The abbey church is cruciform in plan, with a central tower ruined low; its stout Norman pillars with their square capitals are very effective in their suggestiveness of strength. There is a massive dignity, purity, and simplicity about the architecture of Buildwas that pleases the cultured eye; there is nothing petty or pretty about it, rather perhaps it errs on the side of sternness, if it errs at all. Grace of outline rather than ornamentation was evidently the monkish designer's guiding inspiration, but what the building lacks in richness of detail it gains in breadth and quiet harmony.
The site of the abbey in a valley formerly lonely and of much sylvan beauty, with a river running by, was one that commended itself to the Cistercians, and none were better judges of scenery than they. How did the abbey come by its name? Some antiquaries assert that it came from "beild," a shelter, and "was," a level; others declare, equally sure they are correct, that it came from "build" and "was," a building by the wash of the river. I am inclined to favour the former view; but when learned antiquaries disagree, how shall a mere layman decide?
BUILDWAS ABBEY, LOOKING WEST.
It was an unwelcome change, from the rural pleasantness of the country about Buildwas, coming to the squalid and smoky town of Ironbridge in Coalbrookdale, a town that climbs the steep hillside above the Severn, and practically joins the almost as mean a town of Madeley above, around which latter are numerous collieries with their tall chimneys and heaps of slack, that scar and make hideous the countryside. Ironbridge gains its name, of course, from the bridge of iron that spans the Severn there in one bold arch. At the time of the building of this bridge in 1779 it was considered a great engineering feat, even a thing of beauty, though I saw no beauty in it excepting the curve of its arch. Its black colour is out of tone with the landscape; it seems to have no part in it. Now a bridge constructed of the local stone, such as the monks would have built, would be in agreeable harmony with the scene, and, growing grey with age, would not force its unwilling attention on the traveller; moreover, stone does not need periodical painting to keep it from rusting. Such a fine stone bridge as the one that takes the old mail road over the Towy at Llandilo with one mighty arch, how grandly effective a similar bridge would look spanning the Severn boldly so at Ironbridge! There are one or two places called Stonebridge in England, I believe, and to me the name has a pleasant sound; but that of Ironbridge has not. I can imagine a picturesque bridge of stone, perhaps old and weather-worn and stained, but what can one imagine of an iron bridge but something very precise and proper? Nothing about it with any appeal to sentiment. I believe that this structure at Ironbridge was the first of the kind of any size that was built in England, and was thought a wonder in its day. How distant seems that day! Now people have ceased to wonder at it, or at anything else. A wireless message from Mars would probably be but a nine days' wonder; to fly across the Atlantic a no astonishing thing.
Climbing through Ironbridge to Madeley, I pulled up there to replenish my petrol supply. Madeley has been called the "Methodists' Mecca," for there lies buried the famous Methodist, the Rev. John Fletcher, of whom Southey said, "He was a man of whom Methodism might well be proud as the most able of its defenders." But what a Mecca! Whilst waiting for my petrol I got a-chatting with a motor cyclist who was on the same errand as I. I am afraid I made a not very complimentary remark about the place to him, but he did not resent it. He even owned he thought the same; but, said he, "I can tell you of something worth seeing close by. There's an old house called Madeley Court not a mile away that might interest you, and prove that there is something worth seeing here. It's a grand old house, and worth a visit. Charles II. once hid in it, they say. Lots of people go to photograph it." Then he kindly described the way to it, "down a roughish and narrow lane"; but I thought I might as well escape Madeley in that direction as well as any other, in spite of the rough lane. On consulting my map I found Madeley Court plainly marked upon it, so I presumed it was, or at least it had been, a house of some importance. My road that day had provided me with many pleasant surprises, and here was still the promise of another.