Bonham Norton's fine old timbered market house, built in the year 1617, has, unfortunately, been stupidly destroyed not so very long ago—'it was politics as did it' is the dark saying of an old inhabitant; and its place is now usurped by a sorry red-brick substitute of the meanest character. Though the tide of modernization has already set in here, there are still a few ancient timbered gables with lattice-paned windows shewing here and there about the village, and they appear all the more venerable, perhaps, in contrast to their spick-and-span neighbours.
Overlooking Church Stretton upon its western side rise a series of tall, green, rounded hills, outposts of the broad backed Longmynd. In and between these run deep, hollow dingles, or 'gutters,' as they call them hereabouts.
Such is the Carding Mill valley, by which we may climb to the crest of the ridge, whence a shrewd walker may push on to the solitary pole that marks the top of the Longmynd, some 1,700 feet above the sea. If by good fortune the day be clear, the wanderer may reckon on a widespread view from the summit of the Longmynd; tumbled blue hills shewing all around the horizon, like waves on a stormy ocean. An ancient grass-grown trackway traversing these highlands is referred to in old documents as the 'King's hie waie on Longemunde.'
Wayfarers are few on these upland byways, where the hill ponies are often the only signs of life, and no sound breaks the stillness save the whirr of a startled grouse, or the plaintive pipe of the curlew; 'there the winds sweep, and the plovers cry.'
Church Stretton & the Longmynd.
Bright and exhilarating looks the Longmynd in its summer panoply of heather and golden gorse; and picturesque in the extreme when Autumn brings the 'whim berry' gatherers, with their camp-fires and steaming kettles, and merry shouts of children. But very different is the scene when this vast, unenclosed moorland falls under the stern sway of winter, and every landmark is obliterated by a mantle of untrodden snow. At times like these the Longmynd bears an eerie name, for lives not a few have been lost in attempting to traverse its trackless wastes, and places here and there bear ominous names such as Deadman's Hollow, Devil's Mouth, Deadman's Beach, and the like. Moreover the last fair of the year, held at Church Stretton on St. Andrew's day, has acquired the title of 'Deadman's Fair,' as men returning from it have been known to perish while endeavouring to reach their homes beyond the hills through the wild, mid-winter night. A remarkable if not unprecedented experience was that which befell the Rev. Donald Carr, the present rector of Woolstaston, who was lost in the snow upon Longmynd for a night and a day, in January, 1865.
Extending our rambles somewhat farther afield, a few minutes' run by train beneath the steep, wooded slopes of Caer Caradoc, brings us to Leebotwood, the first station Shrewsbury-wards on the railway. The village itself lies a quarter of a mile away, under a smooth green hill called the Lawley, but is worth a detour for the sake of its pretty thatched cottages, with their flowery garden plots and wealth of creepers, and its quaint oldfashioned inn yclept The Pound, which bears the date 1650, and does duty also as village post-office.