In one corner of the churchyard stand Palmer's Almshouses, a series of low, timbered structures, grouped around a small courtyard approached through a modernized archway. This charity owes its inception to Francis Palmer, nephew of Colonel Billingsley, by whom it was established in 1687 for the benefit of ten poor widows.
Close at hand rise the plain, brown brick gables of the erstwhile Grammar School, established in Henry the Eighth's time; a sedate-looking, antiquated edifice, attractive by its very simplicity. A diminutive black-and-white cottage, whose latticed casements look out demurely upon the churchyard, was once the home of Richard Baxter, the divine, ere his name had become famous in the land.
We now pass on into the High Street, a broad, cheerful thoroughfare, over whose uneasy, cobble-stone pavement, we make our penitential progress. Midway adown the street rises the ancient Town Hall, the centre and focus of Bridgnorth, its plain rounded archways bestriding the horse-road, and affording a passage way. Overhead, its half-timbered gable is relieved by oriel windows filled with stained glass; while the steep, tiled roof is surmounted by a slender bell-turret, terminating in a weather vane.
This notable old building dates from the year 1652, having been erected by the burgesses to replace an earlier Town Hall, destroyed during the Civil Wars. Here may be seen the Council Chamber, the Court of Justice, etc., where the town magnates sit in conclave to administer the affairs of this historic Borough; and the modern stained glass windows of the various courts, inserted as a memorial of the Queen's Jubilee, afford a study in the corporate life of Bridgnorth.
Confronting the Town Hall, across the way, appears the ancient many-windowed façade of the Swan Inn, a rare specimen of a country-town hostelry of the spacious Tudor times; and scarcely less effective, though more modernized, are the chequered gables and quaintly carved brackets of a neighbouring residence. The North Gate, last survivor of Bridgnorth's town gates, spans the end of the street with its three uneven archways.
Market Place. Bridgnorth.
Saturday is market-day at Bridgnorth, as it has been from time immemorial. The long ranks of tented booths, with the crowds frequenting them, make an animated scene; for the countryfolk foregather then from long distances around, and hearty Shropshire greetings are heard on every hand. As nightfall wears on the fun waxes faster; and lucky the housewives whose menfolk win their way home at last in no worse plight than 'market-peart,' to use the Shropshire phrase.