Stocks & Whipping Post at Stockton.
[BETWEEN SEVERN AND CLEE.]
he morning mists hang white and chill about the ghostly landscape, like a world rolled up in cotton wool, as, turning our backs upon Bridgnorth, we hie away southwards adown the vale of Severn. The sun, robbed of his rays, and wan as the moon herself, looks over the low hills of the Staffordshire border; and a fleecy, mackerel sky, gives promise of a likely day in store for folk who fare abroad.
Descending the hill and crossing Severn bridge, we push onward at a good round pace along Hospital Street, so named from the Leper House, or Hospital, which in mediæval days occupied the site of yonder old brick mansion, called St. James's, which now comes in sight among the trees upon our left.
A mile farther on, where the road bifurcates, we are within a measurable distance of the Gallows Leasow, the site of another grim relic of feudal times. Here, too, is Danesford; a name that carries us still farther back into the past.
Towards the close of the ninth century, the Danes, driven out of Essex by King Alfred, sought refuge in this locality, and entrenched themselves in the great Forest of Morf, which in those days covered all this countryside.
Presently as we travel along, Quatford church-tower is seen overlooking a bend of the river. Quatford, the Cwth-Briege of the Saxon Chronicle, is a very ancient place, the earliest records of which take us back to King Alfred's days.