Part 17

The books, 207 in number, treat mainly of theological matters, and are of various dates from 1530 to 1684; most of them retain the iron chains and swivels by which they were fastened in the cabinet. They probably formed part of the library established at Montgomery Castle by George Herbert, the poet and divine; and were transferred to their present resting place by the Rev. Edward Lewis, who, during nearly half of the seventeenth century, was vicar of Chirbury.

Being a man of strong Puritan leanings, Parson Lewis was badly treated by the Royalists. One Sunday morning, when the vicar was in the act of addressing his flock, a troop of horsemen rode into the church, haled the good pastor out of his pulpit, and carried him prisoner to Captain Corbet, who at the time was in command of the King's forces in that locality.

In the secluded rural district around Chirbury, the oldfashioned rustic Stage Plays held their own until the early decades of the present century, long after they had ceased elsewhere; and to this day one may occasionally meet with an ancient greybeard, who in his salad days has figured upon the boards.

These performances generally took place close to some country inn, which, while providing refreshment for the thirsty audience, formed a sort of 'green-room' for the actors themselves. The play, in which two male actors usually took part, was performed, to the scraping of a fiddle, upon a stage improvised for the occasion, by placing some boards upon a couple of farm-waggons borrowed for the purpose.

The plays themselves appear to have been of a simple, not over-refined character, interspersed with broad jokes and scraps of local badinage, to suit the taste of the bucolic audience. 'Prince Mucidorus, or St. George and the Fiery Dragon,' 'Rigs of the Times,' 'Valentine and Orson,' and a piece entitled 'Doctor Forster,' were the favourites. The hero of the latter is none other than our old acquaintance Faust, and it was supposed to be only acted on the sly, being considered such a very wicked play that something was sure to happen to put a stop to the performance; and the arrival upon the stage of his Satanic Majesty was regarded as the signal for an outbreak of thunder, lightning and hail, if nothing worse.

A mile or so out of Chirbury, in an undulating, well wooded park, on the verge of Marrington Dingle, stands the ancient timbered mansion of Marrington Hall, 'a very noble and sweete place,' as old Pepys would have said. In early documents the name is Maritune, though it was always known to the Welsh as 'Hafod-wen,' the 'Fair Summer Dwelling,' a name as appropriate as pretty, for a more delightful situation for such an 'abode of ancient peace' it would be difficult to imagine.

Embosomed amidst ancestral oaks, under the lee of a range of high, heather-clad hills, this old Elizabethan homestead faces out towards the distant highlands of Montgomery, commanding a prospect of rare extent and beauty. Near one corner of the mansion grows a hollow oak, of enormous bulk and immemorial age, a veritable patriarch among his fellows: while upon the adjacent lawn rises the Sundial shewn in our sketch.

This curious Sundial, one of the most remarkable of its kind in England, consists of a stone monolith with chamfered edges set upon a large square base, the whole structure being about 5 or 6 feet in height. The figures 1595, cut upon the stone, mark the date of its erection; and around the base runs the inscription: FOR . CHARITI . BID . ME . ADW . WHO . WROUGHT . THIS . STONE . FOR . THE . TOMB . OF . R . LL. A queer figure, carved upon one face of the pillar, may pass for a portrait of Richard Lloyd, the founder; whose arms, with those of the Newtons and other local families, appear upon the shaft.

On the top of the pillar is fixed a sundial, or gnomon; while smaller dials were inserted into every nook and cranny whither the sun's rays could penetrate. Upon the shaft are inscribed various suitable mottoes: THESE . SHADES . DO . FLEET . FROM . DAY . TO . DAY; AND . SO . THIS . LIFE . PASSETH . AWAIE: DEUS . MIHI . LUX: FINIS . ITINERIS . SEPULCHRUM: FUI . UT . ES; ERIS . UT . SUM: UT . HORA . SIC . VITA: etc., besides many devices and emblems more or less appropriate to the subject.

In the reign of Henry III., the Manor of Marrington was presented by Sir Robert de Boulers, founder of Chirbury Priory, to a kinsman, and was held for many generations by that ancient family. Passing subsequently to the Lloyds, a Welsh rhymester concocted for the occasion the following curious couplet:

'Lle Bowdler mor ber ar bange, Yw lle Dafydd Lloyd ifange.'

'Where Bowdler so long had spit and board, Is now the place of young David Lloyd.'

To vary the route, we will return to Chirbury by way of Marrington Dingle. Here the Camlad has carved out for itself a deep, narrow gorge, running in a due northerly direction; a famous place for wildflowers, ferns and mosses, which flourish amain beneath the cool shade of the overarching copses, draping with a mantle of luscious verdure the banks of the winding stream.

Tranquil and secluded as is the vale to-day, there are evidences that, in the remote past, Marrington Dingle has proved a bone of contention to successive races of men. Camps and earthworks are planted upon many a salient corner and vantage point: and artificial tumuli abound upon the neighbouring lands.

Rhyd-y-Groes, on the ancient course of the Camlad, tells a different tale; for here, there is reason to believe, the monks in mediæval times stationed their processional cross, while the pilgrims passed through the rippling shallows at Rhyd-y-Groes, the 'Ford of the Cross.'

As we make our way thus towards Chirbury again through these quiet, unfrequented byways, a restful calm, 'hushing the harboured winds,' overspreads the pleasant landscape. The sun has taken his last look at Chirbury, ere we re-enter the village and come to our night's lodging at the Herbert Arms, beneath the shadow of St. Michael's old steeple.

'Fresh are the fields, and, like a bloom, they wear This delicate evening.'

* * * * *

Proceeding northwards upon our travels from Chirbury, we cross the Camlad, and, after joining the Newtown road, surmount a low watershed and enter the valley of the Rea. Marton Pool, a good broad sheet of water, comes in view upon the right; and then we pass near Binweston, a diminutive township with an old, faded manor-house, encompassed by a dry moat, and retaining a little oak panelling, but not much else to boast of. Hampton Hall, the seventeenth-century brick mansion of the Whitakers, lies farther away in the same direction.

Grand cumulus clouds, marshalled along the horizon, threaten broken, changeable weather; and a smartish shower now warns us to look out for squalls. But 'for a morning rain leave not yr journey,' as wise old George Herbert has it; so we plod steadily on in the brunt of the breeze, prepared for whatever the Clerk of the Weather may see fit to send our way.

Ere long we come to Worthen, a village of which least said, perhaps, soonest mended; for to our minds the place has little to recommend it. The large parish church is the only building worthy of note, and its attractions are soon exhausted. Worthen Hall, at the farther end of the village, is an early eighteenth-century stuccoed house of unassuming appearance.

Thenceforward we travel along with low, tumbled hills upon our left, while in the opposite quarter we look across the flat Rea valley to the high, wild ridges of the Stiperstones, whose flanks, still shaggy with woodland, formed a royal hunting forest under the Saxon kings.

At Aston Rogers we take a glance at the Pound House, a rather shabby-looking timbered cottage of late fifteenth-century date, with remains of a circular moat; and anon we diverge from our route to visit the site of Caurse Castle.

A stiff climb through a tangle of brushwood brings us to the steep, green mounds, whereon the castle stood, though but little of it remains save a few fragments of rough, weedgrown masonry. So far as one can gather therefrom, the building took the form of a parallelogram, which adapted itself to the natural trend of the ridge, and appears to have had a round-tower at each corner. At the highest point stood the keep; and a well, supplied by the stream hard by, lay somewhere within the enceinte. The position must have been a strong one, in days when artillery was in its infancy; and it commanded the avenues of approach in every direction.

Caurse Castle was founded by Roger Fitz Corbet, one of William's Norman knights, very soon after the Conquest; and, from its exposed situation, must have formed a salient point in the series of border strongholds, which the Normans drew around these Shropshire Marches. After having been taken and burned by the Welsh, the castle was recaptured and garrisoned for Henry II., in 1165. Long afterwards the place passed to the Barons Stafford, and was eventually captured, and its defences 'slighted' by the Parliamentarians, in 1645.

Away to the westward looms a wild, hilly, sparsely peopled region, known in olden times as Caurseland. 'This Caurseland,' to use John Leland's phrase, 'sumtyme longinge to the Duke of Buckyngham, crooketh mervelously about the upper Parts of Shropeshire.' It still maintains its isolated character, though the forest that once overspread this portion of the county has long since ceased to exist.

Leaving Caurse Castle behind us, we next bend our steps towards Westbury, whose church, though of ancient origin, has been shockingly modernized. In the churchyard there is a curious epitaph to one Edward Gittins, a local blacksmith, who probably composed the effusion himself.

Marche-manor Farm, the subject of the adjoining sketch, lies in a secluded dell, not far from Westbury. It is an ancient place, with a beautiful oak parlour lighted by long, low, lattice-paned windows; and contains a richly carved and panelled mantelpiece. Staircase, floors, rafters, all are of heart-of-oak; shewing how plentiful was the 'Shropshire weed' in the early days of the seventeenth century, when the house was built. Marche-manor formed part of the great Barony of Caurse Castle, and was held by the Fitz Corbets under Roger de Montgomery, the Conqueror's vicegerent; but it is one of those places which are blessed in not having a history.

The trees and shrubberies, by which the old place is surrounded, set off to great advantage its ancient timbered gables. A pretty lakelet close at hand is a favourite haunt of wildfowl; and the soft fluting of coots and waterhens, hunting among the reeds, makes a pleasant accompaniment as we sit a-sketching here.

Crossing the Welshpool road, as it traverses Wattlesborough Heath--nowadays a heath no longer--we press on to Great Woolaston; whose unpretentious, eighteenth-century chapel, otherwise not specially attractive, contains one memorial of the past familiar to many Salopians.

This is a certain brass plate, set into the wall, and bearing engraved upon its surface the portrait here shewn, with the following inscription: 'THE OLD, OLD, VERY OLD MAN, THOMAS PARR, was born at the Glyn, in the Township of Winnington, within This Chapelry of Great Willaston, and Parish of Alberbury, in the County of Salop, In the Year of our Lord 1483. He lived in the Reigns of Ten Kings and Queens of England (viz.), K. Edwd 4th, K. Edwd 5th, K. Richd 3rd, K. Hen. 7th, K. Hen. 8th, K. Edwd 6th, Q. Mary, Q. Eliz., K. James 1st, and K. Chas 1st. Died the 13th and was buryed in Westminster Abby on the 15th of November, 1635; Aged 152 Years and 9 months.'

Taylor, the 'Water Poet,' writing in the year 1635, in a work entitled 'The Olde, Olde, very Olde Man,' tells us Thomas Parr was an early riser, sober and industrious, and thus describes his appearance when advanced in years:

'Though old age his face with wrinkles fill, Hee hath been handsome, and is comely still; Well-faced, and though his Beard not oft corrected, Yet neate it grows, not like a beard neglected.'

All sorts of tales were current concerning this famous centenarian. It is said that when the Cockneys, having heard of his renown, came to seek for Old Parr to carry him before the King, they addressed themselves to a very aged man whom they supposed to be Thomas Parr; and were not a little astonished when he replied, 'Oh, it ain't me, Lor' bless yer, it's my _father_ as you wants!'

That unfortunate visit to London, indeed, seems to have undermined the old man's constitution; and who knows but that, had he stayed snugly at home in his native Shropshire, Thomas Parr might have been alive and hearty to this day.

Left a widower at the age of 122, our hero sought consolation in the arms of a fair daughter of Wales. Yet three years later, we hear of this ancient Lothario doing penance at Alberbury church, for having broken his marriage vow in an intrigue with a certain frail maid named Catherine Milton.

As the story goes, when brought before Charles I., the King, congratulating Thomas upon so long outrunning the allotted span, demanded what else he had done to boast of. Old Parr, taken aback by the question, could think of nothing better than his affair with Catherine Milton; whereupon His Majesty exclaimed, 'Oh fie, Thomas, fie! can you remember nothing but your vices?'

But to resume. Beyond Woolaston, in an outlying nook of the county, we happen upon the fine old Jacobean mansion called Braggington. As may be gathered from our sketch, it is a massive brick-and-stone edifice, with mullioned windows and tall, steep gables, surmounted by stone finials. From the recessed central bay projects the main portal, with its weatherworn stone pillars, and architrave displaying the date 1674, and oak, nail-studded door. Large, elaborately ornamented leaden spout-heads, are seen on each side below the roof. A broad old oak staircase, with massive newels bearing the device of some ancient family, is the most prominent feature inside; the place having gone much to decay, and being now used as a farmhouse.

Out in the garden they are hiving the bees, and the beating of kettles and frying-pans makes a quaint, odd, tinkling sound, like the strains of a toy symphony, as we take our leave.

From Braggington we ramble on to Coedway, and soon lose ourselves once more among cool, leafy corners and crankling nooks, where Nature reigns untended:

'Give to me the life I love, Let the lave go by me, Give the jolly heavens above, And the byway nigh me.'

Yonder a few miles away rise the Breidden Hills, 'brewing the weather, like a Lapland witch,' and looking wonderfully mountainous for their inches; with lights and shadows chasing each other athwart their wooded flanks, and their summits wreathed in a cope of lowering storm cloud. These hills, indeed, have a reputation to sustain in the matter of meteorology, as their name Breith-him, 'Broken-weather,' obviously indicates.

Rising abruptly from Severn-side to a height of 1,324 feet, this isolated range is a conspicuous landmark for many a mile around, keeping watch and ward over the broad Vale of Shrewsbury, much as Gibraltar Rock guards the entrance to the Mediterranean. An upthrow of volcanic rock has here thrust the local strata aside, and by its intrusion has produced the picturesque, broken scenery, found upon the flanks of the range.

Like most of these border heights, the Breidden Hills are crowned by camps and ancient 'castells'; while some authorities have located the scene of Caractacus's last battle amidst their rocky fastnesses. Cefn-y-Castell, near Moel-y-Golia, the highest point of the range, is a good example of an early British earthwork; and Bausley Hill, an eastern spur, is the supposed site of a Roman station, in connection with the ford across the Severn at the western foot of the Breiddens. Offa's Dyke traverses the country in the same quarter. Rodney's Pillar, a memento of that hero's naval victories, is a noticeable object from afar, crowning the summit of an isolated peak.

Just across the Welsh border, we find the Old Hand and Diamond Inn at Coedway, a quiet little roadside house, near the junction of Severn and Vyrnwy, whither fishermen resort for the sport on those well-known waters. Mine host is himself an ardent devotee of 'the gentle art,' and a guide and counsellor of no mean calibre in matters piscatorial.

Close beside the Vyrnwy, a few miles hence, stands Melverley, about the most un-come-at-able village in Shropshire; 'Melverley, God help us!' is the local phrase, which sufficiently explains its own meaning. Yet they say if you ask a native whence he hails, he will reply, 'Whoy from Melverley, wheer else?' as though not to know Melverley argued oneself unknown.

Duly rested and refreshed we now set forth from Coedway, and, passing the Prince's Oak, a memento of King George the Fourth, we follow a road that gives us pretty peeps of Loton Park and its handsome red-brick Hall, the residence of Sir Bryan Leighton, whose forbears have been seated here since the Conqueror's time.

Close under the lee of Loton Park nestles the diminutive village of Alberbury, a quiet, old-world looking spot, innocent of any 'public;' and where Her Majesty's postal affairs are conducted by the universal provider who runs the one and only shop. But Alberbury church, the subject of our next illustration, will well repay a visit.

It is a structure of many different dates, and has all the charm that such variety lends. The Loton Chapel, seen in the front of the picture, was built about the year 1340, its windows having the rather intricate tracery in vogue about that time. Overhead we get a glimpse of the tower, a work of earlier date, with its curious, steep, saddle-backed roof, and primitive weather-vane. The east end of the chancel, the oldest part of the church, is pure Norman work.

An ancient churchyard cross with tall, slender shaft, backed by the sombre verdure of some yew trees, adds a pleasing feature to the scene.

The south aisle, used time out of mind as a chapel by the Leightons of Loton Hall, has a richly ornamented open-timber roof, with cherubs' heads cut upon the brackets that support it; and the massive old carved oak benches, black with age, should not be overlooked. Quite out of the common, also, are the windows already referred to, with their peculiar geometrical tracery, and scraps of fourteenth-century glass.

An ugly barrel-vaulted ceiling evidently disguises the original timbered roof of the nave, one principal whereof is still visible at the west end, with its big stone supporting corbels. The chancel is lighted by two semi-headed windows, surmounted by a circular light, all of Norman date; and some fine brasses and mural tablets, to the Leightons and the Lysters, are seen here and there about the interior.

'By Alberbyri Chirche,' notes Leland, 'appere the Ruines of Fulk Guarine the noble Warriar's Castel.' The remains of this early, thirteenth-century stronghold, rise a stone's throw south-westward from the church; but they are so fragmentary and devoid of detail as to have little attraction for the antiquary; indeed, one crumbling ivy-mantled tourelle is about the sum-total of the fabric.

Alberbury Priory, an establishment of Benedictine monks, founded by Fulk FitzWarine early in the thirteenth century, is represented by a few Gothic fragments in a farmhouse called White Abbey, close to the Severn, a long mile north-east of the village. The principal remains are the groined ceiling of the chapel, which springs from stone corbels, and has curious carvings, at the intersections of the ribs, representing the Agnus Dei, a monk's head, and an angel wrestling with the Evil One; and one or two good pointed doorways in the lower story. The monastery was suppressed in Henry the Sixth's reign, when the estate was granted to All Souls' College, Oxford.

Turning our backs upon the Severn, which here flows along in easy curves between low, red, clayey banks, we now pass through a pair of tall iron gates near Alberbury church, and make our way viâ Loton Deer Park to Wattlesborough Castle.

The walk across the Park introduces us to some picturesque bits of woodland relieved by rough, rocky dingles, where old gnarled hawthorns and hazel bushes thrive amain; while from the higher reaches of the Park there is a varied prospect over the neighbouring countryside, half English in its snug, cultivated lowlands, half Welsh where the shaggy hills loom stern and wild.

Arrived at Wattlesborough, our tramp is rewarded by the sight of the curious old farmhouse shewn in the sketch over page. In the centre, surrounded by buildings of no particular age, rises a low, massive, quadrangular tower of good ashlar masonry, with the flat buttresses characteristic of Norman work, and one or two windows of later date.

This tower, with portions of a projecting wing, formed part of the original Castle, and is very solidly constructed, the tower walls measuring as much as 7 or 8 feet in thickness. A circular stone stairway leads up to the several stages, some of the chambers retaining their rude stone fireplaces, and other simple contrivances; while on the topmost floor is a sort of closet, or prison-hole, and certain slanting ledges on the wall indicating the position of an earlier and lower roof.

There are said to have formerly been three other towers at Wattlesborough Castle, but that they were pulled down to provide stones for building the Loton Chapel, at Alberbury. Be that as it may, the Castle certainly seems to have covered more ground at one time; and the sites of two moats, a watch-tower and drawbridge, are pointed out in an orchard on the western side of the farmhouse.

Planted upon an outlying spur of the Breidden Hills, Wattlesborough must have held a position of some strategic importance, controlling with Alberbury Castle the passes of the Severn, and the road into Wales between this and Caurse Castle.

Of its history, so far as we are aware, there is little to be said. A Fitz-Corbet held Wattlesborough under Roger de Montgomery, at the time of Domesday Survey. In after years the Castle passed to the de la Poles, and the de Burghs, coming eventually by marriage to the Leighton family, whose property it remains to this day. Wattlesborough is reputed to be one of the few estates which have never been bartered for 'filthy lucre,' since the days when the Normans first lorded it over English land.

With shadows lengthening before us, we now set our faces towards Shrewsbury. Half an hour's tramp brings us near Rowton Castle, the Rutunium, as some assert, of Roman days. Then we catch a glimpse of Cardeston Church away to the south, and presently pass under the viaduct which carries the defunct Potteries line across the highway. Ford village, whose church boasts a fine old roodscreen, is but a mile distant towards the north, with Shrawardine castle-mound keeping it in countenance on the farther bank of Severn.

On past Dunthall and Onslow Hall, the erstwhile abode of the renowned Mr. Speaker Onslow, we bowl along the dusty highway with homeward-bound Salopians, until, some two miles short of our journey's end, we call a halt to take a look at the Shelton Oak, one of the 'lions' of the locality.

Yonder it stands, a storm-rent relic of the immemorial past, holding its own bravely yet ''gainst the tooth of time and razure of oblivion,' though bereft of many a stalwart limb by the gales of a thousand winters.