[W. D. Haydon.
WENLOCK PRIORY, CHAPTER HOUSE.
BISHOP PERCY’S BIRTHPLACE, BRIDGNORTH.
Ever since the Danes built a fort here this town, nearly as consistently as Shrewsbury and Ludlow, has concerned itself with history. It has been visited by half the kings of England. Henry I. besieged it; Henry II. defended it; John and Edward I. stayed in it; Edward II. took refuge in it; Henry IV. gathered his army here on his way to the Battle of Shrewsbury; Charles I. was besieged here by Cromwell, who narrowly escaped death before the walls. The Castle, of course, was the centre of interest on all these occasions—the Castle that was built so hurriedly by Robert de Belesme, Roger de Montgomery’s son, and is now so conspicuous on account of its leaning tower. Round its ruins is a path that must be practically the same as that which Charles I. declared to be as pleasant a walk as any in his kingdom. Robert de Belesme, who has been described with apparent justice as “an implacable villain,” also founded the church of St. Mary Magdalene, but the present building was designed by Telford. Another interesting church is St. Leonard’s, where in the churchyard the Roundheads once beat the Royalists in a skirmish, and where Richard Baxter was a curate. He lived in the little black-and-white cottage close at hand, and seems to have had a poor opinion of his flock. “He found the people here generally ignorant and dead-hearted,” he says, “... so that though by his first Labours among them he was Instrumental in the Conversion of several Persons, and was generally Applauded, yet ... Tippling and Ill Company rendred his Preaching ineffectual.” If his preaching was ineffectual it at all events began early, for “when he was a little Boy in Coats, if he heard other Children in Play speak Profane Words he would reprove them, to the wonder of those that heard him.” At this time—when he was a little Boy in Coats—he lived at Rowton in this county; it was not till he was ten years old that he moved to Eaton Constantine and indulged in dark deeds in his neighbours’ orchards.
An extremely steep dip with an awkward corner in the middle of it will take us to the birthplace of another famous divine, Bishop Percy, best known in connection with “Percy’s Reliques.” The house, which stands in the Cartway, may be approached quite comfortably from below, and is worth seeing for its own sake, being a good example of black-and-white work.
Our best way home from here is by Ironbridge and Buildwas, on the road by which we drove to Boscobel. Between Bridgnorth and Ironbridge some of the country is pretty, and at Broseley especially it must have been lovely in its natural state, before it was ruined by the potteries. We cross the river by Abraham Darby’s iron bridge.
A run of forty-seven miles or so, by Wem, Whitchurch, and Ellesmere, will show us a good deal of the north-west part of the county, and if, when we reach Whitchurch, we choose to lengthen the distance to fifty-four miles by slipping over the Welsh border to Overton and Erbistock, we shall not regret it.
We leave Shrewsbury by the road that branches to the left immediately opposite to the station. Almost at once, at the point where the road touches the Severn, we pass a long, low house of timber and plaster on our right. It was from this house that Admiral Benbow ran away to sea. He was living here as an apprentice, to his father or another, and, since it was the custom to entrust the house-key to the care of the apprentice, he had, fortunately for himself and England, special facilities for making his escape. He hid the key in the tree that is marked with a ring of whitewash, and stands between the house and the railings; and there to this day it hangs.