In the neighborhood of Ludlow are many attractive spots. From the summit of the Vignals, about four miles away, there is a superb view over the hills of Wales to the south and west, and the land of Shropshire to the northward. Looking towards Ludlow, immediately at the foot of the hill is seen the wooded valley of Hay Park: it was here that the children of the Earl of Bridgewater were lost, an event that gave Milton occasion to write the "Masque of Comus," and locate its scenes at and in the neighborhood of Ludlow. Richard's Castle is at the southern end of this wood, but there is not much of the old ruin left in the deep dingle. At Downton Castle the romantic walks in the gardens abound in an almost endless variety of ferns. Staunton Lacey Church, containing Romanesque work, and supposed to be older than the Conquest, is also near Ludlow. But the grand old castle and its quaint and venerated Feathers Inn are the great attractions before which all others pale. What an amazing tale of revelry, pageant, and intrigue they could tell were only the old walls endowed with voice!
THE "FEATHERS" HOTEL, LUDLOW.
LICHFIELD CATHEDRAL.
LICHFIELD CATHEDRAL, WEST FRONT.
We are told that in Central Staffordshire churches with spires are rare. The region of the Trent abounds in low and simple rather than lofty church-towers, but to this rule the cathedral city of Lichfield is an exception, having five steeples, of which three beautiful spires—often called the "Ladies of the Vale"—adorn the cathedral itself. The town stands in a fertile and gently undulating district without ambitious scenery, and the cathedral, which is three hundred and seventy-five feet long and its spires two hundred and fifty-eight feet high, is its great and almost only glory. It is an ancient place, dating from the days of the Romans and the Saxons, when the former slaughtered without mercy a band of the early Christian martyrs near the present site of the town, whence it derives its name, meaning the "Field of the Dead." This massacre took place in the fourth century, and in memory of it the city bears as its arms "an escutcheon of landscape, with many martyrs in it in several ways massacred." In the seventh century a church was built there, and the hermit St. Chad became its bishop. His cell was near the present site of Stowe, where there was a spring of clear water rising in the heart of a forest, and out of the woods there daily came a snow-white doe to supply him with milk. The legend tells that the nightingales singing in the trees distracted the hermit's prayers, so he besought that he might be relieved from this trial; and since that time the nightingales in the woods of Stowe have remained mute. After death the hermit-bishop was canonized and Lichfield flourished, at least one of his successors being an archbishop. St. Chad's Well is still pointed out at Stowe, but his Lichfield church long ago disappeared. A Norman church succeeded it in the eleventh century, and has also been removed, though some of its foundations remain under the present cathedral choir. About the year 1200 the first parts of the present cathedral were built, and it was over a hundred years in building. Its architecture is Early English and Decorated, the distinguishing features being the three spires, the beautiful western front, and the Lady Chapel. The latter terminates in a polygonal apse of unique arrangement, and the red sandstone of which the cathedral is built gives a warm and effective coloring. Some of the ancient bishops of Lichfield were fighting men, and at times their cathedral was made into a castle surrounded by walls and a moat, and occasionally besieged. The Puritans grievously battered it, and knocked down the central spire. The cathedral was afterwards rebuilt by Christopher Wren, and the work of restoration is at present going on. As all the old stained glass was knocked out of the windows during the Civil Wars, several of them have been refilled with fine glass from the abbey at Liège. Most of the ancient monuments were also destroyed during the sieges, but many fine tombs of more modern construction replace them, among them being the famous tomb by Chantrey of the "Sleeping Children." The ancient chroniclers tell bad stories of the treatment this famous church received during the Civil Wars. When the spire was knocked down, crushing the roof, a marksman in the church shot Lord Brooke, the leader of the Parliamentary besiegers, through his helmet, of which the visor was up, and he fell dead. The marksman was a deaf and dumb man, and the event happened on St. Chad's Day, March 2d. The loss of their leader redoubled the ardor of the besiegers; they set a battery at work and forced a surrender in three days. Then we are told that they demolished monuments, pulled down carvings, smashed the windows, destroyed the records, set up guard-houses in the cross-aisles, broke up the pavement, every day hunted a cat through the church, so as to enjoy the echo from the vaulted roof, and baptized a calf at the font. The Royalists, however, soon retook Lichfield, and gave King Charles a reception after the battle of Naseby, but it finally surrendered to Cromwell in 1646. Until the Restoration of Charles II. the cathedral lay in ruins, even the lead having been removed from the roof. In 1661, Bishop Hacket was consecrated, and for eight years he steadily worked at rebuilding, having so far advanced in 1669 that the cathedral was reconsecrated with great ceremony. His last work was to order the bells, three of which were hung in time to toll at his funeral; his tomb is in the south aisle of the choir.
