BUILDWAS.
In descending the dingle between Wenlock and Buildwas, at a point described by an old writer as the boundary of the domains of the two abbeys, is Lawless Cross, formerly one of those ancient sanctuaries, the resort of outlaws who, having committed crime, availed themselves of that security from punishment such places afforded. The monks, in the exercise of that excessive influence they had in those days, provided places, deemed sacred, which should serve for refuge for criminals. A cross was erected for the lawless; from which even the monarch had no power to take them. Villains doubly dyed in crime were wont to rush out from such hiding-places, commit crimes with impunity, and return. The evil, indeed, had become so great, that the Courts of Westminster, in Hilary Term, 1221, were employed in considering the expediency of altering “a certain pass in the Royal Forest near to Buldewas,” from its having become “the haunts of malefactors, and from its notoriety for the constant commission of crime.” Below this is the Abbey Mill, and lower still is the Abbey. The line passes through what was once the cemetery, and over ground formerly occupied by the industrial courts of the establishment. A fine view is obtained of the church, which presents a good specimen of a Cistercian edifice, every part of the original arrangement being distinctly traceable.
The massive proportions of its arcades, and the scolloped capitals of their columns, indicate the Norman style of architecture; whilst the pointed arches show an approach towards that which superseded it, which began about the year 1150. The clerestory remains entire on both sides, with round arched windows throughout. Between the columns are indications of a screen, which shut off the eastern aisles; at the
end of the fifth arch from the west, the choir, or portion devoted to the monks, commences; and at the intersection of the transepts still stands the tower, resting on four pointed arches. At the eastern end, beneath long windows, which at some period or other have been formed out of smaller ones, stood the altar, and near it the sedilia; whilst on the south side are the doorways which led to the dormitories of the monks engaged in the night services of the church. On the side next the river, a long line of building forms the eastern cloister and the crypt; on the same side is a handsome archway leading into the chapter-house, the roof of which is vaulted, groined, and supported by beautiful slender columns. Beyond are the remains of the refectory, and the room of audience—the only place where, according to the strict rules of the order, the monks were permitted to converse; and here also was the warm-room, kitchen, and lavatory. On the same side are remains of a string of offices for novices, and for scribes employed in multiplying copies of the Scriptures and other books.
Our engraving represents the church as seen by moonlight, when strong lights and shadows bring to mind the well-known lines of Sir Walter Scott:—
“If thou wouldst view fair Melrose aright,
Go visit it by the pale moonlight.
For the gay beams of lightsome day
Gild but to flout the ruins gray:
When the broken arches are black in night,
And each shafted oriel glimmers white;
When the cold light’s uncertain shower
Streams on the ruin’d central tower;
When buttress and buttress alternately
Seem framed of ebon and ivory.”
The traveller by the Severn Valley Railway can scarcely fail to notice here, and at other points along the line, beds of sand and gravel at levels above the highest points now reached by the river; wave-like sweeps of water-worn materials still higher up are no less conspicuous. In both these are found the Turritella terebra, and other shells of modern seas, identifying them with the period when a marine strait extended the whole distance from the Dee to the Bristol Channel. The cutting near Coalbrookdale has yielded a rich harvest of these marine remains, sufficient satisfactorily to indicate the true position of the beds, and to associate them with others of great interest elsewhere. Along one of the ancient estuaries of this recent sea, now the Vale of Shrewsbury, the Severn winds in curious curves, and almost meets in circles, imparting a pleasing aspect to the valley. On leaving Buildwas, Buildwas Park is passed on the left, and Leighton Hall and church are seen on the opposite side of the river; while on the left again are Shineton, Shinewood, and Bannister’s Coppice; the latter famous as the hiding-place of the Duke of Buckingham, when unable to cross the river with his army at its mouth. Shakspere alludes to the event, in “King Richard,” thus:—
“The news I have to tell your majesty
Is, that by sudden flood and fall of waters,
Buckingham’s army is dispersed and scatter’d,
And he himself wandered away alone,
No man knows whither.”
Tradition says that the fallen nobleman was betrayed by an old servant to whom the wood belonged, named Bannister; and an old writer thus records the curses which he says befel the traitor: “Shortly after he had betrayed his master, his
sonne and heyre waxed mad, and dyed in a bore’s stye; his eldest daughter, of excellent beautie, was sodaynelie stryken with a foulle leperze; his seconde sonne very mervalously deformed of his limmes; his younger sonne in a smal puddell was strangled and drowned; and he, being of extreme age, arraigned and found gyltie of a murther, was only by his clergye saved; and as for his thousand pounde, Kyng Richard gave him not one farthing, saying that he which would be untrew to so good a master would be false to al other; howbeit some saie that he had a smal office or a ferme to stoppe his mouthe withal.”
