At Cleobury was born in the fourteenth century William Langland, the 'Poet of the Lollards.' About the year 1362, Langland composed those 'Visions of Piers Plowman,' which have caused their author to be acknowledged as one of the earliest of England's songsters.
So much, then, for the brave days of old. Cleobury Mortimer as we see it to-day is a long, straggling, torpid townlet, whose agricultural proclivities are chequered by the mining industries carried on around Titterstone Clee Hill, and the woodcraft of the people who dwell in the neighbouring Forest of Wyre.
Having secured a night's billet at the Talbot Inn, we sally forth again and proceed to spy out the land. Out in the High Street is seen a block of timeworn sandstone, whereon, according to a credible tradition, young Arthur Tudor's body was laid, he having died while travelling this way from Ludlow Castle to Bewdley.
A few yards farther on we come to the parish church, a noble old pile dedicated to St. Mary the Virgin, the central and dominant feature of Cleobury town. Its graceful arches and elegant fenestration mark the Early English period; though the tower, the oldest portion of the fabric, dates back to Norman times. Far aloft soars the tall wooden steeple, whose old warped timbers, stripped of their clumsy boarding, are now being clad in a weatherproof garb of stout oak shingles.
A large, handsome south porch gives access to the interior, where, inter alia, we observe a remarkably shapely chancel arch, and some modern stained glass in the east window, a memorial to William Langland, the poet, who may be descried therein, dreaming over his 'visions' as he reclines on a bank, with Malvern Hills away in the background.
Cleobury-Mortimer, from the Wells.
A further ramble about the town introduces us to Cleobury College, a handsome building in a pleasant situation, erected, as a tablet informs us, by Sir Lacon W. Childe, of Kinlet, in 1740, and recently enlarged and improved. Then, down in a hollow of the highway, we stumble across the quaint view which our artist has here reproduced; the crooked church steeple soaring heavenwards above a tall Scotch fir, while the foreground is occupied by an arched grotto enclosing the crystal-clear, perennial spring, called the Wells, whence the townsfolk draw their unfailing supply of water.
From Cleobury Mortimer we will make an excursion towards Bewdley; our route, for a large part of the way, lying through the heart of Wyre Forest. The forest is worth a visit, though nowadays the 'tall oaks' of Camden's time are conspicuous by their absence, having long since been cut down and carried off to smelt the iron ore of the Midlands, ere 'sea-coal' came into use.