Thomas Telford upgraded Watling Street, the turnpike road that passed through the town, in the late 18th century. This road carried traffic from London to Shrewsbury, Chester and Holyhead for Ireland, bringing considerable prosperity to the town. There had been a regular stagecoach service through the town from 1681, but when mail coaches began to pass through from 1785 transport became important in the local economy, rising to 18 coaches a day by 1829. Passengers could rest from their travels at three coaching inns: the Jerningham Arms, the Star Hotel and the Unicorn. At the beginning of the 19th century the Holyhead mail coach could travel from London to Shifnal in 27 hours: by 1831 that had been reduced that to 16.5 hours, using 150 horses along the route. However traffic was already declining by 1844, when there were only nine coaches a day. When the railways reached the town in 1849 the remaining trade rapidly disappeared. During this period of prosperity many new houses were built, lending Shifnal a Georgian air. The name Idsall was still used to distinguish the area around the St Andrew's Church and the Manor from the market and commercial area of Shifnal. There are records of a parish workhouse in operation in Shifnal in 1777 with accommodation for up to 40 inmates. A new parish workhouse was built on Park Street in 1817. It was adopted as the workhouse for the Shifnal Poor Law Union and was enlarged in 1840–1 at about £800. The number of inmates was never more than 100. The buildings later became part of Shifnal Hospital before being turned into homes. In 1855 a house on Broadway, used by the town's 200-odd Catholics for mass, was burnt down during an anti-Irish riot. Lord Stafford replaced it in 1860 with a combination school and church he built on land he donated at the corner of Victoria Road and Shrewsbury Road. The school closed about 1917, but the building has continued as a church. The present presbytery on Victoria Road, the original school-master's house, still has Lord Stafford's coat of arms above the door. The railway line from London and Birmingham to Holyhead was constructed through Shifnal at high level in the late 1840s. The massive viaduct for the railway divided the town: its construction was a considerable engineering achievement, crossing the marshy valley of the Wesley Brook on foundations laid on