Handbook to the Severn Valley Railway Part 3

[Waterfall: 31.jpg]

The Wellington and Severn Junction line through Coalbrookdale is joined by the branch line to

WENLOCK,

one of the oldest borough towns in the kingdom. Its chief attraction is the Abbey, founded by St. Milburgh, a Saxon saint, and daughter of Penda, one of the last and fiercest of the Saxon heathen kings. It fell before the Danes, but was rebuilt by Earl Leofric and his wife G.o.diva. A second time it fell, and was again rebuilt; this time by Norman masons, in greater splendour than before. Of the architecture of this period the present ruins show some fine examples, and none finer than the chapter- house, the cl.u.s.tering arches of which are shown in our engraving.

The south transept, with a portion of the nave, of the Early English style of architecture, remind the visitor of the stately grandeur of the church, which was upwards of 400 feet in length. The house of the prior, which communicated with the chapter-house, is now the private residence of J. M. Gaskell, Esq., M.P., the present proprietor of the estate. The parish church has several points of interest, one of which is its fine Norman front, hidden from the street by the present tower. To this may also be added the arches which separate the nave and side aisles, rising from cl.u.s.tering pillars of great beauty; also the one dividing the nave from the chancel, where there is an elegant sedilia. Wenlock grew up beneath the patronage and protection of its Priory, by means of which it received many royal favours, and was protected by many royal charters, one of which conferred the right, at a very early period, of representation in the Commons House of Parliament.

[The Chapter-House of Wenlock Abbey: 32.jpg]

The Guildhall is an ancient building of timber and plaster, with a projecting upper story resting on piazzas. The room used for quarter sessions has the arms of Charles II. over the recorder's chair, and the Inner or Munic.i.p.al Court is beautifully furnished with elaborately-carved oak panellings and furniture. The borough is nearly the same now as formerly, the modern franchise extending over the ancient possessions of the church, wherein the prior of the monastery had jurisdiction over eighteen parishes.

BUILDWAS.

In descending the dingle between Wenlock and Buildwas, at a point described by an old writer as the boundary of the domains of the two abbeys, is Lawless Cross, formerly one of those ancient sanctuaries, the resort of outlaws who, having committed crime, availed themselves of that security from punishment such places afforded. The monks, in the exercise of that excessive influence they had in those days, provided places, deemed sacred, which should serve for refuge for criminals. A cross was erected for the _lawless_; from which even the monarch had no power to take them. Villains doubly dyed in crime were wont to rush out from such hiding-places, commit crimes with impunity, and return. The evil, indeed, had become so great, that the Courts of Westminster, in Hilary Term, 1221, were employed in considering the expediency of altering "a certain _pa.s.s_ in the Royal Forest near to Buldewas," from its having become "the haunts of malefactors, and from its notoriety for the constant commission of crime." Below this is the Abbey Mill, and lower still is the Abbey. The line pa.s.ses through what was once the cemetery, and over ground formerly occupied by the industrial courts of the establishment. A fine view is obtained of the church, which presents a good specimen of a Cistercian edifice, every part of the original arrangement being distinctly traceable.

The ma.s.sive proportions of its arcades, and the scolloped capitals of their columns, indicate the Norman style of architecture; whilst the pointed arches show an approach towards that which superseded it, which began about the year 1150. The clerestory remains entire on both sides, with round arched windows throughout. Between the columns are indications of a screen, which shut off the eastern aisles; at the end of the fifth arch from the west, the choir, or portion devoted to the monks, commences; and at the intersection of the transepts still stands the tower, resting on four pointed arches. At the eastern end, beneath long windows, which at some period or other have been formed out of smaller ones, stood the altar, and near it the sedilia; whilst on the south side are the doorways which led to the dormitories of the monks engaged in the night services of the church. On the side next the river, a long line of building forms the eastern cloister and the crypt; on the same side is a handsome archway leading into the chapter-house, the roof of which is vaulted, groined, and supported by beautiful slender columns. Beyond are the remains of the refectory, and the room of audience--the only place where, according to the strict rules of the order, the monks were permitted to converse; and here also was the warm-room, kitchen, and lavatory. On the same side are remains of a string of offices for novices, and for scribes employed in multiplying copies of the Scriptures and other books.

[Buildwas Abbey: 34.jpg]

Our engraving represents the church as seen by moonlight, when strong lights and shadows bring to mind the well-known lines of Sir Walter Scott:--

"If thou wouldst view fair Melrose aright, Go visit it by the pale moonlight.

For the gay beams of lightsome day Gild but to flout the ruins gray: When the broken arches are black in night, And each shafted oriel glimmers white; When the cold light's uncertain shower Streams on the ruin'd central tower; When b.u.t.tress and b.u.t.tress alternately Seem framed of ebon and ivory."

The traveller by the Severn Valley Railway can scarcely fail to notice here, and at other points along the line, beds of sand and gravel at levels above the highest points now reached by the river; wave-like sweeps of water-worn materials still higher up are no less conspicuous.

In both these are found the _Turritella terebra_, and other sh.e.l.ls of modern seas, identifying them with the period when a marine strait extended the whole distance from the Dee to the Bristol Channel. The cutting near Coalbrookdale has yielded a rich harvest of these marine remains, sufficient satisfactorily to indicate the true position of the beds, and to a.s.sociate them with others of great interest elsewhere.

Along one of the ancient estuaries of this recent sea, now the Vale of Shrewsbury, the Severn winds in curious curves, and almost meets in circles, imparting a pleasing aspect to the valley. On leaving Buildwas, Buildwas Park is pa.s.sed on the left, and Leighton Hall and church are seen on the opposite side of the river; while on the left again are Shineton, Shinewood, and Bannister's Coppice; the latter famous as the hiding-place of the Duke of Buckingham, when unable to cross the river with his army at its mouth. Shakspere alludes to the event, in "King Richard," thus:--

"The news I have to tell your majesty Is, that by sudden flood and fall of waters, Buckingham's army is dispersed and scatter'd, And he himself _wandered away alone_, _No man knows whither_."

Tradition says that the fallen n.o.bleman was betrayed by an old servant to whom the wood belonged, named Bannister; and an old writer thus records the curses which he says befel the traitor: "Shortly after he had betrayed his master, his sonne and heyre waxed mad, and dyed in a bore's stye; his eldest daughter, of excellent beautie, was sodaynelie stryken with a foulle leperze; his seconde sonne very mervalously deformed of his limmes; his younger sonne in a smal puddell was strangled and drowned; and he, being of extreme age, arraigned and found gyltie of a murther, was only by his clergye saved; and as for his thousand pounde, Kyng Richard gave him not one farthing, saying that he which would be untrew to so good a master would be false to al other; howbeit some saie that he had a smal office or a ferme to stoppe his mouthe withal."

[The Lady Oak: 36.jpg]

CRESSAGE

Is forty-three miles from Worcester, and eight and a half from Shrewsbury. The name is an abbreviation of Christsache, _ache_ been the old Saxon term for oak. The folk-lore of the district is, that the old tree was one under which the early Christian missionaries preached, that it stood in the centre of the village, and that upon its decay it was supplanted by a market cross, which cross itself has disappeared. Our engraving represents another of these venerable trees standing a quarter of a mile from the village, known as the Lady Oak.

[The Nddel's Eye: 37.jpg]

Before the railway caused a deviation in the road, it stood by the wayside, where it was regarded with veneration by the inhabitants, who cramped it with iron, and propped it with blocks of wood to preserve it; they also planted an acorn within its hollow trunk, from which, as will be seen by our engraving, a young tree mingles its foliage with that of the parent oak. About a mile from Cressage is Belswardine, the seat of Sir George Harnage, an old border estate, in possession of the same family which received it from the Conqueror. Cressage station is the nearest and most convenient on the Severn Valley line from which to reach the Wrekin. The distance is three miles. The road crosses the river by an ancient wooden bridge, and at Eaton Constantine pa.s.ses the house in which Richard Baxter lived when a boy; and which the great Puritan divine describes as "a mile from the Wrekin Hill." The visitor, in his ascent of the hill, pa.s.ses a conical knoll of deep red syenite, clothed with verdure, and known as Primrose Hill. The summit is 1,320 feet above the level of the sea, and commands a prospect embracing a radius of seventy miles. Our engraving represents a severed cliff of greenstone at the top, called the Needle's Eye, and which tradition alleges to have been riven at the Crucifixion. Near it is a culminating boss of pinkish felspar known as the Bladder Stone, a name derived, it is supposed, from Scandinavian mythology; whilst at a short distance is the Ravens' Bowl, a basin in the hard rock, always containing water. On its sides are stratified rocks which the trap has pierced in its ascent; and which, by the action of heat, have been changed into a white crystalline substance.

At the northern termination is an entrenched fortification called Heaven Gate, supposed to be of British origin; and near it is another, called h.e.l.l Gate, with what is supposed to be a tumulus. In the valley at the foot of the hill, on the eastern side, tumuli have been opened, in which hundreds of spear heads and other broken weapons have been found. Here formerly,

"Unknown to public view, From youth to age a reverend hermit grew.

The moss his bed, the cave his humble cell, His food the fruit, his drink the crystal well.

Remote from man, with G.o.d he pa.s.sed his days, Prayer all his business--all his pleasure praise."

Henry III., in order to afford the said anchorite, Nicholas de Denton, greater leisure for holy exercises, and to support him during his life, or so long as he should be a hermit on the aforesaid mountain, granted him six quarters of corn, to be paid by the Sheriff of Shropshire out of the Town's Mills of Bridgnorth.

On leaving Cressage, Eyton-upon-Severn is seen on the right, and on an eminence close by is the "Old Hall," built by Lord Chancellor Sir Thomas Bromley. It was the birthplace of Lord Herbert of Chirbury, of whom Ben Jonson wrote:--

"If men get fame for some one virtue, then What man art thou that art so many men, All virtuous Herbert! on whose every part Truth might spend all her voice, Fame all her art?"

The railway now pa.s.ses Cound Hall, Cound Church, and Cound Mill, a manor which Henry III. gave to his brother-in-law, Llewellyn, and which was afterwards held by Walter Fitz-Alan, who entered the service of David, King of Scotland, and became head of the royal house of Stuart. It crosses the Devil's Causeway, and pa.s.ses Venus Bank, with Pitchford and Acton Barnell on the left; the latter celebrated for the ruins of the old castle where Edward I. held his parliament, the Commons sitting in a barn.

Berrington, forty-seven miles from Worcester, and four and a half from Shrewsbury, lies a short distance from the station. Its church has many points of interest, being of Anglo-Norman and Early English architecture; it also possesses a fine Norman font, and a curious monumental figure of a cross-legged knight, carved in wood.

[Atcham Church: 39.jpg]

The little village of Atcham may be reached from here by a very pleasant foot walk of about a mile through the fields. It is celebrated as the birthplace of Ordericus Vitalis, chaplain to William the Conqueror, and a famous historian of that time. The church is an ancient structure reared on the little gra.s.sy flat round which the river bends; tresses of luxuriant ivy conceal its walls, in which are found sections of a Roman arch and a sculptured Roman column, part of the spoil of the city of Uriconium. Among its relics is a reading-desk, carved, it is supposed, by Albert Durer, with panels representing pa.s.sages in the parable of the Prodigal Son.

Lord Berwick's park adjoins the village, and in front of the mansion the Tern comes down to join the Severn. From the Bridge it is one and a half miles to

WROXETER,

[Uriconium: 40.jpg]

Where the ruins of Uriconium are still exposed to view. Here, after a lapse of 1,500 years, the visitor may tread the streets and pavements, handle the implements which the old Romans used, admire their well-turned arches, and see the paint and plaster upon the walls of their apartments.

The "Old Wall," so long a sphinx by the roadside, suggesting enigmas to pa.s.sers-by, has found an interpreter in revelations which the spade and pickaxe have made within its shadow. From the time when its walls first fell down, it has furnished plunder to the country round. The old monks, finding it easier to take down its stones than to quarry now ones, built their churches with its spoil, whilst the "old wall" left standing served as an advertis.e.m.e.nt of the treasures buried around it. The Romans who selected the spot no doubt did so on military grounds; but, looking at its position on the river, and the scenery surrounding it, one can readily imagine that an eye for the beautiful, and a love of nature, had some influence in the choice.

[Trout: 41.jpg]

The Severn, near Wroxeter, is famous for grayling, which seldom exceed three-quarters of a pound, but which have here been caught two pounds and a half in weight. The ford has a marly or shaly bottom, and the stream is quick and clear, conditions such as this famous fish, described by Dr.

Fleming as the "grey salmon," has a liking for. It has grey longitudinal lines--hence its name--and a violet-coloured dorsal fin barred with brown; it is best in the winter and early spring months, and sp.a.w.ns in those of April and May. The French, who denounce the chub as "_un villain_," p.r.o.nounce the grayling "_un chevalier_." And Gesner says, that in his country, which is Switzerland, it is accounted the choicest fish in the world. As bait, gra.s.s-hoppers or large dun flies are used, and hooks covered with green or yellow silk; in July, black and red imitation palmer worms are recommended; in August, the artificial house fly, or blue-bottle; and in winter, black or pale gnats are often used.

The fords, too, from here to Buildwas are good for trout, that near Cound, from the entrance of Cound Brook into the Severn, being best.

On leaving Berrington, we come in sight of the wooded steep of Haughmond, Shakspere's "bosky hill." It commands the field where Falstaff fought "an hour by the Shrewsbury clock;" and has still a thicket, called the Bower, from which Queen Eleanor is said to have watched the battle in which the fortunes of her husband were involved. A castellated turret crowns the summit of the rock next the Severn; beyond, is Sundorne Castle and the ruins of Haughmond Abbey.

SHREWSBURY.

[Shrewsbury: 42.jpg]