Salop Woollen Mill Trading Tokens

A couple of years ago a friend let me have a couple of very worn tokens from an outfit called Salop Woollen Mill. This was an establishment I'd never heard of so I was intrigued. Shrewsbury already has The Flaxmill, which was the grandma of the modern skyscraper, so I did a bit of research. My local archaeology group came up with an item from a newsletter, and something from a local history book, but both said there was no trace left of the place, but importantly, that it was a water mill. I managed to stitch together a 10 minute talk about the tokens for a slot in their Christmas social. A friend from the group, with a canoe, then suggested we go in July and look for any remains of it as the river levels were unusually low. We found a brick apron jutting out from the river bank, which we took to be the base of the inlet from the since destroyed tunnel leading to the water wheel. The tokens themselves were struck in Birmingham by Westwood and Hancock, rivals of Matthew Boulton (Soho Mint) in 1793 and 4, and as well as my little trove of them, Shropshire Museum have about 30, which they let me examine in detail. Taken together they well illustrate the rise and fall of the slightly shady Westwood-Hancock enterprise. Below are pics of two tokens. The one showing Saint Blaise is an Exeter one but they used the same dies for some of the Shrewsbury ones, and it's in much better condition than mine. Enjoy!