Shropshire Star

Final bell tolls for Oswestry tollhouse to make way for Aldi

Part of Shropshire's history has disappeared – to make way for a supermarket.

Published

Thomas Telford's tollhouse at the entrance to Oswestry is being demolished as part of a scheme to build an Aldi store on the Shrewsbury Road.

The 200-year-old Gate House building was one of the toll houses on Telford's road from London to Holyhead built to collect tolls from those using the route.

Oswestry Town Council had applied to English Heritage for the building to be listed but the national body turned down the application saying that there was not enough of the original structure still remaining.

Shropshire Council granted planning permission for the new superstore earlier this year and the bulldozers moved in to clear the land this week.

Town Councillor and historian, Sandy Best, was at the forefront of trying to save the Gate House.

She said: "I am extremely sad to have not been able to save the toll house. But I will continue the fight against Shropshire Council's erosion of the planning process.

"We have already lost six of the tollhouses in this area, including two in Oswestry itself. This building was of high historical value. This is contributing to the erosion of our visual, physical history."

The new shop is being built next to the New Fairholme care home. It will be the second Aldi store in the town operating alongside an existing shop in Oswald Road, which bosses say is operating at full capacity. It will create 25 full-time and 15 part-time jobs.

The company has said that it will install an interpretation board with historic photographs and information about tollhouses to mark that one had stood on the site.

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