The two acres then explored, with the little that has been done since, give the impression that if the three-miles’ circuit of the walls could be excavated, results surpassing the finds at Silchester might be attained.
From Wroxeter, crossing the Severn, the Watling Street went by the two Strettons Wattlesborough, taking its name from being situated on the great road; Rutunium, now Rowton; thence to Mediolanum at the crossing of the river Tanad, under the Breidden, a site now called Clawdd Coch, or “Red Ditch”; Mons Heriri, under the shadow of Snowdon (whose Welsh name is Eryri, or Eagles’ Mountain) at the ancient earthwork known as Tomen-y-Mur, in the Vale of Maentwrog; and to the sea-coast at Segontium, identified with Caer Seiont, near Carnarvon. A branch, with stations of the way at Bovium (Bangor-ys-Coed); Deva, the great fortress of the Twentieth Legion, identical with Chester, on the Dee; Varae, the modern Bodfari; and Conovium, by the Conway (Caer Hên, or Old Fort), traversed the Dee estuary and the coast-line looking out to Anglesey and the Irish Sea.
XIX
Returning from Wroxeter and passing the tiny hamlet of Norton, the way lies flat to Shrewsbury. Flat, because we are now come beside the Severn (which no Welshman calls anything else than Sivern). Away across the watery plain as we advance are the Stretton Hills on the left, volcanic and mountainous in outline, blue and beautiful in colour; and, more distant, ahead, far beyond Shrewsbury, the Breidden Hills, a great bulk starting from the level without any disguise of foothills or preliminary rises to detract from their dramatic effect.
The Tern, a tributary of the Severn, crosses the road beneath a handsome stone balustraded bridge, with views to the right over Attingham Park and along the road, through a mass of overarching trees, toward the village of Atcham. There, in the Park, stands the classical stone building of Attingham Hall, one of those places built a century or more ago at incredible expense, and only to be maintained at a cost far exceeding the resources available to-day. Corn at 50s. and 60s. a quarter built many fine mansions, and nowadays corn at 25s. keeps them empty. Attingham Hall lacks a tenant. It belongs to Lord Berwick, whose title does not, by the way, come from the only Berwick commonly known—the town of Berwick-on-Tweed—but from Berwick Maviston, close by Atcham, the old home of the extinct Malvoisin or Mayvesin family.
The chief entrance to Attingham Park is through the great archway in Atcham village. One side of the village street is made up of church, school-house, post office, a deserted coaching inn, and a number of rustic cottages; the other is the long brick wall of the Park, densely overhung with trees, on to which the village blankly looks. The only opening in this wall is the great archway aforesaid; very tall, Doric, and stony. With a spinal shiver the stranger, who stands wondering awhile where he has seen its like, suddenly realises the resemblance it bears to the entrance of certain great London cemeteries. The arch is flanked by a stag on one side and by a pegasus on the other, with the inscription in gigantic lettering in between: “Qui uti scit ei bona.” A very proper aspiration; but it is just as well that tramps are innocent as a rule of Latin, or they might not inaptly call and ask for something on account.
Opposite this gateway stands what was once the “Talbot,” a first-class posting-house. It looks on to the church in one direction, the entrance to the Park in another, and down upon the Severn in a third, so that its situation is by no means commonplace. When the altered conditions of travelling rendered it no longer possible to carry on a remunerative business here, the hotel was converted into a private mansion, and the gravelled drive walled in and turfed, but it has only been occupied for short periods and has long stood empty. Like the Princess in the fairy tale, it waits and still waits, looking up the road and down the road and over the bridge for the expected. It is weary waiting, and even the rats and mice who lived royally in old times, and were reduced at last to the pitiful expedient of subsisting on the faint smell of what had been, gave it up and lived on one another. The ultimate survivor is believed to have committed suicide in the Severn.
It is a noble bridge that spans the river here, and, built before the art—no, not the art, the science—of constructing bridges in iron was understood, is of stone, and very steep. This steepness added to its narrow proportions was a terror to those nervous coach-passengers whose faith in Sam Hayward of the “Wonder” was not what it should have been, considering the consummate art he displayed as a whip. But possibly they thought that all the artistry in the world would be of little use to save them and the coach if, on one of the wintry nights and mornings when the Severn mists had obscured the road, they came into collision with the parapets and so were hurled into the swirling river; and, moreover, the hours—5.30 in the morning and 10 at night—when the “Wonder” passed this dangerous spot, are not those when courage is high and confidence greatest.
ATCHAM BRIDGE.