Bishop's Castle is nowadays but a drowsy little market town, yet proud withal of being the metropolis of an extensive agricultural district, and renowned for its great cattle fairs, frequented by breeders and 'men whose talk is of bullocks,' who are attracted hither by the fine race of cattle for which this locality is noted. Then, on May 1, has it not its 'Mop,' or Hiring Fair, when the farm hands and servant girls 'break the year,' as the phrase goes; and you may overhear one goodwife complaining to another, anent some errant handmaid, ''Er's broke 'er 'ear this marnin', I'm afeared 'er'll allus be a rollin' stwun as'll never gether no moss!'
In bygone times Bishop's Castle was (and for aught we know is still) ruled by a Mayor and Corporation, with fifteen Aldermen or Capital Burgesses, a Bailiff, and a Recorder. So early as 1572 the town received its first charter from the Sovereign, which was ratified by Charles I. in 1648.
At the very top of the town, where the old coach roads from Wales converge, stands the Castle Hotel, one of those large, roomy caravansarys, frequented by wayfaring men in the days before railways had come to rob the country roads of their cheerful tide of traffic. To the rear of this inn lies an oldfashioned bowling-green, whose area marks the site of the keep-tower of the erstwhile Castle of Lydbury, built to protect the episcopal demesne against the freebooters of the Welsh border.
In Leland's time the Castle was 'well maintenid, and set on a stronge Rokke, not very hi,' but seems to have been already reduced to ruins before the time of the Civil Wars.
Perched on a tall green mound, high above the old town, the position is certainly a commanding one, affording a fine prospect over the adjacent country, though now somewhat obscured by trees. Close at hand rises the old Market House, now the Powis Institute and Reading Room, with the borough arms carved upon its gable, and the date of its erection, 1781. Over the door of an adjacent shop we espy the curious surname of Gotobed, a clan which should be widely represented, one would suppose, in this Sleepy Hollow! Another old lintel retains some ancient lettering, with the figures 1685. Then, turning down the steep High Street, we get a backward view of the town; the prim façade of an eighteenth-century Town Hall, topped by a slender belfry, seeming to block up the roadway, and some oldfashioned shops and dwellings flanking the narrow footpath.
Presently we come to the church at the farther end of the town, though tradition avers that, once upon a time, the church stood in the very middle of it; not that the church has moved, but the town shrunk up into itself—but that is as it may be. An ancient ivy-clad tower is about the only relic of the older church which has survived, for, during the troubles of the Civil Wars, the sacred edifice fell a prey to the flames, and has only within the last forty years been rebuilt and renovated. There are some very ancient yews in the churchyard: and a tombstone near the belfry door bears the following inscription: 'A la mémoire de Louis Paces, Lieut.-Colonel de Chevaux legers, chevalier des ordres militaires des deux Siciles et d'Espayne. Mort à Bishop's Castle le 1re Mai 1814, age de 40 ans.' This must have been one of the French prisoners who, at the time of the Peninsular War, were billeted at Bishop's Castle.
Bishop's Castle forms a good starting-point for exploring a little-frequented, rural country. Northwards lie Lydham and More, Lydham church standing, as is so frequently the case in this border district, cheek-by-jowl with a prehistoric tumulus. More is the ancestral home of the ancient family of that ilk, whose forbears 'came over from Normandy with the Conqueror.'
Then there is Linley, with its stately avenues leading up towards hills which have been mined for lead ever since the Romans were there. Amongst these hills stands Hyssington, which we will take leave to visit, though it lies away outside our county, over the Welsh frontier.
Anent the church at Hyssington there is a curious tradition. Long, long ago, in the old Popish days, an enormous Bull made his appearance at Hyssington, and grew bigger and bigger every day, until the good people of the neighbourhood went in fear of their lives by reason of the dreaded monster. At last things came to such a pass that the parson made up his mind to try heroic measures. So with book, bell and candle, he sallied forth in quest of the Bull, and, by reading of appropriate texts, managed to reduce the uncanny beast to such dimensions as would admit of his being driven into the church. But alack! before the creature could be finally extinguished, parson's candle had burnt out; and ere morning came, when the reading could be resumed, the Bull had swelled out again, until his huge body cracked the church walls from top to bottom!
Such is the veracious legend; but whether this Bull hailed from the Emerald Isle, or belonged to that species known as Papal Bulls, history recordeth not; but the cracks in the church walls long remained to confound the incredulous.