The Abbots of Lilleshall abbey, near Newport, used to own a lot of land around here and they had this grand house built so that they would have somewhere to stay when visiting, one such visit, was every Lady’s Day to collect rents. The house was built in the late 1450s, dendrochronologists have dated the timbers used to 1458 and records report of town bailiffs and the carpenter attending a frame raising ceremony in 1459.
Butcher Row was home to possibly 40 butcher’s stalls and some were housed in the ground floor here, several of the hooks where the meat was hung are still in place. Many butchers slaughtered the animals here and the street was known to run with blood. Whether it is this association with jeth we dunna know but strange blue glowing shapes have bin seen flickering about the rooms, faces have suddenly appeared at the windows and many passers-by have said they have had feelings of being watched.
On a lighter note, the ground floor shops had boards that were used to cover the windows and these were lowered down to make counters for the meat to be displayed on during the day. Unfortunately a favourite trick of revelers who were a bit market-peart (drunk) was to cut the cords.
The building is shown before the installation of the nineteenth century oriel windows on the upper floors and the restoration (c 1860) of the ground floor shop windows and doors.
Pop in tomorrow if you can when we pop just down the road to Wesley House, oh! and dunna have nightmares.