Between Shrewsbury and Whitchurch there is nothing of particular interest except the old farmhouse called Albright Hussey, which stands in a field on the right about three miles out of Shrewsbury. It is a pretty old moated house, partly black-and-white; but its greatest beauty is within, where there is as charming a room as one need wish to see, a room to make a housewife weep tears of covetousness—low, oblong, oak-panelled to the ceiling, with seats in the mullioned windows and a carved fireplace. The house is inhabited, but I believe there is never any difficulty in obtaining leave to see it. Its sixteenth-century walls were once threatened by a party of Parliamentarian horse. There were only eight men to defend the place, but their leader was a crafty man, and shouted his orders aloud within hearing of the enemy. “Let ten men stay here, and ten go there, and twenty stay with me!” he cried; and the attacking force, dismayed by the number of mythical defenders, rode away and left the stone and timber, the mullioned windows and oaken wainscotes, to be a joy to us to-day.
In Wem, however, through which we presently pass, it was the “Parliament men” who were in the ascendent. The place acted a prominent part in the Civil War, and has a history many centuries long, but on the surface is commonplace enough. In the List of the Owners of the Manor of Wem the twenty-fourth name is the grim one of “Sir George Jeffreys, Knight and Baronet, and Lord Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, created in 1685 a peer of England by the style and title of Baron Jeffreys of Wem.”
At Whitchurch we must draw up at the door of St. Alkmund’s Church; not because it is old or beautiful, for the original church fell down in 1711 and was entirely rebuilt; nor because Dean Swift subscribed to the rebuilding of it; but because it contains the dust of the great Talbot, first Earl of Shrewsbury, “the scourge of France.” His valiant heart lies beneath the white stone in the porch, where careless thousands have trodden it underfoot. It was found there in an urn when the church was rebuilt, and with it were some figures of Christ and the Virgin Mary from Talbot’s rosary. His bones are in the chancel, whither, about fifty years after his death, they were brought from the battlefield of Chastillon, where a little chapel had been raised on the spot where he fell.[3] His effigy lies on a tomb that is an exact copy of the original one. While this restoration was in progress the bones of the great soldier were shown to the public, with the skull cleft by the axe that killed him. “This is that terrible Talbot,” says Thomas Fuller, “so famous for his sword ... which constantly conquered where it came, insomuch that the bare fame of his approach frighted the French from the siege of Bordeaux. Being victorious for twenty-four years together, success failed him at last.... Henceforward we may say ‘Good-night to the English in France,’ whose victories were buried with the body of this earl.”
From Whitchurch we drive about fourteen miles in a westerly direction to Overton Bridge, by Hanmer and Overton village, a pretty little place with a churchyard surrounded by yew-trees. Having crossed the bridge, which is about two miles beyond the village, we turn to the left at right angles and approach Erbistock by a road whose greatest recommendation to inveterate lovers of speed will be that it is short. After one experience, however, most of us will agree, I think, that this by-road needs no recommendation but the fact that it leads to Erbistock. A tiny church and a tiny inn at the brim of the Dee—that is all that there is at Erbistock. But it is all enclosed in trees, and the trees dip into the river, and the river is rather big and gentle and gurgles sweetly at one’s feet, and the woods on the other side are tangled and mysterious and full of fairies. One may have one’s tea close beside the water, or one may cross the river in a ferry, and soon be quite alone in the woods. There is no need to hurry, for when we leave Erbistock we need not stop again till we reach Shrewsbury.
For Ellesmere, “wher was a castelle,” says Leland, “and very fair polis yet be,” has now nothing left of its castle but the memory of it, and the fair pools may be seen as we pass. More than once Ellesmere was given as a dowry to the daughters of English kings, on their marriage with Cymric princes; for as the rulers of the two countries were sure to fall out soon after the wedding the gift was quickly taken back by the donor, and so was ready for the next bride. Thus, though Henry II. gave it to his sister Emma, there was nothing to prevent King John from giving it to his daughter Joan, twenty-seven years later, when she married Llewelyn the Great.
I think it must have been beside the lake, where on the level ground there would be room for the dramatic scene, that Rupert, halting here at Ellesmere, made his prisoners cast lots upon the drum to decide which of them should die. Thirteen were doomed; but at the last moment one of them was saved by Sir Vincent Corbet, who as he rode past interceded for the man, who had been a servant in his family. The rest were hanged there and then. Yet it is not they who haunt the rushy banks of the mere; but the White Lady of Oteley. Long ago, it is said, she robbed and ruined a monastery, and built herself a home here with the spoils—a home that she has never left since then, except to walk by night along the margin of the water. She was not even allowed to move to the new house when it was built about a hundred years ago, for a fragment of the old one was left standing in the park on purpose for her accommodation. The new house faces us very conspicuously as we drive close beside the water on the opposite side of the mere, and go on our way to Shrewsbury, which is about sixteen miles away.
In the south-west, which is the hilliest, and therefore the prettiest, part of Shropshire, there is a variety of little runs, which may be lengthened or shortened according to circumstances and tastes. A pretty round of about fifty miles is by Chirbury and Bishop’s Castle, whence either of two lovely roads will bring us back to Shrewsbury. Nineteen miles of nearly level road lead to Chirbury through several villages—Westbury, Worthen, Marton, and others—all of which are fairly picturesque, but with nothing very noteworthy about them. Just before Marton is reached there is an exceedingly sharp turn, which should be borne in mind. At Chirbury our road turns to the left in the middle of the village.
The name of this obscure little place has been known to the world for some centuries in connection with that strange person Lord Herbert of Chirbury, half ruffler, half scholar, who in a house only a few miles from here, across the Welsh border, wrote the famous autobiography that Horace Walpole called “perhaps the most extraordinary account that was ever given seriously by a wise man of himself.” His home for the greater part of his life, when he was not seeking adventures and duels in France or London, was in Montgomery Castle, whose ruins we may see by driving four miles further. Nothing but a fragment is left of it now, but when the Herberts lived there it must have been a fine sight on its wild crag; a more fitting home for Edward the soldier than for his gentler and still more famous brother George. Chirbury itself had a castle and a priory once; but of the castle, which was built by the ever active Ethelfleda, nothing remains but the site; and of the monastery there are only fragments left, for the present church, ancient as it is, was not used by the monks, but was then, as now, the parish church.[4] It has seen strange doings. It is hard to realise, when the bells ring in this lonely little village, and the quiet country folk take their seats for the morning service, that here within these very walls the congregation of Chirbury was once electrified by the clashing of armour and the clatter of horses’ hoofs in the aisle. It was during the Civil War, and Mr. Edward Lewis, “a very goodly man, did preach twice a day”; a rash thing for a Puritan to do when Captain Corbet was no further off than Caus Castle. A party of Royalist horse “rode into the church to the great fright and amazement of the people; and with their pistols charged and cocked went up into the pulpit and pulled down Mr. Lewis, pulling and tugging him in a most unworthy manner ... and so left the people without their pastor because they would not be content with one sermon a day.”
It was this same Edward Lewis who brought to Chirbury the chained library that almost certainly belonged to George Herbert; for Isaac Walton tells us of “a choice library which Mr. Herbert had fastened with chains in a fit room in Montgomery Castle.” This choice library contains books dating from 1530 to 1684, and among them is a black-letter folio copy of Chaucer. They are kept in the vicarage, and I believe may be seen by any one.