An odd little alley now beguiles our footsteps, where an oldfashioned inn, its prominent signboard overtopped by St. Julian's church-tower, appears as set in a frame beneath an ancient archway. Thence we turn to the right, and pass a handsome new building on the site of Shearmen's Hall, an ancient foundation that in its time had played many parts, as a theatre, a chapel, a warehouse and a shop!
Thus we enter Wyle Cop,—how runs the verse?
'They hew, and they hack, and they chop;
And, to finish the whole, they stick up a pole,
In the place that's still called the Wylde Coppe,
And they pop
Your grim, gory head on the top!'
Several attractive-looking old structures confront us as we descend the steep pavement, prominent amongst them the ancient abode that figures upon page 15. This picturesque façade, with its blackened timbers and pretty traceried window adorned by coats of arms, has an added interest from the fact that it is 'Ye auncient house in which King Henry the VII loged, when he went to Bosworth Field, Augst 1485.' So at least the panel beneath the window has it, though Henry, of course, was but Harry of Richmond until that fateful battle had won for him the crown.
Old Houses in Wyle Cop. Shrewsbury.
While exploring the vicinity of Wyle Cop, many another bit of old Shrewsbury is brought to light, notably the nicely restored frontage of the Unicorn Hotel; and, hidden away amidst some poor cottages by Severn side, a few scanty relics of Grey Friars' monastery, in its time one of the stateliest religious houses in Shrewsbury. Thenceforward we hug the river brink until, coming to the English Bridge, we traverse it, and find ourselves in the broad thoroughfare called Abbey Foregate—
'A long greate streate, well buildid, large and faire,
In as good Ayre as may be wisht with wit;
Where Abbey stands, and is such ringe of Belles,
As is not found from London unto Welles.'
These lines by Churchyard, the old Shropshire poet, still hold good in the main, though railway encroachments have much to answer for. But the pièce de résistance is happily still there, and the ruddy, timeworn tower of the Abbey Church now rises before us, while its mellow-toned bells speak for themselves, pealing out a quaint, merry chime upon the springlike air as we draw near.