In the chancel stands the rich, sumptuous monument of Sir William Leighton and his lady, with their children grouped in a panel of the substructure below. 'This monument was made,' as the inscription runs, 'in the year 1607, as a Memorial to Wm Leighton of Plashe, Esq., of North Wales, one of the Councell in the Marches of Wales for above fortie yeares.' Then comes the moral, 'Nemo ante obitum beatus.' A very quaint monument this. Curious, too, are the Bell-ringers' Laws set up on the tower wall.
Bidding farewell to Cardington, we have a good half-mile of collar work before us, ere the brow of the hill is won close to a singular mass of tumbled rocks called the Sharpstones, whence the view opens out towards Wenlock Edge, with Brown Clee peeping over it.
Plunging into a steep stony lane, a likely-looking field path suggests the possibility of a short cut; but, calling to mind the Spaniard's proverb, 'No hay atajo sin trabajo'—no short cut without trouble—we consult an old fellow who happens along just now. 'Yon's a weedy road,' is the best he can say for our byway, 'the medders be all-of-a-pop (boggy) down that-a-way.'
Chalice at Hope Bowdler.
So we stick to our last, and push forwards again along the stony lane; and half an hour later find ourselves at Hope Bowdler, a lowly hamlet seated in a sheltered vale, in the lap of the Cardington hills. Passing the wheelwright's shop, with its fascinating jumble of rough timber and derelict carts, we turn through the old lich-gate and take a peep at St. Andrew's church, a poorly-restored edifice with a carved oak Jacobean pulpit, and a plain but well-proportioned silver chalice, bearing the date 1572 upon its lid.
Up, up we go once more, with the hills folding in as we advance, and the curious Gaerstone rock sticking up, like a miniature Matterhorn, high above the roadway. Diverging to the right, we soon drop into a sweet secluded 'cwm' beneath the shadow of giant Caradoc, whose rugged crest fairly bristles with huge rocks, as though Titans had been playing bowls up there. Anon we are footing it athwart the open hillside, pushing through gorse and breast-high bracken, and inhaling the odours of wild thyme and the thousand scents of summer.
Grandly the Longmynd bulks ahead as we descend into Stretton Dale, his massive shoulders rising purple against the amber light that still irradiates the western heavens, while the shadows of evening enfold as with dusky wings each nook and recess of the mountain. The lights of Church Stretton twinkle out through the gloom as we beat up for quarters at last, and a certain snug hostelry to which we now make our way proves a welcome haven after our long day's cross-country tramp.