Читать книгу Motor Tours in Wales & the Border Counties - Rodolph Mrs. Stawell - Страница 4

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There was once a tramp who said—“Och, now, it’s true what I’m tellin’ ye; I never got a bit o’ good out o’ me life till I took to the road!”

He was quite serious about it. He was a nice tramp, with a fine sense of romance and a large trust in the future, and on this first day of the tour his words ring in my head above the rush of the wind and the throbbing of the engine. For though all the days will be good, this first day is surely the best. To be on the road again; to have one’s luggage behind one and all the world in front; to watch the villages slipping by and mark their changing character; to saunter through strange towns and swing across great, desolate moorlands; to pause at some attractive inn, or eat sandwiches and sunshine by the wayside—this is the first day. History and the camera must wait; the first day must be given up to the sheer joy of the road.

So, as we shall not be able to hurry in Shropshire, seeing that there history cannot be ignored, we shall do well to cross its border in the evening, and spend the night in Ludlow. We will drop gently down the hill by Ludford House, and cross the Teme when the light is growing dim, and we can only tell by the deepening of the shadows in the trees on the left that the castle stands among them. Then we will climb a short, steep hill into the town through the only one of the old gates that is still standing, turn to the right through the Bull Ring, and draw up before the famous carved front of the “Feathers.”

LUDLOW CASTLE.

THE FEATHERS HOTEL, LUDLOW.

Here in this little town, in its historic inn, in its church and its great castle, we may find the concentrated essence, as it were, of the glamour of Shropshire—that borderland where the local stories have helped to make the history of England, and the quiet towns have seen wild deeds of courage and horror, and the fields have been red with blood; where every tiny village has its own tale of love or battle, of fair lady or fugitive king. This very house, the “Feathers,” has a world of romance in its timbered walls and panelled rooms, for it is far older than the beautiful Jacobean chimney-piece before which we shall presently dine. These moulded ceilings and elaborate carvings, it is said, were once the property of a member of that Council of the Welsh Marches that Edward IV. established to bring order into the affairs of this stormy neighbourhood, where the “Lords Marchers” had hitherto taken what they chose, and kept it if they could. It is said that the English King once asked by what warrant the Lords Marchers held their lands. “By this warrant,” said one of them grimly, drawing his sword—and the inquiry went no further.

The President of this Council lived in the great castle that still stands so imposingly above the Teme, with its outer and inner baileys, its Norman keep and curious round chapel, and all its long, long memories.

TUDOR DOORWAY, LUDLOW CASTLE.

THE ROUND CHAPEL, LUDLOW CASTLE.

Within these grey walls we may dream of many things, both pitiful and gay: of all the children who have played and the poets who have written here; of young Prince Arthur, who died here; of his bride, Katherine of Arragon; of poor Princess Mary—“my ladie Prince’s grace,” as they called her quaintly—the Queen of blood and tears. Edward IV. and his brother Edmund, dressed in green gowns, played in these courts as boys, and wrote a letter to their “right noble lord and father,” begging him daily to give them his hearty blessing, and to send them some fine bonnets by the next sure messenger; and here on the right is the roofless tower whose crumbling walls are haunted by the most touching memories in all Ludlow. For these weed-grown stones have echoed to the voices of Edward IV.’s little sons, who lived and laughed here with no thought of that grimmer Tower that is connected for ever with their names. There is still existing a wonderful letter written by the King to “his Castle of Lodelowe,” in which he gives the most minute instructions as to the education and general deportment of the Prince of Wales—not forgetting the baby’s bedtime. His Majesty, indeed, was definite on all points.

“We will that our said son have his breakfast immediately after his mass; and between that and his meat to be occupied in such virtuous learning as his age shall suffer to receive.”

His age at this time was three years. Not only was the virtuous learning to occupy him from breakfast till dinner, but during the latter meal “such noble stories as behoveth to a prince to understand and know” were to be read aloud to him; and “after his meat, in eschewing of idleness,” he was to be “occupied about his learning” again. It is a relief to read that after his supper he was to have “all such honest disports as may be conveniently devised for his recreation.” At eight o’clock his attendants were “to enforce themselves to make him merry and joyous towards his bed”; and, indeed, after so hard a day of virtuous learning and noble stories and honest disports, the poor child must have been glad to get there!

Later on, when Sir Henry Sidney was President of the Council, this ground where we are standing was trodden by his son Philip, the pattern of chivalry, who “fearde no foe, nor ever fought a friend”; and it was through that doorway at the top of the inclined plane—then a flight of marble steps—that little Lady Alice Egerton, not knowing that she was on her way to immortality, passed on the evening that she took part in the first performance of Comus, which Milton had written for her.

It is curious that in this venerable town so many of our thoughts should be claimed by the very young. Ludlow Castle, as one sits here thinking of the past, seems to be peopled with the ghosts of children. And even in the church whose great tower gives Ludlow so distinguished an air, the church where the solemn Councillors of the Marches have their pompous tombs, we find the grave of Philip Sidney’s little sister. “Heare lyethe the bodye of Ambrozia Sydney, iiijth doughter of the Right Honourable Syr Henrye Sydney ... and the Ladye Mary his wyef.” It is sometimes said, too, that Prince Arthur, Henry VII.’s young son, is buried here, but this is not the case. There is a cenotaph that was, perhaps raised in his memory, but his body was taken to Worcester Cathedral.

These are the gentler memories of Ludlow. Of the fiercer kind there is no lack, from the old fighting days of the de Lacy who built the keep, and the de Dinan who built the round chapel, down through centuries of siege and battle to the time of the Civil War, when the King’s flag flew here longer than on any other castle of Shropshire.

Ludlow might well be chosen as a centre for motor drives in Herefordshire, Shropshire, and Worcestershire. But for the moment we are concerned with Shropshire only, and the centre of that county, in every sense, is Shrewsbury; and so, sad though it is to leave Ludlow so soon, we must glide away down the steep pitch beyond the door of the “Feathers,” past the railway station, past the racecourse, and over the twenty-nine miles of excellent and level road that lie between Ludlow and Shrewsbury.

ENTRANCE TO HALL IN WHICH “COMUS” WAS FIRST PERFORMED.

The first village on this road, Bromfield, is very typical of the villages of Shropshire at their best. The black-and-white cottages seem to have been set in their places with an eye to pictorial effect; the stream and bridge are exactly in the right spot; and to complete the picture, a beautiful old gatehouse stands a little way back from the road. It is built half of stone, half of timber and plaster, and was once the gateway of a Benedictine Priory which is mentioned in Domesday Book as being of some importance. It leads now to the church, and is one of those unexpected touches of beauty and interest that may meet one’s eye at any turn of a Shropshire road.

Photo by]

[W. D. Haydon.

STOKESAY CASTLE.

At Onibury we cross the line and the river Onny, and about a mile and a half further on we should begin to look for Stokesay Castle on the left. As it is a little way from the main road, and partly hidden by trees, it is easy to miss it when travelling at a good pace; but it is perhaps the most attractive ruin in Shropshire from an artist’s point of view, and should on no account be neglected. It is really a fortified house rather than a castle, and the mingling of the warlike with the domestic gives it a peculiar charm. The northern end, with its irregular roof and overhanging upper storey, the “Solar Room,” with its magnificent carved chimney-piece, and even the timbered gateway, are all merely suggestive of a dwelling-house; and it is only when we turn to the curious polygonal tower that we remember how in the old days an Englishman’s house was either very literally his castle or was likely to become some other Englishman’s house at an early date. As far as I know, however, the only time that Stokesay had to make any use of its defences was when it was garrisoned for the King during the Civil War, and on that occasion it seems to have yielded without much ado.

It is by very pleasant ways that this road is leading us—between wooded hills and over quiet streams. The valley narrows and is at its prettiest near Marshbrook and Little Stretton; then the pointed hill of Caradoc became conspicuous, and beyond it the famous Wrekin appears—famous not for its beauty, but because, being in the centre of the county, it can be seen by nearly every one in Shropshire, and so has gathered round it the sentiment of all Salopian hearts. “To friends all round the Wrekin!” is the famous Shropshire toast, and there, far away to the right, is the isolated rounded hill that means so much to those born within sight of it. At Stretton we leave the hills and wooded valleys behind us, and pass through a few miles of rather dull country. It is at the village of Bayston Hill that we first see, dimly blue against a background of hills, the slender spires—almost unrivalled in beauty—of that fair town which long ago the Welsh named Y Mwythig, the Delight.

The history of Shrewsbury is stirring, and very, very long. When England was still in the making she stood there on her hill, looking down at the encircling river that has defended her for so many centuries. Nearly every street is connected in some way with history; every second house is haunted by some great name. Many large and solemn books have been written about Shrewsbury, and not one of them is dull. Even in these few hundred yards between the river and our hotel how many memories there are! As we turn on to the English Bridge to cross the Severn we should glance backwards to the right at the red tower and great west window of the Abbey founded by the Conqueror’s kinsman, Roger de Montgomery, a man of mark; and then, having crossed the steep rise and fall of the bridge, we climb into the heart of the town by the hill called the Wyle Cop. It was up this steep hill that, not so very long ago, the London coach used to dash, turning into the yard of the Lion Hotel at a pace that is still spoken of with awe and admiration. If we were to do the like we should probably have to pay five pounds and costs, so we will ascend the Cop in a way more conducive to dreaming of the past: of Harry Tudor on his way to “trye hys right” at Bosworth, with the welcoming citizens strewing flowers before him; of the more stately procession that wound up the hill when he came back as Henry VII. with his Queen and young Prince Arthur; of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, and his stepson Essex, after their reception by bailiffs and aldermen, “and other to the number of xxiiij scarlet gowns, with the scollars of the freescoole,” listening wearily “at the upper end of the Wylde Coppe,” to three orations! Henry Tudor, when he reached the Wyle Cop, was glad to take shelter for the night in that picturesque little black-and-white house with the overhanging top storey and the tiled roof—it is on the left, rather more than half-way up the hill—for he had not won his way into the town without difficulty. “The gates weare shutt against him and the portculleys lett downe,” and a bailiff of the town—“a stout, wise gentleman,” we are told—vowed that Henry should only enter over his prostrate body. So, when Henry had made it clear that he did not mean to hurt the town, “nor none therein,” the only way for the stout, wise gentleman to keep his word was by lying down on the ground and allowing his future king to step over him. Thus did Henry of Richmond come in triumph to the little house on the Wyle.

If we are going to the “Raven,” or the “Crown,” as is probable, we turn to the right near the top of the hill, and pass the beautiful old timbered house—which stands on the right hand, a little back from the street—where Princess Mary stayed on her way to Ludlow after she had been created Prince of Wales; and a little further up, on the left, is the many-gabled house where Prince Rupert lived for a time when he was here with Charles I. On each side of us rises one of the slender spires that are the pride of Shrewsbury. St. Alkmund’s Church, on the left, was founded by Alfred’s daughter Ethelfleda, known as the Lady of the Mercians; a lady, it would seem, of some force. “A woman of an enlarged soul,” William of Malmesbury calls her; and adds: “This spirited heroine assisted her brother greatly with her advice, and was of equal service in building cities.” It is gravely recorded in a serious chronicle that in 1533 “the dyvyll apearyd in Saint Alkmond’s Churche there when the preest was at highe masse with greate tempest and darknes, so that as he passyd through the churche he mountyd up the steeple in the sayde churche, teringe the wyer of the sayde clocke, and put the prynt of hys clawes uppon the iiijth bell.” This steeple on our left was the very scene of this feat; but the body of the church was rebuilt in the eighteenth century. Another old Shrewsbury church, St. Chad’s, had fallen down, and the congregation of Saint Alkmund’s feared a repetition of the disaster. In the case of St. Alkmund’s, however, it was the rebuilding that was the disaster.

The story of St. Mary’s lovely spire, on our right, is full of incident. In 1572 it was “blown aside by wind”; in 1594 “there fell such a monstrous dry wind, and so extreme fierce ... that the like was never seen of those that be living ... the force whereof removed the upper part of St. Mary’s steeple out of his place towards the south about five inches”; in 1662 the steeple was “taken down six yards from the top”; in 1690 it was damaged by an earthquake; in 1754 it was “shattered by a high wind”; in 1756 the newly-built part was again “blown aside”; in 1818 the upper part “became loose”; and during a terrific storm in 1894 fifty feet of its masonry fell through the roof of the nave shortly after the evening service. Most wonderfully this last disaster did no damage to the stained glass, which is St. Mary’s great glory and has itself had an eventful existence; for some of it was in old St. Chad’s when it fell, and much of it, long ago, filled the windows of religious houses in Germany.

The slender columns and pointed arches of this lovely church have rung to the voice of Charles I., who once proclaimed his good intentions within these walls, and knelt, harassed and nearly uncrowned, before this altar. It was in St. Mary’s, too, that James II. touched for the King’s Evil.

Just beyond the church is the Crown Hotel, and whether we stay there or at the “Raven,” a hundred yards away, we shall hear the bells of St. Mary’s, once described as “the comfortablest ring of bells in all the town,” and the chiming clock that was the bequest of Fanny Burney’s Uncle James, and the curfew, which still rings every night at nine. And after the curfew we shall hear the number of the day of the month rung out—a relic of the times before cheap almanacs existed.

There is no doubt that the most satisfactory way of seeing Shropshire is to spend a few nights in Shrewsbury, and make it the basis of operations; for Shrewsbury lies exactly in the centre of the county, and is the meeting-point of a particularly large number of good roads. The old town itself, too, does not deserve to be hurried through. The longer one stays in it the more one feels the charm of its gentle old age.

The Old School Buildings are within a stone’s-throw of us, with all their memories of the wise and great: memories that are, as a matter of fact, older than themselves; for though Charles Darwin was educated within these very walls, it was in an older building of wood, standing on the same spot, that Philip Sidney was a schoolboy—gentle and grave, and as much loved then as he was destined to be all his life, and is still. It was while he was here that his father wrote him a “very godly letter ... most necessarie for all yoong gentlemen to be carried in memorie,” which his mother, who added a postscript “in the skirts of my Lord President’s letter,” considered to be so full of “excellent counsailes,” that she begged Philip to “fayle not continually once in foure or five daies to reade them over.” The counsels were certainly excellent. “Be humble and obedient to your master,” says Sir Henry, “... be courteous of gesture.... Give yourself to be merie ... but let your mirth be ever void of all scurrillitie and biting words to any man.... Above all things, tell no untruth, no not in trifles”; and he ends quaintly: “Well, my little Philip, this is enough for me, and I feare too much for you.” If my Lord President had not also been my Lord Deputy of Ireland one might have loved him nearly as much as his son.

Neither he nor Philip ever saw the timbered gatehouse that stands opposite to the Old School Buildings, but in the red Council House to which it leads, Sir Henry always stayed when he made official visits to Shrewsbury. There were fine doings on these occasions; banquets and processions, with “knightly robes most valiant,” and many scarlet gowns; masquerades, too, by the boys of the school, who appeared now as soldiers, now as nymphs, and made orations in both characters. Later on the same red house sheltered Charles I., when he came here to collect men and money. Half the plate in the county disappeared into his mint, which was set up, some say, in a little tottering house that may still be seen in an alley on Pride Hill—a fragment of green and weather-worn stone that is one of the most picturesque things in Shrewsbury. Some of the money that Charles “borrowed” on this occasion was well spent in repairing the Castle, which is quite near the Council House. The Castle is now a private dwelling, and one cannot walk about the grounds without permission; but the oldest part of it is the great entrance-gate, which all may see; the gate that was built by Roger de Montgomery and attacked by Stephen; the gate through which Henry IV. rode out to the famous Battle of Shrewsbury. The Castle itself, as it now stands, was probably mostly built by Edward I.; but it suffered so much through the centuries from siege, and treachery, and time, that many repairs were necessary to secure it a peaceful old age as a dwelling-house. Every motorist who is properly grateful to his benefactors, will be interested to know that it was the engineer Telford who carried out these repairs. He actually lived in the Castle for a time, I believe, and he certainly built the “Laura” tower, which stands on the foundations of the old watch-tower. Telford was in Shrewsbury when the tower of Old St. Chad’s showed signs of collapsing, and, on his advice being asked, said the church should be repaired without delay. The Parish Vestry begged him to meet them in St. Chad’s to discuss the matter, and demurred so long at the expense that at last Telford walked out of the church, saying grimly that he would rather talk the matter over in some place where there was less danger of the roof falling on his head. Two or three days later it fell.

Not far from the fragments of this ruined church is the High Street, where are some of the oldest and prettiest houses in the town; and hard by is the Tudor marketplace, with its statue of Richard, Duke of York. The claims of the Unitarian chapel in the same street are not based on beauty, but on the fact that Coleridge’s voice once rose in it “like a steam of rich distilled perfumes,” according to William Hazlitt, who had walked ten miles to hear Coleridge preach here, and was as much delighted, he says, “as if he had heard the music of the spheres.” Charles Darwin attended the services of this chapel as a boy, but was baptized in New St. Chad’s, the eighteenth-century church near the Quarry, within whose classical walls Dr. Johnson once worshipped. The Doctor’s famous rolling walk, too, of which we have all heard so much, was once seen under the splendid limes of the Quarry.

Photo by]

[W. D. Haydon.

OLD STREET IN SHREWSBURY.

RICHARD BAXTER’S HOUSE, EATON CONSTANTINE.

As we entered Shrewsbury by the English Bridge we caught a glimpse of the Abbey behind us. Leaving the town by the London Road, on our way to see something of the eastern side of the county, we shall pass close by the old red building that was partly spared when Roger de Montgomery’s great monastery was dissolved. It will be worth while to stop the engine for a moment, and to look at the massive Norman piers of the nave, the fine altar-tombs, and the fragment of St. Winifred’s shrine. The founder himself was buried here, after a long life of storm and stress, and three days in a monk’s habit; but the knightly figure that has been thought to represent him is said by the best authorities to be of a later date than his. This Roger is very prominent in Shropshire history, and is, indeed, not unknown in that of England, for he figured in the Battle of Hastings, and wherever he figured he made himself felt. We hear many conflicting things of his character, but from them all we gather that he was a typical man of his day, spending his time chiefly in acquiring his neighbour’s goods, and his leisure moments in building abbeys. Having built this Abbey of Shrewsbury he was careful to see that other people enriched it, and it soon became one of the most important in England. Its actual buildings covered ten acres: yet now all of it that we can see is this restored church, and, across the road, a relic of a later date. There, in the din and dust of a coal-yard, stands the graceful stone pulpit that was once in the refectory wall. From under its delicately carved canopy a lay brother read pious works aloud to the monks while they ate.

As we drive up the Abbey Foregate, between the trees and old houses, the memory of the Benedictines is with us still; for it was down this road that the monks, with their abbot at their head, came once in solemn procession with the bones of St. Winifred. These, by the combined use of a smooth tongue and a stout spade, they had brought triumphantly away from the churchyard of a Welsh village, knowing full well that no wealth of lands and churches enriched a monastery so surely as a handful of saintly dust.

At the top of the Foregate is the column on which Lord Hill stands above a list of his battles. Here we keep to the London Road, and are soon in the open country. We are bound for Boscobel, but as there is a good deal to be seen on the way, a round of forty-three miles is not as short as it seems. Between Shrewsbury and Atcham the scenery is not particularly interesting, but the road is level and the surface good, so we have our compensations. From the picturesque bridge at Atcham there is a lovely view of distant Caradoc, with the Severn in the foreground, and on the river bank the old church that is said to have been largely built, like that at Wroxeter, of the stones from the Roman city of Uriconium. We are very near that city now. If we take the first turn to the right after leaving Atcham, we shall soon be actually passing over the ashes of “the White Town in the Woodland,” as it was called by the Welsh poet who sang of its tragic end; and a moment later we shall see, near the roadside, a fragment of the wall of its basilica. By asking for the key at a cottage close at hand, and by paying sixpence, we may see also the remains of its public baths, and a piece of tesselated pavement that might have been laid down yesterday. Many relics of this town that was built by the Romans, inhabited by the British, and burnt by the Saxons, have been found within the limits of the hundred and seventy acres that it once covered: skeletons of men and women crouching where they had vainly sought safety in the hypocausts of the burning baths; coins scattered by fugitives; pathetic trifles of women’s dress—hairpins, buckles, and a brooch whose pin still works. Older than these are the urns and tombstones found in the Roman cemetery; the tombstone of Petronius, who is thought to have taken part in the victory over Boadicea; and that of “Placida, aged fifty-four, raised by the care of her husband.” Most of the relics have been moved, for safe keeping, to the Museum in Shrewsbury.

From Uriconium a very pretty road leads us to Buildwas. The Severn winds below us on the right, and on the hillside to the left is the little village of Eaton Constantine, which Constantine the Norman—who also gave his name to the Côtentin in France—held in the days of Domesday Book at a rental of a pair of white gloves, valued at one penny. Even at this distance is visible the black-and-white gable of the farmhouse that was once the home of Richard Baxter, author of “The Saints’ Everlasting Rest,” and an amazing number of other books—enough, said Judge Jeffreys, “to load a cart.” Dr. Johnson, however, pronounced them to be “all good.” Here, we learn, Baxter “passed away his Childhood and Youth, which upon Reflection he, according to the Wise Man’s Censure, found to be vanity.” In spite of these austere views, however, his childhood was not without its wild oats, for we are told that he “joyn’d sometimes with other Naughty Boys in Robbing his Neighbours’ Orchards of their Fruit, when he had eno’ at home ... and was bewitched with a love of Romances and Idle Tales.”

Presently, after passing through the pretty village of Leighton-under-the-Wrekin, we see Buildwas, the Shelter near the Water, on the further side of the river. Perhaps this is the most striking view of the fourteen massive pillars of this roofless nave, in which the Cistercians of the twelfth century austerely worshipped; but we can visit the ruins if we wish to do so by crossing the bridge that has quite recently superseded one built by Telford. There is not very much more to be seen at close quarters than from here: the great charm of Buildwas lies in its effect as a whole, in its simplicity and strength, and in its position by the river.