This interesting relic is approached from the garden by a flight of steps through a small doorway worked originally, it is considered, within the thickness of the wall of the refectory.
The south wing of what is supposed to have been part of the monk’s infirmary, chapel, &c. remains south-west of the church. It is now appropriated as a malthouse, and may be distinguished by its lofty gables. A similar building converted into dwellings stood near the street, and was connected with the above by an embattled ruin flanked by massive piers, between which were square windows divided by a transom. This was an imposing feature to our monastic remains, and truly venerable from its antiquity, having braved the storms and tempests of nearly one thousand years, but was taken down without a feeling of forbearance in 1836, and the materials applied for the foundations of two houses adjoining its site.
The present Abbey house is supposed to have been the guest hall, or hospitium, to the east of which three pointed arches, once forming part of a groined ceiling, denote the abbot’s lodging.
Of the chapter house, where the members of the monastery assembled to transact their official business, not a relic is left; but in excavating near its site, in 1836, a leaden seal was found, which had been once appended to a bull from the Pope, whose name is thus inscribed on it, INNOCENTIVS. PP. IIII.
The monks of this Abbey, in the third year of Pope Innocent IV. i.e. 1246, obtained a bull, setting forth the injuries committed against their lands, tithes, possessions, &c. by the monastery of Lilleshull, by which the dean and precentor of Lichfield were directed to convoke the parties and hear the cause.
The dormitory was attached to the south-west side of the church, and was cut through in the formation of a new line of road in 1836.
What a train of reflections, loudly bespeaking the vicissitudes of life, may be called forth during our walk along this new thoroughfare. Who is there, it may be asked, with a mind to think and a heart to feel, that can thoughtlessly pass over ground which has been distinguished in history, without a momentary reflection upon its former importance?
Within the Chapter House, which stood on a portion of this road, occurred the earliest authorized assembly of that popular representation in the constitution of this kingdom, to which, under Providence, Englishmen have been indebted for all their subsequent prosperity,—all their energies, and that noble independence which have characterized us as a people among nations. [196]
Here, too, Richard the Second gratified his fondness for magnificence, by entertaining the members of his parliament with a sumptuous feast, and, as if to dazzle by the splendour of monarchy, and to awe by military display, he was attired in his royal robes, and attended by a numerous guard of Cheshire men.
The fervent orisons of a grateful heart have here been uplifted—divinity and other important subjects discussed—and on this spot the nobility, gentry, abbots, priors, deans, &c. of Shropshire, have frequently congregated, and banished for a time the gloomy silence and sable garb of the brotherhood, and exchanged the sober gravity of the refectory, and its austere monkish repast, for wine and wassail, minstrelsey and song.