Another of the Shropshire monasteries that must certainly be seen is Wenlock Priory, which lies on the way to Bridgnorth. It is a fairly level road that leads to it by Cross Houses and Cound and pretty Cressage, which in Domesday Book is Cristes-ache, or Christ’s Oak. Christianity was preached here, it is said, under an old oak-tree, in days so early that when St. Augustine visited the place he found it already Christian. Between Harley and Wenlock there is a hill which the Contour Book describes with perfect accuracy as “a precipitous hill on which innumerable accidents have happened.” The accidents, I fancy, have mostly happened to horse-drawn vehicles and bicycles—especially the latter—when descending the hill, for it is a mile long and has a turn in the middle. There is no reason why it should inconvenience a good car, for the average gradient is nothing more alarming than 1 in 8, and it is well worth climbing for the sake of the wide view from the top, just beyond which Much Wenlock lies.
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[W. D. Haydon.
WENLOCK PRIORY, ST. JOHN’S CHAPEL.
Milburga, Saxon princess and saint, built the first religious house at Wenlock, and became its abbess, and was finally buried within its precincts. William of Malmesbury tells us how, long after her death, she enriched the place to which she had given her life and all she possessed. “Milburga,” he says, “reposes at Wenlock ... but for some time after the arrival of the Normans, through ignorance of the place of her burial, she was neglected. Lately, however, a convent of Clugniac monks being established there, while a new church was erecting, a certain boy, running violently along the pavement, broke into the hollow of the vault, and discovered the body of the virgin, when a balsamic odour pervading the whole church, she was taken up, and performed so many miracles that the people flocked thither in great multitudes. Large spreading plains could hardly contain the troops of pilgrims, while rich and poor came side by side, one common faith compelling all.”
The convent of Clugniac monks in question was built by that notable man Roger de Montgomery, and was the same whose ruins speak so plainly to-day of the ornate tastes of the monks of Clugny. We saw no arcaded walls such as these of the chapter-house, nor richly moulded doorways, nor any such elaborate ornament at Cistercian Buildwas, whose lands marched with the lands of this Priory, and whose monks found the Rule of Clugny too soft, the tastes of Clugny too enervating. Go to Wenlock in the spring, when its slender columns rise above a sea of sweet-scented flowers, and its old wall is bright with rock-plants—for the Priory stands in private grounds and is cared for like a garden. It is the third religious house that has stood on this spot, for between the days of Milburga, the royal saint, and those of Roger and his Clugniacs, there was another monastery founded here by Leofric of Mercia and his wife Godiva, a well-loved woman whom we are glad to connect with this beautiful spot. The picturesque old Prior’s Lodge is inhabited, and it is only on Tuesdays and Fridays that the world at large is admitted to the ruins. Perhaps nothing recalls to one so vividly the daily life of the monks in this place as the long causeway that stretches across the field near the Priory garden. It was here that the brothers took their daily exercise, raised above the surrounding marsh—a long procession of dark figures, walking slowly to and fro—and among them, unsuspected, that interesting swashbuckler of whom we long to hear more, that man of extremes whose strange career is all summed up for us in one short, pregnant sentence. “In 1283,” we learn, “a brother of Wenlac became a captain of banditti.” We hear no more of him, alas! except that he was hanged.
The road to Bridgnorth is a continuation of the one by which we entered the town, so we must drive back, past the beautiful old Guildhall and market-place, up the street to the Gaskell Arms, where we may have luncheon if, as may well occur to motorists, we are too hungry to wait till we reach the more imposing “Crown” at Bridgnorth. At the Gaskell Arms we turn sharply to the left, and thence eight or nine miles of good road, with several steep hills, will bring us to Bridgnorth.
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