: Universal joints let the shaft keep rotating while allowing for changes due to suspension movement, such as shaft length and horizontal angle, and shaft angle as the steering turns. Constant-velocity universal joints are normally used to transfer power smoothly between the components. The inner universal can be a plunge or tripod type joint. The tripod is splined to the intermediate shaft and held by a circlip. A ball, supported on needle roller bearings, is fitted to each post of the tripod, and these slide in a trunion inside the yoke. This caters for changes in shaft length and horizontal angle. The drive is transferred through the trunion and balls to rotate the shaft.


title: Front-engine, front-wheel-drive layout

text: The outer universal joint allows greater angular changes but not changes in shaft length. It is normally a ball and cage type with an inner race splined to the intermediate shaft. An outer race is formed in the yoke. The cage retains the balls in location in grooves in both races.


title: Front-engine, front-wheel-drive layout

text: The balls transfer the drive from the shaft to the hub and allow for changes in horizontal angle and for a wide steering angle to be achieved. A flexible rubber boot fitted to each joint retains grease and keeps out dirt and moisture.


title: Front-engine, front-wheel-drive layout

text: Where the differential is not located in the center line of the vehicle, an intermediate shaft can be fitted to maintain equal length drive shafts on each side. This keeps drive shaft angles equal on both sides and helps prevent steering irregularities and vibration.


title: Front-engine, front-wheel-drive layout

text: The outer end of the intermediate shaft is supported by a bearing secured to the transaxle case and a universal joint assists with alignment.


title: Front-engine, front-wheel-drive layout

text: In some cases a longer drive shaft is used on one side. A rubber dynamic damper may be fitted to absorb vibrations.


title: School 2017

text: School 2017 () is a South Korean television series starring Kim Jung-hyun, Kim Se-jeong, Jang Dong-yoon, Han Sun-hwa, and Han Joo-wan. It aired on KBS2 from July 17 to September 5, 2017 every Monday and Tuesday at 22:00 (KST) for 16 episodes. The series is the seventh installment of KBS2's "School" franchise.


title: School 2017

text: The plot follows a class of high school students attempting to overcome the stress of being ranked by their exam grades, and facing the difficulties of being a teenager in a high-pressure, corrupt system. Its central protagonist is Ra Eun-ho (Kim Se-jeong), a cheerful and kind-hearted 18-year-old who dreams of being a webtoon artist but is caught up in the search for a mysterious troublemaker in the school, known as 'Student X'. When she is accused of being Student X, her dream of going to university to study art is put at risk as she faces expulsion. Hyun Tae-woon (Kim Jung-hyun) is the son of the director of the school who enjoys his youth but hides deep scars. Song Dae-hwi (Jang Dong-yoon) is a bright student who's ranked 1st every time but doesn't have enough money for his dream college.


title: School 2017

text: In May 2017, KBS offered the leading role to Kim Yoo-jung as a follow-up project to her popular series "Love in the Moonlight" (2016). By June 2017, she officially declined.


title: School 2017

text: The first script reading of the series took place on June 19, 2017 at the KBS Annex Building in Yeouido, Seoul, South Korea.


title: Fort Sumter

text: Fort Sumter is a sea fort built on an artificial island protecting Charleston, South Carolina from naval invasion. Its origin dates to the War of 1812 when the British invaded Washington by sea. It was still incomplete in 1861 when the Battle of Fort Sumter began the American Civil War. It was severely damaged during the war, left in ruins, and although there was some rebuilding, the fort as conceived was never completed.


title: Fort Sumter

text: Since the middle of the 20th century, Fort Sumter has been open to the public as part of the Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie National Historical Park, operated by the National Park Service.


title: Fort Sumter

text: Named after General Thomas Sumter, a Revolutionary War hero, Fort Sumter was built after the 1814 Burning of Washington during the War of 1812 as one of the third system of U.S. fortifications, to protect American harbors from foreign invaders such as Britain. Built on an artificial island in the middle of the channel that provides Charleston with natural shelter, Fort Sumter would dominate the harbor, reinforcing the protection provided by the shore batteries at Fort Moultrie, Fort Wagner, and Fort Gregg.


title: Fort Sumter

text: The island was originally a sand bar. In 1827, engineers performed measurements of the depths (depth sounding) and concluded that it was a suitable location for a fort. Construction began in 1829. Seventy thousand tons of granite were transported from New England to build up the artificial island. By 1834, a timber foundation that was several feet beneath the water had been laid. However, the decision was made to build a (stronger) brick fort. If completed, it would have been one of the strongest forts in the world.


title: Fort Sumter

text: The brick fort is five-sided, long, with walls thick, standing over the low tide mark. Although never completed, it was designed to house 650 men and 135 guns in three tiers of gun emplacements.


title: Fort Sumter

text: Construction dragged out because of title problems, then problems with funding such a large and technically challenging project. Unpleasant weather and disease made it worse. The exterior was finished but the interior and armaments were never completed.


title: Fort Sumter

text: Early in the nineteenth century, South Carolina had owned multiple forts, namely Fort Moultrie, Castle Pinckney, and Fort Johnson, but ceded them, along with sites for the future erection of forts, to the United States in 1805. The forts were of questionable military value and costly to maintain, so when asked to cede them, the state complied. This was not the last time that South Carolina would cede forts to the United States; on December 17, 1836, South Carolina officially ceded all "right, title and, claim" to the site of Fort Sumter to the United States.


title: Fort Sumter

text: Fort Sumter is notable for two battles, the first of which began the American Civil War. It was one of a number of special forts planned after the War of 1812, combining high walls and heavy masonry, and classified as Third System, as a grade of structural integrity. Work started in 1829, but was incomplete by 1861, when the Civil War began.


title: Fort Sumter

text: The attack on Fort Sumter is generally taken as the beginning of the American Civil War—the first shots fired. Certainly it was so taken at the time—citizens of Charleston were celebrating. The First Battle of Fort Sumter began on April 12, 1861, when South Carolina Militia artillery fired from shore on the Union garrison. These were, both sides agreed, the first shots of the war. The bombardment continued all day, watched by many happy civilians. The fort had been cut off from its supply line and surrendered the next day. Major Robert Anderson took the flag with him as they evacuated.


title: Fort Sumter

text: The Second Battle of Fort Sumter (September 8, 1863) was a failed attempt by the Union to retake the fort, dogged by a rivalry between army and navy commanders. Although the fort was reduced to rubble, it remained in Confederate hands until it was evacuated as General Sherman marched through South Carolina in February 1865.


title: Fort Sumter

text: A widely announced "End of the War" celebration took place at Fort Sumter on April 14, 1865. The now-Major General Anderson, though ill and retired, came to the ceremony and raised the flag. The incident is forgotten today because President Lincoln was shot that evening.


title: Fort Sumter

text: On December 26, 1860, only six days after South Carolina seceded from the Union, U.S. Army Major Robert Anderson abandoned the indefensible Fort Moultrie, spiking its large guns, burning its gun carriages, and taking its smaller cannon with him. He secretly relocated companies E and H (127 men, 13 of them musicians) of the 1st U.S. Artillery to Fort Sumter on his own initiative, without orders from his superiors. He thought that providing a stronger defense would delay an attack by South Carolina militia. The fort was not yet complete at the time and fewer than half of the cannons that should have been available were in place, due to military downsizing by President James Buchanan.


title: Fort Sumter

text: In a letter delivered January 31, 1861, South Carolina Governor Pickens demanded of President Buchanan that he surrender Fort Sumter because "I regard that possession is not consistent with the dignity or safety of the State of South Carolina." Over the next few months repeated calls for evacuation of Fort Sumter from the government of South Carolina and then from Confederate Brigadier General P. G. T. Beauregard were ignored. Union attempts to resupply and reinforce the garrison were repulsed on January 9, 1861 when the first shots of the war, fired by cadets from the Citadel, prevented the steamer "Star of the West", hired to transport troops and supplies to Fort Sumter, from completing the task.


title: Fort Sumter

text: After realizing that Anderson's command would run out of food by April 15, 1861, President Lincoln ordered a fleet of ships, under the command of Gustavus V. Fox, to attempt entry into Charleston Harbor and supply Fort Sumter. The ships assigned were the steam sloops-of-war USS "Pawnee" and USS "Powhatan", transporting motorized launches and about 300 sailors (secretly removed from the Charleston fleet to join in the forced reinforcement of Fort Pickens, Pensacola, FL), armed screw steamer USS "Pocahontas", Revenue Cutter USRC "Harriet Lane", steamer "Baltic" transporting about 200 troops, composed of companies C and D of the 2nd U.S. Artillery, and three hired tugboats with added protection against small arms fire to be used to tow troop and supply barges directly to Fort Sumter. By April 6, 1861, the first ships began to set sail for their rendezvous off the Charleston Bar. The first to arrive was "Harriet Lane", the evening of April 11, 1861.


title: Fort Sumter

text: On Thursday, April 11, 1861, Beauregard sent three aides, Colonel James Chesnut, Jr., Captain Stephen D. Lee, and Lieutenant A. R. Chisolm to demand the surrender of the fort. Anderson declined, and the aides returned to report to Beauregard. After Beauregard had consulted the Confederate Secretary of War, Leroy Walker, he sent the aides back to the fort and authorized Chesnut to decide whether the fort should be taken by force. The aides waited for hours while Anderson considered his alternatives and played for time. At about 3:00 a.m., when Anderson finally announced his conditions, Colonel Chesnut, after conferring with the other aides, decided that they were "manifestly futile and not within the scope of the instructions verbally given to us." The aides then left the fort and proceeded to the nearby Fort Johnson. There, Chesnut ordered the fort to open fire on Fort Sumter.


title: Fort Sumter

text: On Friday, April 12, 1861, at 4:30 a.m., Confederate batteries opened fire on the fort, firing for 34 straight hours. Edmund Ruffin, noted Virginian agronomist and secessionist, claimed that he fired the first shot on Fort Sumter. His story has been widely believed, but Lieutenant Henry S. Farley, commanding a battery of two 10-inch siege mortars on James Island actually fired the first shot at 4:30 a.m. . No attempt was made to return the fire for more than two hours. The fort's supply of ammunition was not suited for the task; also, there were no fuses for their explosive shells, which means that they could not explode. Only solid iron balls could be used against the Confederate batteries. At about 7:00 a.m., Captain Abner Doubleday, the fort's second in command, was given the honor of firing the Union's first shot, in defense of the fort. He missed, in part because Major Anderson did not use the guns mounted on the highest tier – the barbette tier, where the guns could engage the Confederate batteries better, but where the gunners would be more exposed to Confederate fire. The firing continued all day. The Union fired slowly to conserve ammunition. At night, the fire from the fort stopped, but the Confederates still lobbed an occasional shell into Sumter. On Saturday, April 13, the fort was surrendered and evacuated. During the attack, the Union colors fell. Lt. Norman J. Hall risked life and limb to put them back up, burning off his eyebrows permanently. A Confederate soldier bled to death having been wounded by a misfiring cannon. One Union soldier died and another was mortally wounded during the 47th shot of a 100-shot salute, allowed by the Confederacy. Afterward, the salute was shortened to 50 shots. Accounts, such as in the famous diary of Mary Chesnut, describe Charleston residents along what is now known as The Battery, sitting on balconies and drinking salutes to the start of the hostilities.


title: Fort Sumter

text: The Fort Sumter Flag became a popular patriotic symbol after Major Anderson returned North with it. The flag is still displayed in the fort's museum. The "Star of the West" took all the garrison members to New York City. There they were welcomed and honored with a parade on Broadway.