ON THE SHREWSBURY AND BIRMINGHAM LINE, AND ON THE WELLINGTON AND STAFFORD BRANCH OF THE SHROPSHIRE UNION RAILWAY. _Station_, Church street CARRIERS, BY RAILWAY AND CANAL. To BIRMINGHAM, by the Carriers to WOLVERHAMPTON. To CHESTER, LIVERPOOL, and MANCHESTER, the Shropshire Union Railway and Canal Company, from Wappenshall wharf, daily, and Henshall & Co. from the same wharf, two or three times a week by Canal. To WOLVERHAMPTON, BIRMINGHAM, and LONDON, the Shropshire Union Railway and Canal Co. from Wappenshall wharf, daily by Canal. WEM, WITH THE VILLAGES OF PREES, EDSTASTON, LOPPINGTON AND NEIGHBOURHOODS. WEM is a parish, partly in the Whitchurch division of the hundred of Bradford, and extending into the hundred of Pimhill—the market town is 164 miles N.W. from London, 10 N. from Shrewsbury, and the like distance S. from Whitchurch; pleasantly situated on the road leading to the two last named towns, and near to the source of the Roden. Wem was the first town in the county which declared for the parliament in 1643: in that year a party of the king’s troops attempted to capture it by storm, but were repulsed by the small garrison, assisted, it is affirmed, by the zealous exertions of the women; and at a subsequent period, under the government of Major General Mytton, the garrison plundered the houses and possessions of the neighbouring royalists—and the booty conveyed by them into the town was the means of its flourishing more than at any antecedent period. Many of the houses are ancient structures, the more modern ones having been erected after the destructive fire in 1677, which consumed the church, market house, and whole ranges of buildings, destroying property to the amount of £23,000. The unprincipled Judge Jeffreys became possessed of this place about the year 1685, and was created Baron Wem, being the first who enjoyed that dignity by patent, but at the death of his son the title became extinct. This place is not distinguished by manufactories or any peculiar branch of trade—there are two tan-yards, several maltings and two or three corn mills in the vicinity, that belonging to Thomas Jebb, junr. is a large and powerful one driven by steam: the business here generally, however, is dependent on supplying the inhabitants, and those of the immediate neighbourhood (which is very respectable), with articles of ordinary consumption. The streets are well lighted with gas, and there are many good shops and several respectable private residences in New street. An act of parliament has been obtained for a branch from the London and North Western Railway from Shrewsbury to Crewe, which will pass through this town. The principal officers are two bailiffs, appointed annually at a court leet, held soon after Michaelmas—one by the manorial lord’s steward, and the other by the borough jury. Wem is included in the twenty seventh circuit of County Court towns, under the acts passed for