So I picked up much unknown, or wholly forgotten, family history on the road.
Another magnificent altar-tomb, glorious in gilt and colour, stands in the centre of the church; on this rests the effigy of Edmond Cornewalle, deceased 1508; he is shown in plate armour, his head on his helmet; his feet with gilded spurs are supported by a crowned lion, painted red. If a dead man could behold his monument, this Edmond Cornewalle should be very proud of his. There are other interesting and beautiful tombs, including two heart shrines, but I had to content myself with a hurried glance at these, for people were silently arriving and kneeling in the pews, and some of them looked up so reproachfully at me for wandering about that I felt ashamed I was not like them; and what else could a sinner do, under the circumstances, but take his quiet departure? I had, however, time just to note a wonderfully fine and ancient decorative panel in perfect preservation and of large size in the chancel; this has figures of the apostles painted on it, with sundry coats-of-arms, all done in rich colouring, though what the apostles have to do with coats-of-arms I cannot imagine. As I was leaving the church I was surprised to find, standing just within the porch, an old grandfather's clock marking faithful time, for it looked curiously out of place, almost as much, it struck me, as would a lectern in a drawing-room. So hushed was the church that the subdued tick of the clock was plainly audible, mildly disturbing the Quaker-like quiet of the people gathered there. In the churchyard I observed a beautiful modern stone cross raised on the ancient and worn steps of a former one doubtless destroyed by the Puritans, to whom a cross of any kind was as a red rag to a bull; but there is a cross back in the old place again, as though there had been no such thing as the wrathful Puritan. "See how these Christians love one another," once exclaimed a gentle Japanese pagan when listening to a hot dispute between a Protestant and a Roman Catholic missionary in his own peaceful land. Now I suppose both the Roman Catholic and the Puritans called themselves Christians, but there was little of brotherly love between them!
After Burford our road led us up a valley of clear streams and green pastures, bounded ahead by a long line of blue and undulating hills; we crossed one or two grey old stone bridges, so narrow that two vehicles could not pass over them at the same time. Perhaps this slight impediment to travel does not greatly trouble people in these parts, for we met little traffic on the way, only a cart for some miles, and a solitary tramp trudging along disconsolately. We had the country almost to ourselves until we came in sight of the grey old town of Ludlow, one of the most interesting and picturesque towns in England; but to see Ludlow at its best it needs to be approached, as we approached it, from the south, for to the north a collection of ugly modern brick houses has unhappily sprung up, and these are sadly out of harmony with the rest of the age-mellowed buildings. Before the railway was invented was the golden age of pleasure travel—for those who had money in their purses. Then Buggins the builder had done comparatively little harm in the matter of the uglification of the countryside; there was pleasure in posting across country in those picturesque, motorless days.
Coming to it from the south, the castle-crowned town of Ludlow greets the traveller with a genuine flavour of antiquity. He enters it, as did the traveller of centuries ago, through a narrow, arched, stone gateway with round flanking towers. The gateway stands "massive and grim across the street," a graphic reminder of the feudal days when Ludlow was surrounded by fortified walls, broken and ruined now, but they can still be traced encircling the town. Then as we drove on we had a glimpse of the famous "Feathers Inn," with its nodding gables, as fine and as well-preserved a specimen of a half-timber hostelry as one may hope to look upon. The interior of this ancient house with its elaborately carved chimney-pieces and enriched plastered ceilings is even more interesting and picturesque than the exterior, and there are many other quaint and beautiful old houses in the town, notably the Reader's House. I should like to unearth the story of the "Feathers," for it looks like an inn with a storied past, else why those stately chambers? But though, on my return home, I searched for this in many books, I could discover nothing certain about it. Probably it was originally the home of some notable personage.
We left Ludlow by the broad highway that leads to Shrewsbury, but we soon deserted it for a lane which took us across a wide and breezy common, with an open, shelterless country stretching for miles away in front. Then we observed great banks of louring clouds ahead rapidly approaching, leaving trailing lines of rain behind which blotted out all the distance. Suddenly the wind rose ominously, then followed a low growl of thunder; we were in for a storm, and our road was unpleasantly exposed. However, there was nothing to do but to drive on; then suddenly I espied, a little to the right of our open road, a village almost buried in leafy elms, that together, village and trees, stood out from the plain like a wooded island from the sea. Other shelter was there none, so to that village we sped on apace; it was a race between us and the storm, and we won by barely a minute. Stanton Lacy proved to be the name of the village, and I do not remember ever having been in one so buried in trees before—great branching trees that at one spot afforded us fair shelter from the worst of the storm. Fortunately the storm was short, though sharp, for I do not think our natural umbrella would have provided protection for long.
SAXON DOORWAY, STANTON LACY CHURCH.
Having taken shelter close to the church, I thought I would while away the time whilst the rain came down by taking a glance at it, though I had already seen one church that day; for there was nothing else to do but to sit in the car beneath the drip of the trees. After all it was a fortunate storm, for without it I should not have visited that village or its very ancient church, which proved of uncommon interest. A Saxon church of old, I discovered by the "long and short" projecting stone-work on a portion of the building, and by a very perfect though simple Saxon doorway in the north wall having a boldly carved raised cross on the top, and above this a curious bit of ornamentation of which I could make nothing. In the churchyard is an eighteenth-century tombstone to Thomas Davies, whose epitaph runs: