- who walked to London as a teenager just after the Great Fire in 1666, married her third husband Joseph Yates when she was over 90, and died at the age of 127. There is a Nanny Murphy's Lane just to the north of Shifnal. The same stone memorial tablet records that William Wakely was baptised on 1 May 1590 and was buried on 28 November 1714, after living through the reigns of eight kings and queens. The best example of Shropshire Scroll, a 16th-century style of swirling wall painting unique to the county, was uncovered in 2010 by renovators in a Grade II listed property on Broadway. The 2 m by 2.5 m work, on display at what is now the Black Orchid hair salon, had been hidden behind a wall for more than a century. 18th and 19th centuries Thomas Beddoes, a well-known physician, was born in 1760 at Balcony House, named for a room projecting above the roof line, on the east side of Market Place. This building later became the Star Hotel. Aston Hall, built about 1720 at the east side of the town, was home to tobacco plantation and slave owners, George Austin and John Moultrie, the latter rising to be acting governor of East Florida. Austin was born in the town in 1710, the son of a mercer and went to South Carolina where he became involved in developing tobacco plantations, one of which he named Shifnal, 1,415 acres next to the Ashepoo river and which had 85 slaves. Austin became one of the wealthiest men in the colonies, but following disputes with his business partner, Henry Laurens, returned to England in 1762 and settled at Aston Hall. Austin was also responsible for the first person of colour recorded as living in Shifnal. In 1766 Benjamin Priouleu "a black servant to Mr Austin" was baptised in the town. 19 years later the parish records note that Lucy Bartlet "a black woman" was buried there. In 1771, Moultrie became Lieutenant-Governor of Florida and encouraged a road-building programme. He became acting governor when his predecessor, James Grant, was invalided home in 1771 and held the position until 1774. His four brothers were key players on opposing sides of the American War of Independence. A Baptist church was established in Aston Street at the end of the 18th century, but it closed down before the 20th century.