Footnotes:
[1] There can be no doubt that there was in ancient times a bridge at Quatford, for it is called in old writers, “Cwatbridge.” It was very likely a wooden bridge, one pier of which stood on an islet in the stream. In the very ancient map of Bridgnorth, and of its immediate neighbourhood, which is in possession of the Corporation, (a copy of which will be found in the present volume) this islet is marked out, and called “Brugg Bylett,” or Island Bridge. The present Ferryman, Richard Turley, very well recollects this bylet, and his having played on it when a boy: it was nearly a quarter of an acre in size, and covered with alders and willows. An old villager told the late Mr. Smallman that he remembered beams of wood being raised from that part of the river.
[2] “Aliâ excursione celeriter factâ in occiduas Angliæ partes in oppido ad Sabrinam, nomine Quatbrigia (forte Quatfordia prope Bridgnortham) quantâ poterant celeritate maximâ vallum sibi conficiunt.”—Spelman’s Life of Alfred the Great, B. 1, 94.
“In great haste they departed their fortress, leaving their wives and children to the mercy of the English, neither stayed they till they came into the borders of Wales, where at Quatbridge upon Severn, they built another castle.”—Speed, B. VII., c. 34.
[3] Mr. Hartshorne, in his Salopia Antiqua, (pp. 91 and 101) expresses the opinion, that these tumuli were the work of the ancient Britons, and not of the Danes. However, the same writer considers Burf Castle, an earthwork situated on the summit of a hill, about a mile and half east of Quatford, to be certainly Danish. (pp. 210-12.)
[5] That Oldbury is more ancient than Bridgnorth appears from the fact, that the former is mentioned in Domesday Book, and the latter is not noticed.
[6] The remains of this castle were still standing when Leland visited Shropshire, in the time of Henry VIII.—“Quatford is by S. E. from Bridgnorth on Severne, where as yett appeare great Tokens of a Pyle or Manour Place, longing that tyme to Robert de Belesme.”—Leland’s Itinerary, Vol. IV., pp. 103, 104.
[7] This narrative may possibly be somewhat tinctured with the superstition which prevailed at the time; but there is no reason to doubt the general truth of it. Mr. Eyton, to whom I am indebted for my acquaintance with it, after giving the whole of the narrative in detail, in Vol. 1, part 2, p. 107, of his Antiquities of Shropshire, makes this comment on it:—“The whole of this narrative is credible in itself, and minutely consistent with other ascertained facts; nor need we take exception even to the Priest’s dream, for who knows not that the feverish sleep of over fatigue will invest our hopes and anxieties with some garb of life-like reality. Moreover this priest lived at a time when priests were taught to believe in and to expect such special revelations of the divine will.”
“Parts of this story nevertheless, require explanation; and the whole of it must be tested by other facts and dates before we admit it to that credence, which the details of a legend most seldom deserve.”