‘Beggarly’ Broom, and ‘Drunken’ Bidford.
“Haunted Hillborough,” which comes next in order in this rhymed survey, is geographically remote from Long Marston, not so much in mere mileage, for it is not quite three miles distant, measured in a straight line, but it is situated on the other, and Warwickshire, side of the Avon, at a point where the river is not bridged. In short, the traveller from Long Marston to Hillborough will scarcely perform the journey under six miles, going by way of Dorsington and Barton, always along crooked roads, and thence through Bidford. Dorsington is an entirely pretty and extremely small village with a church noticeable only for the whimsical smallness of its red-brick Georgian tower. Why, in a lesser-known local rhyme, which does not find celebrity upon postcards and fancy articles at Stratford-on-Avon, Dorsington should be known as “Daft” is more than I can say; unless it be that the facile alliteration is irresistible. There are reasons sufficient for this lack of popularity, in the lines in which Dorsington’s name occurs—
“Daft Dorsington, Lousy Luddington,
Welford for witches, Hinton for bitches,
An’ Weston at th’ end of th’ ’orld.”
Barton, through which we come into Bidford, is, as might perhaps be suspected from its name, merely a rustic hamlet, for “barton” is but the old English word for a cow-byre or a barn. It is that “Burton Heath” mentioned in the Taming of the Shrew, of which Christopher Sly, “old Sly’s son,” “by birth a pedlar, by education a card-maker, by transmutation a bear-herd, and now by present profession a tinker,” was a native.
From Barton we cross the Avon into Bidford over an ancient bridge of eight arches built in 1482 by the brethren of Alcester priory to replace the ford by which travellers along the Ryknield Street had up to that time crossed the river. The eight arches of Bidford achieve the rather difficult feat of being each of a different shape and size, and the heavy stonework itself has been extensively patched with brick. Here the Avon is encumbered with eyots and rushes, very destructive to the navigation, but affording very useful foregrounds for the illustrator.
Bidford is wholly on the further, or Warwickshire, side of the river, and is a rather urban-looking place of one very long and narrow street. It has a population of over a thousand, and thus, I believe, comes under the official definition of a “populous place,” whose inns and public-houses are permitted to remain open until 11 p.m., which may or may not be a consideration here. The inns of Bidford are numerous, but they do not appear to enjoy their former prosperity. I adventured into one of them one thirsty summer day, for the purpose of sampling some of the “perry” advertised for sale within. There was no joy in the sour sorry stuff it proved to be. You get quite a quantity of it for three-halfpence; but it is odds against your drinking half of it. The landlady dolefully spoke of the state of trade. She had not taken half-a-crown that day. Truly, the glories of Bidford have departed!
The old “Falcon” inn, an inn no longer, nor for many years past, stands in the midst of this very considerable village, close by the parish church, whose odd and not beautiful tower forms a prominent object in the view from the bridge. It is not in the least worth while to enter that church, for it has been almost wholly rebuilt. The nave has a ceiling, and there are deal doors, painted and grained to resemble oak. The chancel, reconstructed in the more florid and unrestrained period of the Gothic revival, is a lamentable specimen of architectural zeal not according to discretion.
