Historical and Descriptive Guide through Shrewsbury, by S. F. Williams

Transcribed from the 1881 Drayton Bros. edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org, using scans from the British Library.

HISTORICAL
AND
DESCRIPTIVE GUIDE
THROUGH
SHREWSBURY.

p. 2PREFATORY NOTE.

This “Historical Guide” has no pretensions to the value of either a full history or a complete handbook of Shrewsbury. It consists simply of a sketch of the historical associations of Shrewsbury, and of a directory just sufficiently complete to conduct residents or visitors to the principal objects or places of interest in the town. In the Guide, the object has been to preserve the historical element.

p. 3HISTORICAL ASSOCIATIONS.

“Proud Salopians!” Well, have we not some good reasons for being proud? Is it not natural that as Shrewsbury has been the scene of important events and incidents, we should feel a little inordinate self-esteem? Hamlet will have it that the poor should not trumpet their own praises; but we are rich, and therefore we can indulge in some degree of conceit. Have we not something to be vain about? Have we not found homes and hiding-places for kings? Have we not had a mint here and made money—which is a difficult thing for most people to do? Has not “the finest legislative assembly in the world”—the British Parliament—been held here? Have we not received Charter upon Charter from the hands of kings, and “advanced them loans”—without security? Has not an English monarch actually sat in Shrewsbury, wearing a real crown? Have we not contributed thousands of men to the protection of the crown and dignity? Did not that “glorious old martyr”—Charles I., who was “murdered” by Oliver Cromwell—raise an army here, and did he not lay his uneasy head in a house on the Wyle Cop? Finally, not least though last, did not Falstaff, that “gross, fat man,” foolish, witty, and blusterous, “fight one long hour by Shrewsbury clock”? He says he did, if he may be believed; and is not that something to boast of? Treasuring up these things, is there not some justification for our being proud?

p. 4Douglas Jerrold said that there are some men who walk half-an-inch higher to heaven by what they tread upon. If Jerrold is right Shrewsbury people should be nearer to heaven than most folk, for, according to general opinion, we stand with extreme erectness on our self. And well we may. The town itself stands high, and the character generously attributed to us is in harmony therewith. It is situated on two hills of gentle ascent, which gradually rise from the bed of the river Severn. Who has not heard of Sabrina? The Welsh had the good taste to call it “The queen of rivers.” Its name is chronicled in history, and its beauty has been sung by poets. Leland says—

Shakespeare alludes to it as “the gentle Severn with the sedgy-bank,” “the sandy-bottomed Severn.” It is an important river of England. It is the chief river of Wales. It has its cradle on Plinlimmon Hill on the verge alike of Montgomeryshire and Cardiganshire, not far from the coast of Cardigan Bay. It glides on between the everlasting rocks and fairy valleys, the fields and forests, where the wind, that “grand old harper, harps on his thunder-harp of pines.” It enters Shropshire at Melverley, and receives the waters of the Verniew at a ferry with an unpronounceable Welsh name; forms a crescent near Montford Bridge and Fitz; surrounds the Isle; then gracefully twines round Shrewsbury on all sides except the north; streams on through Uffington, skirting Haughmond Hill, and presenting with the outstretched landscape a beautiful edge to the grand old rocks; proceeds on its course to Atcham, where it receives the waters of the Tern: runs on placidly near Cound; noiselessly steals by Coalbrookdale, which, celebrated for its iron manufactures, presents a mingled picture of utility and poetry; passes then by Coalport, famous for its china works; glides through Bridgnorth; washes a narrow slip of land in the county of Stafford; flows on to Bewdley, Upton, Tewkesbury, and Gloucester; receives the Stroudwater at Framilode; joins the Hereford and Gloucester canal opposite Gloucester; and becomes absorbed in the sea at the Bristol Channel, about twelve miles from Bristol. Formerly the Severn ran in five channels at the eastern side of Shrewsbury, and spread into p. 5a marshy lake, which extended from the foot of the Wyle Cop to the site of the Abbey. The river abounds—or did abound—with salmon, trout, pike, shad, flounders, and carp. The river was free, because there was no Board of Conservators, and salmon was not a dish exclusively for the aristocracy. The distance of the Severn from its source to its entrance into the sea is about 250 miles. In point of celebrity it ranks next to the Thames; in magnificence it is excelled, in beauty and diversity of scenery it is equalled by none in our land.

The county encompassed by the Severn is undoubtedly of great antiquity, and of very aristocratic reputation. The capital of it—Shrewsbury—dates back to that indefinite and undiscoverable period familiarly called “time immemorial.” A local historian says that one of the earliest names by which it has been recognised is Careg Hydwyth, “the rock covered with shrubs.” The Britons called it Pengwerne, a brow or hill of elders, because there were numbers growing on the spot. The Welsh gave it one of those awful names which tax the courage of Englishmen to encounter, but which signified “an eminence surrounded by water.” The Saxons named it Scrobbesbyrig, an appellation which may have been derived either from the fact that the town was encompassed with shrubs, or, not from the natural aspect of the place, but from the name of some possessor of “Sciropescire” or district territory, under the denomination of Scrope, Scropesbyrig. Subsequently the Normans slightly altered the designation to Sciropesberie, afterwards Schrosberie, and Salopesberie, whence we have Salop and Shrewsbury.

Who laid the foundations of Shrewsbury, and at what period they were laid, are questions which have elicited various opinions. Tristram Shandy maintained in a grave and elaborate argument there was no doubt whatever that he had been born; and so we suppose with equal certainty there can be no denial that Shrewsbury was built by some person or persons unknown. The first thing we hear about it is that it was a city of refuge for the Britons to whom it offered a retreat when they were driven by the Saxons from the ancient fortress of Uriconium. For the Saxons—valorous and patriotic, but fierce, warlike, barbarous, the German “Scourges of God”—after conquering Kent, carried on their p. 6ambitious struggles with the Britons until the latter all over the little island were completely defeated, the Silures in Pengwerne, though the most heroic of the Britons, among the rest. Cynddrwyn about the middle of the sixth century had possession of Uriconium. His son, Cynddylan, was a British chieftain and had his royal palace at Shrewsbury; and when the devastating Saxon, in his career of spoliation, made inroads into this district for the purpose of expelling the Britons from Uriconium, Cynddylan led an armed force from Shrewsbury over the Tern by Atcham for the defence of his father. But the Britons were defeated in the battle which ensued, and, having lost Cynddylan who was slain in the encounter, fled to Shrewsbury, which they called Pengwerne. Llywarc Hên, a prince of the Cambrian Britons, who lived in the 6th century, mentions that name in his writings; and from him it also appears that several of the principal towns of the county had their rude beginnings in that early period. The theme of Llywarc’s metrical composition is our mountains, our river, and our “dwelling-places.”

The peninsular situation of Pengwerne appeared to the Britons to afford them a secure retreat from their Saxon foes. The trees and shrubs which covered the more uncultivated parts of the county spread into forests, obstructed the course of streams, and thus caused stagnation and the formation of lakes and marshes. Amid the underwood, the thickets, and morasses the fugitives hid themselves. But they were soon disturbed. Pengwerne was not to be their eternal city, their everlasting habitation. They had founded a county hereafter to be famous in the history of England, to be the theatre of one great national tragedy and of several important dramas. Then they were followed with fire and sword by the Saxons from Uriconium, who spread destruction in their path, pillaged and devastated, and finally reduced the place to ashes. Llywarc makes the desolation of Pengwerne the subject of an elegy, and calls upon the maidens to “quit their dwellings, and behold the habitation of Cynddyllan,” the royal residence of their chieftain, wrapped in flames.

A few years later we find Pengwerne inhabited by a King of Powis who elevated it to a position of some importance by selecting it as his capital. It then ranked as one of p. 7the principal of the twenty-eight cities of Britain—at present it is not easy to say what rank it holds. For two centuries—that is, to the close of the eighth century—it was torn asunder by internal feuds and sanguinary contests between native princes. Every man’s house was not then his castle. The few arts of civil life were neglected and forgotten. It is probable that the whole of Pengwerne Powis consisted of nothing more dignified than a few hovels, surrounded by a ditch or rampart of unhewn logs for the residence of the prince and the officers of religion, some wattled huts, with a fold or two for sheep and cattle.

At the end of the eighth century, and during the reign of the Mercian King Offa, the Shrewsbury portion of Powis was surrendered by treaty to the Saxons. It was no longer a metropolis, but it retained, even in Alfred’s time, the distinguished name of Pengwerne. Scrobe, however, was substituted for Pengwerne in the reign of his successor, Edward the Elder, who held a mint here, and on one side of the coin was the inscription, Edward Rex Angliæ, and on the reverse, Aelmer on Scrobe.

Proceeding later on we come to the Danish invasion when Shrewsbury was an object of Danish cruelty in those struggles which took place between the ferocious pirates from Denmark and Scandinavia and the Saxons. At the time the Danes under Sween landed in the Isle of Wight, King Ethelred was at Shrewsbury. Here he called a council of his nobles to decide what measures should be adopted to effectually put a stop to the atrocities and limit the power of the Danes. A purchase of peace, advised by Edric, Duke of Mercia, was agreed upon; and England had to bear the infamy of obtaining the semblance of quiet (for the nation was soon again disturbed) by the payment of £30,000 sterling.

The character of Duke Edric was stained by a foul and treacherous murder committed near Shrewsbury. Edric invited Duke Alshelm, a royal prince, to a banquet, and afterwards induced him to accompany a hunting party. During the chase Edric led Alshelm, his chief guest, into a wood where a butcher of the town named Godwin Porthund, who had been employed for the purpose, lay concealed. This ruffian seized an opportunity to attack Alshelm, who p. 8was killed. It was this dastardly crime which caused the order recorded in Domesday Book that whenever the sovereign came here twelve of the citizens should constantly guard his person, and twelve should invariably attend him with weapons of defence when he went out hunting.

In the general victories of the Danes Shrewsbury revolted from the Saxon rule, and rendered allegiance to Canute; but in 1016 Edmund, son of Ethelred, marched to the town from the North, re-captured it, and punished his faithless subjects with great cruelty.

At the Norman conquest Shrewsbury was known from its paying “gelt,” that is, money for 200 hides of land. Of course, it did not escape the barbarities of William the Conqueror. The Welsh, about 1067 laid siege to the town, but William, coming hither from York, opposed the besiegers with the same relentlessness, the same cruelty that characterised the violent policy he everywhere else pursued.

In the reign of William the Conqueror the Earls of Shrewsbury held their court at Shrewsbury, which was then the capital of the earldom. William conferred the earldom, and with it a grant of the town and a considerable portion of the county, upon Roger de Montgomery, a near relative. William rewarded his commanders with estates—a very excellent remuneration for their services. These, given by the king, were held under the Earl of Shrewsbury; and amongst their fortunate possessors were ancestors of the families of Waring and Corbett. Both Roger and Robert Corbett held lordships or manors under Roger de Montgomery—the former to the number of twenty-four. Military offices appear to have been extremely profitable things in these days—the honours were something more valuable than crosses and medals.

The usages of Shrewsbury recorded in Domesday Book peril the basis of the fancy that their is a divinity about a king. It was ordered, for instance, that wherever the king slept in Shrewsbury twelve of the “best citizens” should be deprived of “balmy sleep” to guard him—him whom the celestial powers have been supposed to hedge. What if the monarch be a queen? For her safety no provision seems to have been made. It was further ordered p. 9that when the king went out hunting twelve trusty men should be sent about him to protect him; and that when he left the city—Shrewsbury being then called a city—the sheriff should send twenty horses—whether with or without riders is not said—to conduct him a short distance into Staffordshire. There is a strong element of non-divinity, too, about some other requirements, such, for example, as these: that the masters of the mint, of whom there were three, should pay the king 20s. at the end of every fifteen days while the money coined here continued in circulation; that the executors of every deceased burgess should pay the king 20s.; that every burgess who shall experience the misfortune of having his house burned down should forfeit to the king (who was least injured) 40s., and to his two nearest neighbours (who were most injured, or at least jeopardised) 2s. each, and that every woman marrying should pay fees to the king—a widow 20s., but a spinster (who was libelled by this valuation) only 10s. From other customs narrated in Domesday Book we learn that in King Edward’s time there were 250 houses in Shrewsbury, and an equal number of burgesses, who paid £7 16s. 8d. per annum in excise, and that the city was rated at 100 hides, of which the church of St. Alkmund had two, St. Julian half of one, St. Millburg one, St. Chad three and a half, St. Mary one rood, Duke Edric three hides, and the Bishop of Chester three hides. Some light, too, is thrown upon the “treatment of criminals.” Those who “broke the peace, given under the king’s own hand,” were outlawed; those who disturbed the peace were ordered to pay a forfeit of 10s.; and those who drew blood in a fight were fined 40s.

At the beginning of the 12th century, two years after the accession of Henry I., signs of disloyalty manifested themselves at Shrewsbury. Roger de Belesme, son of Roger Earl of Shrewsbury, who is described as “a rash and discontented young man,” was in favour of the pretensions of Duke Robert to the crown. He carried his views to the length of rebellion, and, to be prepared for emergencies, fortified his castles in Shropshire, and built a wall on each side of Shrewsbury Castle. One portion of this wall stands now on the Dana, another in Water Lane, and another along the Severn footpath on the Wyle Cop side of the railway p. 10bridge. Henry, who had himself reached the throne by an act of usurpation, declared “the rash young man” a traitor, and prepared to execute vengeance upon him. He marched through Bridgnorth, capturing it, to Shrewsbury, with a force of 60,000 soldiers, to besiege the town. Three days he gave the governors of the castle to consider whether they should lay down their arms, and threatened that if the Castle were not delivered to him at the end of that time, he would attack it and hang every person he seized therein. The Earl surrendered, implored the mercy of this merciless king, acknowledged his crime of treason, and was banished to Normandy by Henry who took possession of the town “to the general joy,” says one, “of all the people.” Henry granted the town a Charter, and there followed a succession of 32 Royal Charters to the second year of the reign of James II. The earliest Charter preserved in the archives of the Corporation is dated November 11th, 1189, the first year of Richard I.

During the civil wars between Stephen and Matilda, or the Empress Maud, as she is sometimes called, Baron William Fitz Allen, governor of the town, and sheriff of the county, who resided in the castle, espoused the cause of the Empress; but the town, after some resistance, was taken by assault, the baron’s estates forfeited, and several of the garrison hanged. Allen himself was compelled to escape and left the castle in possession of the king, who had conducted the siege in person. Allen fled to Matilda, and when she was finally necessitated to take refuge in Normandy he repaired to the court of France, where he remained until the accession of Henry II., when he returned, and all his estates, with the government of Shrewsbury, were restored to him.

In the early part of the next reign—that of John—numerous engagements happened on the Welsh borders between the royal forces and the Welsh; and Shrewsbury became the scene of several contests between the same apparently deadly and irreconcilable foes. Now it was captured by the Welsh; then they were beaten, dispersed, and the town retaken by the king. Peace was entered into only to be soon violated. Boys were exchanged as hostages for the due observance of the treaties. These were broken p. 11and the boys hung. Henry III. had his hands full with the frequent incursions of the Welsh. One year they, and the next the king, were masters of the town. The king and Llewellyn, Prince of Wales, were constantly at war. In 1215 Llewellyn held the town and castle with a large army. In 1220 Henry had succeeded to the possession of it. Animosities, however, continued to subsist between them; and thus the disturbances were prolonged, each party being alternately now victor and now vanquished, for a term of upwards of 80 years, from the reign of John, about 1200, to the infancy of that of Edward I., about 1282. During this protracted period of assault and counter assault—a period of great distress for the inhabitants who suffered from these perpetual contests, and peculiarly from the depredations of the Welsh—the town sustained the penalty of no less than seven sieges. The most notable and the most serious occurred in 1233, when the place was partly burned down, nearly every house plundered, and numbers of the inhabitants killed by Llewellyn, assisted by the Earl of Pembroke and other noblemen. Peace was once more obtained by offers of pardon to the Welsh on condition of their obedience. The terms were accepted; but in 1241 it again became necessary for Henry to march against the restless Llewellyn. A rebellions spirit also appeared about 1256 in the person of Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, who seized the town without material opposition. In 1267 disturbances again broke out. Henry appeared at Shrewsbury at the head of his army to quell the discord. War was on the eve of being renewed when Llewellyn submitted, and peace once more was effected. In 1269 Henry’s eldest son was appointed governor of the town and castle, on the 23rd of September. Still the government of Shrewsbury oscillated between the Welsh and the sovereign power; and in 1277, Edward I, there was another open rupture. A novel course was adopted. Hostilities had been waged fruitlessly. Now the Courts of Exchequer and King’s Bench were removed to Shrewsbury that “they (the Welsh) might be awed into submission, and all necessary help be at hand for taming them.” The condition of the citizens was most distressing. The prey of their Celtic neighbours, they were also they prey of the wolves which inhabited the desolate mountains of the Principality, and which in herds ravaged the surrounding districts. About p. 121282, however, the Welsh were finally subdued; and their submission to the English government, which was then accomplished, has unquestionably been beneficial to themselves.

A Parliament was held here about Michaelmas, 1283, by Edward I., and adjourned to Acton Burnell. The Lords sat in a castle, but the Commons in a barn. The deliberations and negotiations were only of slight moment. They referred to nothing more important than the most effective way of securing payment of debts—a matter upon which information would be thankfully received by some in these days—and to the course to be taken with David, brother of Llewellyn, Prince of Wales. But the Parliament is memorable from its having been the first national convention in which the Commons had any share by legal authority. David, who had been pledged to Edward, and created by him Earl of Denbigh, but afterwards joined his brother Llewellyn in resisting an invasion of Edward’s army into Anglesea, was condemned to die the death of a traitor. The head of Llewellyn was sent to the king at Shrewsbury, by his command it was sent to London, where it was placed on the Tower with a crown of willows—an accompaniment of mockery. The person of David was brought in chains to Shrewsbury. He was tried and convicted of high treason for obeying the instincts of a patriot. The punishment was carried out with the greatest ignominy. He was first drawn through the town at the hind of a horse; then he was hanged; then he was beheaded; then his body was quartered, and his intestines burned: and as the conclusion of the tragedy, his head was sent to London, exposed on the Tower beside that of his brother, and his four quarters to York, Bristol, Northampton, and Winchester. With the butchery of David’s corpse the conquest of Wales was complete.

Nearly forty years later, namely, in 1322, Edward II. marched through Shrewsbury from Worcester with his army. The burgesses went out to meet him clothed in armour, and conducted him with acclamations into the town.

Another Parliament was held here by Richard II. in the end of 1397 or the beginning of 1398, in the chapterhouse of the old monastery, where the Abbey Church now p. 13stands. It was called “The Great Parliament,” partly from the momentous nature of the state affairs transacted, but principally from the number of earls and other nobles that attended. It was held here because the king declared that “he bore great love to the inhabitants of these parts, where he had many friends.” He sat at this session with the crown upon his head; and through his instrumentality several exorbitant acts were passed, which, however, were repealed in the succeeding reign of Henry IV., and which formed a count in the indictment that resulted in the deposition of this king.

THE BATTLE OF SHREWSBURY.

The reign of Henry IV. is distinguished by the “Battle of Shrewsbury,” one of the most terrible battles recorded in the History of England. Henry was surrounded on all sides by difficulties and dangers. His nobles were animated by mutual hostilities. His subjects in Wales seized the opportunity which the discontent among the aristocracy of England gave them, and broke out in insurrection. Inspired and guided by Owen Glendower, the indomitable Welsh fought a long and tedious battle, in which the royal representative, Sir Edmund Mortimer, was taken prisoner. Mortimer’s nephew, the Earl of March, was also carried into Wales. Henry could not be persuaded to offer a ransom for the liberty of Mortimer. His refusal embittered the Percies, to whose assistance he owed his crown. During this unsettled state of affairs the Scots made incursions into England. The peers consented to attend the king in an expedition against Scotland. The expedition proved abortive. Henry found that Richard III. would not obey his mandate to do homage to him for his crown; he found that the Scots would not submit; he found that they would not give him battle. He therefore withdrew and disbanded his army. The Scots, resolved to punish Henry for this miserable attempt at subjugation, marched into the northern counties of England at the head of Earl Douglas. They were totally routed in the battle which ensued at Holmedon; and Douglas, with a number of nobles, was taken prisoner. p. 14Henry ordered the Earl of Northumberland not to ransom the prisoners. Northumberland had a right to ransom or return them. A dispute was the result. The relations between the sovereign and the Percies were more deeply embittered, and Northumberland was forbidden by Henry to enter the court.

The Earl was disgusted and indignant at the ingratitude of Henry. It was by his aid that Henry had advanced to the throne. Henry had conferred upon him some gifts in return, but Northumberland was not easily satisfied. Henry, on the one hand, was jealous of the power which had seated him on the throne; and the earl, on the other, was discontented with the compensation which Henry had made. The interference of the king with the right of Northumberland to dispose of his prisoners according to his own wish was deemed a fresh insult and injury. Northumberland determined upon revenge by overturning the throne which had been established principally by him. To this end he and his adherents proclaimed that Richard was alive, but that having been satisfactorily disproved, he planned a scheme for defending the claim of Mortimer to the crown. It was laid that the armies of Wales and Scotland should be united. Mortimer entered into covenant with Northumberland to bring an army into the Marches, which the Welsh, commanded by Glendower, were to join. The Earl of Worcester, brother of Northumberland, joined the forces, and in order to win over the Scots to the compact, Douglas and the other prisoners were set at liberty. At the moment when everything was ready for an engagement Northumberland was suddenly seized with a dangerous malady at Berwick. The conduct of the army was taken by his son Percy, surnamed Hotspur, this “Mars in swaddling clothes,” “this infant warrior,” who

Hotspur, along with the magnanimous and martial Douglas, marched the troops towards Shrewsbury, where it was intended to join the forces of the Welsh under Glendower. The king, aware of the importance of celerity, hurried down to Shrewsbury before the arrival of Hotspur, whose design was to reach here first. Glendower had not brought his army up, but Hotspur nevertheless resolved to make a stand. He had a force of 14,000 carefully selected soldiers. He had, too, the advantage of choice of ground. The animosity had reached its height on both sides. A general engagement was inevitable. It was brought to a head by the impatience of Percy on the one side, and by the policy of the king on the other, the king believing that without the aid of Glendower the defeat of Percy was secure. On the evening previous to battle Percy sent to Henry a manifesto in which he renounced his allegiance, set the sovereign at defiance, enumerated the grievances of which the nation had abundant reason to complain. He upbraided him with perjury, with infidelity to the late monarch, with aiding the murder of that prince, with usurping the title of the house of Mortimer, with adopting the most crooked and cruel policy, with burdening the nation with unrighteous taxes, and with corrupting the Parliamentary elections. This added fuel to the flame. This intensified the quarrel between them.

When the morning of the 21st of July, 1403, dawned, the two armies were drawn up in array at a place then called Oldfield, Bullfield, and Haitefield, subsequently Battlefield, near Shrewsbury. Percy held the most advantageous ground, but the king, to balance the loss of superior position, made a most skilful disposition of his men. Hotspur addressed his p. 16men, telling them that they must either conquer or die an ignominious death. They replied with shouts of applause. The king sent the Abbot of Shrewsbury to offer pardon, but it was useless: Hotspur would not lay down arms. He was asked why he appeared to oppose his king? In reply he repeated the accusations of the manifesto. Henry counselled him to confide in his royal clemency. Percy peremptorily declared that he would not, and thereupon the standard bearer of the king’s army marched forward, and the battle commenced. Terrible was the shock of opposing forces. It was one of the most fearful actions in all our history. It began with a shower of arrows on both sides. The Scots followed with a rush of tremendous fury upon the front of the royal line, and put them into temporary confusion. The king, however, was in the thickest of the fight, and was known to his soldiers, although arrayed in a manner which effectually prevented his being recognised by his enemies. His presence lent new courage to his partially disorganised forces. Though foremost among the foremost Hotspur and Douglas tried in vain to discover him. A device of concealment had been adopted. Several were armed like the king, and thus it was impossible to distinguish the royal warrior. But at every one that was conspicuous Hotspur and Douglas furiously charged with swords and lances. The gap in the royal line had nearly decided the victory by disordering the king’s army. It was a daring and dashing move, and spread dismay among the disconcerted, but it evinced more impetuosity than judgment. It was one road to victory to force a way into the centre of the king’s forces, but it opened up a path into which Hotspur’s men were unable to follow. Seeing this, the king ordered his reserve to be brought up. The promise of triumph was lost to Hotspur. The reinforcements turned the scale. Hotspur’s army was defeated, and fled in great confusion, after a severe contest of three hours duration. Douglas performed feats of incredible valour. Hotspur sustained his fame for supernatural courage; but the moment he observed the certainty of defeat, he rushed into the hottest part of the battle, and was killed, some say by Prince Henry.

p. 17The loss of life was fearful. The dead lay in heaps all around. There were slain no less than 2,300 gentlemen, and about 6,000 private men, of whom two-thirds belonged to Hotspur’s army. On the side of the king, who fought desperately, and was throughout the engagement in the very middle of the fight, slaying, it is said, thirty-six persons with his own hand, there were 1,600 killed and about 3,000 wounded. Among the killed were the Earl of Stafford, and ten new knights who had been knighted on the same morning, only a few hours previously. Douglas and Worcester were taken prisoners. Worcester on the following Monday was beheaded at Shrewsbury, at the High Cross, that is, at the top of Pride Hill. Sir Theobald Trussel, Baron of Kinderton, and Sir Richard Vernon, met the same fate at the same time. Douglas, who had fallen from a crag of a rock on Haughmond Hill before being taken prisoner, was treated with the courtesy due to his rank and noble qualities, and afterwards liberated. The body of Hotspur having been found was beheaded and quartered in Shrewsbury, and the quarters fixed upon the gates of the town. Many of the dead were buried upon the field of slaughter; while some of the most notable were interred in the Black Friars and St. Austin’s Friars, Shrewsbury. Subsequently the king built Battlefield Church in honour of his victory, and settled upon it a certain sum to pay two priests for praying for the souls of the slain.

In the middle of the 15th century the Duke of York raised an army at Shrewsbury, really for the purpose of dethroning Henry VI., whose feebleness in conducting the Government was beyond dispute, but ostensibly only for the purpose of removing the Duke of Somerset from the councils of the King. The Duke of York was subsequently killed in a battle near Wakefield, whereupon his son, Edward, Earl of March, afterwards King of England, to revenge the death of his father and the cruelties inflicted on his most attached friends, came to Shrewsbury, where 23,000 men flocked to his assistance. With these, principally Welsh borderers, he wholly defeated and dispersed the King’s forces at Mortimer’s Cross, near Hereford.

p. 18When Henry, Earl of Richmond, afterwards Henry VII. arrived in England, and marched against Richard III. he was joined at Shrewsbury, by Sir Gilbert Talbot, High Sheriff of the county, who added 4,000 men to his small army. Henry, sensible of the material aid that was thus rendered him, paid Shrewsbury the compliment of visiting it shortly after he reached the throne; again in 1488 when he remained several days; a third time in 1490 when the King, Queen, and Prince Arthur were present at St. George’s Feast, which, strangely enough, was held in St. Chad’s Church, Princess Street; and a fourth time in 1495 when he was sumptuously entertained by the corporation—public men who, like Falstaff, had a hearty and deep affection for sack. Some of the charges for this banquet are most curious and amusing. There was bread which cost £2; there was bread for the Queen 2s. 8d.; there were four oxen, £3 6s. 8d!—there could have been no controversy about the high price of butcher’s meat; there were twenty-four wethers £1 12s.—talk of the “good old times,” what farmer, badly off as he is in these days, would wish them back again?—there were twenty-four bottles of wine for “the King and the Lords in the Castle,” 16s., eightpence a bottle!—there was wine to make Hipocrass for the Queen, 4s.; there was a tun of wine £8, and six hogsheads of ale £2 6s. The bread, oxen, and wethers cost £7 1s. 4d., the ale and wine for the King, the Queen, the guard, the King’s gentlemen, and the minstrels cost £13 15s.! That was a truly English entertainment! The Prince had 10s. spent on bread for his wants, and £4 on “half-a-tun of wine” for his refreshment and enlivenment. Rewards were given to children, footmen, players, and serjeants-at-arms. The total charge was £39 17s. 6d. Do hotel keepers sigh for the return of the ancient days?

For upwards of three-quarters of a century after the last visit of Henry VII. Shrewsbury received no royal attentions. After the lapse of eighty-five years, however, a representative of royalty in the person of Sir Henry Sidney favoured the town with a visit. Sir Henry Sydney, who had been educated at Shrewsbury School, was Lord President of the Welsh Marches; and in that character he kept St. George’s feast in Shrewsbury, on the 24th of April, 1581. Dr. Taylor’s account of his reception, and of the manner of the p. 19feast, is most amusing. Sir Henry “most honourably came from the Counsell House there, in hys knightly robes, most valiant, wyth hys gentilmen before hym, and hys knights followyng hym, in brave order.” In the rear of the knights were the bailiffs, aldermen, and “companyes of all occupations in the sayde towne, evrie company followinge in good and seemely order, towards St. Chadd’s Churche,” in Princess Street. At the church Sir Henry was seated, or “stallid,” as the manuscript reads, in the chancel, where the knights of the garter passed and repassed, “dyng as much honour as thoughe the Queen’s Majestic had been present.” By command of the Lord President, divine service was performed “to the gloryfying of God.” Connected with “the gloryfying of God,” at least in the narrative of Dr. Taylor, was the feast, which Dr. Taylor records supplemented the religious gloryfying. The procession was so long that when Sir Henry entered the church, “the last end of the trayne was at my Lord’s place, the Councill House.” A week later there was more feasting. The masters of the Grammar School, “the free scoole,” Dr. Taylor significantly calls the institution, provided it. Their names were Thomas Lorrance, John Barker, Richard Atkys, and Roger Kent. They were feeders unquestionably, for they made “a brave and costly bancket after supper, on the first daye of Maye.” The “dyshes” numbered forty, and “every scoole presented ten dyshes, with a shewer before every scoole.” The following day, in a spirit of elation, the scholars of the school, who numbered 360, “marched braveley in battell order” to the Gey in the Abbey Foregate, where they met the Lord President. The general and captains renewed their allegiance to the sovereign and valiantly declared that they “would feight and defend the countrey.” Sir Henry paid them the necessary compliment for their eloquence. He appears to have won the affection of the students. His departure was mourned as if it were an irreparable loss. He left the town on the 13th of May in a barge, and at a certain point along the shore of the river were stationed a number of melancholy scholars “apparelyd in greene, and greene wyllows upon theire heads,” for the purpose of making lachrymose appeals to him to remain, of reciting doleful ditties upon his departure, of lamenting the end of the halcyon days of “brave and costly bankets” and of delivering eloquent orations on p. 20their eternal fidelity to the constitution. One elegist pitifully affirmed that his “woe was greate,” that out of the intensity of his grief he was compelled to rend his garment. The same inconsolable spirit ventured to implore the Severn to “turn its stream quite backe.” Another burst out wailingly—“O woeful wretched time, O doleful day and houre;” another declared that the sight of Sir Henry’s leaving gave him “a pinching payne that griped his hart;” while another uttered the sensible wish that “we could like fishes swyme that we myght wyth thee goe.” It can readily be believed, as Dr. Taylor says, that all this lugubration caused “my Lord hymself to change countenance!” The bailiffs and aldermen, however, preserved a different spirit—a spirit which may be readily appreciated from the fact that after the scholars had done their lamentations they “dyned altogether in the bardge uppon the water when they came to Atcham!” Aldermen without a doubt and of a truth.

Nothing of moment occurs in the history of Shrewsbury after this until we come to the reign of Charles I. Charles had to remove his standard from Nottingham. On the 19th of September, 1642, he mustered his forces at Wellington. He placed himself in the centre, and addressed the soldiers in a vigorous tone. The next day he reached Shrewsbury. One of his first acts was to borrow £600 out of the Grammar School Treasury. His next was to re-establish the mint for the coining of the sinews of war. His next was to raise an army. He was joined by Prince Rupert, Prince Charles, and the Duke of York who, with several Shropshire noblemen and gentlemen, quickly formed a force for the defence of his cause. Those who could not obtain horse or foot contributed plate to be coined at the mint. The universities of Oxford and Cambridge presented him with a quantity of plate. Thomas Lyster, Esq., of Rowton, gave the king a purse of gold, which the sovereign acknowledged by elevating him to the rank of knighthood. Sir Richard Newport, in return for his services, was advanced to the honour of a Baron of England by the title of Lord Newport. Sir Richard, fully appreciating the King’s wants, presented him with £600. The people, it is said, were enamoured of Charles. Large numbers of them enlisted as volunteers, and some were rewarded with knighthood for their loyalty.

p. 21Charles made Shrewsbury a garrison town. Under his direction Lord Capel built a strong fort on the Mount to prevent any enemy from planting cannon there. It was called Cadogan’s Fort. Two years after, in 1644, Colonel Mytton, a valorous officer who governed a small garrison at Wem, and was general of the Parliamentary forces in Shropshire, made two unsuccessful attempts to reduce Shrewsbury. The first occurred on a Saturday, when he attacked the fort at the Mount, but was repulsed. The second effort was made on the following Saturday, about midnight. Mytton brought his forces to the Old Heath, but the darkness was against them. They mistook their way, and marched in the direction of Pimley and Atcham. On the succeeding Saturday the third attempt took place. General Mytton’s forces consisted of 250 foot and 250 horse drawn out of the garrisons of Wem and Moreton Corbet. To these were added the same number of foot and horse of the Staffordshire army, under the command of Colonel Bowyer. Sir William Brereton gave valuable assistance. They arrived at Shrewsbury on Saturday morning, February 22nd, 1644. They landed under the Castle Hill, on the east side. Half a hundred troopers dismounted, and, led by the Rev. Mr. Huson, Captain Villiers, and Lieutenant Benbow, stormed the town with pistols. Musqueteers followed along the Severn side, under the Castle Hill, near the Council House, and entered the town at the gate of the Water Lane, which now runs into Raven Street. The musqueteers were succeeded by about 350 foot. These marched to the Market Square; and meanwhile the remainder of the Parliamentary army reached the Gates, which then stood on Castle Gates. The royal guard had fled, and the horse under General Mytton and Colonel Bowyer entered the town unresisted. Dreadful consternation spread among the inhabitants. Mytton’s men came down “like wolves on the fold.” They plundered goods; they pilfered plate; they stole whatsoever they could. Distress immediately prevailed. Shrieks and lamentations were heard far above the din of the contending parties. The people were devoutly loyal to their monarch. Their sufferings were painfully grievous. The Castle and the fort at the Mount held out for some time with great bravery, but at twelve o’clock at noon the Castle was delivered up upon condition that the English march to p. 22Ludlow, but the Irish remain as the conquerors’ prisoners of war. About midnight the fort could no longer be defended, and was handed over to the Parliamentarians. The whole of the garrison surrendered upon bare quarter. It is remarkable that the loss of life on both sides amounted to only two: one Parliamentarian, Richard Wycherley, of the Clive, Grinshill, and one royalist, the captain of the main guard, who was killed at the Market Square. Among the prisoners taken were eight Knights and Baronets, forty Colonels, Majors, Captains, and other officers, with a large quantity of ordnance. Colonel John Benbow, who had joined the king in Shrewsbury in September, 1642, was in 1651 condemned by Court Martial at Chester for corresponding with the king. He was sentenced to death, and the sentence was carried out on the 15th of October, 1651, in the Cabbage Garden, afterwards the Bowling Green, near the Castle, Shrewsbury. On the 16th the body was buried in St. Chad’s churchyard (old St. Chad’s). The stone which marked his grave was re-cut in the year 1740 at the expense of Mr. Scott, of Betton, “to perpetuate his memory.”

Charles II., visited Shrewsbury. Struck with surprise at the width and cleanliness of the streets, he expressed, a wish to elevate it into a city. The burgesses, who appear to have left their first love, and to have degenerated in their affections for kings, refused his offer in such an independent spirit that they obtained for themselves the designation of “Proud Salopians”—a designation which is often applied to us as a term indicating that we are haughty, stiff, conceited. Is there not something honourable in it? The title means that once upon a time we performed the courageous feat of declining the wish of a king—we said “no” to a sovereign—we rejected the proffered compliment of being exalted by a monarch. Strange but re-assuring phenomenon from the descendants of the zealots of Richard II., and from the devotees of Charles I.!

The last royal visit to Shrewsbury—and, as we have seen, there was a number of them, chiefly of either a disturbing or a worthless sort—was made by James II. in August, 1687. Of course, the indispensable feasting, which is a fundamental element in our glorious British Constitution, was held in great style. A magnificent court was kept in the p. 23Council House on August 25th; and the next day the King left this town for Whitchurch. With his departure end our stories of the calls of kings on their subjects at Shrewsbury.

HISTORICAL GUIDE THROUGH THE TOWN.

The objects of historical interest in Shrewsbury are most numerous. We come upon them in every street. We meet them at every corner. We hear the voices of the past everywhere about us. We find ourselves associated with something that had a beginning in centuries gone by—something that has stood the storms of ages and been spared in the disturbances of the centuries—something that is rich in memories of old—something connected with circumstances or events which, if we only thought of them, would furnish us with lessons in stones, and make our daily travelling of the streets an entertainment. Shrewsbury, of course, is not, in this respect, an exceptional town; but it is wealthy beyond most others. We cannot notice at elaborate length the remaining

but let us rapidly run over the town in as straight a course as its divergent streets permit.

THE CASTLE.

On the site of the castle a Saxon fortress originally stood. In 1070 Roger de Montgomery built the castle by enlarging the fortress and demolishing fifty-one houses occupied by the burgesses. The destruction of this property was not accompanied by any diminution in the public taxes, and the burgesses complained of their grievance, but without effect. The Earl’s two sons, who succeeded him in possession of the castle, refused to redress their wrongs. In the reign of Henry I. it became the property of the Crown, and certain p. 24portions of land were parcelled out as positions of defence in the event of any necessity arising. A governor was appointed to command it, a constable to guard it, and a chamberlain to see that it was kept in good repair. It was usually held by the sheriff of the county to enable him the more powerfully to defend his bailwick. It was surrendered to the Parliamentary army in 1644, and General Mytton was made governor. He was succeeded by Humphrey Mackworth, who appointed as lieutenant of the castle Captain Hill. Hill is described as “a prodigal, drunken fellow, who before the war, was a barber in Shrewsbury.” He was disliked by both the people of the town and the garrison, and in order to depose him from his position, a conspiracy was formed. He was enticed to an alehouse outside the gates of the town. The gates were closed to prevent his return, his personal property was thrown over them, the town instantly was in an uproar, and he was compelled to fly for his life. In the fifteenth year of Charles II. the burgesses were ordered by a quo warranto to deliver up the castle to the king. The garrison then consisted of two companies. In the time of James II. all the cannon and match, with most of the muskets, were removed by royal command. Charles II. presented the Castle to Lord Newport, afterwards Earl Bradford. Lord Newport had given the sum of £600 to Charles I. Perhaps the gift of the Castle by the second Charles was his acknowledgment of Newport’s pecuniary service to that relative who had the misfortune to lose his head. The Duke of Cleveland is now the owner of the Castle.

On Castle Gates, opposite the Independent Chapel, stood the Outer Castle Gate, which was formerly strengthened and defended with towers, portcullis, and fosse in a line with a road leading to the Smithfield. That portion of the town wall which extends towards the river was erected by Robert de Belesme, second son of the founder of the castle. Camden says it was never assaulted except in the Barons’ wars. A few yards higher stood the Inner or Burgess Gate, at right angles with the Schools. The Castle Walk on the left of Castle Gates was formed in 1790, and was called the Dana from the name of the person who suggested its formation.

p. 25THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL,

which arrests the eye on Castle Gates, was founded by Edward VI., on the 18th of February, 1552, who named it the “Free Grammar School”—a title about the meaning of which there has been a good deal of philological disputation. On the south window is a Latin inscription, which runs as follows:—“At the supplication of Hugh Edwards and Richard Whittaker, King Edward the Sixth laid the foundation of a Shrewsbury School.” The supplication was induced by the fact that there was no public institution for the education of Salopian youth. This want was represented to the king in 1551 by Hugh Edwards, a mercer in London, and afterwards of the Shrewsbury college, and by Richard Whittaker, then bailiff of the town. They solicited for the maintenance of a Free Grammar School a considerable portion of the estates of the dissolved colleges of St. Mary and St. Chad. The king readily granted their request; and the tithes of Astley, Sansaw, Clive, Leaton and Almond Park, the property of St. Mary’s, with those of Frankwell, Betton, Woodcote, Horton, Bicton, Calcott, Shelton, Whitty, and Welbeck, belonging to St. Chad’s—the whole then valued at the handsome sum of £20 per annum—were given for the endowment of the school. Two masters were appointed by the bailiffs and burgesses who were nominated governors, and who, with the Bishop of Lichfield, were empowered to make statutes and ordinances. The appointment of head and second masters now rests with the Fellows of St. John’s College, Cambridge.

The first master was the Rev. Thomas Ashton who is called by Camden “the excellent and worthie,” and who had “the best filled school in all England.” He had 290 scholars, among whom were some of the aristocracy of the county, heirs of the gentry of North Wales, and representatives of the greatest families of the kingdom. He laid the foundation of that brilliant fame which the school has always maintained. From a Latin inscription on the south window we learn that “at the instance of Thomas Ashton, a man pious, learned, and prudent, within these walls ever to be revered, Queen Elizabeth augmented this foundation.” She did so by adding to it on the 23rd of May, 1571, the entire rectory of Chirbury, with further tithes and estates in the p. 26parish of St. Mary. The tithes new produce about £3,000 per annum, a portion of which is paid in stipends to the clergy of St. Mary’s, Chirbury, Clive, and Astley parishes.

The School was originally a timber building, and the chapel, tower, and library were added to it in 1595. The chapel was consecrated on 18th of May, 1617, by Dr. John Overel, Bishop of Lichfield, and the sermon was preached by Dr. Samson Price, who, for his abhorrence of Popery, was named “The maule and scourge of heretics.” The wood building which contained the first schoolroom was taken down, and the present fine edifice of Grinshill stone erected in its place in 1627. In the centre is a gateway, adorned on each side with a Corinthian column, upon which stand statues of a scholar and a graduate, bare-headed, and in the costume of the period. The library contains a large and valuable collection of books and manuscripts. It was “increased more than double by the testamentary bequest of Dr. John Taylor,” a native of the town, educated at the School.

During the mastership of Ashton the School acquired and has since maintained the most brilliant renown. The roll of illustrious students is a lengthy one. Ashton had among his scholars George Sandys, the well-known traveller, whose works obtained great commendation from Dryden and Pope: Sir Henry Sydney, ambassador to France from the court of Edward VI., President of the Welsh Marches, and Lord Deputy of Ireland, which country, says Spenser and Sir John Davies, he governed with great wisdom, and proved himself, according to Sir R. Naunton in the Fragmenta Regalia, a “man of great parts:” Sir Fulk Greville, Lord Brooke, an ingenious writer, a friend of Queen Elizabeth, and a poet of repute in his day: Sir Phillip Sidney, the noble and chivalrous soldier and poet whose bravery at the battle of Zutphen is one of the illustrious incidents in our history, and whose exquisite mind is manifested in Arcadia the picturesque and in Defence of Poesie the enchanting. Those were Ashton’s scholars, and besides them there have been educated here Sir Thomas Jones, Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in the reigns of Charles II. and James II., whose answer to the last monarch’s remark that he could soon have twelve judges of Sir Thomas’s opinion as to his p. 27dispensation of power, “Twelve judges you may possibly find, sire, but not twelve lawyers,” is well known: Dr. John Taylor, Canon Residentiary of St. Paul’s, Chancellor of the Diocese of Lincoln, and Archdeacon of Buckingham, a learned critic and philologist, who wrote a work entitled Elements of the Civil War, and published what were said to be excellent editions of Lysias, Demosthenes and Lycurgus: George Saville, Marquis of Halifax, of whose courageous opposition to the unconstitutional conduct of James II. Macaulay speaks, who, under that sovereign, was President of the Council, in the Convention Parliament was Speaker of the House of Lords, and under William and Mary was Lord Privy Seal: Edward Waring, the learned English mathematician and Lucasian Professor of mathematics at Cambridge in the middle of the last century: while among more recent celebrities there are Mr. Thomas Wright the antiquarian: Captain Richard Lloyd Edwards, an officer of the “brave and bold” six hundred who rode “into the jaws of death,” at Balaclava; and several Englishmen of note. May we not say that these are names of which we may justly boast? May we not, adopting Macaulay’s elegant eulogium on the famous students of Glasgow University, say that Shrewsbury School has sent forth men “whose talents and learning have not been wasted on selfish or ignoble objects, but have been employed to promote the physical and moral good of their species, to extend the empire of man over the material world, to defend the cause of civil and religious liberty against tyrants and bigots, and to defend the cause of virtue and order against the enemies of all divine and human laws.”

On the left of the Schools St. Nicholas’s Chapel was recently observable. It was the only one in existence of eight similar structures. It was erected by Roger de Montgomery for the use of those of his retainers who resided in the outer court of the Castle. At a subsequent period it was appropriated for the accommodation of the President and Council of the Marches of Wales. On the site has been erected a handsome structure by the English Presbyterians, who have retained its ancient name, calling it

ST. NICHOLAS’ CHURCH.

p. 28THE COUNCIL HOUSE,

approached by a fine timber gateway. In Speed’s Map it is called “Lord’s Place,” and it appears to have been erected in 1502. It was the place of residence for the Kings and Lord Presidents of the Welsh Marches when they came to Shrewsbury. King James II. kept his court in it on August 25th, 1687. It has been the scene of many a “costly banquet.” Charles I., Sir Henry Sidney, the Earl of Arundel and other noblemen have been “nobly entertained here at the expense of the town.” From the Council House we stroll on into the street which is the main thoroughfare of the town,

CASTLE STREET.

On the right is the Raven Hotel, where Farquhar wrote his comedy of The Recruiting Officer, the scene and characters of which are of local origin, and the preface to which acknowledges the loyalty and hospitality of the good people of Shrewsbury. At the termination of Castle Street, commences in a straight line

PRIDE HILL.

Pride Hill was anciently named, for a reason undiscovered and unknown, Corvisor’s Row, then in Speed’s map Shoemaker’s Row, and then finally, for ever, no doubt, Pride Hill, from the fact of it having been the residence of a family of the name of Pride. Directly opposite the spectator’s eye stands the New Market; but instead of going down to inspect the handsome building we turn to the left, pass the New General Post Office, and reach

ST. MARY’S STREET.

ST. MARY’S CHURCH.

It is supposed to have been founded by King Edgar about 980. There were attached to it a Dean and seven Prebendaries, and the stipend of the priest amounted to £6 6s. 8d. In the reign of Edward the Confessor it had a Dean and nine Prebendaries, and was provided with a large estate for their maintenance. In the time of Henry VIII. the revenue was £32 4s. 2d., and the Dean received as his share £22 6s. 8d. In the early part of the reign of Edward VI. the revenue had increased to £42, the whole of which was absorbed by the Dean, “rich on forty pounds a-year.” p. 29The church was then collegiate, but upon the dissolution of colleges the greater part of its revenues was given by Edward VI. for founding the Shrewsbury Grammar School. The living was formerly in the presentation of the Mayor of Shrewsbury—a privilege which the Municipal Act extinguished. It is now vested in five trustees; and it is necessary to select a minister who is either the son of a burgess and has been educated at the Grammar School, or who has had the honour of being a native of Chirbury. It was directed that the stipend should be an adequate one—£20 a-year, and the regulation which fixed the amount contained the pleasing addition that it was not to be diminished.

The church is one of the most interesting ecclesiastical edifices in the county from the example it affords of all the architectural styles of the middle ages. It is impossible to give here a full description of it. It must suffice to say that it consists of nave, side aisles, transepts, choir, spacious chapel, two chantrey chapels, with a tower and lofty spire, the total height of which is 220 feet 2 inches. The Anglo-Norman style may be seen in the basement of the tower, the nave, transepts, and doorways; the transition from Norman to the early lancet in the beautiful transept windows; and the obtuse arch of a later period in the side aisles and chantry chapels. The interior presents a stately and magnificent appearance from the massiveness of its arches, from the gorgeousness and beauty of its windows, and from the number of its striking monuments. It has been graced with the presence of royalty, and it has been used as a judicial court. In 1232 a tribunal, composed of legates, was convened here by command of the Pope to hear the charges preferred against Llewellyn for violations of treaties. In 1642 Charles I., then in Shrewsbury, made within its walls a solemn protestation, and took “the Sacrament upon it,” to defend the Protestant religion. In 1687 James II. attended divine service, and afterwards exercised the superstitious and suppositious power of “touching for the evil.”

Some of the incidents in the records relating to the church are curious. Forms were first furnished for the worshippers in 1537. Prior to that there were neither seats nor benches. The floors were strewn with flowers and sweet herbs, upon which the people prostrated themselves.

p. 30Among the items of expenditure are some interesting entries. In 1553 it cost 4s. to ring in honour of Queen Mary being proclaimed, and in the same year 4s. for “setting up an altar before Sir Adam Mytton’s grave.” The repairing of chapels seems to have been an inexpensive affair: for we are told that “our Lady’s chapel was mended,” and a “paschal taper” bought for 4s.; while in 1554 the enormous sum of 2s. 6d. was paid for “making an altar in our Lady’s chapel,” and 3s. 5d. for “making Trinity altar.” With a firm adhesion to Protestantism and a stern condemnation of all appearance of Romanism it was ordered on May 12th, 1584, that three superstitious images and inscriptions in the north window be taken down by the churchwardens. In September of the same year it was ordered that the stone altar should be removed, “having been sometimes used to idolatry.”

The spire, too, has a history of incidents. In 1572 it was blown aside by the wind; in 1663 the cock was replaced by a new one and the steeple repaired at the cost of £72; in 1665 and again in 1686 the cock was blown down; in 1690 it was damaged by an earthquake; in 1739 the cock suffered again: in 1754 the spire was shattered by a violent hurricane; and in 1756 the part re-built in 1754 was blown on one side, and once more re-built. The mishap of 1739 one Thomas Cadman undertook to repair. Cadman who is described by Hutton as a “man of spirit and grisle,” succeeded in taking down and re-setting the cock on the summit of the spire. In celebration of his success he determined upon performing some exploits on a rope which he fixed from the top of the spire to a tree in the Gay Meadow, Abbey Foregate, on the other side of the Severn. The adventure was a fatal one. In sliding along he fell near the Water Lane Gate; and for the information of an unappreciative posterity and the gratification of the curious this inscription was placed on the wall over his grave by his admiring survivors:—

DRAPERS’ ALMSHOUSES,

better known as St. Mary’s Almshouses. They were founded in the reign of Edward IV., about 1461, by Degory Water, a draper of Shrewsbury, who was admitted a burgess in 1404 and lived in the “hall house” or centre house among the poor. He died in 1477. He made no respect of persons in St. Mary’s Church, but set an example almost in anticipation of the modern “open-pew” system by accompanying the poor people to church and kneeling among them in a “long pew in the quire.” The original almshouses were taken down in 1825, and the present comfortable buildings erected by the Drapers’ Company at a cost of upwards of £3,000.

On the south-west side of the churchyard is the Drapers’ Hall, which is supposed to have been erected about 1560. The interior is wainscotted with oak, and the floor was formerly rich in emblazoned tiles. The members of the Drapers’ Company feasted at the north end, and on the opposite side is a fine old chest, above which are portraits of the first steward of the company, Degory Water, and his wife. Edward IV. was a patron of the Company, and his patronage is gratefully recorded in some quaint lines under his portrait, which adorns the east side.

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 p. 32of 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 p. 33goblins 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

S. JULIAN’S CHURCH.

It is uncertain when and by whom the church was built. It is only certain that it was erected during the Saxon period. It is distinguished in several reigns as a royal free chapel, and is styled “The Church of St. Juliana, the Virgin.” In 1223 Henry III. attached to it the chapel of Ford; but Henry IV. annexed its revenues, with those of St. Michael’s p. 34“in the Castle”—a foundation now destroyed—to the new college of Battlefield, “reserving only a small allowance for the minister.” The first structure was Anglo-Norman, but having become dilapidated, was, with the exception of the tower, taken down in 1748. The foundation stone of the present structure was laid in August of the same year. The first service was held in August, 1750. The exterior of the southern side was considerably altered and improved in 1846–47 through the generosity of the late Rev. R. Scott. Opposite St. Julian’s Church, at the entrance of Milk Street, is an old stone building which has seen remarkable changes of fortune. Anciently and originally it was the

HALL OF THE CLOTHWORKERS OR SHEARMEN,

a company which was incorporated in the reign of Edward IV. The feast day was on June 6th, and the apprentices up to the year 1588 used to set up a green tree “decked with garlands gay” before the hall, around which there was great rejoicing, coquetting, vowing, dancing and other festive proceedings. But in 1588 the custom ceased. The “green tree,” or Maypole was not enough. A bon-fire was added, and a disturbance ensued among the crowd. The Rev. Mr. Tomkies, a minister of St. Mary’s, appeared among the excited company, but his persuasions to peace only exasperated them. The Bailiffs were compelled to interfere, and henceforth the practice was discontinued. In the time of Elizabeth six hundred shearmen were employed here in dressing the wool on one side of a coarse material called Welsh webs, which were brought, chiefly from Montgomeryshire, to a market then held every week in the town. The process having been found to weaken the texture of the cloths, the occupation of the company was gone. From manufacturing purposes the hall was turned into a theatre, then converted to a Wesleyan place of worship, then secularized into an assembly room, then elevated into an assize court, then utilized into a shop, and, lastly, transformed into an auction mart. Proceeding up the street we presently see

OLD ST. CHAD’S CHURCH.

The foundation is attributed to one of the Mercian kings who built it upon the site of a palace belonging to the Princes of Powis which was burned down by the Saxons. It was a collegiate church, and had a dean and ten prebendaries. p. 35It was partially destroyed by fire in 1393 through the negligence of one John Plomer, a workman, who carelessly left his fire while he was engaged in repairing the leads. Plomer, seeing the result of his thoughtlessness, endeavoured to make his escape, but in running near the Severn was drowned—as a judgment? In consideration of the damage thus sustained Richard II. graciously granted to the inhabitants a remission of their fee-farm rent, and exemption for three years from the payment of taxes upon the understanding that they should re-build the edifice. This they did. In 1547, by order of the bailiffs of the town, the pictures of Mary Magdalene and of St. Chad were removed from the church and burned in the Market Square. On July 9th, 1788, another disaster befell this unfortunate structure. Its decayed tower, shaken by the vibrations occasioned by the chimes, suddenly fell down, and crushed the nave and transepts into fearful desolation. Some masons who were at work upon it fortunately escaped. The church was restored in 1796. The interior, which contains a number of monuments, one to the memory of the celebrated Rev. Job Orton amongst others, has recently been improved and modernised. In the churchyard several members of well-known county families have received interment, such as Lyster, Vincent Corbett of Moreton Corbett, Hugh Owen, M.D., Mytton, Burton, Ireland, Dr. Rowland Lee, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry and Lord President of the Marches, and Captain Benbow, the officer who was shot in 1651. Benbow’s grave is at the end of the pathway adjacent to Belmont.

It was in this church that the dawning light of the Reformation first beamed in Shrewsbury. That light gleamed in the preaching of William Thorpe, an ardent follower of Wickliffe. He denounced the dogmas of the Romish Church with the fervour common to the early Reformers. For his preaching he was confined in the prison here, and then removed to London to be examined by the archbishop, who, it is conjectured, granted him his liberty.

At the south-east of the churchyard up to the year 1858, stood or rather were propped up and made to stand, St. Chad’s Almshouses—worn, ruinous cottages, which served admirably for the purposes of animated nature. They were founded in 1409 for old men and women by Bennet Tupton, p. 36a public brewer. The following story, relative to Mr. Tupton and his daughter, is interesting:—“This yeare, 1424, and in the second yeare of King Henry 6th, one Bennet Tupton, beere brewer, dyed, who dwellyd in a brue house in St. Chad’s Church Yard in Shrewsbury, which afterwards was, and now of late days is, called the Colledge,” and was buried in St. Chad’s Church. “He left behynd hym a daughter of his namy’d Blase Tupton, who came by chance to be a leper, and made the ‘oryell’ which goeth along the west syde of the sayde church yard, and so came aloft to hear service through a door made in the church wall, and so passed usually upon the leadder unto a glass window through which she dayly saw and dayly hurde servys as long as she lyvyd.” The houses were demolished in 1858.

From this church we turn down a passage on the right hand side of the street, called now Golden Cross Passage. Formerly it was denominated Sextry Passage, a corruption of Sacristy. The sacristy of the church is supposed to have been situated within it. The “Golden Cross” inn appears to have been a tavern in 1495, the proof being that in that year 13s. 2d. is said in the archives of the Corporation to have been expended “for wine on the king’s gentlemen in the sextrie.”

Emerging into High Street again we walk a few yards down, and on the left hand come to the Unitarian Chapel, which was formed on October 25th, 1691, by the Rev. John Bryan, M.A., ejected from St. Chad’s, and the Rev. Francis Tallents, ejected from St. Mary’s, in 1662, for the use of a Presbyterian congregation. One of the successors of the founders was the Rev. Job Orton, who ministered from 1741 to 1766, when he removed to Kidderminster. Shortly after his removal a secession took place, which resulted in the formation of the Independent Church, Swan Hill. That “divine madman,” Coleridge, preached in the High Street Chapel, and Hazlitt walked from Wem to hear him.

Further down the street, and on the right hand side, at the bottom of Grope Lane is what was once the Mercers’ Hall. A few paces beyond is a fine Elizabethan house now establishment of Mr. Springford, mercer, which for a long period prior to the present century was set apart as the Judges’ Lodgings. The large square opposite is the

p. 37MARKET SQUARE.

Conspicuous is the statute of Lord Clive, from a model by Baron Marochetti. As a work of art it has received high commendation; as a public monument it would be attractive if it were not bare—it would be an ornament if it were not destitute of all those auxiliaries which give to such objects a handsome finish. The magnificent stone building on the left is the County Hall, built at a cost of £12,000, and opened at the March assizes, 1837. This handsome edifice was unfortunately nearly completely destroyed by fire on the 17th November, 1880. Near it is the old Market House, a structure which presents a fine appearance, and which for ornamental decoration is not surpassed, if equalled, by any edifice of the same kind in any town in the kingdom. It was built in 1596, and the fact is recorded in an inscription above the front arch:—“The xvth day of June was this building begun, William Jones and Thomas Charlton, Gent, bailiffs, and was erected and covered in their time. 1596.” On the site there had stood five timber houses, two of which were erected in 1567 by Alderman John Dawes for “the saffe placinge of corn from wether, so that the owners thereof may stannd saffe and drye,” and the other three by Mr. Humphrey Onslow in 1571. Immediately over the inscription just quoted is a tabernacled niche containing a statue and arms. Various have been the conjectures as to the personage represented by the statue. Some say that it is the Black Prince; others that it is Llewellyn, Prince of Wales; others again that it is Llewellyn’s brother David, who was executed at the High Cross; others that it is Prince Arthur, eldest son of Henry VII. Roger Coke alludes to one of these opinions when, speaking of General Monk’s purpose to restore Charles II., he says, “and the end for which a free Parliament was called was interpreted by hanging out the king’s picture, which was no less gazed upon by the Londoners than by the Welshmen at King Taffey’s effigies on the Welsh gate, Shrewsbury.” The gate referred to stood on the old Welsh Bridge, over which, in a niche, was this identical statue, and when the tower which surmounted the gate was destroyed about 1770, the statue was removed to the Market Hall. The general belief is that the statue represents Richard, Duke of York, father of Edward IV. Vexed by all this uncertainty, has not the p. 38antiquarian reason to mournfully sigh,

Several notable incidents have occurred in the Market Square. In 1547 the pictures of Our Lady from St. Mary’s Church, of Mary Magdalene and of St. Chad from St. Chad’s Church, were publicly burned here because they were supposed to be coloured with Popery. In 1579, on the 18th of August, the assizes were held in this place, “open and in the face of day.” The judicial bench consisted of the scaffolding of some new building, and from this dignified seat justice was dispensed. On the 17th of July, 1584, the public were entertained with a play performed in the Square by a company belonging to the Earl of Essex. Six years later, in the month of July, 1590, there was more public acting. A platform was erected for feats of skill, and a Hungarian, with a number of the Queen’s players, succeeded in some extraordinary achievements in the way of tumbling, rope-dancing—achievements of such an astonishing sort that “the like had never before been seen in Shrewsbury.” In the latter part of December, 1740, a portion of the roof of the Market Hall fell down, destroying life and property to the enormous extent of two millers’ horses, which were so inconsiderate as to stand underneath the covering. Thus this central part of the town reveals to us the development of local history. Once it presented a proof of an apprehension of Popery which led to an act of bigotry, then it marked the administration of justice, then it afforded room for the histrionic art, and then it was the stage for introducing to the good folk of Shrewsbury some wonderful gymnastic games.

The immediate vicinity of the Square is rich in antique buildings. The Mercer’s Hall and the old Judges’ Lodgings have already been just glanced at. Now, in turning to the left opposite the latter another fine old structure presents itself. It is Ireland’s Mansion, erected about 1570 as the town residence of the ancient family of Ireland. It was, of course, one house only, but it is now divided into three. Still keeping to the left we find ourselves in front of

THE NEW MARKET,

a handsome and commodious building, designed by Mr. Robert Griffiths, of Stafford, and constructed by Mr. Barlow, p. 39of Stoke-upon-Trent. The foundation stone was laid in 1867 by Mr. John Thomas Nightingale, then mayor of the borough. The total cost reached a sum not far short of £50,000. The market supplies a great and long-felt want, and, architecturally, adds to the attractions of the town. The Market brings us into

SHOPLATCH

—another peculiar name. In the time of Edward II. the appellation was written Sheteplach, then Sotteplace and Soetteplace, probably pronounced in accordance with the usage of the period, Shottplace. The name was derived from that of the Salopian family of Soto who had their residence here, and whose house—a portion of which still remains in a passage on the left—formed the principal property in the street. One chronicler indulges the fancy that the origin of the first syllable, Shop, Sotte, may be found in sote, which Chaucer uses for sweet, and that the place may have been called Sotteplace from its situation or conveniences. Unfortunately we are bound to reject this poetic derivation of the name, and accept the more common-place and prosaic etymology.

A few steps from the termination of Shoplatch stands The Theatre, at the bottom of

ST. JOHN’S HILL.

It was formerly called Chorlton Hall, from the fact of it having been for several centuries the residence and property of the family of Chorlton, who were Lords of Powis. The exact time of its erection is unknown, but in the year 1326 it was held by John de Charlton, who, by the permission of Edward II., fortified it with an embattled stone wall. It fell into a ruinous state, and remained neglected until it was purchased about 1830 by Mr. Henry Bennett, who raised it, and then erected upon the site the existing theatre. The exterior, adorned in its three niches with statues of Shakespeare and of the comic and tragic muse, has a neat appearance, and the interior is admirably adapted for dramatic purposes.

By way of contrast to the theatre is the Wesleyan Chapel, which stands on the right about the centre of St. Johns Hill, and a few yards higher up is another building p. 40formerly a chapel, “hid from view” in a passage, built for the Quakers in 1746, but now used as a meeting place for the Atcham Board of Guardians. Leaving, however, an inspection of these we cross the road from the theatre and walk down

BELLSTONE,

in which is situated the National Provincial Bank. Why is the street called Bellstone? Some think that the denomination anciently was Ben Stone, that Ben was an abbreviation of Benedictine, and that the bank, which is an ancient building, was occupied by some members of the Benedictine order. Others say that the house used to be named The Bent Stone, from the bent appearance of the large stone which then, and now, lies near it. Others, again, conjecture that the stone at one time resembled a bell either in colour or shape, and for that reason the house, and subsequently the locality of the house, came to be called the Bell Stone, that is, the house at or near the Bell Stone. The hill on the left is called

CLAREMONT HILL,

anciently Claro Monte. On the top of it there was in the days of old, a gate, as an entrance to the town, which was often called Gatepoll, from poll, an obsolete word for summit, Claremont Hill being the highest part of the town walls.

BARKER STREET,

which in the infancy of our history bore the more aristocratic title of Romboldesham, Rumaldesham, and Romboldi, the three names being used indiscriminately in various reigns. The modern term is simply an equivalent for Tanners’ Street. We only take a look down Barker Street, and then turn to the right into

CLAREMONT STREET,

once known by the euphonious title of Doglane. Here we see on the left the oldest Baptist Chapel in Shrewsbury, built in 1780. A Baptist church, however, was formed in Shrewsbury as early as 1620. The chapel was enlarged in 1810, and modernised and renovated in 1867. From Claremont Street we reach

p. 41MARDOL,

or, as it was anciently written, Marlesford, Mardefole, and in the time of Henry VIII. Mardvole, from the name of the ford through the Severn, Mar, and Leas (or pastures), which is by interpretation, the ford at the marly pastures. There is no object of historical interest in this thoroughfare, but in the lane about half way down, called

HILL’S LANE,

on the left is a memorial of antiquity in the shape of an old structure known as Rowley’s Mansion, which is said to be the first brick building erected in Shrewsbury. It was built in 1618 by William Rowley, a draper, who was admitted a burgess of the town in 1594 and created an alderman in 1633. His granddaughter married John Hill, Esq., who lived in the mansion in splendid hospitality, and in honour of whom the name of the street was changed from Knockin Street to Hill’s Lane. It is now used as a general storehouse, and the moderns with their barbarous notions of utility have removed the curious portal, the devices in stucco from the great chamber, the oak wainscotting, and the mullions from the windows. Adjoining it is a chapel belonging to the Welsh Calvinistic Methodists.

Returning to Mardol we continue our observations by turning to the left. At the bottom of Mardol on the right is the comparatively new Smithfield Road, opened in 1850, as an ingress from the western portion of the county to the cattle market. It leads to the station, and to the suburbs of Coton Hill and Castle Foregate.

The Quay on the right was built by Mr. Rowland Jenks in 1607, and Mr. Jenks was ordered by the Corporation “to permit all manner of barges, of all persons, to load at the said Quay, taking for every barge load of wood or coal twelvepence, for a ton of other goods—off a burgess twopence, and off a foreigner fourpence.” A few yards beyond, but on the other side of the street, just as we enter Bridge Street, are St. Chad’s Parochial Schools, built and opened in 1865 at a cost of £3,230.

WELSH BRIDGE.

In the reign of Henry II. it was called St. George’s Bridge. Why? Because St. George’s Chapel, with the p. 42Hospital of St. John to which the chapel was annexed—both were taken down early in the time of Elizabeth—was situated near it, in that portion now distinguished by the exquisite appellation of The Stew. The name was altered to indicate its geographical position as the road which leads to North Wales. It is conjectured that St. George’s Bridge was built by Edward IV. It consisted of seven arches, and had a gate at each end. The gate at the Welsh or Frankwell end was secured by an outwork, and over it was the statue of a man in armour which has been referred to as having been transferred to the Market Hall. The gate at the Mardol end of the bridge was surmounted by a massive tower with a house and battlement. The tower was destroyed about 1770, and the bridge itself, damaged by the frequent floods, was demolished immediately after. A contribution was then started for the erection of a new one. The Corporation liberally gave £4,000, and in a short time the necessary sum of £8,000, was procured upon the voluntary principle. The stone was laid in 1793, and the structure completed in 1795. It has five semi-circular arches, a fine balustrade, is 266 feet in length, and 30 feet in breadth. At the end of the bridge we come into

FRANKWELL,

from Frankville, the villa, residence, or town of the Franks who, according to Domesday book, inhabited forty-five burgesses’ houses in this portion of the town. We glance to the right, and see a neat chapel belonging to the Welsh Presbyterians, usually called Frankwell Chapel. Our way, however, lies to the left, and we proceed until we reach on the right

ST. GEORGE’S CHURCH,

dedicated to the tutelar saint of England from the fact of its proximity to the Chapel of St. George. It was built in 1832 by public subscription. It is cruciform in plan, and has a small tower at the west end. The style, with the exception of the tower, is the lancet, or early-pointed. It will accommodate about 760 persons, and 460 of the sittings are free and unappropriated. From St. George’s Church we step back again into the main street, and instead of going on to the Mount where Cadogan’s Fort stood, we cross to the right by the “String of Horses,” a half-timbered gabled p. 43building erected in 1576. Proceeding on we pass Chapel Yard, so called from its having been the yard attached to Cadogan’s Chapel, and arrive at

MILLINGTON’S HOSPITAL,

a beautiful structure in a beautiful situation. It consists of a pedimented front, surmounted by an open cupola, and a portico, flanked by wings, forming dwellings for the poor. The Chapel, which is also used as a schoolroom, is in the centre. It contains a portrait of the founder, Mr. James Millington, draper, of Shrewsbury, who built and endowed it in 1734. After the death of Mr. Millington, who bequeathed his entire fortune to it, the landed estate was disputed in Chancery, and went to the heirs-at-law, the personal property being assigned to the support of the charity. There are a schoolmaster and schoolmistress who reside on the premises, and a chaplain who reads prayers daily. The resident hospitallers number twelve old men or women who are selected out of Frankwell, and who, in addition to the apartments, receive annual gratuities of gowns and coats, coals and money, and a weekly quantity of bread. A number of boys and girls receive their education at the hospital, and are afterwards apprenticed or sent out as servants. Both boys and girls receive gifts of money on their “entering into the business of life,” and rewards are given to those who can produce certificates of good conduct during a certain period of service.

A little further on are the new Barracks or Brigade Depôt, built at a very large cost, and opened in 1880.

In the extremity of Frankwell beyond Millington’s Hospital there is nothing worthy of our attention; and, therefore, keeping to the left, we hasten to the bottom of Port Hill where we call out “boat!” and are ferried across the Severn to land in

THE QUARRY,

One of the most pleasant walks in the kingdom. It consists of a tract of meadow ground, twenty-three acres in extent. Its situation, its surroundings, its scenery are extremely beautiful, and constitute it a most attractive and delightful promenade. The bank which skirts the Severn is adorned with a graceful avenue of lime trees, extending 450 yards in length, and forming in the intertwining of their lofty branches p. 44a natural arcade. The Quarry, which should be a thing of beauty and a joy for ever to the inhabitants, is resorted to, as a rule, only by a few of the residents, most of whom, from their familiarity with it, do not appreciate its charms, but from the stranger the spectacle of so enjoyable and poetic a spot always elicits expressions of admiration. The beauty that every day lies at our own door is often no beauty at all. The Quarry derives its name from a small quarry of red sandstone, formerly worked in what is now called the Dingle. The trees in the lower walk were planted by Mr. Henry Jenks, Mayor, in 1719. The three walks, graced in a similar manner, serve as approaches from the town. In 1569 the Quarry was leased to three burgesses for ten years at a nominal rent upon their undertaking to bring the water from near Crow Meole to Shrewsbury. They fulfilled the condition by laying down leaden pipes, and the work was completed in 1574, in which year Shrewsbury was first supplied with what is now popularly known as “conduit water.” In that year the conduits at Mardol Head, Market Square, High Street, and Wyle Cop were erected and opened. The Quarry has been used for various purposes. In the reign of James I. it was used “for agisting of cattle, for musters of soldiers, and other laudable exercises and recreations.” It is easy to infer from the brutal and coarse pastimes of the period what the “laudable exercises” were, but in truth, the uncertainty of inference is removed by the positiveness of fact, for in the same reign the Quarry was used for “bull-baitings, stage-plays, &c., by consent of the bailiffs,” who, of course, found in this corrupt and debased taste a source of profit to the borough revenue. The stage plays performed here—in that portion which is in the shape of an amphitheatre and is styled the Dingle—were of the nature of those common in the early age of the English theatre. They belonged to the class of Mysteries—a class of a low, vicious, profane, and often blasphemous character. Amongst others Julian the Apostate was performed here in 1565, and it is said that, notwithstanding its utter grossness, it was “listened to with admiration and devotion.” Two years later, in 1567, there was given a representation of the Passion and Crucifixion of Christ, and the actor who took the principal part was killed by being speared in the heart by mistake. An horrible barbarity was committed in the Dingle in 1647, when, on December 24th, a woman was burned to p. 45death for having poisoned her husband. Very considerable improvements have been recently made in the Quarry by the erection of a Band Stand, new Entrance Gates, and the transformation of the Dingle into a well ordered pleasure garden, with seats, grottos, ornamental water, &c., the cost of these great improvements has been mainly defrayed by the Horticultural Society whose annual fêtes are looked forward to with the “sweet pleasures of anticipation” by thousands.

The fine brick building on the eminence opposite the Quarry on the other side of the Severn is the new premises for Shrewsbury School, fronted by a wide terrace, and commanding an extensive landscape in both front and rear. The building which cost £12,000, was commenced in 1760, and opened in 1765 for the reception of orphans from the Foundling Hospital in London. It has been appropriated for different purposes from time to time. Becoming disused by the managers of the Foundling Hospital it was for some time uninhabited. A portion of it was then taken as a woollen manufactory, and while one section was thus devoted to business, another was let out in apartments to valetudinarians who in the summer months retired from the town to seek pleasure and health in this beautiful district. It was also used as a place of confinement for Dutch prisoners captured in the American war; and then, in 1784, it was converted to something approaching its original purpose by being purchased under an Act of Parliament for incorporating the town parishes and that of Meole Brace with the object of maintaining the poor. At the rear of the buildings is

KINGSLAND,

an extensive piece of ground, the property of the Corporation. It is supposed to have originally belonged to the Crown—hence its name—and to have been granted by the Crown to the Corporation. In 1529 it was let for pasture at £3 per year—a price which must make modern tenants wish that history might repeat itself. In 1586 it was ordered to be, and was, enclosed. It is a healthy and almost arcadian spot, “beautiful for situation.” There is no locality in the town so well adapted for villa residences.

Once a year, we are reminded, there was something else—Shrewsbury Show, a pageant which showed the degeneracy p. 46of the past. With the exception of the Coventry festival and the Preston guild it was the only one of its kind in the kingdom. What was the Show? It was the remnant of a feast religiously observed by the Romish Church, and styled Corpus Christi the feast of the body of Christ. It consisted of a solemn procession, in which the several incorporated companies of the town, preceded by the masters and wardens, attended by the bailiffs, aldermen, and commonalty, and accompanied by priests, who carried the Holy Sacrament under a gorgeous canopy, marched to old St. Chad’s Church, where mass was said amidst the richest and costliest treasures of the church. The religious part of the ceremony was abolished at the Reformation; but the members of the companies, though prohibited from attending mass, resolved to retain as much of the imposing custom as they could. They therefore continued the procession, which they determined upon having on the second Monday after Trinity Sunday. They possessed on Kingsland small parcels of land which the Corporation had allotted to and enclosed for them, and on which they had erected arbours as places of resort, of feasting, and of pastime. They therefore selected Kingsland as the destiny of the procession, and, arrived there, they entertained each other in almost princely style, and indulged in the recreations of the time. The anniversary until very recently was observed, but it was a sorry picture of the old festivities. The procession, which was made up of bands of music, flags, banners, ancient horses ridden by individuals dressed out as kings, queens, and other notabilities, followed by a number of artisans, was perhaps about the most ludicrous sight which the ingenuity of a buffoon could invent. It was a ridiculous travesty of the ancient spectacle; and its concomitants, its influence, and its results are best described in the (slightly altered) words of Hamlet:

Leaving the scene of so much that is gay and festive, and that unites the present with the past, we re-cross the Severn, re-walk a portion of the Quarry, and ascend the magnificent centre avenue. The church before us is

NEW ST. CHAD’S,

built at a cost of £19,352, and consecrated on August 19th, 1792. It is considered the principal church of the town, is used on all public occasions, such as the assizes and the anniversary of the Infirmary, and is the place where the archdeacon holds his visitations, but being one of the most modern of the parish churches, it has the least historical interest. The general effect of the interior is imposing, the stained windows and monuments giving it a gorgeous appearance.

From here we take our course “right on,” turning neither to the right for the Quarry again nor to the left for St. John’s Hill, we enter upon Murivance, a name denoting before or within the walls. It is supposed that when the town was first fortified Murivance was selected as the place of parade for the military defenders of the town. On the left is

ALLATT’S SCHOOL,

founded and endowed by Mr. John Allatt, gentleman. It was built in 1800, and cost £2,000. There are two houses for the master and mistress. Forty boys and forty girls are educated and clothed here, and then sent out to situations, and coats and gowns are annually distributed among a number of poor men and women.

Opposite is the New Eye and Ear Hospital, a most ornate structure, and the entrance of the New Bridge to Kingsland.

Still on the left, at the turning for Swan Hill—so called from the Swan public-house which was formerly at the bottom—is the Independent Chapel, the oldest of the three Independent chapels in Shrewsbury. It was erected in 1766 by seceders from the High Street church, and has been re-built a few years ago. Further on, on the right is the chapel of the Methodist New Connexion, erected in p. 481834, at a cost of £1,500. In close proximity to this edifice is an antique tower, the only vestige that remains of twenty which formerly fortified the town walls. It is square, three storeys high, embattled at the summit, and lighted by narrow square windows. Those walls, which we now reach, were built by Henry III. to fortify the town against the inroads of the Welsh, and the cost was defrayed partly by the burgesses, and partly from the royal exchequer. On the left is the Roman Catholic Cathedral, built of freestone, in the style of the early decorated period. It consists of a nave, chancel, side aisles, chapel, &c., and is connected with the residence of the officiating priest by a cloister. At the termination of the walls begins

BEECHES LANE,

sometimes called the Back Lane. This singular appellation is a corruption of Bispetan, Bushpestanes, which may also be a corruption of Bishop’s Town, or Bishop’s Stone, Beeches Lane, having, it is conjectured, been either the residence or the property of the bishop of the diocese, who is said in Domesday book to have possessed sixteen dwelling-houses in Shrewsbury. The gradual change appears, from old deeds, to have been in this order—Bispetan, Bipstan, Biston’s Lane, Beeches Lane. On the left is

BOWDLER’S SCHOOL,

an oblong building, with a glazed cupola in the centre. It was founded in 1724, under the will of Mr. Thomas Bowdler, an alderman and draper of Shrewsbury, who left £1,000 to erect and endow the institution for the education of the poor children of the parish of St. Julian. The late Professor Lee was a schoolmaster of this foundation. Pursuing our walk in a straight route we arrive at the

ENGLISH BRIDGE,

a structure of great beauty. The first bridge which spanned the river here was probably erected by the founder of the Abbey, Roger de Montgomery. At any rate the abbots and the Corporation were continually disputing about the liability to the repairs of the bridge, and the contention was temporarily closed by the abbots consenting to repair the Abbey Foregate end, and the Corporation agreeing to repair the town end. Henry VIII. by a stroke of policy—by remitting some taxes—got the Corporation to relieve the abbots of all responsibility and to take the entire repairs into their own p. 49hands. About the middle of the last century, the bridge being considerably damaged, it was determined to take it down, and in 1765 a subscription was commenced to widen and strengthen it. In 1767, on the 9th of June, the first stone of the extension was laid by Edward Smythe, Esq., son of Sir Edward Smythe, of Acton Burnell. It was discovered, however, that beneath the causeway there was another causeway and channel, the lower part of the Wyle Cop which had been raised at some previous period. The plan of widening was therefore abandoned, and a new bridge was decided upon. In the next year, 1768, the old bridge was taken down, subscriptions flowed in abundantly, and on Thursday, 29th June, 1769, the first stone of the new bridge was laid in “a solemn manner,” amidst the presence of the munificent contributors, by Sir John Astley, Bart, who gave £1,000 towards the cost. The ceremony was supplemented by a dinner at the Raven Hotel. The total expense was nearly £16,000, the whole of which was raised, not by heavy taxation, not by burdensome rates, but by voluntary donations. Among the donors were Lord Clive, Thomas Hill, Esq., the principal gentry of the county, and numbers of public-spirited townsmen. The bridge consists of seven arches, is 410 feet in length, and 35 feet in breadth.

The Gothic edifice on the right is the Abbey Foregate New Church, belonging to the Independents, opened on the 31st of May, 1864. Adjoining it is the National School, for the instruction and clothing of poor children. It was commenced in 1708. Having proceeded a few yards we come to the

ABBEY CHURCH,

perhaps the most interesting ecclesiastical edifice in the county. On the site there stood in the eleventh century a timber church, built by Siward, a Saxon nobleman, and dedicated to St. Peter. In the last quarter of that century Odilirius, “a lover of justice,” who had possession of the humble structure, counselled Roger de Montgomery, Earl of Shrewsbury, to build a monastery. The Earl consented, and in 1083 the monastery or abbey was built, and consecrated to St. Peter and St. Paul. St. Paul, however, was served rather scurvily, for the Earl gave the whole of the suburb—then denominated Before Yette—to “the blessed Peter.” The abbey was splendidly endowed by the Earl and p. 50by Siward, and in consideration of the endowments the monks were “to diligently pray for their souls, and for the souls of their ancestors and heirs.” These endowments were added to from time to time by several other benefactors, with the same object. Thus Warine, the sheriff of the county gave several hides of land for the salvation of his soul; and after his death, lest he should be in jeopardy, his widow gave her house for his effectual security. Warine’s brother, Reginald, gave a village; Herbert de Ferches a farm; Gerrard de Tourney a village; Randulph de Gernon, Earl of Chester, two houses; and Hugh Pantulf his mills at Sutton “for the salvation of his soul, the soul of his wife, and each of their souls.” These benefactions vastly increased the riches of the abbey, and in consequence of its revenue the abbots were mitred and elevated to the privilege of a seat in the Upper House of Parliament. The value of the monastery was, according to Dugdale, £132 4s. 10d., to Speed £615 4s. 3d. In the twenty-sixth year of Henry VII. the annual income was £572 15s. 5d., a revenue equal to about £4,750 of modern currency. At the time of the dissolution of the monasteries the abbey was suppressed, and the estates and buildings passed into lay hands. Some were sold for the value of the materials, and others were converted into dwellings. Odericus Vitalis, one of the earliest and best of English historians, was educated at this monastery, whither he was sent by his father, priest at Atcham, where he was born in 1074.

In 1728 an incident capable of a modern application occurred here. The clergyman of the parish presented a petition to the bishop praying for the removal out of the church of a picture representing the Saviour upon the cross. The petitioners presented a counter petition; but their memorial failed, and the bishop ordered the picture to be removed. This dispute between the vicar and his flock caused a great sensation, and gave occasion to a number of lampoons. The parishioners attacked the vicar in this style:

At the suppression of monasteries in the time of Henry VIII, the entire eastern portion, which constituted two-thirds of the structure, was destroyed. There are remains, however, sufficient to indicate its massiveness and majesty. The most prominent of these is the broad western tower which presents a stately, dignified appearance. There are also the nave and the side aisles; and these with the tower form the present church, which, though with evidences of mutilation, has a venerable aspect, and is characterised by “a noble simplicity combined with a massive solidity.” The three windows are all at present of the Perpendicular style; but there are prints of older date which show the two smaller to have been of a different character. The portal is a deeply recessed semicircular arch, terminating in a pointed doorway. The bellchamber has two windows on each side; between those of the western front, in a canopied niche, is the statue of an armed knight, having a conical basinet encircled by a crown. This figure is with good reason supposed to represent Edward III. in whose reign the tower was probably begun. The south doorway is plain Norman in character, resting on slender shafts, and adjoining is the ruined wall of the transept. The choir having been destroyed the eastern end now terminates in a wall run up between the remains of the two western piers, which supported the central tower. Of course, in the interior the altar stands here, above which are placed Norman windows, containing six figures in stained glass of kings and apostles. They are deep and p. 52brilliant in colour, and the drawing is good. Below is a reredos, forming a series of five Norman arches.

The interior of the Abbey is a fine specimen of solid Norman work. The whole is in the massive Norman style except what is beyond the three semicircular arches westward, where there is a very wide pier, on the eastern and western extremities of which are half columns of the arcades, and in the middle is attached a flat pilaster. From hence the nave displays the commencement of a different style, and the Norman gives place to pure Gothic of the fourteenth century. This terminates in a beautiful pointed arch, which divides the tower from the nave, and by the removal of the organ gallery and screen the whole extent of the great western window is now displayed, which certainly imparts a very striking appearance to that portion of the building. The entire window is filled with a series of armorial bearings of some of England’s ancient peerage, as well as a few very modern. It is, in fact, a perfect study of heraldry. There are several monuments of interest, but the most singular is one which stands on the north side of the altar, which at the first view presents the appearance of two tombs, but on examination proves to be only one, the double appearance being given by a centre buttress, which is not carried over the ledge, upon which rest two figures, the head of the one at the feet of the other. They are supposed to represent the “same” individual who had abandoned the military for the eremitical life, but there is not the slightest clue to his name.

The walls of the nave, with the pillars and arches, were, in 1855, cleared of their plaster covering; but such a state of dilapidation was developed as to necessitate a thorough restoration, which has been carefully and effectually carried out. It may be proper to mention that on the fall of St. Chad’s, and the demolition of St. Alkmund’s, the walls of which “were in such a sound state as to require a very great amount of labour to remove them,” several ancient monuments found a place within the walls of the Abbey.

Of the monastic remains there are only “few and far between.” On the south-west of the church is a malthouse which is supposed to have been part of the monks’ infirmary and chapel. A similar building which stood near the street, and a dormitory attached to the south-west side of the church p. 53were taken down in 1836 for the formation of a new line of road. The most striking of the remains is the elegant octagonal Stone Pulpit, in a yard on the right. It is thought to have stood within the refectory, and to have been used as the lectern by the junior monks to read from while the elder brethren were enjoying meals in the dining-room. The interior forms an oriel, the roof being vaulted on eight delicate ribs.

From hence we take the road upwards, and call to mind in our walk two notable but not pleasant incidents. The first goes as far back as 1582, in which year, on February 4th, one John Prestige “was hanged upon a gibbet, erected on the green, by the water side, near the Abbey Mill, and opposite his own house, for the murder of his wife, by throwing her over the Stone (the English) Bridge in the Severn: he hung there three days.” The second brings us down to 1774 when, on Good Friday, April 1st, a disastrous fire broke out in the Abbey Foregate by which forty-seven houses, sixteen barns, fifteen stables, four shops, and several stacks of hay were utterly destroyed. This serious conflagration led to the purchase by the Worshipful Company of Drapers of a fire engine, a quantity of buckets and fire hooks, and to the erection of fire plugs for the use of the town. These disagreeable memories are relieved by the sight of

LORD HILL’S COLUMN,

built with Grinshill stone, and said to be the largest Grecian-Doric column in the world. The first stone was laid on the 27th December, 1814, and the last on June 18th, 1816. The total height of the column is 133 feet 6 inches. The colossal statute on the summit was executed from a model by Panzetta. The inscriptions on the pedestal relate the skill and courage displayed by Lieutenant-General Rowland Lord Hill in Spain, Portugal, the South of France, and on the memorable plains of Waterloo. Admission to the Column is obtained by means of a gratuity to the keeper who resides in the adjacent pretty Doric cottage on the left, and from the top a splendid panoramic view of Shropshire rewards the ascender of the winding staircase. To the right of the Column is

ST. GILES’S CHURCH,

built early in the reign of Henry I. for the use of a Hospital p. 54of Lepers which stood north-west of the existing edifice, and which was founded by King Henry II. It became parochial about the middle of the fifteenth century when it was united with the parish of Holy Cross within the monastery. It is said that in the reign of Stephen, when the monks obtained the bones of that popular martyr, St. Wenefreda, those relics were deposited on the altar of this church until a shrine worthy of their reception could be prepared within the Abbey. A few yards beyond is the old Militia Depôt, erected in 1806.

Having seen all that is to be seen at this end of the town we return to the Abbey Foregate. About half-way down we diverge to the right and come to

WHITEHALL,

a fine Elizabethan building erected in 1582, by Richard Prince, Esq., a celebrated lawyer. Churchyard speaks of it “so trim and finely that it graceth all the soil it is in.” At a little distance is the Race Course on which Charles I. drew up his army in 1642.

Hastening back towards the town we may turn to the left at the end of the English Bridge for the suburbs of Coleham, Belle Vue, and Meole, where we may see Trinity Church, a plain modern structure, raised in 1837: Belle Vue Cemetery, opened in 1852 for the use of Nonconformists; and the General Parochial Cemetery, opened and consecrated in 1856. Or we may re-cross the bridge, descend the steps on the right, take the pathway on the banks of the Severn, pass under the railway viaduct, inspect the exterior of the County Prison, glance at the British School, All Saints’ Church and Schools, and the Gas Works, thence enter the suburb of Castle Foregate, where a few minutes will suffice to make acquaintance with St. Mary’s and St. Michael’s Schools, with St. Michael’s Church, a neat Doric building erected in 1830. Then we return up Castle Foregate, turn to the right by the railway bridge, and enter the suburb of Coton Hill. In the Royal Baths on the right we may have a refreshing plunge if the weather is warm. Beyond the Baths we see on the right a clump of sycamore trees, denoting the site of the house where Admiral Benbow was born in 1650. In 1698 Admiral Benbow visited Shrewsbury, and was entertained by the Corporation.

p. 55It may be mentioned here that in 1606 a considerable portion of Coton Hill was burnt down, “the houses being set on fire by John Tench’s wife.”

We return by way of Chester Street to the station, where our run through the town commenced and where it now ends, after having viewed places and objects which vividly bring to mind events of the past, which present numerous and radical changes in the habits and conditions of society, and which, manifesting in a marked degree the variations of taste, and the definite progress of manners, art, and religion exhibit the relation of modern to ancient times, both in physical sciences and in customs of life.

p. 56ADVERTISING.

DRAYTON BROS., Shrewsbury

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
CONDENSED LIST OF
MISCELLANEOUS STATIONERY, &c.,
KEPT IN STOCK.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

p. 57L. WILDING,
Printer, Bookseller and Stationer,
33, CASTLE STREET, SHREWSBURY.

A LARGE AND VARIED ASSORTMENT OF
PHOTOGRAPHIC VIEWS
OF SHREWSBURY AND NEIGHBOURHOOD,
BY
BEDFORD, FRITH and MANSELL.
ALSO

A HANDY GUIDE
TO
MAIDSTONE & NEIGHBOURHOOD

Museum, Churches, Chapels,
AND
PRINCIPAL BUILDINGS,
TOGETHER WITH NOTICES OF ALL
Features of General Interest

Maidstone:
FREDERICK BUNYARD, LIBRARY, 29, WEEK STREET;
AND ALL BOOKSELLERS.

FOOTNOTES.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE GUIDE THROUGH SHREWSBURY ***

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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Historical and Descriptive Guide Through Shrewsbury

HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE GUIDE THROUGH SHREWSBURY.