SALOP INFIRMARY,
an institution which is acknowledged to be one of the best conducted of its kind in the kingdom. It was formed in 1745, when a commodious house was purchased, fitted out, and opened for the reception of patients on the 25th of April, 1747. The present building, on the site of the former structure, was commenced in July, 1827, when Lord Hill laid the foundation-stone. It was completed and opened in September, 1830. The appurtenances and appointments of the institution are admirable. It is supported by voluntary contributions and benefactions. It possesses a large number of valuable legacies. It has been an inestimable blessing to thousands upon thousands. Returning from the Infirmary past the Draper’s Hall we cross the road to
CHURCH STREET.
The half-timbered house, conspicuous by its gables, on the right hand side, formed a portion of Jones’s Mansion. It was erected by Thomas Jones, Esq., the first Mayor of Shrewsbury, son of Sir Thomas Jones, Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas. It was the residence of the Duke of York in 1642, and of Prince Rupert “when he joined his uncle after the brilliant action of Worcester.” The Church a few yards further on is
ST. ALKMUND’S CHURCH,
which had its foundation early in the 10th century. St. Alkmund was the son of Alured, King of Northumberland. He was slain in the year 800 and buried at Lilleshall. The church dedicated to him is supposed to have been founded by Ethelfleda, daughter of Alfred the Great. Her nephew, King Edgar, a descendant of Alured, increased the original endowment. Like St. Mary’s it was collegiate, and in the time of Edward the Confessor had eleven manors, which, however, were transferred by King Stephen at the request of Richard de Belemis, one of the Deans, to the Abbey or monastery at Lilleshall. The college being thus both dissolved and impoverished was reduced into a vicarage and lapsed to the crown, in whose hands the living now remains. The church was destroyed in 1794 under a mistaken apprehension as to its stability, and the existing edifice erected in 1796. In a vault beneath it lie the remains of Sir Thomas Jones, Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, who died in 1672; and of Thomas Jones, Esq., his son, to whom reference has already been made, who represented the town in Parliament, and died in 1715, and of whom it is said that his “strict piety, exemplary virtue, and extensive charity consigned him to a joyful resurrection!” A legend relates that in 1533, on twelve successive days, and while the priest was at high mass, the devil appeared in St. Alkmund’s Church, and that this preternatural visitation was accompanied with great darkness and tempest. Poor Trotty Veck in the Chimes thinks that the bells are full of life, that they are under the control of a goblin, and that innumerable little goblins play upon them, leap and fly from them, gambol in and round about them. Trotty is not far wrong: at least three centuries ago there was a goblin in St. Alkmund’s bells, and he tingled the wires of the clock, and he imprinted his claws on the fourth bell, and he carried away one of the pinnacles coolly esconsed under his arm, and, worse than all, he for a time stopped all the bells in Shrewsbury, so that there was no ringing, tolling, chiming or pealing! There can be no doubt about it. Retracing our steps through Church Street we come out upon
DOGPOLE,
or, as it used to be written, Doggepole, Dokepoll. “What an outlandish name!” cries the visitor. It is a strange name, but it expresses a natural fact. Two interpretations have been given to it—one that attributes it to the circumstance of a collection of water having existed in the neighbourhood centuries ago—another that discovers its derivation in Ducken, to bend or stoop, or Duick, to duck one’s head, to stoop, and poll, or summit. Dogpole is the head of a bank of steep descent—the Wyle Cop, which leads to the river. The neat structure on the right about half-way down is the Tabernacle of the Welsh Independents, built as a memorial of 1662 and adjoining it is the Shropshire Eve and Ear Hospital, an institution supported entirely by voluntary contributions, which is, however, soon to be supplanted by the extremely handsome structure now in course of erection as a new Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital, in Murivance, opposite Allatt’s School. At the bottom of Dogpole we turn to the right and enter
HIGH STREET,
which formerly bore the name of Baker’s Row, probably because it had the honour of containing most of the baker’s shops. On the right is