(named after a chapel of ease on the Horton Road dedicated to St John which was suppressed in 1548). There was a Manorial Court House at Wem in which a twice yearly Court leet with the grim privilege of a gallows, hearing pleas including hue-and-cry, bloodshed. Tudor Period In Henry VIII's reign Lord Dacre (d. 1563) began to fell Northwood, a task completed by the Countess of Arundel (d. 1630), his grand-daughter. Dacre also drained the Old Pool, work again completed by his grand-daughter. By 1561 the former castle enclosure was held at will by the Rector, John Dacre. Manor perquisites noted in 1589 show that there were two annual fairs where the lord took a toll on all goods worth above 12d. sold by strangers and tenants (but not burgagers) and the profits of the courts. In 1579 the lord's steward ruled that there should not be more than five alehouses in the township; however, unlicensed brewers were not prevented and were fined in number at each court leet. 1600s Civil war In September 1642, during the English Civil War Charles I passed close by Wem en route from Chester to Shrewsbury at the invitation of the corporation of the latter town, taking the route via Soulton and Lee Brockhurst, and in early 1642 Royalists were staying in Wem. However, during the campaigns in Newbury and Gloucester the town was planted with a Parliamentarian garrison. Under the supervision of Sir William Brereton a broad ditch four yards deep and wide and rampart, strengthened by a palisade made from timber cut from a felled 50 acre wood at Loppington was thrown up around the town to fortify it (some traces of this survive in the town). The route of this fortification was as follows: it began at a wooden tower on Soulton Road, just beyond the present station, from there it ran to "Shrewsbury Gate" crossing Well Walk and the bottom of Roden House garden; it than ran to the "Ellesmere Gate" where the stream crossed road; the earthworks continued along the back of Noble Street to "Whitchurch Gate"; on from there to "Drayton Gate" at 18 Aston Street and then back to the wooden tower. Many of the buildings beyond this rampart were destroyed in fortifying the town, to prevent them being of use to attackers. The town was the seat of the Shropshire Committee until the fall of