Old Oswestry, also called Old Fort (Welsh Hen Dinas), is a British earthwork about a mile from the modern town.
There are various unsatisfactory accounts of the early history of Oswestry (Blaneminster, or Album Monasterium), as that it was called Trer Cadeirau by the Britons and Osweiling after Cunelda Wledig, prince of North Wales, had granted it to his -son Osweil.
It derives its present name from Oswald, king of Northumbria, who is said to have been killed here in 642, although it was not definitely known as Oswestry until the 13th century.
Tn the Domesday Survey it is included in the manor of Maesbury, which Rainald, sheriff of Shropshire, held of Roger, earl of Shrewsbury; but Rainald or his predecessor Warm had already raised a fortification at Oswestry called Louvre.
In the 15th and 16th .centuries a weekly market was held at Oswestry for the sale of woollen goods manufactured in North Wales, but in the 17th century the drapers of Shrewsbury determined to get the trade into their own town, and although an Order in the Privy Council was passed to restrain it to Oswestry they agreed in 1621 to buy no more cloth there.
