Halford Church & Mill
We have now but to steer a straight course for awhile, as the Watling Street fares forward between its trim, green hedgerows. But anon we go astray once more in order to get a nearer look at Halford church, which peeps invitingly out from a leafy nook on the opposite bank of the Onny. The little church, though considerably modernized, bears traces of no mean antiquity, and with an old flour-mill down in the vale below is reflected in the stream at our feet, affording as pretty a coup d'œil as anyone could wish to see.
So having 'bagged' a sketch of this pleasant scene we take it easy awhile, lying prone amidst the clover-scented grass and the buttercups under the shade of an old pollard willow, and watching the troutlets as they rise at the silly gnats, and the swallows flashing by in the sunlight. Then, giving Craven Arms village the go-by for the present, we tramp the dusty half-mile of highroad that leads to Stokesay Castle.
Presently the old grey-green walls and mossy roofs of castle and church come into view beyond a clump of trees upon our right, arousing great expectations of matters antiquarian; for, as Dr. Jessop truly remarks, 'when a man is bitten with a taste for old castles and earthworks, it is all over with him.'
Stokesay Castle. Shropshire.
Half fortalice, half manor-house, Stokesay Castle rears its ancient turrets in the midst of a green, sylvan vale, the luxuriantly wooded heights that rise on either hand giving a sense of restful seclusion; while one or two farmsteads, nestling beneath the old ivy-mantled walls, lend a home-like air to this pleasant, rural scene.