Part 6

This once venerable pile was founded previous to the Norman conquest, by one of the kings of Mercia, soon after the expulsion of the Britons, on a site of a palace belonging to one of the princes of Powis, which was destroyed during the wars between the Britons and their Saxon invaders. In 1393, a considerable part of the structure was burnt down through the carelessness of a plumber, then repairing the lead on the roof, who, frightened at beholding the edifice in flames, endeavoured to escape over the ford of the Severn, near the eastern gate, but was drowned in the attempt. In the early part of the year 1788, the church was observed to be decaying fast, and a respectable architect, who was employed to survey it, advised that the tower should be taken down, in order to relieve the mouldering pillars of their vast weight. Unfortunately, this salutary advice was not acted upon; in lieu thereof, partial repairs were undertaken, and the attempt to remove a shattered pillar, that a firmer one might be erected in its place, completed its ruin. On the second day after the workmen had commenced their destructive operations, the decayed pillar gave way, and in consequence, the tower fell about four o’clock the following morning, July 9, 1788, on the roof of the church, and overwhelmed the greater part of the sacred edifice in ruinous desolation.

About a month previous to this occurrence, the church had been thronged with thousands, who had assembled to witness the interment of an officer with military honours.

Although a considerable part of old building remained, it was not deemed advisable to rebuild the church on its ancient site. The present fragment of it, which was formerly the Bishop’s chancel, was fitted up for the purpose of performing the rites of sepulture in, and at this time it is used as a charity school.

It is worthy of remark, that the light of the reformation first dawned in Shrewsbury in this church.

St. Alkmond’s Church,

Situate immediately adjoining St. Julian’s, was originally founded by Elfrida, daughter of Offa, king of Mercia; and like some others in Shrewsbury, was erected at different periods and in different styles of architecture in the form of a cross. At the destruction of St. Chad’s church, the parishioners, alarmed for the safety of their ancient structure, caused it to be thoroughly examined, and in consequence of some symptoms of decay exhibited in the roof, they determined on the demolition of the old church and the erection of a new one on a part of its site. The present building was accordingly opened for divine worship in November, 1795, at an expence of about £3000, one half of which might have been saved by a judicious repair of the original erection, and thus preserved for ages. The beautiful spire-steeple at the west end, is the only part which escaped the general devastation. It is 184 feet in height, and is highly ornamental to the town, especially when seen from the adjacent country. It contains a musical peal of eight bells.

The plan of the church is an oblong square, 84 feet by 44, with a small recess for the altar, over which is a handsome painted window, by Eginton; the subject is emblematical of Faith, kneeling on a cross, with the eyes elevated and arms extended towards a celestial crown which appears amidst the opening clouds. “Be faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life,” is the motto.

Previous to the demolition of the old church, there were a variety of ancient inscriptions, few of which are now visible. In the church-yard is a monument to the memory of Alderman William Jones and his wife, the former of whom died in 1612. It formerly stood in the chantry north of the chancel; and about sixteen years ago it was munificently repaired by the late Sir Thomas Tyrwhit Jones, Bart, M.P. the worthy and respected representative of the family.

The living is in the gift of the crown. Its present incumbent the Rev. J. Wightman.

St. Giles’s Church,

Of the origin of which no authentic account is known, stands at the eastern extremity of the Abbey Foregate, and bears marks of considerable antiquity. By some it has been thought to be the earliest parochial foundation in Shrewsbury; but others, with more semblance of truth, give the palm in this respect to the Abbey, to which St. Giles’s is now attached, merely as a convenience for the performance of funeral ceremonies; public worship being only celebrated within its walls, twice every year.

It is a small plain building, consisting of a nave, chancel, and north aisle, with a small turret for the reception of a bell. Its interior presents several varieties of architecture, whilst its antique and worm-eaten benches, its homely pavement, and its almost altogether unadorned state, combine to give it a simply interesting appearance.

The church-yard contains the tombs of various inhabitants of the town; among others is one raised to the memory of Cheney Hart, M.D. a native of Warrington, and an eminent physician of this town for thirty-three years, on the pedestal of which, crowned with a handsome urn is a Latin inscription. On the north side the yard is a tomb in memory of William Congreve, esq. formerly lieutenant-colonel of the 17th foot, and his relict Jane. This gentleman was a descendant of the ancient family which gave birth to our celebrated dramatic writer, while his lady, a Waller, was sprung from that of elegant poet of Beaconsfield. The grave stone of William White, who was a quarter-master of horse in the reign of William III. bears the following lines:

In Irish wars I fought for England’s glory; Let no man scoff at telling of the story: I saw great Schomberg fall, likewise the brave St. Ruth, And here I come to die, not there in my youth. Thro’ dangers great I’ve passed many a storm; Die we must all as sure as we are born.

_PROTESTANT DISSENTERS_.

IT is always painful to men of sober and moderate principles, to recur to the Act of Uniformity, which in Bartholomew’s day, 1662, drove from their livings at least 2000 clergymen, “many of them distinguished by their abilities and zeal,” to seek subsistence from the charity of friends, and consolation in times of oppression from the calm testimony of a good conscience. To this act however, Shrewsbury is indebted for its first regular dissenting church. The place where they assembled is called

The Presbyterian Chapel.

This congregation was founded by Mr. Bryan and Mr. Tallents, the ministers ejected from St. Chad’s and St. Mary’s. It was destroyed in 1715, by a mob, soon after the accession of the House of Hanover, and was rebuilt by government. It stands on the north side of the High Street, and is a plain building of brick, neatly fitted up. It is now used by a respectable congregation of Unitarian Dissenters. Minister, the Rev. G. Case.

In the year 1766, a disagreement took place among the congregation frequenting the Presbyterian chapel, relative to the choice of a minister, in consequence of which, they separated, and a part of them erected a new chapel. It is called

The Independent Chapel,

Situate on Swan Hill, and is a commodious brick erection of an oblong form. It has a numerous and very respectable society. On the north side is a vestry. A neat stone tablet on the front bears the following inscription:

THIS BUILDING WAS ERECTED IN THE YEAR 1767, FOR THE PUBLIC WORSHIP OF GOD AND IN DEFENCE OF THE RIGHTS OF MAJORITIES IN PROTESTANT DISSENTING CONGREGATIONS TO CHOOSE THEIR OWN MINISTERS.

Minister, the Rev. T. Weaver.

The Methodist Chapel,

Called also St. John’s Chapel, is situate on St. John’s Hill, and previous to the erection of a house in front of part of it, was a great ornament to the street. It is a neat and extensive brick building of an oblong form, and is calculated to accommodate a large congregation. Behind the chapel is a vestry, in which are placed the stairs leading to the pulpit, which in consequence, has rather a novel appearance to a stranger, no steps being visible in the chapel. The congregation is numerous and respectable.

The Baptist Chapel

Is in Dog Lane; with a well-finished interior, it is, perhaps, from the awkward situation of the pulpit and its extreme lowness, one of the most unpleasant chapels in the town, especially when crowded, which is often the case on particular occasions. It is a plain respectable brick building, and has a numerous congregation. The Baptists were established here in 1780.

The Quaker’s or Friends Meeting House

Is situate on St. John’s Hill, and, like the respectable body who assemble within its walls, is a plain unadorned building.

The SANDEMANIANS and WELSH METHODISTS, also have Chapels in Hill’s Lane; and the ROMAN CATHOLICS a neat one near the Town Walls at the back of the Lion Inn.

CHARITABLE ERECTIONS & INSTITUTIONS.

The Free Schools.

EDUCATION is, in the British empire, an object of national concern. Our various universities and public schools are splendid monuments of the attention paid by our ancestors to the important object of training and enlightening the youthful mind. The provision made for the support of these establishments, especially in England and Ireland, is, generally speaking, munificent. At the same time, it is not sufficient to afford a temptation to the indulgence of idleness, by the conversion of respectable offices into sinecures. The dignity hence accruing to their teachers and professors, invests them with high authority, and imparts additional weight to their instructions; while the respect in which they are habitually held by long established prescription, gives a powerful sanction to the system of their discipline.

This observation applies with peculiar force to the munificent edifice of the Royal Free School of King Edward VI. which is situate at the northern extremity of Castle Street. Its erection was completed in 1630, the ancient school-room, which was composed of timber, having been removed in order to the completion of the present spacious and convenient structure of free-stone. The building surrounds two sides of the court with a square pinnacled tower in the angle. In the centre of the front is a gateway, adorned on each side with a Corinthian column, very rudely designed, upon which stand the statues of a scholar and a graduate, bareheaded, and in the dress of the times. Over the arch is a Greek sentence from Isocrates,

’Εὰν ῆς φιλομαθὴς ἔσῃ πολυμαθής.

Importing that a love of literature is necessary to the formation of a scholar. Above are the arms of Charles I. The ground floor on one side the gateway, contains a room originally used as an accidence school; on the other the third master’s house, now given to the head master, who places his assistant in it. In the middle story are comprised the lodging rooms of the assistant’s house, and the lower master’s apartment, which for many years has been converted into a writing school. The principal school room, which occupies the upper story, is 80 feet by 21.

The chapel is on the ground floor of the other part of the building, and is divided from the anti-chapel by a handsome open screen of oak, richly embellished with grotesque carving, as are the pulpit and bible stand. The ceiling is adorned with a variety of foliage, devices, and rebusses, preserved from the ruins of St. Alkmond’s Church. The arms of the first and present masters are placed along the middle. Prayers are read here twice on school days, by the head master, who is chaplain and catechist, for which he has a distinct salary of £20 a year.

Over the chapel, and of the same size, is the library, which contains a most valuable collection of books, and in size and decoration is in no respect inferior to the majority of those in the Universities. A half length of Henry VIII. and his son Edward VI. when a boy; a full length of an Admiral in the dress of Charles II. reign, probably Benbow, together with five portraits of head masters, ornament the walls. In this room are also preserved three sepulchral stones discovered at Wroxeter.

A small museum is separated from the lower end of the room, in which are some Roman antiquities, chiefly from Wroxeter, with a few fossils and other natural curiosities. Among the latter, is the dried body of a sturgeon, caught in 1802, in a weir adjoining the island, a quarter of a mile below the castle. When alive, it weighed 192 pounds, and was 9 feet long and 3 feet 4 inches round.

In front of the schools on the town side, is a play ground enclosed from the street by iron railing, and a considerable piece of ground is used for a similar purpose at the back, which opens to the country and is entirely secluded from the town. Two large houses most delightfully situated contiguous, belong to the masters, with every accommodation for boarders. The revenues are very handsome, and are derived chiefly from the tithes of a number of townships in the parishes of St. Mary and St. Chad, and the whole rectory of Chirbury, which were granted by King Edward VI. and Queen Elizabeth.

This seminary has been long celebrated for the erudition of its scholars. Under the “excellent and worthie” Thomas Ashton, it flourished eminently. At one period he had 290 pupils, among whom we notice Sir Henry Sydney, whose son, the heroic Sir Philip Sydney, laid here the seeds of that exemplary friendship with the celebrated Sir Fulk Greville, Lord Brook, which he maintained through the whole of his short but splendid career. Beside these, the noted Jeffries, Lord Chief Justices Jones and Price; Drs. Bowers and Thomas, Bishops of Chichester and Salisbury; the Rev. John Taylor, L.L.D. and the celebrated Dr. Waring, received their education here. Nor does the present character of the school fall short of that distinguished pre-eminence which it formerly sustained. Under the judicious direction of the learned Dr. Butler, it is in a flourishing state. Not only do the children of the principal families in the adjacent counties and North Wales, receive the rudiments of their learning here, but also those of many families of distinction from distant parts of the empire. The appointment of master rests solely in the fellows of St. John’s College, Cambridge; that of ushers and the mode of instruction is vested in the head master.

The House of Industry.

This handsome brick building, situated on the opposite side of the river to the Quarry, was erected in 1765, as a Foundling Hospital, at an expence of £12,000. Numbers of children were sent here from London, and placed out at nurse during their infancy with the neighbouring cottagers, under the superintendance of the surrounding gentry. When arrived at a proper age, they were brought into this house and employed in various branches of a woollen manufactory, and afterwards apprenticed to various individuals. About 1774, however, the governors finding their funds inadequate to the support of the charity, the house was shut up; and a few years after was rented by government, who in the American war used it as a place of confinement for Dutch prisoners.

In 1784, an act of parliament was obtained to incorporate the five parishes of Shrewsbury and Meole Brace, as far as related to their poor, and to erect a general House of Industry. The governors of the Foundling Charity were glad of an opportunity to dispose of their erection at a considerably reduced rate, and the building was accordingly purchased, together with about twenty acres of land, for about £5,500, and it was opened for the reception of paupers in December in that year. For a short period they were employed in the fabrication of woollen cloths, but this being found injurious to the pecuniary resources of the house, it was discontinued, and at present their employment chiefly consists in manufacturing the various articles of their clothing. They breakfast, dine, and sup in the dining hall, a very long room, the men, women, boys and girls, being each placed at separate tables. Divine service is performed twice each Sunday, in a neat chapel parallel with the hall. There is also an infirmary, where the sick and infirm are lodged in proper wards, and attended to by nurses and the apothecary belonging to the house. The whole is under the management of twelve directors, chosen from persons assessed in the associated parishes at £15. or possessed of property to the amount of £30. per ann. who appoint a governor and matron, to superintend the domestic economy of the establishment.

Mr. Nield, the worthy disciple of the philanthropic Howard, remarks of this place, which he visited in 1807, “This House of Industry is certainly a house of plenty, for the books every where, bear record of good living, and the famous beef slaughtered here. The average number in the house is 340; the children delicate and pampered, from being accustomed to abundance and variety of provisions, and comfortable rooms, very dissimilar to the hardy peasant, and therefore ill calculated to rear up useful assistances in the employments of agriculture, or to make useful servants in this agricultural county. They would prefer a race of hardy lads, inured from their infancy to combat weather and temporary want; whose nerves are strong by early exertions, and their understandings furnished with some knowledge of rural life.”—Mr. Nield’s extensive observation and experience, qualified him to judge of the most proper aliment and employment of this class of persons, far better than most of the directors and governors of similar institutions can reasonably be expected to do; and as indulgence and plenty cannot be supposed to be the portion of the children of the poor in their progress through life, we may indulge a hope that the directors will speedily devise some plan for the initiation of their young dependants into habits of judicious labour and healthy abstinence.

Along the north front of the house is a beautiful gravel walk, from whence the town is seen to great advantage. On the right, the Abbey-foregate, with its two venerable churches, various manufactories, Lord Hill’s Column, and a great extent of fertile land, are seen backed by the Wrekin, Haughmond Hill, &c. In front, the river Severn flowing close underneath, the beautiful verdure of the quarry, and the town, present themselves; whilst on the left are descried a large portion of this extremely fertile county, together with the distant Montgomeryshire and Denbighshire hills. This extensive prospect over the neighbouring country, with the endless variety of scenes that present themselves to the spectator are finely described in the following lines:

Ever charming, ever new, When will the landscape tire the view? The fountain’s fall, the river’s flow, The wooded vallies warm and low; The windy summits wild and high Roughly rushing on the sky! The pleasing seat, the ruin’d tow’r, The naked rock, the shady bow’r The town and village dome and farm Each give each a double charm, As pearls upon an Ethiop’s arm.

DYER.

It was from this house, that the benevolent but eccentric Mr. Day, deluded by the fascinating eloquence Rosseau, selected two girls on whom to try an experiment on female education, in which he proposed to unite the delicacy of a modern female, with the bold simplicity of a Spartan virgin, which should despise the frivolity and dissipation of the present corrupted age.

Having obtained the object of his wishes, he repaired with them to France, taking no English servant, in order that they might receive no ideas but those which he chose to instil. After spending about eight months in France, he placed the one in a respectable situation in London, and with his favourite actually proceeded some years in the execution of his project; but experience and mature reflection at length convinced him, that his theory of education was impractible, and he renounced all hope of moulding his protegee after the model his fancy had formed. He therefore placed her in a boarding school at Sutton Coldfield, in Warwickshire; and after completing her education, she resided some years in Birmingham, and subsequently at Newport, in this county: and by her amiable deportment secured a large circle of friends. Mr. Day frequently corresponded with her parentally. In her 26th year she married Mr. Bicknell, a gentleman who accompanied Mr. D. to Shrewsbury, at the commencement of this singular experiment.

Salop Infirmary.

This noble asylum, situated in St. Mary’s Churchyard, was formed in the memorable year 1745, for the accommodation and relief of the diseased and indigent poor. The munificence with which this excellent institution has been supported by the inhabitants of the county at large, has enabled its conductors to proceed upon the most liberal principles. Admission is given to the diseased from whatever quarter they may come, provided they are recommended by a subscriber; but in case of sudden accident, this recommendation is dispensed with.

It was opened in 1747, and has the honour of being one of the earliest of similar erections, those of Bristol, Northampton, Winchester, and Exeter, being the only provincial ones established prior thereto. The building is of brick with a stone portal, and the back windows, which look into the country, command a varied and extensive prospect. Considered with respect to its internal cleanliness and economical management, and the humane and skilful attentions of the medical gentlemen of the town, its advantages are such as will vie with those of any similar provincial institution, and are calculated to excite in the minds of the benevolent and reflecting, feelings of the most compassionate regard and generous sensibility.

Since its foundation, £126,671. 9_s._ 10_d._ in voluntary subscriptions and benefactions, has been contributed for its maintenance and support. By the last report it appears, that up to June 1822, 33,589 in-patients have been received into the house, 18,373 have been cured, and 3,481 relieved; also 52,142 out-patients, of whom 37,720 have been cured, and 4,877 relieved.

Besides the physicians and surgeons of the town who attend gratuitously, a surgeon resides in the house, in order that medical aid may not be wanting in cases of emergency. The domestic economy is superintended by a matron. The pecuniary concerns are managed by a secretary, under the inspection of a Board of Directors and deputy Treasurer. A Treasurer also is appointed annually from among the subscribers of five guineas and upwards, and on the Friday in the Shrewsbury race week, a sermon is preached by the chaplain, and a collection made for the benefit of the charity, the plates being held by two ladies, supported by two gentlemen of distinguished rank or opulence. The clergy of the established church, residing in the town, officiate in rotation weekly; two of the subscribers also resident in Shrewsbury, are weekly appointed as house visitors.

Millington’s Hospital

Stands in the suburb of Frankwell, and is so called from its benevolent founder, the late Mr. James Millington, draper of Shrewsbury, who in 1734, bequeathed nearly the whole of his property to its erection.

The hospital is a respectable building of brick. Over the pediment, in the centre, is a turret, in which is a clock. In this part is a chapel, used also for a school room, and houses for the master and mistress. On each side are six small houses for the poor.