The first village on this road, Bromfield, is very typical of the villages of Shropshire at their best. The black-and-white cottages seem to have been set in their places with an eye to pictorial effect; the stream and bridge are exactly in the right spot; and to complete the picture, a beautiful old gatehouse stands a little way back from the road. It is built half of stone, half of timber and plaster, and was once the gateway of a Benedictine Priory which is mentioned in Domesday Book as being of some importance. It leads now to the church, and is one of those unexpected touches of beauty and interest that may meet one’s eye at any turn of a Shropshire road.
Photo by]
[W. D. Haydon.
STOKESAY CASTLE.
At Onibury we cross the line and the river Onny, and about a mile and a half further on we should begin to look for Stokesay Castle on the left. As it is a little way from the main road, and partly hidden by trees, it is easy to miss it when travelling at a good pace; but it is perhaps the most attractive ruin in Shropshire from an artist’s point of view, and should on no account be neglected. It is really a fortified house rather than a castle, and the mingling of the warlike with the domestic gives it a peculiar charm. The northern end, with its irregular roof and overhanging upper storey, the “Solar Room,” with its magnificent carved chimney-piece, and even the timbered gateway, are all merely suggestive of a dwelling-house; and it is only when we turn to the curious polygonal tower that we remember how in the old days an Englishman’s house was either very literally his castle or was likely to become some other Englishman’s house at an early date. As far as I know, however, the only time that Stokesay had to make any use of its defences was when it was garrisoned for the King during the Civil War, and on that occasion it seems to have yielded without much ado.
It is by very pleasant ways that this road is leading us—between wooded hills and over quiet streams. The valley narrows and is at its prettiest near Marshbrook and Little Stretton; then the pointed hill of Caradoc became conspicuous, and beyond it the famous Wrekin appears—famous not for its beauty, but because, being in the centre of the county, it can be seen by nearly every one in Shropshire, and so has gathered round it the sentiment of all Salopian hearts. “To friends all round the Wrekin!” is the famous Shropshire toast, and there, far away to the right, is the isolated rounded hill that means so much to those born within sight of it. At Stretton we leave the hills and wooded valleys behind us, and pass through a few miles of rather dull country. It is at the village of Bayston Hill that we first see, dimly blue against a background of hills, the slender spires—almost unrivalled in beauty—of that fair town which long ago the Welsh named Y Mwythig, the Delight.
The history of Shrewsbury is stirring, and very, very long. When England was still in the making she stood there on her hill, looking down at the encircling river that has defended her for so many centuries. Nearly every street is connected in some way with history; every second house is haunted by some great name. Many large and solemn books have been written about Shrewsbury, and not one of them is dull. Even in these few hundred yards between the river and our hotel how many memories there are! As we turn on to the English Bridge to cross the Severn we should glance backwards to the right at the red tower and great west window of the Abbey founded by the Conqueror’s kinsman, Roger de Montgomery, a man of mark; and then, having crossed the steep rise and fall of the bridge, we climb into the heart of the town by the hill called the Wyle Cop. It was up this steep hill that, not so very long ago, the London coach used to dash, turning into the yard of the Lion Hotel at a pace that is still spoken of with awe and admiration. If we were to do the like we should probably have to pay five pounds and costs, so we will ascend the Cop in a way more conducive to dreaming of the past: of Harry Tudor on his way to “trye hys right” at Bosworth, with the welcoming citizens strewing flowers before him; of the more stately procession that wound up the hill when he came back as Henry VII. with his Queen and young Prince Arthur; of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, and his stepson Essex, after their reception by bailiffs and aldermen, “and other to the number of xxiiij scarlet gowns, with the scollars of the freescoole,” listening wearily “at the upper end of the Wylde Coppe,” to three orations! Henry Tudor, when he reached the Wyle Cop, was glad to take shelter for the night in that picturesque little black-and-white house with the overhanging top storey and the tiled roof—it is on the left, rather more than half-way up the hill—for he had not won his way into the town without difficulty. “The gates weare shutt against him and the portculleys lett downe,” and a bailiff of the town—“a stout, wise gentleman,” we are told—vowed that Henry should only enter over his prostrate body. So, when Henry had made it clear that he did not mean to hurt the town, “nor none therein,” the only way for the stout, wise gentleman to keep his word was by lying down on the ground and allowing his future king to step over him. Thus did Henry of Richmond come in triumph to the little house on the Wyle.
If we are going to the “Raven,” or the “Crown,” as is probable, we turn to the right near the top of the hill, and pass the beautiful old timbered house—which stands on the right hand, a little back from the street—where Princess Mary stayed on her way to Ludlow after she had been created Prince of Wales; and a little further up, on the left, is the many-gabled house where Prince Rupert lived for a time when he was here with Charles I. On each side of us rises one of the slender spires that are the pride of Shrewsbury. St. Alkmund’s Church, on the left, was founded by Alfred’s daughter Ethelfleda, known as the Lady of the Mercians; a lady, it would seem, of some force. “A woman of an enlarged soul,” William of Malmesbury calls her; and adds: “This spirited heroine assisted her brother greatly with her advice, and was of equal service in building cities.” It is gravely recorded in a serious chronicle that in 1533 “the dyvyll apearyd in Saint Alkmond’s Churche there when the preest was at highe masse with greate tempest and darknes, so that as he passyd through the churche he mountyd up the steeple in the sayde churche, teringe the wyer of the sayde clocke, and put the prynt of hys clawes uppon the iiijth bell.” This steeple on our left was the very scene of this feat; but the body of the church was rebuilt in the eighteenth century. Another old Shrewsbury church, St. Chad’s, had fallen down, and the congregation of Saint Alkmund’s feared a repetition of the disaster. In the case of St. Alkmund’s, however, it was the rebuilding that was the disaster.
The story of St. Mary’s lovely spire, on our right, is full of incident. In 1572 it was “blown aside by wind”; in 1594 “there fell such a monstrous dry wind, and so extreme fierce ... that the like was never seen of those that be living ... the force whereof removed the upper part of St. Mary’s steeple out of his place towards the south about five inches”; in 1662 the steeple was “taken down six yards from the top”; in 1690 it was damaged by an earthquake; in 1754 it was “shattered by a high wind”; in 1756 the newly-built part was again “blown aside”; in 1818 the upper part “became loose”; and during a terrific storm in 1894 fifty feet of its masonry fell through the roof of the nave shortly after the evening service. Most wonderfully this last disaster did no damage to the stained glass, which is St. Mary’s great glory and has itself had an eventful existence; for some of it was in old St. Chad’s when it fell, and much of it, long ago, filled the windows of religious houses in Germany.