Upton Cressett Hall.
Let us now stroll across to the Hall. As indicated upon a panel let into the wall, the house was erected in the year 1580, and the fine chimney stacks and diapered gables which figure in our sketch date from about that period. Viewed from the north-east, its chequered gables, bronzed, lichen-clad roofs, and wrinkled chimneys, rise with charming effect against the dappled blue of the sky.
Internally the house has been much modernized, but some of the older chambers are nicely wainscoted; and the 'chapel room' upstairs is divided by the great beams of the roof into bays, with arched braces and a sort of embattled cornice, all as massive and simple as possible.
Beyond a green courtyard rises the Gatehouse, a curious little building with ivied gables and quaint angle turrets, apparently coeval with the mansion, and, like it, constructed of fine, timeworn brickwork, of a pleasant mellow hue. The gateway passage shews remnants of antique gothic lettering, now illegible from decay. A stairway in one of the turrets leads to several small chambers, in one of which Prince Rupert is said to have slept. Some fine though damaged plasterwork in this room displays the usual Tudor emblems, and the word . iesv . upon a heart, all delicately executed.
The course of the moat, the ancient well, and the site of the drawbridge can still be identified, a gigantic oak tree marking the outlet of the former. There is said to have been, in the olden times, a subterranean passage running from here to Holgate Castle, in Corve Dale; but, as that is six miles distant as the crow flies, the tradition must be accepted cum grano salis.
Bidding farewell to Upton Cressett, we work a course back to Bridgnorth by a different route. This leads us near to The Hay, a place where, long, long ago, the Lady Juliana de Kenley owned certain lands, which, as is recorded, she disposed of for the moderate rental of one pair of white gloves, value one halfpenny, 'in lieu of all suit of Court and Halimot.'
Once more we pace the now familiar 'petrified kidneys' of the old Severn-side town, and so come at last to our nocturnal lodging place. Turning in for the night, we quickly lose ourselves in the arms of Morpheus, our day's adventures are finally 'rounded with a sleep'—and the rest is silence.