Mystique back on Market Street, a curry night for Nepal, and the Town takeover clears - Issue #006
Weeks go by, the town gets on without you, and you hear about the good bits a fortnight late. This week’s Bridge is the way back in: a name Shrewsbury never actually stopped saying is back above a door on Market Street, two Nepalese restaurants are giving away a Monday night’s takings, and after two years of waiting the football club finally has a buyer cleared to complete. Pick one and turn up.
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— The Town This Week —
Mystique is back above a door on Market Street
Debbie Carvell outside Mystique at 6 Market Street on opening day. Photo: Shropshire Live.
Nobody in Shrewsbury ever stopped saying Mystique. The name came off the shopfront in a 2023 rebrand after four decades above the door, and the town carried on using it anyway — so on Saturday 5 September Debbie Carvell put it back, over a shop of its own at 6 Market Street, about fifty yards from the old one and still in sight of it.
What has reopened is one half of what closed. Carvèll on the Square traded its last day at 13 The Square on 27 August; the designer womenswear floor has not continued, and the Carvèll name has been retired. The lingerie, post-surgery and swimwear side — the part built on bespoke bra fitting, now running 30AA to 50K in larger fitting rooms — has moved round the corner with the same four-strong team, open Tuesday to Saturday, 10am to 5pm.
“We changed it on the sign in 2023 but nobody in Shrewsbury ever changed it in conversation — people still say they’re popping into Mystique,” Carvell said. “When a town has held on to a name for forty years, the sensible thing is to put it back above the door.” Market Street has watched enough shutters come down. This week one went back up.
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— What People Are Talking About —
Shrewsbury Town’s buyers finally have names
The Croud Meadow. Photo: Shropshire Live.
Two years of not knowing came to an end in the space of one week. The EFL and the new Independent Football Regulator both confirmed in writing on Monday 7 September that the takeover of Shrewsbury Town had been approved — and by Friday the club had put names to the American consortium behind it: Miami-based businessman Scott Davidson, with former USA and Premier League goalkeeper Brad Friedel joining the board.
Davidson is not new to British football. He has been majority shareholder and a director of Spartans FC in Edinburgh since July 2021, holds a UEFA A Licence, and took that club out of the Lowland League and into the SPFL, alongside one of the larger community football foundations in the UK. Two fellow Spartans board members, Will Dotson and Craig Graham, are lined up for seats at Shrewsbury, subject to the usual approvals.
Roland Wycherley put the club up for sale in 2024 and says he remains fully committed to getting the deal done smoothly. He has been chairman since 1996 — he saved the club from bankruptcy in the nineties and led the move to a new stadium — and once the remaining paperwork is signed, a thirty-year tenure ends. Whichever way you feel about the football, the town has had an anxious two years about whether it would keep having a club at all.
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— Someone Worth Knowing —
Mike Jones, the third generation of Shrewsbury’s bike family
Stan Jones opened the Grey Friars Cycle Depot on Greyfriars Road in 1951, and a Jones has been fixing Shrewsbury’s bikes ever since. His grandson Mike is now closing Velo Fit on Longden Coleham, 75 years into that family history — and going mobile instead, taking the repairs out to people’s sheds and hallways rather than waiting for the bikes to come to him.
The shop passed from Stan to his son Tom and then to Mike. About six years ago the family sold up to Trek and went off to run a cycling holiday business in France; Covid brought them home, and Mike opened Velo Fit on Coleham rather than let the trade go. Three generations, several addresses, one job.
“This is the start of another phase of my life,” he says — not the end of one. If your bike has been propped against the shed wall since the spring, the man who has been mending this town’s punctures for a quarter of a century is about to start coming to you.
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— What’s On · Food —
Yak & Yeti gives a Monday night’s takings to Nepal
Monday 14 September · dinner from 5pm
Yak & Yeti in Frankwell. Photo: Original Shrewsbury.
A member of Robin Sharma’s kitchen staff lost family property in the Nepal floods last month, so Sharma is giving away whole evenings. He runs two restaurants in town — Avatar on Mardol and Yak & Yeti at 53 Frankwell — and every Monday in September the meal sales from one of them go to the flood relief. Monday is Yak & Yeti’s turn.
Nothing costs you extra. “We are not charging customers any extra, we are just inviting customers to support on that day, come and have a meal,” Sharma said. “Whatever sales we make from meals we want to give to charity.” Avatar takes Monday 21 September, and Yak & Yeti comes round again on Monday 28 September.
The floods hit on 26 August, tearing through settlements along a 45-mile stretch of the Trishuli River. Frankwell to Rasuwa is a very long way. Ordering a plate of momo on a Monday is not.
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— What’s On · Heritage —
Shropshire Archives opens its store rooms for Heritage Open Days
Tuesday 15 September · free tours from 10.15am
Shropshire Archives, Castle Gates. Photo: Original Shrewsbury.
Six miles of documents sit behind a door on Castle Gates that the public never walks through — twelfth-century charters at one end, last month’s newspapers at the other. Shropshire Archives is opening it, free, for two 45-minute behind-the-scenes tours of the store rooms as part of Heritage Open Days.
You need to book: places are limited and go through [email protected]. There is a lift, and coats and bags go in lockers before you go through.
It is part of a national fortnight, 11–20 September, themed “Everyday Histories” — working life through the ages. Elsewhere in the county it is free into Dudmaston Hall from 13 to 20 September (closed the 18th and 19th), Benthall Hall on the 12th, 14th and 20th, and guided tours at Coalport China Museum and Broseley Pipeworks on 11–13 and 18–20 September, pre-booked through the National Trust.
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— What’s On · River —
The Back to the ’80s Cruise sails on the Sabrina Boat
Saturday 19 September · 7pm arrival, 7.30pm departure
Image: Sabrina Boat.
Shrewsbury spends most of the year looking at the Severn from the bank. On Saturday the Sabrina Boat puts three hours of eighties songs on it instead: the Back to the ’80s Cruise, £20 a ticket, over-18s only.
Arrive at 7pm, the boat leaves the pontoon at 7.30 and is back alongside at 10.30 — and the bar and disco stay open on board until midnight. If the river is in no mood to let them sail, the whole thing runs moored up instead, and they will replace your ticket if you would rather come another night.
Book ahead rather than turn up hopeful; it is a boat, and the tables run out.
That is a whole week, not just a weekend: a curry on Monday that ends up in Nepal, six miles of the town’s own paperwork on Tuesday morning, and the Severn under a glitterball on Saturday night. Two of the three are free and the third is twenty quid — what they actually need is you in the room.
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— Holding It Together —
Hope House needs shop volunteers. The children’s hospice charity is recruiting ahead of opening a new Bridgnorth charity shop twice the size of its current one — and a bigger shop only works if enough people turn up to run it. Read on
The Roy Fletcher Centre wants your memories. Founded by Shrewsbury builder Roy Fletcher in 1996 and now home to twelve charities doing counselling, housing, advice, disability support and food help, it turns 30 and is asking former staff, volunteers and anyone who has walked through its door for photographs and recollections. Read on
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— Town Wins —
The artisan market in the Square is 21. Made in Shropshire started in 2005 and now runs as a co-operative of more than 40 stallholders, on the second Saturday of every month in The Square. It marked the birthday this Saturday with prize draws for anyone spending over £20 on a stall. Read on
Nell Massin is Miss Earth England Fire. The 23-year-old, who moved from France to Shropshire five years ago, took the title at the national final over the August bank holiday — and says she wants to use it to campaign for the UK’s waterways, which starts about a mile from her front door. Read on
Free cover-ups at a Whitchurch tattoo studio. Lee Nicholls of The Lucky Turtle Tattoos covers self-harm scars for nothing, and says hundreds of messages arrive every month from people asking for it. Read on
£12,000 from two hikes. Shropshire charity Climbing Out, which runs outdoor programmes for young people rebuilding after trauma or illness, raised more than £12,000 from a pair of August fundraising treks. Read on
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Patrons & Sponsors
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Franci Capo — passionate lover of pizza at Shrewsbury Market. Founding Patron.
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Cheers,
Albert