Nooks and Corners of Shropshire Part 19

[Ill.u.s.tration: Tympanum at Aston Eyres.]

En route to Aston Eyres, the tall trees of Aldenham avenue greet the eye pleasantly, though the Hall itself is hidden. At this diminutive village of Aston we find a church of proportionate scale, the only feature whereof that need detain us being the remarkable sculptured panel shewn in our sketch. It stands above the south door, and, protected by the projecting porch, is still in an excellent state of preservation, though evidently of very great antiquity.

As may be seen, there is much quaint character about the several figures, which are carved in high relief. In the centre we see the Saviour, palm-branch in hand, riding into Jerusalem upon an a.s.s, which is followed by its colt; to the right a seated figure strews branches in the way, while another man is in the act of casting his cloak upon the ground.

It is recorded that Robert Fitz Aer caused this church to be built, between the years 1132 and 1148; and to his piety we are doubtless indebted for this interesting piece of sculpture.

Incorporated with some large farm buildings, on the north side of the churchyard, we find considerable remains of the thirteenth-century manor-house of the Fitz Aers; part of the great hall and the two-storied domestic buildings, with a circular newel stairway, being traceable in the fabric of a big stone barn.

In the quiet country towards Wonlock, on the foothills of the Clees, lie the sleepy hamlets of Monk Hopton and Acton Round; the latter boasting a restored church, with tombs of the Acton family, and some remains of a hall of Queen Anne's time, now turned into a farmhouse.

Retracing our steps to Morville, we plunge into a hollow, sequestered lane, and, after pa.s.sing a rustic mill, and negotiating one or two rather breakneck 'pitches,' we win onwards past Meadowley cover to the brow of a steep, wooded ridge, whose base is washed by the Mor brook.

Presently a little grey church and an old ruddy manor-house are seen, keeping company among the trees that top the hill beyond the narrow vale at our feet; and that is Upton Cressett.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Upton Cressett.]

We now bend our steps towards the church, which, rising amidst the fields, a stone's-throw aside from the lane, seems part and parcel of the tranquil landscape. Standing thus alone, enshrouded by trees, under the lee of the sheltering hill, there is something pensive in the att.i.tude of this ancient house of prayer; as though the place were lost in dreams of 'the days that are no more.'

The westering sun, glinting through the trees, spreads the shadows broad athwart the quiet green graveyard. The drowsy hum of insects pervades the autumnal air, the homing rooks make a pleasant sound in the tall elms beside the Hall, and the distant lowing of cattle comes faintly to our ears.

Upton Cressett church is an ancient, stone-built structure, surmounted at its western end by a low, twelfth-century broach spire, a very good and early example of that kind of steeple. The wide timbered porch, seen in our sketch, encloses a fine Norman doorway of three orders, having carved capitals and a semicircular arch ornamented with chevron mouldings.

Of similar but even richer character is the chancel arch, which consists of four distinct orders, with traces of a fifth; a most unusual elaboration for a remote village church such as this.

The thick stone walls are pierced by small Norman and later windows, the east window itself being curiously narrow, a mere lancet light.

There was evidently a north aisle at one time, its blocked arches being visible outside the church. The font is of a peculiar shape, like an urn, with slender, rounded arches incised upon it, and rude cable mouldings.

A door in the south wall of the chancel gives access to the Cressett chapel, which has a high-pitched, open-timbered roof, and contains a seventeenth-century oak communion table. Traces of faded frescoes are visible upon the wall; into which is let a small bra.s.s, dated 1640, in memory of Richard Cressett, a member of the distinguished family which in bygone times lived in the adjacent Hall.

As 'Ultone,' Upton Cressett figures in Domesday Survey. In 1165, Upton formed part of the Barony of Fitz Alan, being held for some generations by the descendants of Alan de Upton. The Cressetts first appear as Lords of Upton towards the close of the fourteenth century, when, the male line of the Uptons becoming extinct, Thomas Cressett succeeded to Upton, and gave his name to the place. Richard Cressett, builder of the existing house, held the honourable office of Sheriff of Shropshire, as did many of his descendants in after years.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Upton Cressett Hall.]

Let us now stroll across to the Hall. As indicated upon a panel let into the wall, the house was erected in the year 1580, and the fine chimney stacks and diapered gables which figure in our sketch date from about that period. Viewed from the north-east, its chequered gables, bronzed, lichen-clad roofs, and wrinkled chimneys, rise with charming effect against the dappled blue of the sky.

Internally the house has been much modernized, but some of the older chambers are nicely wainscoted; and the 'chapel room' upstairs is divided by the great beams of the roof into bays, with arched braces and a sort of embattled cornice, all as ma.s.sive and simple as possible.

Beyond a green courtyard rises the Gatehouse, a curious little building with ivied gables and quaint angle turrets, apparently coeval with the mansion, and, like it, constructed of fine, timeworn brickwork, of a pleasant mellow hue. The gateway pa.s.sage shews remnants of antique gothic lettering, now illegible from decay. A stairway in one of the turrets leads to several small chambers, in one of which Prince Rupert is said to have slept. Some fine though damaged plasterwork in this room displays the usual Tudor emblems, and the word . IESV . upon a heart, all delicately executed.

The course of the moat, the ancient well, and the site of the drawbridge can still be identified, a gigantic oak tree marking the outlet of the former. There is said to have been, in the olden times, a subterranean pa.s.sage running from here to Holgate Castle, in Corve Dale; but, as that is six miles distant as the crow flies, the tradition must be accepted c.u.m grano salis.

Bidding farewell to Upton Cressett, we work a course back to Bridgnorth by a different route. This leads us near to The Hay, a place where, long, long ago, the Lady Juliana de Kenley owned certain lands, which, as is recorded, she disposed of for the moderate rental of one pair of white gloves, value one halfpenny, 'in lieu of all suit of Court and Halimot.'

Once more we pace the now familiar 'petrified kidneys' of the old Severn-side town, and so come at last to our nocturnal lodging place.

Turning in for the night, we quickly lose ourselves in the arms of Morpheus, our day's adventures are finally 'rounded with a sleep'--and the rest is silence.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Stocks & Whipping Post at Stockton.]

BETWEEN SEVERN AND CLEE.

The morning mists hang white and chill about the ghostly landscape, like a world rolled up in cotton wool, as, turning our backs upon Bridgnorth, we hie away southwards adown the vale of Severn. The sun, robbed of his rays, and wan as the moon herself, looks over the low hills of the Staffordshire border; and a fleecy, mackerel sky, gives promise of a likely day in store for folk who fare abroad.

Descending the hill and crossing Severn bridge, we push onward at a good round pace along Hospital Street, so named from the Leper House, or Hospital, which in mediaeval days occupied the site of yonder old brick mansion, called St. James's, which now comes in sight among the trees upon our left.

A mile farther on, where the road bifurcates, we are within a measurable distance of the Gallows Leasow, the site of another grim relic of feudal times. Here, too, is Danesford; a name that carries us still farther back into the past.

Towards the close of the ninth century, the Danes, driven out of Ess.e.x by King Alfred, sought refuge in this locality, and entrenched themselves in the great Forest of Morf, which in those days covered all this countryside.

Presently as we travel along, Quatford church-tower is seen overlooking a bend of the river. Quatford, the Cwth-Briege of the Saxon Chronicle, is a very ancient place, the earliest records of which take us back to King Alfred's days.

In the year 896 the Danes, to quote an old chronicler, 'toke their way towards Wales, and came to Quadruge, nere to the River of Severne, where, upon the borders thereof, they buildid them a Castle.' Here, on the spot overlooking the Severn still called the Danish Camp, they spent the winter, 'not without dislike of their lodging, and cold entertainment'; withdrawing eventually into East Anglia again.

Towards the close of the eleventh century, Roger de Belesme began the building of his 'New House and Borough,' mentioned in Domesday, which probably occupied the site of the earlier Danish encampment. After the death of Earl Roger, his son, Robert de Belesme, removed both castle and Burgh to the spot where Bridgnorth now stands. 'At Quatford,' says John Leland, 'yett appeare great Tokens of a Pyle, or Mannour Place, longing that tyme to Robert de Belesme.'

Occupying the summit of a rocky standstone knoll, Quatford church is approached by a long flight of steps, leading up to the south porch. In accordance with a romantic vow, the church was dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene, as a memorial of and thank-offering for escape from shipwreck, by Adeliza, wife of Earl Roger the Norman; and was consecrated in the year 1086. The chancel arch and adjacent walls, built of a peculiar porous stone called tufa, or travertin, quite different from the rest of the structure, may possibly have formed part of that ancient edifice.

In a meadow near Hillhouse Farm, a quarter of a mile north-east of Quatford church, we come to the 'Forest Oak,' a queer old stunted tree which might be of almost any age, with its two short, gnarled stems, supporting a head of wrinkled foliage. So let us give this venerable weed the benefit of the doubt, by accepting the local tradition that here, beneath its shade, the Countess Adeliza met Earl Roger her husband after her perilous voyage, and prevailed upon him to erect the votive church to St. Mary Magdalene, at Quatford.

Away across the Severn, at Eardington, is (or was) a small farm called The Moors; a place that gives rise to a quaint ceremony, performed every year in London. On October 22, a proclamation is made in the Exchequer as follows: 'Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! Tenants and occupiers of a piece of waste ground called "The Moors," in the County of Salop, come forth and do your service!' The tenants in question then proceed to do sergeantry by cutting two f.a.ggots of wood, one with a hatchet, the other with a bill-hook.

The fons et origo of this curious feudal custom has long since been lost in the mists of antiquity; but the earliest recorded instance of the service was in the reign of King John, 1210.

Bidding adieu to Quatford, we descend the hill, pa.s.s the 'Danery,' or Deanery, Inn, and the site of Quatford bridge, and plod on between hedgerows bejewelled with glistening dewdrops. The 'charm' of the birds, to use the Shropshire phrase, no longer enlivens the byway; but a solitary songster every now and again wakes the echoes of woodland or coppice. Atalanta, yonder, taking heart of grace, suns her glossy wings on a spray of the 'swete bramble floure'; while the rabbits, startled at our approach, bob off to their burrows in the sandy bank.

Dudmaston Hall is left away to our right, and anon we come to Quat, a mite of a place whose name, derived from Coed, a wood, shews it once stood within the bounds of Morf Forest.

Some three miles to the eastward, close to the Staffordshire border, stands Gatacre Hall, the ancestral home of the family of that ilk, which has been settled here, it is said, ever since the reign of Edward the Confessor. Major-General Sir W. Gatacre, one of the victors of Omdurman, is a distinguished scion of this good old stock, having first seen the light, if we are rightly informed, at Gatacre Hall.

The existing mansion, a modern, red-brick edifice, seated in a beautiful locality, has usurped the place of the original house, which must have been unique of its kind, to judge from the following description.

'It was built,' writes Camden, 'of a dark grey free stone, coated with a thin greenish vitrified substance, about the thickness of a crown piece.

The hall was nearly an exact square, and most remarkably constructed. At each corner, in the middle of each side, and in the centre, was an immense oak tree, hewed nearly square, and without branches; set with their heads on large stones laid about a foot deep in the ground, and with their roots uppermost, which roots, with a few rafters, formed a compleat arched roof. The floor was of oak boards three inches thick, not sawed, but plainly chipped.'

[Ill.u.s.tration: The b.u.t.ter Cross. Alveley.]

Beyond Hampton Load ferry we ascend a lane shewing evidences of having been paved. Coming to a corner where four ways meet, we see, by the laneside, the old stone Cross ill.u.s.trated here; a monolith about 5 feet in height, upon a circular stone base. On each side of the rounded head a cross is faintly distinguishable; but, as a pa.s.ser-by truly remarks, 'They've yacked un and yowed un, so as you canna very well make out what it be all about.'

When and why the cross was erected there is no record to shew, but it is evidently of great antiquity, and probably was used as a meeting place for holding a sort of open-air market. It is sometimes called the b.u.t.ter Cross, the lower stone being supposed to represent a cheese, and the round head a pat of b.u.t.ter!

A quarter of an hour's walk brings us to Alveley, a rather untidy village, scattered higgledy-piggledy along a crooked roadway. St. Mary's church, however, proves interesting enough to make amends for other shortcomings.

Many styles of architecture, from Norman to late Decorated, are represented here. The Norman nave has clerestory windows, in one of which we espy some good pre-Reformation gla.s.s; and a flattish oak roof spans the whole.