Stowe. Shropshire.
Coming anon to Stow, we borrow the key from the neighbouring vicarage, and armed with this 'open sesame' proceed forthwith to the church.
This diminutive house of prayer has one or two notable features. A good open-timbered roof spans the nave, traces of a rood-loft being visible overhead where it joins the chancel, though no approach to it can now be discovered. A massive oak communion table is about the only remnant of ancient fittings here. A small wooden bell-cot rises above the western gable, and the walls of the church, which are unusually thick, are pierced with modernized windows.
Bidding adieu to this lofty yet lowly hamlet, we traverse a narrow green lane where the hedgerows are a-tangle with dog-roses, briony and 'traveller's-joy,' besides many another familiar wayside wildling. In two miles we find ourselves at Knighton, a pleasant, busy townlet, just within the Radnorshire border.
Here we board the first up-train that comes along; the railway line hugging the frontier, and affording glimpses of the hill country amidst which we have recently wandered. Near Bucknall station we catch sight of Coxwall Knoll, an isolated tree-clad monticle surrounded by ancient entrenchments, where some authorities locate the scene of Caractacus's last tussle with Ostorius. Bucknall village is close at hand on the brink of the Redlake river, its grey church tower just peeping over the trees that clothe the hills in the background. There is a curious old font in Bucknall church with a sort of interlacing pattern carved around its bowl, the date whereof is uncertain.
Running past Bedstone, we alight at Hopton Heath station, shoulder sketching gear, etc., and trudge away to Heath House, which lies a short mile to the southward. Heath House, the residence of Chas. Seaton, Esq., is a large, substantial edifice, dating mainly from the latter part of the seventeenth century, and seated in a broad park-like demesne.
Staircase at Heath House, Clungunford.