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The Vengerberg TrustVengerberg Museum and Visitor Information

A short history

Vengerberg’s history in brief, from the research volunteers’ timeline in the museum foyer.

The town takes its name from the hill above it. The Domesday survey of 1086 calls it Wengeberge, and the museum’s best reading is “Wenga’s barrow” or “Wenga’s hill”, after the round barrow on the top of Beacon Hill and a man named Wenga who is otherwise unknown.

It was a manor with a mill when the survey was made. The market charter of 1252 made it a town, and by 1300 it had a borough court, burgesses holding plots on the Market Square, High Street and Sheep Street, and a bridge over the Pontar. The wool trade paid for the church tower, the grammar school and the almshouses.

The river has shaped the town as much as the market. Barges came up to the Town Quay until the 1920s, the Town Mill ground corn for nine hundred years, and the floods, five of them cut into the bridge, are remembered in the town’s records, its bell and its legend.

  1. About 1800 BCA round barrow is raised on the top of Beacon Hill.
  2. 1086The Domesday survey records Wengeberge, with a mill, a priest and land for six ploughs.
  3. 1252Henry III grants Ralph de Wengeberge a Thursday market and an August fair on the feast of St Laurence.
  4. About 1340The tower of St Laurence’s Church is built.
  5. 1384The charter is confirmed, and the town’s burgesses are allowed to keep the tolls of the market.
  6. 1558The free grammar school opens in its new schoolroom on Sheep Street, under the will of Thomas Corbet.
  7. 1611Margery Corbet founds the almshouses on Almshouse Row for eight widows.
  8. 1634A survey of the borough is made, the earliest that names the fields and streets.
  9. 1648The great flood of February. The river rises 2.64 metres above its summer level, the highest mark on the bridge.
  10. 1652The Flood Bell is cast and hung on the Town Quay.
  11. About 1660Violet glass is set in the window of the north aisle of St Laurence’s.
  12. 1690The Shambles are roofed over.
  13. 1694The earliest surviving impression of the borough seal, with the star.
  14. 1712The grammar school is enlarged and its rules painted on a board.
  15. 1768The turnpike road replaces the Old Road over the hill.
  16. 1771The Town Bridge is widened and three of its arches rebuilt.
  17. 1784The Town Mill is rebuilt.
  18. 1795The thaw flood of February; the Flood Bell is rung at two in the morning.
  19. 1836The grammar school’s west wing is added.
  20. 1852The November flood reaches the Shambles.
  21. 1859The railway reaches Vengerberg.
  22. 1866The spire of St Laurence’s is rebuilt.
  23. 1874The last St Laurence’s fair.
  24. 1897The pamphlet The Lilac Lady of Vengerberg prints the legend for the statue subscription.
  25. 1898The statue in the Market Square is unveiled on 19 May.
  26. 1899The first Lilac Fair and Procession.
  27. 1909The grammar school moves to Station Road.
  28. 1947The March flood: 41 houses flooded on Bridge Street and Water Lane.
  29. 1953The cordial stall begins.
  30. 1961The Vengerberg and District Historical Society is formed.
  31. 1962The Town Mill stops work.
  32. 1964The Historical Society opens the museum in the Old Grammar School.
  33. 1974The borough council is abolished and a town council formed.
  34. 1987The Vengerberg Trust is formed to run the museum and the Lilac Fair.
  35. 1999The Trust buys the Old Grammar School.
  36. 2007The July flood; the new wall on Water Lane holds.
  37. 2016The Trust becomes a charitable incorporated organisation.
  38. 2022The flood marks on the bridge are recorded and recut.

Compiled by the museum’s research volunteers. Corrections and additions are welcome at curator@vengerberg.org.