'The bloody rout that gave
To Harry's brow a wreath—to Hotspur's heart a grave.'
A Maiden Garland from Minsterley.
Soon after leaving the Shelton Oak, the towers and steeples of the County-town put in an appearance ahead; here and there a country house is seen, overlooking the Severn as it winds through the vale, and bricks and mortar begin to usurp the place of trim green fields and hedgerows. That red-brick mansion upon yonder bank is The Mount, birthplace of that very distinguished Salopian, the late Charles Darwin.
Anon we descend a hill, and enter the 'antient streete callyd Fraunckarell this many a daye,' a transpontine suburb of Shrewsbury, deriving its name from the fact that, in earlier days, its denizens were exempted from payment of certain tolls levied upon their neighbours over the water.
Across the street rises a group of half-timbered houses, whose quaint congeries of beetling gables, chequered beams, lattice-paned casements, and dark, timeworn archways, make an old-world picture. More ancient still, perhaps, is the long, low, two-storied house front a little farther on; its massive old moulded cornices black with age, and curious louvred lights in the upper story—a venerable specimen.
And here at last is the Welsh Bridge, in Leland's time the 'greatest, fayrest, and highest Bridge upon Severne Streame.' At that period, as Leland tells us, the Bridge had 'six great Arches of stone, with a great gate at one end of it to enter by into the Towne, and at the other end towardes Wales a mighty stronge Towre, to prohibit Enimies to enter into the bridge.'
Old paintings and woodcuts shew it to have been an extremely picturesque structure, with bold buttresses, and narrow, pointed arches; and a tall, machicolated tower, with frowning gateway, portcullis, and mailed figure of King Edward IV. keeping guard at the western end of the Bridge—a subject worthy the brush of a James Holland, or a Samuel Prout.