A Book of North Wales

by S. Baring-Gould

CHAPTER XIV
WELSHPOOL

Montgomery—Offa’s Dyke—The castle—George Herbert—The church and its screen—The “Robber’s Grave”—Story of John Newton—Situation of Welshpool—The Severn Valley—Buttington—Parish church of Welshpool—Cottage of Grace Evans—Escape of Lord Nithsdale from the Tower—Powysland Museum—Castell Coch—Cadwgan ab Bleddyn—Iorwerth ab Bleddyn—Ghost story—Guilsfield—The church—Old yews—Holy wells—Meifod—Charles Lloyd—S. Tyssilio—His story—His cook and the conger—Mathrafal—Meifod Church—Lake Vyrnwy—Anne Griffiths—The spirit-stone—The wishing-stone.

THE luckless town of Montgomery has taken a back seat. The railway runs at a distance of two miles from it, and it is uncertain whether at the station a visitor will find a conveyance to take him to it. And at that station there is no hotel at which a trap can be hired. A bus does, I believe, make an occasional trip to it, but as it only now and then finds anyone there wanting to go to Montgomery it is discouraged and reluctant to go again.

Montgomery is out of the question as a centre, but it would be a delightful corner into which to creep from the swirl of business, curl up, and go to sleep.

The active, vigorous life of the county has been drawn away to Newtown and to Welshpool, and the condition of Montgomery, to all appearances, is hopeless, unless the line be continued from Minsterley, in which case it will be put into direct communication with Shrewsbury. It lies very close to the English frontier, and Offa’s Dyke runs along the edge of Long Mountains, and through Lymore, close to it, and that was the boundary set in the eighth century, beyond which no Welshman was to pass. It is a pity it was not to be a line of demarcation which every Norman-English ruffian was forbidden to transgress.

Curiously enough, when Offa, king of Mercia, drew this line he did not appreciate the importance of Montgomery, and so left it to the Welsh; but the Normans perceived the advantages of such a position in a moment, seized it, and constructed a formidable castle therein. The ridge on which the castle stands dominated the country round and must have had an oppidum on it, or camp of refuge, from the earliest time. Whether the earthworks to the west of the ruins belong to a prehistoric camp, or to the structure built by Baldwin de Bollers in 1121, is uncertain; they go by the name of Ffridd Faldwyn, bear his name, but have the look of having been old when he was born. The castle had been accorded before him by the Conqueror to Earl Roger de Montgomeri. It has undergone siege after siege, has changed hands, been demolished and rebuilt, and was finally destroyed by the Roundheads after the siege in 1644, when it had been held for the King by Lord Herbert.

The ridge rises steeply from the town clothed in woods; the ruins themselves are inconsiderable. In this castle, not then in ruins, according to Izaak Walton, was born the saintly George Herbert, in 1593. He was the fifth son of Richard Herbert, a younger brother of the celebrated Lord Herbert of Cherbury. In his fourth year his father died, so that, with his brothers and sisters, he was left under the sole charge of that excellent woman his mother, who subsequently married Sir John Danvers. He grew up to be a good scholar, and became an attendant at court, in expectation of preferment. But at length, weary of such dancing attendance on court favour, he retired into Kent, “where,” says his biographer, “he lived very privately. In this time he had many conflicts with himself, whether he should return to the painted pleasures of a Court life or betake himself to a study of divinity and enter into sacred orders, to which his dear mother had often persuaded him. At last God inclined him to put on a resolution to serve at His altar.” He was offered the prebend of Layton Ecclesia, in the diocese of Lincoln, whilst still a layman.

In 1628 he married Jane, daughter of Mr. Charles Danvers, a near relative of his stepfather.

“Mr. Danvers having known him long and familiarly did so much affect him that he often declared a desire that Mr. Herbert would marry any of his nine daughters, but rather his daughter Jane, because Jane was his beloved daughter. Mr. Danvers had so much commended Mr. Herbert to her, that Jane became so much a Platonick as to fall in love with Mr. Herbert unseen. This was a fair preparation for a marriage; but, alas! her father dyed before Mr. Herbert’s retirement; yet some friends to both parties procured their meeting, at which time a mutual affection entered both their hearts, and love having got such possession governed, insomuch that she changed her name into Herbert the third day after this first interview.”