The slender columns and pointed arches of this lovely church have rung to the voice of Charles I., who once proclaimed his good intentions within these walls, and knelt, harassed and nearly uncrowned, before this altar. It was in St. Mary’s, too, that James II. touched for the King’s Evil.
Just beyond the church is the Crown Hotel, and whether we stay there or at the “Raven,” a hundred yards away, we shall hear the bells of St. Mary’s, once described as “the comfortablest ring of bells in all the town,” and the chiming clock that was the bequest of Fanny Burney’s Uncle James, and the curfew, which still rings every night at nine. And after the curfew we shall hear the number of the day of the month rung out—a relic of the times before cheap almanacs existed.
There is no doubt that the most satisfactory way of seeing Shropshire is to spend a few nights in Shrewsbury, and make it the basis of operations; for Shrewsbury lies exactly in the centre of the county, and is the meeting-point of a particularly large number of good roads. The old town itself, too, does not deserve to be hurried through. The longer one stays in it the more one feels the charm of its gentle old age.
The Old School Buildings are within a stone’s-throw of us, with all their memories of the wise and great: memories that are, as a matter of fact, older than themselves; for though Charles Darwin was educated within these very walls, it was in an older building of wood, standing on the same spot, that Philip Sidney was a schoolboy—gentle and grave, and as much loved then as he was destined to be all his life, and is still. It was while he was here that his father wrote him a “very godly letter ... most necessarie for all yoong gentlemen to be carried in memorie,” which his mother, who added a postscript “in the skirts of my Lord President’s letter,” considered to be so full of “excellent counsailes,” that she begged Philip to “fayle not continually once in foure or five daies to reade them over.” The counsels were certainly excellent. “Be humble and obedient to your master,” says Sir Henry, “... be courteous of gesture.... Give yourself to be merie ... but let your mirth be ever void of all scurrillitie and biting words to any man.... Above all things, tell no untruth, no not in trifles”; and he ends quaintly: “Well, my little Philip, this is enough for me, and I feare too much for you.” If my Lord President had not also been my Lord Deputy of Ireland one might have loved him nearly as much as his son.
Neither he nor Philip ever saw the timbered gatehouse that stands opposite to the Old School Buildings, but in the red Council House to which it leads, Sir Henry always stayed when he made official visits to Shrewsbury. There were fine doings on these occasions; banquets and processions, with “knightly robes most valiant,” and many scarlet gowns; masquerades, too, by the boys of the school, who appeared now as soldiers, now as nymphs, and made orations in both characters. Later on the same red house sheltered Charles I., when he came here to collect men and money. Half the plate in the county disappeared into his mint, which was set up, some say, in a little tottering house that may still be seen in an alley on Pride Hill—a fragment of green and weather-worn stone that is one of the most picturesque things in Shrewsbury. Some of the money that Charles “borrowed” on this occasion was well spent in repairing the Castle, which is quite near the Council House. The Castle is now a private dwelling, and one cannot walk about the grounds without permission; but the oldest part of it is the great entrance-gate, which all may see; the gate that was built by Roger de Montgomery and attacked by Stephen; the gate through which Henry IV. rode out to the famous Battle of Shrewsbury. The Castle itself, as it now stands, was probably mostly built by Edward I.; but it suffered so much through the centuries from siege, and treachery, and time, that many repairs were necessary to secure it a peaceful old age as a dwelling-house. Every motorist who is properly grateful to his benefactors, will be interested to know that it was the engineer Telford who carried out these repairs. He actually lived in the Castle for a time, I believe, and he certainly built the “Laura” tower, which stands on the foundations of the old watch-tower. Telford was in Shrewsbury when the tower of Old St. Chad’s showed signs of collapsing, and, on his advice being asked, said the church should be repaired without delay. The Parish Vestry begged him to meet them in St. Chad’s to discuss the matter, and demurred so long at the expense that at last Telford walked out of the church, saying grimly that he would rather talk the matter over in some place where there was less danger of the roof falling on his head. Two or three days later it fell.
Not far from the fragments of this ruined church is the High Street, where are some of the oldest and prettiest houses in the town; and hard by is the Tudor marketplace, with its statue of Richard, Duke of York. The claims of the Unitarian chapel in the same street are not based on beauty, but on the fact that Coleridge’s voice once rose in it “like a steam of rich distilled perfumes,” according to William Hazlitt, who had walked ten miles to hear Coleridge preach here, and was as much delighted, he says, “as if he had heard the music of the spheres.” Charles Darwin attended the services of this chapel as a boy, but was baptized in New St. Chad’s, the eighteenth-century church near the Quarry, within whose classical walls Dr. Johnson once worshipped. The Doctor’s famous rolling walk, too, of which we have all heard so much, was once seen under the splendid limes of the Quarry.
Photo by]
[W. D. Haydon.