But it is time to be up and doing, for we must measure many a mile over hill and dale to-day. Old Sol is already abroad, and a light sou'westerly breeze is rustling the fresh young foliage as we fare forth upon our peregrinations; while the thirsty soil emits a grateful smell after the rain of yesternight.
Down the village street, then, we take our way, noticing the legend 'Ironmonger, Dahlia Grower and Poultry Breeder,' over an enterprising tradesman's door. Setting a course up the vale of Clun, we drop into a meadow path that, keeping company with a hollow, waterworn gipsy lane, affords glimpses of the ruined castle, and so brings us presently to Whitcot. Near Whitcot we notice an old grey maenhir, or standing-stone, eight feet high, nearly as broad, and only about six inches in thickness.
With the hills closing in upon either hand we push onwards along the valley, falling into a leisurely pace as the sun warms to his work. Another mile and we come to Offa's Dyke, a huge green mound overshadowed by beech trees, whose course can be easily traced as it crosses the valley and climbs the shaggy hill slope beyond. 'Aye, that's Awf's Ditch, right enough,' says an old fellow tilling the hedgerow, 'and now you be in Wales a'this side, like, but it's a cankersome country to live in, I can tell yer.'
At Newcastle we find ourselves in a scattered hamlet overshadowed by certain round green hills, whose topmost crests are scarped with ancient camps or earthworks, whereof the name is legion hereabouts. This part of the Forest, west of Offa's Dyke, was known in olden days as the Manor, or Honour, of Tempseter, a district of Shropshire won from the Welsh before Edward I. was King.
Presently we take leave of the Newtown road, and, crossing the infant Clun at a place called Dyffryn, march away through leafy lanes en route for Bettws-y-Crwyn. Our road goes from bad to worse as it straggles up the bank, degenerating at last into a downright Welsh byway, so that, like Agag of old, we have to 'walk delicately' amidst the ruts and rivulets which do duty as a thoroughfare.
Passing two or three outlying cottages where shock-headed children are playing around the doorways, we come in sight of Bettws-y-Crwyn church, a little lonely fane perched so high aloft on its hill-top as to look down, so to speak, upon every other church throughout the county; indeed with one or two exceptions it is, we believe, the most loftily situated church in England.
The name of this place affords an interesting clue to its history. For Bettws-y-Crwyn, being interpreted, signifies the Bede-house of the Skins; having been so called since, in ancient times, the shepherds who frequented these lonesome hills had a Bede-house or Chapel here, and paid their tribute of skins or hides to Chirbury Priory.
Up here in the churchyard we get a wonderful outlook over the hills and dales of south Shropshire, which are seen stretching away for many a league in picturesque gradation, with Brown Clee Hill bringing up the rear beyond the dark ridges of Wenlock Edge.
We now step inside the church, an ancient timeworn structure whose low grey stone walls, narrow windows and simple bell-cot, look thoroughly in keeping with the circumjacent landscape. The old font, once the pride of the church, was broken into pieces when the church was 'restored' about half a century ago, and used, it is said, to repair the churchyard walls!