—as the poet Drayton hath it. So, putting the best foot foremost, we have a lung-expanding tramp for the next half-hour amidst heather and waving brake-fern, winning our way at last to a fine view point dubbed the Giant's Chair. The outlook hence on a fine summer's day is a thing to be remembered. Wide and varied as is the prospect, the gem of it all, perhaps, is the charming bird's-eye view of old Ludlow town, down in the vale at our feet, its warm-grey towers and house-roofs nestling beneath the verdant slopes of Whitcliff, which in their turn are overtopped by the brindled heights of Bringwood Chase, stretching away towards the blue Welsh hills where the horizon meets the sky.
Crow Leasow.
Having spied out the land from this lofty eyrie, we plunge down again through the breast-high bracken, and then, working our way by cross-country lanes, come presently to Crow Leasow.
Crow Leasow is a substantial brick farmhouse dating from the early days of the seventeenth century. Its weatherbeaten front has some good moulded brickwork about the doorway, eaves and gables, and a bulky chimney-stack projects towards the northern end. The massive doors and thick beams and rafters of the interior look quite in character; while a gigantic oak tree, of enormous girth but hollow within, flings its vast limbs athwart the greensward before the entrance way.
In bygone days Crow Leasow belonged to a family of the name of Shepheard, who lived here for five successive generations, and were probably the builders of the existing house.
At Middleton village we find vestiges of a yet more antiquated dwelling, in the moated manor-place called the Brook House, whereof one half-timbered gable still survives. From a map made in 1721, the mansion would appear to have been in good preservation at that time, as the sites of a summer-house, a large walled garden and a bowling-green, are all marked upon it.
Laying a course due west for Stanton Lacy, we have now to negociate some intricate byways athwart Hayton's Bent, a stretch of shaggy upland islanded, so to speak, in Corve Dale. Up through the woodlands we go, getting a fleeting glimpse of Downton Hall, standing in a lonely situation amidst a richly timbered park. Anon we strike into a secluded dingle—one of those 'Hopes,' as they are called, so characteristic of a Shropshire countryside, with a brooklet tinkling along through a tangle of undergrowth; while the carol of thrush, linnet and blackbird sounds blithely in our ears.
Stanton Lacy itself is but a mile farther on; and through that quaint, quiet village lies our way to the parish church. Stanton Lacy church is a genuine Saxon edifice; indeed, it is considered to be one of the best examples of pre-Norman work in this country. Upon its outer walls appear the narrow buttresses built of long-and-short stones, and the rough, uneven stonework with its wavy coursing, that mark the Saxon period.