CHAPTER XIIAn angler's haunt—Ferries and stepping-stones—Curious old stained-glass window—The ruins of Uriconium—Watling Street—The Wrekin—Richard Baxter's old home—A Cabinet minister's story—A pretty village—Buildwas Abbey—Ironbridge—The "Methodists' Mecca."Leaving Haughmond to its ancient peace, and finding the road we were on led to Shrewsbury, we took a byway to our left, chancing where it might go. We did not select our road, we took the first one we came to so as to avoid revisiting Shrewsbury, and it led us, with many pleasant windings, through a country of great charm, and unexpectedly to many interesting places. No guide-book could have done us better service. We had at the start fir-crowned hills to the left of us with a tower on the top of them, a modern one, but still a picturesque feature, and the silvery Severn to the right, and in the narrow and pleasant stretch of country between our road went in a dreamy, indirect fashion.At Uffington I noticed a river-side inn with an angler, rod in hand, standing idly in the doorway, so concluded, with the river close by, this must be a fisherman's haunt. I was almost tempted to pull up there and go a-fishing, for it looked such apleasant hostelry, one whereat a lazy man might laze contentedly. At Uffington the monks of Haughmond had a ferry, and so in the absence of any bridge they crossed the Severn there on the way to Shrewsbury. I am told the ferry still exists, and I was glad to hear it, for ferries and stepping-stones form such picturesque features in the landscape. In Wales, where I once stopped awhile at a remote farmhouse, the only way across the little river in front of it was by stepping-stones, and I took quite a childish delight in crossing and recrossing them, and more than once I discovered an artist painting the spot; there was a very real fascination for me about this primitive way of crossing a stream, in an age when all things are made so uninterestingly smooth and easy, a method probably originally suggested by the boulders that strew the bed of a mountain river.So we followed the Severn down, now losing sight of it, now recovering it again, till we came to Atcham, where the river flowed wide and strong under a fine seven-arched bridge; there by the roadside stood a large old house that had evidently been a coaching inn, and there under the shade of some trees I pulled up the car to have a look around, for it was a pleasant spot.I wandered into the churchyard overlooking the river. The church I found old and interesting. At the east end I noticed two of the so-called leper or low-side windows that have caused so much discussion amongst antiquaries; these were in such a position behind the high altar that, of course,neither the altar nor the elevation of the Host could be seen from them, and this, I think, surely proves, at least to my satisfaction, that such windows were not for the use of lepers to observe the service from without; but as I have already discussed the subject, I will say no more about it.There is some good carved old oak in the church; the reading-desk has some quaint carvings on it of the story of the prodigal son; the fine openwork screen too merits attention, and its walls still plainly show the marks of the medieval masons' chisels; but what specially interested me was a very curious and ancient stained-glass window representing a woman kneeling and presenting a book to Queen Elizabeth enthroned; the top lights above contain the drawings of five angels busy with harps. The inscription below runs:—Blanch daughter of Henry Miles Parry Esqre.Of Newcourt Herefordshire by Alicia daughterOf Simon Milborn Esqre. Chief gentlewomanOf Queen Elizabeth privy chamber whomShe faithfully served from herHighnesses birth dying at CourtThe 12th of Febry. 1589. Aged 82.Entombed at Westminster. Her bowels at Bacton inThe county of Hereford.A little beyond Atcham, whilst driving along a narrow and quiet country road and thinking of nothing in particular, I suddenly noticed some crumbling ruins on rising ground not far away, and I asked at a blacksmith's forge, close by, what the ruins might be, and was told they were the ruins of the Roman city of Uriconium. Thiswas interesting information, and at once the low and broken, moss-grown and ivy-clad walls assumed a look of importance. We had come upon the site of an ancient city of wide renown. "We keep the key here," said the blacksmith, for I found that what remains of the once great city of "gleaming white walls" is fenced round and turned into a sort of peep-show with "a charge of sixpence a head for admission." What an indignity to the ancient city, perhaps the chief city of the country when England was but a colony of Rome: how strange to think of England as a colony! I have said perhaps the chief city of the country, for according to J. R. Green, the historian, "the walls of Uriconium enclosed a space more than double that of Roman London, and exceeded in circumference by a third those of Pompeii, while the remains of its theatre and its amphitheatre, as well as the broad streets which contrast so strangely with the narrow alleys of other British towns, shows its former wealth and importance." It was to Uriconium that the famous Watling Street went direct from Dover through London, and thence as straight as the Romans could conveniently make it to Uriconium. The Romans wisely favoured the high ground in preference to the low for their roads, which to keep dry were carefully trenched on either side, but they always went straight ahead to their destination, excepting when the gradient proved too severe or they had to round a hill, but after such divergence straight ahead they went again; one cannot butadmire the purposefulness of them. Watling Street has now been reopened and reconnected from Daventry to Shrewsbury, a distance of eighty-three miles; and to be a little previous, from close to Boscobel on to Daventry we followed the ancient street on our homeward run—excepting for a diversion to Uttoxeter at the Lichfield turn, rejoining it at Atherstone, missing but about fourteen miles of its length between the point above Boscobel and Daventry—and a very pleasant rural road we found it, delightful for its absence of towns and even villages; indeed it took us for miles and miles right through a thoroughly old-world sparsely peopled land. So we followed the footsteps of the Roman legions. The foundation of most of the street, in spite of years of neglect, is as firm to-day as when the ancient Romans made it, for they built for centuries. Our modern road-builders might well take a hint from those clever old engineers. There was no scamped work in those benighted ages, for scamped work meant death—not a fortune.But to return to Uriconium. To show the size of the ancient city, its walls, still traceable, are over three miles in circumference, enclosing now open fields and meadows; in these, I was told, the plough occasionally turns up portions of mosaic pavement, bits of pottery, tiles, and other relics. I entered what now remains of the city above ground by a locked gate and wandered over its grass-grown streets, or at least a very small portion of them, and amongst the fragments of its time-wornwalls that are still standing. Wild roses, brambles, nettles, and docks were growing everywhere disorderly; ivy, moss, and lichen were creeping over its stones at will. Some of the foundations of the buildings have been uncovered and laid bare, but Nature is busy at work covering them up again with many a wild growing thing. Little enough remains, in truth, to reveal the former glory of Uriconium; the chief wall standing, built of squared stones, varied by courses of thin red tiles, is presumably that of the basilica; adjoining this are the baths, the plan of which can be roughly made out, the furnace chambers may be traced, and a number of small pillars constructed of thin bricks reveal the hypocausts or heating arrangements. The public baths are the best preserved parts of the city that have been unearthed, and show the extent of civilisation to which the Romans in England had attained. I was glad to have seen Uriconium; it made me respect the civilisation of our early conquerors. I was impressed with the picture that I recovered to myself of the refined life the Romans led in their British colony close upon nineteen centuries ago! Delightful is the situation of Uriconium on its gentle rise, with far views of the country around, and the Severn winding just below. It seems strange that, whilst the sites of so many Roman towns are the sites of English towns to-day, Uriconium so favoured in position should be left desolate—given over to the winds of heaven and the birds of the air.Leaving the ruined city to its sole inhabitants,the birds and perchance the rabbits, we had a fine view of the isolated hill of the Wrekin, from the top of which flamed forth the beacon that told the great Armada was in sight. Then... streamed in crimson on the wind the Wrekin's crest of light."To friends all round the Wrekin" is a famous Shropshire toast, and all good Salopians know how that hill came into being: how that the Devil, once upon a time, as the fairy story-books have it, had a grudge against Shrewsbury, and was carrying a great load of earth and rocks on his back, intending to dump it down in the bed of the Severn, and so block the flow of the river and drown all the Shrewsbury people; but even the Devil grew weary of his heavy load, and threw it down on the spot where the Wrekin now stands, declaring he would carry it no longer. So the mountain arose and Shrewsbury was saved. At one point or another the Devil appears to have been very busy in Shropshire knocking the scenery about. When later on I found myself at Ironbridge, with its furnaces and factories, I really thought the Devil must still be busy in Shropshire, for who but he could have entered into the mind of man to cause him to spoil so fair a spot for the sake of mere money-making? Remove the dirty, mean, and ugly town and all connected with it, Madeley too, with its collieries close above, and smoky Broseley but a mile away, and I doubt if the Severn could show in all its pleasant meanderings from its source in lone Plynlimmon to the sea aspot so fair as this would be—and was in the days of old.The scenery improved with every mile as we wound our way down by the Severn side, from which rose gently sloping and wooded hills on the other hand, a very pleasant land in truth. Coming to the little village of Eaton Constantine, I pulled up there to photograph an exceedingly picturesque black and white half-timber farmhouse with a great gable at one end, its roof sloping down to a sheltering porch. Were I an architect and designer of country homes I certainly would seek for inspiration in Shropshire; I know no other part of England where the houses look more like homes. Chatting with the owner of the farmhouse, who kindly allowed me to photograph it from his farmyard, and even stood in front of his porch to be included in the picture—though I did not desire this further favour of him—I learnt that it was formerly the home of Richard Baxter, the Nonconformist divine and the author ofThe Saints' Everlasting Rest, and quite a host of other improving religious works well known to fame, but which I regret I have never read. It was at Eaton Constantine, I believe, that when a boy Richard Baxter used to rob his neighbours' orchards, but, as some one says, "often the worst boys become the best men," a pleasant way of excusing their peccadilloes. Even Bunyan I have somewhere read "sowed his wild oats" freely when a youth, and I have even heard of a certain Cabinet minister who has boasted that he frequently went poaching as a lad. Perhaps it is because I was so good a boy that I have failed to distinguish myself in any way; had I to live my life again I might have got more enjoyment out of my youth, knowing now what good and clever men bad boys can make. I heard a Cabinet minister at dinner tell the story of how his schoolmaster one day declared to him that he was a lazy, troublesome boy, always in some mischief, a disgrace to the school, that he would never do any good for himself or any one else. In after years, when the boy had become one of Her Majesty's ministers, the very same schoolmaster, then an old man, met him and clapped him on the back, declaring, "I'm proud of you, my boy. I always said there was the making of a clever man in you." The story must be true, for a Cabinet minister would not tell a lie—about a trifle, but only for the good of his party.BUILDWAS ABBEY, LOOKING EAST.The next village of Leighton was almost ideal, with its picturesque black and white cottages half drowned in foliage; then our road became as beautiful as a dream till we came in sight of Buildwas Abbey, gloriously situated by the banks of the Severn, where the river flows gently by. But the situation is robbed of much of its charm by the intruding railway, that passes close to the abbey's ruined walls and sadly disturbs its quiet. All you can do is to try and forget the railway as though it were not. Amidst the ruins you cannot see it, but alas! you can hear it; and how can one romance to the sound of a railway train and the locomotive's blatant whistle?Buildwas Abbey is the relic of a splendid building, beautiful and stately even in decay, seemingly too proud to mourn its long-lost grandeur, "cased in the unfeeling armour of old time." Its massive pillars and stout walls, braving all weathers, stand strong and enduring still. Time, that gentle healer, has tinted and adorned its broken walls with many hues, and fringed their rugged tops with bright wild-flowers, grasses, and weeds; here and there, too, the ivy creeps over them and peeps in from without through the vacant windows. Its silent stones seem laden with memories: would that they could tell their story apart from the written one! Its open arches frame pleasant pictures of rich meadows, of woods beyond them, of blue hills beyond again, with bits of sky peeping above. Says Disraeli, "Men moralise amongst ruins"; here is a rare spot to moralise in for those so minded.The abbey church is cruciform in plan, with a central tower ruined low; its stout Norman pillars with their square capitals are very effective in their suggestiveness of strength. There is a massive dignity, purity, and simplicity about the architecture of Buildwas that pleases the cultured eye; there is nothing petty or pretty about it, rather perhaps it errs on the side of sternness, if it errs at all. Grace of outline rather than ornamentation was evidently the monkish designer's guiding inspiration, but what the building lacks in richness of detail it gains in breadth and quiet harmony.The site of the abbey in a valley formerly lonely and of much sylvan beauty, with a river running by, was one that commended itself to the Cistercians, and none were better judges of scenery than they. How did the abbey come by its name? Some antiquaries assert that it came from "beild," a shelter, and "was," a level; others declare, equally sure they are correct, that it came from "build" and "was," a building by the wash of the river. I am inclined to favour the former view; but when learned antiquaries disagree, how shall a mere layman decide?BUILDWAS ABBEY, LOOKING WEST.It was an unwelcome change, from the rural pleasantness of the country about Buildwas, coming to the squalid and smoky town of Ironbridge in Coalbrookdale, a town that climbs the steep hillside above the Severn, and practically joins the almost as mean a town of Madeley above, around which latter are numerous collieries with their tall chimneys and heaps of slack, that scar and make hideous the countryside. Ironbridge gains its name, of course, from the bridge of iron that spans the Severn there in one bold arch. At the time of the building of this bridge in 1779 it was considered a great engineering feat, even a thing of beauty, though I saw no beauty in it excepting the curve of its arch. Its black colour is out of tone with the landscape; it seems to have no part in it. Now a bridge constructed of the local stone, such as the monks would have built, would be in agreeable harmony with the scene, and, growing grey with age, would not force its unwilling attention on the traveller; moreover, stone does not need periodical painting to keep it from rusting. Such a fine stone bridge as the onethat takes the old mail road over the Towy at Llandilo with one mighty arch, how grandly effective a similar bridge would look spanning the Severn boldly so at Ironbridge! There are one or two places called Stonebridge in England, I believe, and to me the name has a pleasant sound; but that of Ironbridge has not. I can imagine a picturesque bridge of stone, perhaps old and weather-worn and stained, but what can one imagine of an iron bridge but something very precise and proper? Nothing about it with any appeal to sentiment. I believe that this structure at Ironbridge was the first of the kind of any size that was built in England, and was thought a wonder in its day. How distant seems that day! Now people have ceased to wonder at it, or at anything else. A wireless message from Mars would probably be but a nine days' wonder; to fly across the Atlantic a no astonishing thing.Climbing through Ironbridge to Madeley, I pulled up there to replenish my petrol supply. Madeley has been called the "Methodists' Mecca," for there lies buried the famous Methodist, the Rev. John Fletcher, of whom Southey said, "He was a man of whom Methodism might well be proud as the most able of its defenders." But what a Mecca! Whilst waiting for my petrol I got a-chatting with a motor cyclist who was on the same errand as I. I am afraid I made a not very complimentary remark about the place to him, but he did not resent it. He even owned he thought the same; but, said he, "I can tell you of something worthseeing close by. There's an old house called Madeley Court not a mile away that might interest you, and prove that there is something worth seeing here. It's a grand old house, and worth a visit. Charles II. once hid in it, they say. Lots of people go to photograph it." Then he kindly described the way to it, "down a roughish and narrow lane"; but I thought I might as well escape Madeley in that direction as well as any other, in spite of the rough lane. On consulting my map I found Madeley Court plainly marked upon it, so I presumed it was, or at least it had been, a house of some importance. My road that day had provided me with many pleasant surprises, and here was still the promise of another.CHAPTER XIIIMadeley Court—Chat with a collier—The miner's rule of life—Charles II. in hiding—The building of Boscobel—The story of a moated house—A stirring episode—A startling discovery—A curious planetarium—A wishing-well—Lilleshall Abbey—"The Westminster Abbey of Shropshire"—A freak in architecture—Tong Castle—Church clerk-hunting.It was certainly a rough and narrow lane, as the cyclist remarked, that led to Madeley Court, and it led past a lot of untidy colliers' cottages, for the hilly country around was well dotted with collieries; yet I fancy from the lie of the land that a hundred years or so ago, before the mines were sunk or the cottages built, that lane must have been a very rural and retired one. At one of the cottages I noticed a collier at work in his little garden; his face and hands and clothes were black as though he had only recently come up from the pit, but there he was busy amongst his flowers and vegetables, and there I pulled up the car and ventured to bid him good-day. "'Tain't a bad day," responded he, and went on with his work unconcernedly. Then I said a word in praise of his flowers, adding I supposed he was fond of gardening. "Well, a few flowers do look a bit cheerful like, so I grows 'em." Now there hadbeen a miners' strike lately, and I wanted to learn his opinion about strikes. Nothing loth he gave it me. Miners I have found, as a race, openly and frankly express their opinions "without fear or favour," and I rather think they even enjoy a chance to express them, sometimes pretty strongly too, for miners have no respect of persons nor of other people's feelings. "We just says what us think and have done with it," as one of them declared to me. "As to strikes," said he, "I'm not gone on them; maybe they's necessary at times, I don't know. You see, we're bound to belong to the trade union lest the masters should best us; but the masters be all right in these parts and we've no need to strike, but us have to strike to help other folk when the unions tell us. Striking's poor game, I'd rather work than play any day; I likes to get my money regularly every week, then I know where I be. Now one never knows when the order may come to 'down tools.' What I say is that every herring should hang by its own tail." What exactly he meant by the last remark was not very clear to me, nor had I ever heard it before, nor was I able to obtain any enlightenment on the matter, for just then he exclaimed, "There be the missus a-calling me in for tea, and I wants it," and without another word he went to his tea. Just as I was leaving two of the miner's children ran out into the garden; one of them plucked a flower, then ran and gave it to me, saying, "Father told I to pluck it for thee"—a graceful little act that was pleasing. So often under rough exteriors kindhearts beat. That miner had not forgotten me, though he left and spoke so abruptly. Yet the following, I am told, is the miner's rule of life:—Hear all, see all, say nought,Eat well, drink well, and care nought;If thou dost ought for noughtDo it for thyself.But I do not believe all I hear. A parson told me the miners were not a bad lot as a whole, but they wanted knowing. They do! Now the poor country folk have often manners; the miners have none.Then we left the cottages behind and dropped sharply down into a sheltered hollow, and there below was revealed to us the rambling and ghostly-looking old manor-house of Madeley Court, a romance in stone, built in the far-off Elizabethan days when men built pictures as well as homes. A large, cheerless pool of water, dark and still, on one side of the ancient and time-dimmed house added to the dreary and eerie impression of the spot as it is to-day: that pool was suggestive to me of some evil deed done in past days, though why I know not, but over all the ancient place there brooded a certain indefinable sense of mystery. It seemed to hold a life apart from its present-day, commonplace surroundings.MADELEY COURT.It was probably on this very lane that, wet through to the skin, weary and hungry, Charles II. recently escaped from Worcester, sought shelter with his guide, Richard Penderel, under a hedge from the pouring rain. Charles had fled from "the faithful city" with a few followers and had sought temporary asylum at White Ladies, the house of Charles Giffard, that gentleman being recommended to the king by the Earl of Derby. Giffard, however, advised the king not to tarry there, as his house was well known, and suggested that he should go to his retired hunting-box of Boscobel, where there were hiding-holes that had not been discovered; so to Boscobel the king went escorted by one Richard Penderel, a trusted retainer of Giffard's. Now two other retainers of the same family of the Penderels, William Penderel and Joan his wife, had charge of Boscobel, where they assisted, from time to time, in secreting persecuted Roman Catholic priests; indeed chiefly, if not wholly, for this purpose of giving refuge to such fugitives was Boscobel in reality built and planned: the hiding-holes there were no after-thoughts. Boscobel was then "an obscure habitation in a wilderness of woods," and was ostensibly merely a hunting-box. After resting there a few days the king became uneasy, for it had become known to the Parliamentarians that he had escaped into Shropshire, and troops of soldiers were scouring the country all around in search of him. So Charles determined to endeavour to make his way into Wales, but before starting forth he had himself disguised by having his locks cut off, his face and hands stained with walnut juice, and then to complete the disguise he donned a woodman's attire belonging to one of the Penderels, and he consented to be known as Will Jones. Thus disguised, one stormy night the king, with the faithful RichardPenderel for a guide, tramped to Madeley close to the Severn, trusting to find shelter there either at Madeley Court, the home of that staunch Royalist, Sir Basil Brooke, and personal friend of Giffard's, or at another house on the hill above, the abode of William Woolf, a yeoman and an honest man well known to Giffard, both houses having the conveniences of hiding-holes. The king deemed it prudent to go first to Woolf's house, as being a comparatively small one and that of a simple yeoman; he thought it less likely to be suspected or searched than Madeley Court, especially as Sir Basil Brooke was known to favour the Royalists, and he had many servants, some of whom might prove curious and become suspicious. A thousand pounds was the price for betraying the king, and death the penalty for harbouring him.So late that night the faithful Penderel went alone to Woolf's house, and rousing its owner inquired of him if he would be willing to give shelter for the night to a gentleman of quality. Mr. Woolf said he would gladly do so, but it was impossible, he was a suspect; his son had lately been arrested and put in prison; moreover his house had been searched, all his hiding-holes discovered, so they were useless, and his house might at any moment be searched again. Then Penderel confided to him that he for whom he sought shelter was no less a personage than the king himself. Hearing this Woolf exclaimed, "I would the king had come anywhere than here, for soldiers are all round about and are watching the Severn in case any fugitives should escape that way. Now that I know who it is that desires shelter I would risk my life to do that service, but it is not safe for the king to be here." Whereupon Penderel explained that the king was tired out and famished and knew not where to go. After this the two consulted as to what was best to be done, and it was arranged that the king should hide himself in one of the barns amongst the straw. Woolf saw to this and brought the king out refreshments, and there the king with Penderel lay hiding that night and the whole of the next day. Finding it would be folly to attempt to cross the closely guarded Severn, they walked back to Boscobel on the following night.MADELEY COURT, GATEHOUSE.But to return to Madeley Court, this fine old house, now going, alas! to decay, being converted into miners' abodes and left to their tender care, still retains some semblance of its former stateliness. It is approached by a fine gate-house flanked by two octagonal and roofed towers, of which I give an illustration; beyond the gate-house the many-gabled building stands, and with its big chimneys presents an effective and picturesque outline against the sky. It is the very ideal of a haunted house, but now that it is divided into miners' tenements I can hardly imagine that any self-respecting ghost would remain in such quarters; even ghosts may have their feelings. Madeley Court possesses the abiding charm of antiquity. An ancient time-worn home like this that has made its history, what a wide gulf separates it from a modern building that has no story to tell, even though the modern building bebeautiful in itself, which it seldom is. I believe it was Ruskin who said he could not live in a land that had no old castles, and I should like to add ancient houses of the eventful and picturesque Elizabethan or Jacobean era. Castles have their lure to lovers of the past, though they beat the big drum too loudly for my fancy; give me rather a grey-gabled, rambling, old moated house, remote in the country and away from other human habitations, pregnant with traditions that have gathered round it; and if I fail to unearth those traditions, I am quite capable of inventing some for myself suitable to the place, and to my liking.Some years ago during my road wanderings I came, in Worcestershire, upon the decayed but delightfully picturesque moated hall of Huddington Court, standing, isolated and with a sadly forlorn look, in a desolate district, far removed from the beaten track. Of its history, at the time, I could glean nothing, but that it had some story to tell I felt convinced; there was a certain subtle something about the place, actual enough to me but indefinable, that suggested old-time romance. I could not get away from that feeling; I had it with me for days long after. Now in a previous book I described the old place and the glamour it cast over me, and this brought me from a reader of my book and a direct descendant of its former owner a long and most interesting letter giving a graphic account of certain stirring events connected with it, and I take the liberty of here quoting a portion of this letter as showing the share in history, often forgottenhistory, which many an old house inherits. This, then, is the story of the ancient home as given to me:—"Huddington Court, with its moat, its priest-holes, was the ancestral home of the Winters, and has played a notable part in many a stirring scene intimately connected with some of the most romantic and fascinating pages of English history. It was at Huddington Court that the famous Gunpowder Plot was in part hatched, Robert Winter (or Wintour, or again Wyntour), the then owner of the Court, being one of the chief conspirators with Thomas, his redoubtable brother. It was at that top window, under the great gable, shown in your excellent photograph, that Lady Mary Winter stood to watch the horseman who should bring her news as to the success, or failure, of the Plot. The prearranged signal was a raised hand (in case of success), and it is an easy matter to picture her look of eagerness and poignant inquiry as she caught a glimpse of the mounted messenger coming down the very road where in all probability you left your car whilst inspecting the Court. As the horseman drew near, what, think you, must have been her feelings when with bowed head he clattered onwards without a sign? There was no necessity for a spoken word; she knew only too well that the Plot had failed, and that the consequences must be swift and terrible. So in truth they were."Riding like fiends before the breath of destruction the conspirators fled into the night, and from London and elsewhere converged, one and all, upon the Court House of Huddington. The day after thediscovery of the Plot they were all assembled there, and received absolution at the hands of a priest who had journeyed post-haste from Coughton Court, another historic old home in the neighbourhood. Under the shadow of the Court, just across the moat, you will remember the little church into which you failed to obtain entrance; there it was that the conspirators met in those last solemn rites of the church. Then as a last desperate effort they rode forth to raise the countryside. They visited Hewell Grange, and failing to enlist the sympathy, or assistance, of the then Lord Windsor or his followers, they turned to and sacked the place, carrying away with them arms and ammunition from its well-stored armoury. By this time the forces of armed justice were close upon their heels, and their plight was desperate indeed. Fate played into the hands of their pursuers, and they found themselves 'hoist with their own petard,' for crossing the Stour (then in flood) the bags of gunpowder attached to their saddles became wet. They presently dismounted and carried them into an inn so that they might dry before the open fire. During the risky operation a spark flew out from the fire and blew the majority of the conspirators to atoms. Leaving the injured to their own devices, the remaining portion of the band clambered again into the saddle and made off in every direction. Thomas Winter, with several other desperate companions, turned to bay in a house near by, where a hand-to-hand fight ensued of a most sanguinary character. Thomas, whose sword must have done deadly service for a time, for hewas a noted swordsman, only succumbed after being grievously wounded in the stomach by a pike, and was taken prisoner. Robert Winter escaped to the house of a friend and lay in hiding for several weeks, only to be eventually discovered and captured. Both Thomas and Robert suffered death upon the gallows in London for their share in the Plot, and John Winter, a half-brother, was executed at Worcester. No wonder an air of desolation and the mystery of an untold sorrow still seems to hang about the place; it would be strange if it were not so."Such is the tragedy connected with Huddington Court. Most old houses have some story to tell, at least most old houses of former importance seem to be haunted by the memory of some interesting episode in which they have had their part. Sooner or later, as in the case of Huddington Court, their story will out. The spirit of place calmly awaits discovery. One old house that took my fancy the first time I saw it I afterwards found was connected with quite a romantic incident that reminded me of Dorothy Vernon's famous exploit. Early in the eighteenth century it appears that the daughter of the house clandestinely eloped with her lover, letting herself down from her chamber by the aid of two sheets tied together, just before sunrise one morning. Reaching the garden below safely and unobserved she met the man of her choice, who was quietly waiting near by with two saddle-horses, one for him and one for her, when the pair galloped off to a distant church, where all was arranged for theirwedding. This is a true story and no invented legend, and the very sheets are still kept by the family as heirlooms.Writing of old houses, here is an account of a curious discovery made in one that I transcribe verbatim from my morning paper of July 10, 1912: "Whilst repairing the fireplace and chimney at the Feerm Farm, near Mold, workmen have discovered a revolving stone, which on being moved revealed a secret chamber. The house was built in the early part of the sixteenth century and was once a manor-house. In the chamber was antique oak furniture, including a table on which lay old firearms, household utensils, and the remains, reduced to dust, of a repast. It is surmised that the room was used as a hiding-place by Royalist fugitives during the Civil War in the reign of Charles I., and that since then it had remained undisturbed." Still a stranger discovery, and a most tragic one, relating to an old house in England is recorded by Mrs. Hugh Fraser inA Diplomatist's Wife in Many Lands, and this is her account of it: "The owners of a certain old house, having inherited it from another branch of the family, decided to clear away a crowded shrubbery that almost covered one side." Upon the shrubbery being cut down, we learn, "it became evident that a part of the building ran out farther into them than any one had noticed. Measurements were taken and proved that a room existed to which there was no entrance from within; this was finally effected by breaking down a bricked-up window, and then the long-excluded daylight showed a bedroom,of the eighteenth century, in wild confusion, garments thrown on the floor, and chairs overturned as if in a struggle. On the mouldering bed lay the skeleton of a woman, still tricked out in satin and lace, with a dagger sticking between the ribs. Under the bed was another skeleton, that of a man, who seemed from the twisted limbs and unnatural position to have died hard. No clue had been obtained to the story."After this who shall say that old houses have not their romances, recorded or unrecorded? Mrs. Fraser's account of a hidden chamber and of skeletons found therein is not the only one of the grim kind that has come to my notice. A book indeed would be needful to tell all the strange and, I believe, truthful tales about old houses in remote spots that I have gathered during many years of road wandering. Boscobel, like many another house of its kind, might never have become famed or known to the outer world but for the chance sojourn there of the hunted king.I have been digressing: it was the sight of that ghostly-looking old house of Madeley Court with its haunting charm of suggested romance that set my thoughts and my pen a-wandering thus. To return to Madeley Court, its walled-in pleasure garden is now but a pathless, grass- and weed-grown space—a play-ground for pigs when I was there. When I opened the gate to peep into it, a miner's wife bade me be careful not to let the pigs out. "Them's our pigs," she exclaimed. Lucky miners to live in a stately, if dilapidated, old hall and tokeep pigs galore, and yet to go on strike, as they had lately done, though as the honest old miner I met, as already mentioned, frankly confessed, "we hereabouts has nothing to complain of." As a mere onlooker it appeared to me that these miners felt the need of a trade union to protect their interests, yet were themselves half afraid of the power they had set up over them. One thing remains in the neglected spot that once was, I presume, a garden trim and gay with flowers, and that is a large and remarkable sun-dial or planetarium. This consists of a great square block of stone raised on four stout pillars above some steps; on the four sides of the stone are large cup-like recesses that formerly contained the dials; these, I was informed, not only showed the time, but also the daily or nightly position of the moon and the planets. How they could do all this passes my comprehension; the position of the moon I might possibly grant, but that of the various planets that change positions every twenty-four hours is "a big order."Had only Madeley Court been a little cared for and in pleasanter surroundings, it would have been one of the most picturesque homes imaginable. But the country about being blest with coal beneath is, by the getting of it, curst with ugliness above. I left Madeley by a rough lane that threaded its way through a hilly country and past many collieries, but in time I escaped the spoilt scenery, where both the buildings and the land looked sombre and sad, and reached a fairer country, though for some distance the atmosphere was dull and grey with the driftingsmoke from the chimneys of the mines. Then as the evening came on I found myself in the little town of Shifnal, where I discovered a decent inn, and that, to me, was the chief attraction of the place.That night I consulted my map to hunt up the position of Boscobel, for I was minded to see that historic and ancient house next day, and the study of my map revealed the fact that Lilleshall's ruined abbey and the remains of White Ladies Nunnery were not far off, so I determined to make a round of it and see them on my way, and a pleasant cross-country expedition, mostly over winding lanes, it promised to be. I had heard of Lilleshall Abbey but not of White Ladies Nunnery that I found marked plainly on my map, at a spot apparently remote and not far from Boscobel.From Shifnal I went to Sheriff Hales, a small village of no interest, but it was a convenient point to make for first on the complicated way to Lilleshall. Somehow, though I used my eyes and consulted my map, I managed to successfully miss the abbey, notwithstanding the fact that it stood close to the road I was on; but so screened by trees were the ruins that I passed them unawares, and soon found myself a little beyond them in the village of Lilleshall, where there is nothing notable to see unless it be a tall obelisk that crowns the hill above. This obelisk, erected to the memory of a former Duke of Sutherland, is a prominent landmark for miles around, and from the hill-top is a grand panoramic prospect over a goodly country, a prospect that well repays the easy climb.The church of Lilleshall is uninteresting; the only thing that attracted my attention in it was a monument in the chancel with the recumbent effigy of a stately dame on it, her head bound round with a fresh linen bandage. It appears that the nose of the figure had been broken off, and had been replaced and cemented on again, and that the bandage was there to hold the nose in position until the cement hardened. But in the church's gloom the freshly bandaged head gave the effigy a curious look, as though it were alive and suffering severely from toothache!At Lilleshall there still exists an ancient pond of considerable size, the water from which once drove the abbey mill, and the course of the mill-race may still be traced. From near this pond I found a footpath over the fields that led to the abbey ruins, and half-way to them I came to a little lonely railed-in well, known of old as "Our Lady's Well."Above the well a little nookOnce held, as rustics tell,All garland-decked, an image ofThe Lady of the Well.Nowadays it is known as "The Wishing Well," and it is said that whoever drops a pin in it and wishes, his or her wish will be fulfilled. Having no pin with me I was unable to test the efficacy of the well; but this I can say, that I know a certain "Wishing Gate" in the Lake District, much esteemed for its virtues, where all you have to do is to lean against the gate and wish; now when I was much younger I leant against it inthe company of one and wished, and my wish was realised.Approaching the abbey ruins by the footpath, they made an effective and pathetic picture lightened and warmed by the soft sunshine, with the green woods behind them, the ruins so old and wan, and the woods so freshly green. The chief feature of the abbey is its bold and beautiful late Norman west doorway, and from this wide portal the whole of the church can be seen at a glance, so that one can judge the extent of it, and a glorious and stately fane it must have been when the last abbot in 1538 meekly handed it over to the minions of Henry VIII., "with all its manors, lordships, messuages, gardens, meadows, feedings, pastures, woods, lands, and tenements." A rare and rich morsel for that greedy monarch.Lilleshall Abbey has been picturesquely ruined, yet I wish it had been a little less ruined, for one misses the graceful tracery that once adorned its now vacant windows; it is the tracery of their windows that gives such an added charm to Tintern and Melrose. The abbey was fortified and held for the king in the Civil Wars, and was bombarded by Cromwell's merciless cannon-balls; afterwards it was utilised as a ready-made stone quarry, so that one wonders, and is thankful, that so much of it remains. Past the abbey's walls runs a little slothful stream with scarcely a murmur, a stream now weed-grown and overhung by trees, and very pleasant it was to ramble by its cool and shady side with the grey ruins on one hand and the tangledwoods on the other; the quiet wind just whispering as it passed by, it might be, the secrets of the past. I had the abbey to myself; not a soul did I see; not a sound did I hear but the hardly audible lisp of the stream, and the subdued rustle of the wind-stirred leaves. The spell of peace was there. I fancy the abbey is little visited, for, like Haughmond, it lies out of the track of tourist travel, and there is no inn or railway within miles of it as far as I can remember; now the tourist demands an inn and refreshment in near proximity to the places he haunts. To get beyond railways and inns, that is the thing for the peace-loving traveller. The motor-car he must suffer, but the average motorist loves the highway; on the Shropshire byways I met scarcely one.From the abbey I started forth to discover White Ladies Nunnery and Boscobel. Eventually I discovered both, but so out of the world are they that I had much difficulty in making their discovery. Signposts were useless, for not one directed me to either place. First I went to Tong, as the road to that village is fairly clear to follow, and it appeared to be on my way; moreover I had been told of a wonderful old church at Tong, so full of stately monuments that it is locally known as the "Westminster Abbey of Shropshire," and is sometimes termed the "Church of the Dead"; also it has gained the title of the "Minster of the Midlands." Quite a choice of names.Just before Tong I observed an Arabian Nights sort of a building, a freak in architecture standing desolate in a large neglected park. The house, with its Oriental domes, looked strangely un-English and out of place in the landscape. It might have been bodily conveyed from the East and boldly set down there. I even rubbed my eyes to be quite sure that I saw aright. This I found to be Tong Castle, though anything more unlike a castle I could not imagine; but I learnt that a castle once stood on the spot, and there was a big board put up in the park that told its story, for boldly painted on it was "Tong Castle. For Sale."LILLESHALL ABBEY.At Tong I pulled up at the church to find that the door of it was locked, so I went to hunt for the clerk; fortunately I found him at home close by, and at my service. It does not always happen so, for at different times I have spent many an hour clerk-hunting, and failed to run down my quarry. It is the most uncertain of sports. It seems passing strange to me how in a small village this minor official occasionally entirely disappears, and no one can tell you where he is, not even the publican; on the other hand, so contrary do things arrange themselves that frequently, when you stop in a village for any purpose, the clerk ferrets you out at once and almost insists on showing you the church whether you desire to see it or no. On a former tour, coming to a small country town in the Eastern Counties where I had been told the church contained a very curious and interesting old tomb, unique of its kind in the kingdom, I spent one whole hour clerk-hunting. Nobody appeared to have seen the clerk that morning, and nobody could tell me wherehe was. The last person of whom I made inquiries was an old woman standing by her house door. Neither did she know, but she had seen him yesterday, which was not very helpful. Then, perhaps noticing my look of disappointment, she suddenly exclaimed, "I be sorry you can't find the church clerk; but I've the key of the Methodist chapel, if you would like to see over that"!
CHAPTER XIIAn angler's haunt—Ferries and stepping-stones—Curious old stained-glass window—The ruins of Uriconium—Watling Street—The Wrekin—Richard Baxter's old home—A Cabinet minister's story—A pretty village—Buildwas Abbey—Ironbridge—The "Methodists' Mecca."Leaving Haughmond to its ancient peace, and finding the road we were on led to Shrewsbury, we took a byway to our left, chancing where it might go. We did not select our road, we took the first one we came to so as to avoid revisiting Shrewsbury, and it led us, with many pleasant windings, through a country of great charm, and unexpectedly to many interesting places. No guide-book could have done us better service. We had at the start fir-crowned hills to the left of us with a tower on the top of them, a modern one, but still a picturesque feature, and the silvery Severn to the right, and in the narrow and pleasant stretch of country between our road went in a dreamy, indirect fashion.At Uffington I noticed a river-side inn with an angler, rod in hand, standing idly in the doorway, so concluded, with the river close by, this must be a fisherman's haunt. I was almost tempted to pull up there and go a-fishing, for it looked such apleasant hostelry, one whereat a lazy man might laze contentedly. At Uffington the monks of Haughmond had a ferry, and so in the absence of any bridge they crossed the Severn there on the way to Shrewsbury. I am told the ferry still exists, and I was glad to hear it, for ferries and stepping-stones form such picturesque features in the landscape. In Wales, where I once stopped awhile at a remote farmhouse, the only way across the little river in front of it was by stepping-stones, and I took quite a childish delight in crossing and recrossing them, and more than once I discovered an artist painting the spot; there was a very real fascination for me about this primitive way of crossing a stream, in an age when all things are made so uninterestingly smooth and easy, a method probably originally suggested by the boulders that strew the bed of a mountain river.So we followed the Severn down, now losing sight of it, now recovering it again, till we came to Atcham, where the river flowed wide and strong under a fine seven-arched bridge; there by the roadside stood a large old house that had evidently been a coaching inn, and there under the shade of some trees I pulled up the car to have a look around, for it was a pleasant spot.I wandered into the churchyard overlooking the river. The church I found old and interesting. At the east end I noticed two of the so-called leper or low-side windows that have caused so much discussion amongst antiquaries; these were in such a position behind the high altar that, of course,neither the altar nor the elevation of the Host could be seen from them, and this, I think, surely proves, at least to my satisfaction, that such windows were not for the use of lepers to observe the service from without; but as I have already discussed the subject, I will say no more about it.There is some good carved old oak in the church; the reading-desk has some quaint carvings on it of the story of the prodigal son; the fine openwork screen too merits attention, and its walls still plainly show the marks of the medieval masons' chisels; but what specially interested me was a very curious and ancient stained-glass window representing a woman kneeling and presenting a book to Queen Elizabeth enthroned; the top lights above contain the drawings of five angels busy with harps. The inscription below runs:—Blanch daughter of Henry Miles Parry Esqre.Of Newcourt Herefordshire by Alicia daughterOf Simon Milborn Esqre. Chief gentlewomanOf Queen Elizabeth privy chamber whomShe faithfully served from herHighnesses birth dying at CourtThe 12th of Febry. 1589. Aged 82.Entombed at Westminster. Her bowels at Bacton inThe county of Hereford.A little beyond Atcham, whilst driving along a narrow and quiet country road and thinking of nothing in particular, I suddenly noticed some crumbling ruins on rising ground not far away, and I asked at a blacksmith's forge, close by, what the ruins might be, and was told they were the ruins of the Roman city of Uriconium. Thiswas interesting information, and at once the low and broken, moss-grown and ivy-clad walls assumed a look of importance. We had come upon the site of an ancient city of wide renown. "We keep the key here," said the blacksmith, for I found that what remains of the once great city of "gleaming white walls" is fenced round and turned into a sort of peep-show with "a charge of sixpence a head for admission." What an indignity to the ancient city, perhaps the chief city of the country when England was but a colony of Rome: how strange to think of England as a colony! I have said perhaps the chief city of the country, for according to J. R. Green, the historian, "the walls of Uriconium enclosed a space more than double that of Roman London, and exceeded in circumference by a third those of Pompeii, while the remains of its theatre and its amphitheatre, as well as the broad streets which contrast so strangely with the narrow alleys of other British towns, shows its former wealth and importance." It was to Uriconium that the famous Watling Street went direct from Dover through London, and thence as straight as the Romans could conveniently make it to Uriconium. The Romans wisely favoured the high ground in preference to the low for their roads, which to keep dry were carefully trenched on either side, but they always went straight ahead to their destination, excepting when the gradient proved too severe or they had to round a hill, but after such divergence straight ahead they went again; one cannot butadmire the purposefulness of them. Watling Street has now been reopened and reconnected from Daventry to Shrewsbury, a distance of eighty-three miles; and to be a little previous, from close to Boscobel on to Daventry we followed the ancient street on our homeward run—excepting for a diversion to Uttoxeter at the Lichfield turn, rejoining it at Atherstone, missing but about fourteen miles of its length between the point above Boscobel and Daventry—and a very pleasant rural road we found it, delightful for its absence of towns and even villages; indeed it took us for miles and miles right through a thoroughly old-world sparsely peopled land. So we followed the footsteps of the Roman legions. The foundation of most of the street, in spite of years of neglect, is as firm to-day as when the ancient Romans made it, for they built for centuries. Our modern road-builders might well take a hint from those clever old engineers. There was no scamped work in those benighted ages, for scamped work meant death—not a fortune.But to return to Uriconium. To show the size of the ancient city, its walls, still traceable, are over three miles in circumference, enclosing now open fields and meadows; in these, I was told, the plough occasionally turns up portions of mosaic pavement, bits of pottery, tiles, and other relics. I entered what now remains of the city above ground by a locked gate and wandered over its grass-grown streets, or at least a very small portion of them, and amongst the fragments of its time-wornwalls that are still standing. Wild roses, brambles, nettles, and docks were growing everywhere disorderly; ivy, moss, and lichen were creeping over its stones at will. Some of the foundations of the buildings have been uncovered and laid bare, but Nature is busy at work covering them up again with many a wild growing thing. Little enough remains, in truth, to reveal the former glory of Uriconium; the chief wall standing, built of squared stones, varied by courses of thin red tiles, is presumably that of the basilica; adjoining this are the baths, the plan of which can be roughly made out, the furnace chambers may be traced, and a number of small pillars constructed of thin bricks reveal the hypocausts or heating arrangements. The public baths are the best preserved parts of the city that have been unearthed, and show the extent of civilisation to which the Romans in England had attained. I was glad to have seen Uriconium; it made me respect the civilisation of our early conquerors. I was impressed with the picture that I recovered to myself of the refined life the Romans led in their British colony close upon nineteen centuries ago! Delightful is the situation of Uriconium on its gentle rise, with far views of the country around, and the Severn winding just below. It seems strange that, whilst the sites of so many Roman towns are the sites of English towns to-day, Uriconium so favoured in position should be left desolate—given over to the winds of heaven and the birds of the air.Leaving the ruined city to its sole inhabitants,the birds and perchance the rabbits, we had a fine view of the isolated hill of the Wrekin, from the top of which flamed forth the beacon that told the great Armada was in sight. Then... streamed in crimson on the wind the Wrekin's crest of light."To friends all round the Wrekin" is a famous Shropshire toast, and all good Salopians know how that hill came into being: how that the Devil, once upon a time, as the fairy story-books have it, had a grudge against Shrewsbury, and was carrying a great load of earth and rocks on his back, intending to dump it down in the bed of the Severn, and so block the flow of the river and drown all the Shrewsbury people; but even the Devil grew weary of his heavy load, and threw it down on the spot where the Wrekin now stands, declaring he would carry it no longer. So the mountain arose and Shrewsbury was saved. At one point or another the Devil appears to have been very busy in Shropshire knocking the scenery about. When later on I found myself at Ironbridge, with its furnaces and factories, I really thought the Devil must still be busy in Shropshire, for who but he could have entered into the mind of man to cause him to spoil so fair a spot for the sake of mere money-making? Remove the dirty, mean, and ugly town and all connected with it, Madeley too, with its collieries close above, and smoky Broseley but a mile away, and I doubt if the Severn could show in all its pleasant meanderings from its source in lone Plynlimmon to the sea aspot so fair as this would be—and was in the days of old.The scenery improved with every mile as we wound our way down by the Severn side, from which rose gently sloping and wooded hills on the other hand, a very pleasant land in truth. Coming to the little village of Eaton Constantine, I pulled up there to photograph an exceedingly picturesque black and white half-timber farmhouse with a great gable at one end, its roof sloping down to a sheltering porch. Were I an architect and designer of country homes I certainly would seek for inspiration in Shropshire; I know no other part of England where the houses look more like homes. Chatting with the owner of the farmhouse, who kindly allowed me to photograph it from his farmyard, and even stood in front of his porch to be included in the picture—though I did not desire this further favour of him—I learnt that it was formerly the home of Richard Baxter, the Nonconformist divine and the author ofThe Saints' Everlasting Rest, and quite a host of other improving religious works well known to fame, but which I regret I have never read. It was at Eaton Constantine, I believe, that when a boy Richard Baxter used to rob his neighbours' orchards, but, as some one says, "often the worst boys become the best men," a pleasant way of excusing their peccadilloes. Even Bunyan I have somewhere read "sowed his wild oats" freely when a youth, and I have even heard of a certain Cabinet minister who has boasted that he frequently went poaching as a lad. Perhaps it is because I was so good a boy that I have failed to distinguish myself in any way; had I to live my life again I might have got more enjoyment out of my youth, knowing now what good and clever men bad boys can make. I heard a Cabinet minister at dinner tell the story of how his schoolmaster one day declared to him that he was a lazy, troublesome boy, always in some mischief, a disgrace to the school, that he would never do any good for himself or any one else. In after years, when the boy had become one of Her Majesty's ministers, the very same schoolmaster, then an old man, met him and clapped him on the back, declaring, "I'm proud of you, my boy. I always said there was the making of a clever man in you." The story must be true, for a Cabinet minister would not tell a lie—about a trifle, but only for the good of his party.BUILDWAS ABBEY, LOOKING EAST.The next village of Leighton was almost ideal, with its picturesque black and white cottages half drowned in foliage; then our road became as beautiful as a dream till we came in sight of Buildwas Abbey, gloriously situated by the banks of the Severn, where the river flows gently by. But the situation is robbed of much of its charm by the intruding railway, that passes close to the abbey's ruined walls and sadly disturbs its quiet. All you can do is to try and forget the railway as though it were not. Amidst the ruins you cannot see it, but alas! you can hear it; and how can one romance to the sound of a railway train and the locomotive's blatant whistle?Buildwas Abbey is the relic of a splendid building, beautiful and stately even in decay, seemingly too proud to mourn its long-lost grandeur, "cased in the unfeeling armour of old time." Its massive pillars and stout walls, braving all weathers, stand strong and enduring still. Time, that gentle healer, has tinted and adorned its broken walls with many hues, and fringed their rugged tops with bright wild-flowers, grasses, and weeds; here and there, too, the ivy creeps over them and peeps in from without through the vacant windows. Its silent stones seem laden with memories: would that they could tell their story apart from the written one! Its open arches frame pleasant pictures of rich meadows, of woods beyond them, of blue hills beyond again, with bits of sky peeping above. Says Disraeli, "Men moralise amongst ruins"; here is a rare spot to moralise in for those so minded.The abbey church is cruciform in plan, with a central tower ruined low; its stout Norman pillars with their square capitals are very effective in their suggestiveness of strength. There is a massive dignity, purity, and simplicity about the architecture of Buildwas that pleases the cultured eye; there is nothing petty or pretty about it, rather perhaps it errs on the side of sternness, if it errs at all. Grace of outline rather than ornamentation was evidently the monkish designer's guiding inspiration, but what the building lacks in richness of detail it gains in breadth and quiet harmony.The site of the abbey in a valley formerly lonely and of much sylvan beauty, with a river running by, was one that commended itself to the Cistercians, and none were better judges of scenery than they. How did the abbey come by its name? Some antiquaries assert that it came from "beild," a shelter, and "was," a level; others declare, equally sure they are correct, that it came from "build" and "was," a building by the wash of the river. I am inclined to favour the former view; but when learned antiquaries disagree, how shall a mere layman decide?BUILDWAS ABBEY, LOOKING WEST.It was an unwelcome change, from the rural pleasantness of the country about Buildwas, coming to the squalid and smoky town of Ironbridge in Coalbrookdale, a town that climbs the steep hillside above the Severn, and practically joins the almost as mean a town of Madeley above, around which latter are numerous collieries with their tall chimneys and heaps of slack, that scar and make hideous the countryside. Ironbridge gains its name, of course, from the bridge of iron that spans the Severn there in one bold arch. At the time of the building of this bridge in 1779 it was considered a great engineering feat, even a thing of beauty, though I saw no beauty in it excepting the curve of its arch. Its black colour is out of tone with the landscape; it seems to have no part in it. Now a bridge constructed of the local stone, such as the monks would have built, would be in agreeable harmony with the scene, and, growing grey with age, would not force its unwilling attention on the traveller; moreover, stone does not need periodical painting to keep it from rusting. Such a fine stone bridge as the onethat takes the old mail road over the Towy at Llandilo with one mighty arch, how grandly effective a similar bridge would look spanning the Severn boldly so at Ironbridge! There are one or two places called Stonebridge in England, I believe, and to me the name has a pleasant sound; but that of Ironbridge has not. I can imagine a picturesque bridge of stone, perhaps old and weather-worn and stained, but what can one imagine of an iron bridge but something very precise and proper? Nothing about it with any appeal to sentiment. I believe that this structure at Ironbridge was the first of the kind of any size that was built in England, and was thought a wonder in its day. How distant seems that day! Now people have ceased to wonder at it, or at anything else. A wireless message from Mars would probably be but a nine days' wonder; to fly across the Atlantic a no astonishing thing.Climbing through Ironbridge to Madeley, I pulled up there to replenish my petrol supply. Madeley has been called the "Methodists' Mecca," for there lies buried the famous Methodist, the Rev. John Fletcher, of whom Southey said, "He was a man of whom Methodism might well be proud as the most able of its defenders." But what a Mecca! Whilst waiting for my petrol I got a-chatting with a motor cyclist who was on the same errand as I. I am afraid I made a not very complimentary remark about the place to him, but he did not resent it. He even owned he thought the same; but, said he, "I can tell you of something worthseeing close by. There's an old house called Madeley Court not a mile away that might interest you, and prove that there is something worth seeing here. It's a grand old house, and worth a visit. Charles II. once hid in it, they say. Lots of people go to photograph it." Then he kindly described the way to it, "down a roughish and narrow lane"; but I thought I might as well escape Madeley in that direction as well as any other, in spite of the rough lane. On consulting my map I found Madeley Court plainly marked upon it, so I presumed it was, or at least it had been, a house of some importance. My road that day had provided me with many pleasant surprises, and here was still the promise of another.
An angler's haunt—Ferries and stepping-stones—Curious old stained-glass window—The ruins of Uriconium—Watling Street—The Wrekin—Richard Baxter's old home—A Cabinet minister's story—A pretty village—Buildwas Abbey—Ironbridge—The "Methodists' Mecca."
Leaving Haughmond to its ancient peace, and finding the road we were on led to Shrewsbury, we took a byway to our left, chancing where it might go. We did not select our road, we took the first one we came to so as to avoid revisiting Shrewsbury, and it led us, with many pleasant windings, through a country of great charm, and unexpectedly to many interesting places. No guide-book could have done us better service. We had at the start fir-crowned hills to the left of us with a tower on the top of them, a modern one, but still a picturesque feature, and the silvery Severn to the right, and in the narrow and pleasant stretch of country between our road went in a dreamy, indirect fashion.
At Uffington I noticed a river-side inn with an angler, rod in hand, standing idly in the doorway, so concluded, with the river close by, this must be a fisherman's haunt. I was almost tempted to pull up there and go a-fishing, for it looked such apleasant hostelry, one whereat a lazy man might laze contentedly. At Uffington the monks of Haughmond had a ferry, and so in the absence of any bridge they crossed the Severn there on the way to Shrewsbury. I am told the ferry still exists, and I was glad to hear it, for ferries and stepping-stones form such picturesque features in the landscape. In Wales, where I once stopped awhile at a remote farmhouse, the only way across the little river in front of it was by stepping-stones, and I took quite a childish delight in crossing and recrossing them, and more than once I discovered an artist painting the spot; there was a very real fascination for me about this primitive way of crossing a stream, in an age when all things are made so uninterestingly smooth and easy, a method probably originally suggested by the boulders that strew the bed of a mountain river.
So we followed the Severn down, now losing sight of it, now recovering it again, till we came to Atcham, where the river flowed wide and strong under a fine seven-arched bridge; there by the roadside stood a large old house that had evidently been a coaching inn, and there under the shade of some trees I pulled up the car to have a look around, for it was a pleasant spot.
I wandered into the churchyard overlooking the river. The church I found old and interesting. At the east end I noticed two of the so-called leper or low-side windows that have caused so much discussion amongst antiquaries; these were in such a position behind the high altar that, of course,neither the altar nor the elevation of the Host could be seen from them, and this, I think, surely proves, at least to my satisfaction, that such windows were not for the use of lepers to observe the service from without; but as I have already discussed the subject, I will say no more about it.
There is some good carved old oak in the church; the reading-desk has some quaint carvings on it of the story of the prodigal son; the fine openwork screen too merits attention, and its walls still plainly show the marks of the medieval masons' chisels; but what specially interested me was a very curious and ancient stained-glass window representing a woman kneeling and presenting a book to Queen Elizabeth enthroned; the top lights above contain the drawings of five angels busy with harps. The inscription below runs:—
Blanch daughter of Henry Miles Parry Esqre.Of Newcourt Herefordshire by Alicia daughterOf Simon Milborn Esqre. Chief gentlewomanOf Queen Elizabeth privy chamber whomShe faithfully served from herHighnesses birth dying at CourtThe 12th of Febry. 1589. Aged 82.Entombed at Westminster. Her bowels at Bacton in
The county of Hereford.
A little beyond Atcham, whilst driving along a narrow and quiet country road and thinking of nothing in particular, I suddenly noticed some crumbling ruins on rising ground not far away, and I asked at a blacksmith's forge, close by, what the ruins might be, and was told they were the ruins of the Roman city of Uriconium. Thiswas interesting information, and at once the low and broken, moss-grown and ivy-clad walls assumed a look of importance. We had come upon the site of an ancient city of wide renown. "We keep the key here," said the blacksmith, for I found that what remains of the once great city of "gleaming white walls" is fenced round and turned into a sort of peep-show with "a charge of sixpence a head for admission." What an indignity to the ancient city, perhaps the chief city of the country when England was but a colony of Rome: how strange to think of England as a colony! I have said perhaps the chief city of the country, for according to J. R. Green, the historian, "the walls of Uriconium enclosed a space more than double that of Roman London, and exceeded in circumference by a third those of Pompeii, while the remains of its theatre and its amphitheatre, as well as the broad streets which contrast so strangely with the narrow alleys of other British towns, shows its former wealth and importance." It was to Uriconium that the famous Watling Street went direct from Dover through London, and thence as straight as the Romans could conveniently make it to Uriconium. The Romans wisely favoured the high ground in preference to the low for their roads, which to keep dry were carefully trenched on either side, but they always went straight ahead to their destination, excepting when the gradient proved too severe or they had to round a hill, but after such divergence straight ahead they went again; one cannot butadmire the purposefulness of them. Watling Street has now been reopened and reconnected from Daventry to Shrewsbury, a distance of eighty-three miles; and to be a little previous, from close to Boscobel on to Daventry we followed the ancient street on our homeward run—excepting for a diversion to Uttoxeter at the Lichfield turn, rejoining it at Atherstone, missing but about fourteen miles of its length between the point above Boscobel and Daventry—and a very pleasant rural road we found it, delightful for its absence of towns and even villages; indeed it took us for miles and miles right through a thoroughly old-world sparsely peopled land. So we followed the footsteps of the Roman legions. The foundation of most of the street, in spite of years of neglect, is as firm to-day as when the ancient Romans made it, for they built for centuries. Our modern road-builders might well take a hint from those clever old engineers. There was no scamped work in those benighted ages, for scamped work meant death—not a fortune.
But to return to Uriconium. To show the size of the ancient city, its walls, still traceable, are over three miles in circumference, enclosing now open fields and meadows; in these, I was told, the plough occasionally turns up portions of mosaic pavement, bits of pottery, tiles, and other relics. I entered what now remains of the city above ground by a locked gate and wandered over its grass-grown streets, or at least a very small portion of them, and amongst the fragments of its time-wornwalls that are still standing. Wild roses, brambles, nettles, and docks were growing everywhere disorderly; ivy, moss, and lichen were creeping over its stones at will. Some of the foundations of the buildings have been uncovered and laid bare, but Nature is busy at work covering them up again with many a wild growing thing. Little enough remains, in truth, to reveal the former glory of Uriconium; the chief wall standing, built of squared stones, varied by courses of thin red tiles, is presumably that of the basilica; adjoining this are the baths, the plan of which can be roughly made out, the furnace chambers may be traced, and a number of small pillars constructed of thin bricks reveal the hypocausts or heating arrangements. The public baths are the best preserved parts of the city that have been unearthed, and show the extent of civilisation to which the Romans in England had attained. I was glad to have seen Uriconium; it made me respect the civilisation of our early conquerors. I was impressed with the picture that I recovered to myself of the refined life the Romans led in their British colony close upon nineteen centuries ago! Delightful is the situation of Uriconium on its gentle rise, with far views of the country around, and the Severn winding just below. It seems strange that, whilst the sites of so many Roman towns are the sites of English towns to-day, Uriconium so favoured in position should be left desolate—given over to the winds of heaven and the birds of the air.
Leaving the ruined city to its sole inhabitants,the birds and perchance the rabbits, we had a fine view of the isolated hill of the Wrekin, from the top of which flamed forth the beacon that told the great Armada was in sight. Then
... streamed in crimson on the wind the Wrekin's crest of light.
"To friends all round the Wrekin" is a famous Shropshire toast, and all good Salopians know how that hill came into being: how that the Devil, once upon a time, as the fairy story-books have it, had a grudge against Shrewsbury, and was carrying a great load of earth and rocks on his back, intending to dump it down in the bed of the Severn, and so block the flow of the river and drown all the Shrewsbury people; but even the Devil grew weary of his heavy load, and threw it down on the spot where the Wrekin now stands, declaring he would carry it no longer. So the mountain arose and Shrewsbury was saved. At one point or another the Devil appears to have been very busy in Shropshire knocking the scenery about. When later on I found myself at Ironbridge, with its furnaces and factories, I really thought the Devil must still be busy in Shropshire, for who but he could have entered into the mind of man to cause him to spoil so fair a spot for the sake of mere money-making? Remove the dirty, mean, and ugly town and all connected with it, Madeley too, with its collieries close above, and smoky Broseley but a mile away, and I doubt if the Severn could show in all its pleasant meanderings from its source in lone Plynlimmon to the sea aspot so fair as this would be—and was in the days of old.
The scenery improved with every mile as we wound our way down by the Severn side, from which rose gently sloping and wooded hills on the other hand, a very pleasant land in truth. Coming to the little village of Eaton Constantine, I pulled up there to photograph an exceedingly picturesque black and white half-timber farmhouse with a great gable at one end, its roof sloping down to a sheltering porch. Were I an architect and designer of country homes I certainly would seek for inspiration in Shropshire; I know no other part of England where the houses look more like homes. Chatting with the owner of the farmhouse, who kindly allowed me to photograph it from his farmyard, and even stood in front of his porch to be included in the picture—though I did not desire this further favour of him—I learnt that it was formerly the home of Richard Baxter, the Nonconformist divine and the author ofThe Saints' Everlasting Rest, and quite a host of other improving religious works well known to fame, but which I regret I have never read. It was at Eaton Constantine, I believe, that when a boy Richard Baxter used to rob his neighbours' orchards, but, as some one says, "often the worst boys become the best men," a pleasant way of excusing their peccadilloes. Even Bunyan I have somewhere read "sowed his wild oats" freely when a youth, and I have even heard of a certain Cabinet minister who has boasted that he frequently went poaching as a lad. Perhaps it is because I was so good a boy that I have failed to distinguish myself in any way; had I to live my life again I might have got more enjoyment out of my youth, knowing now what good and clever men bad boys can make. I heard a Cabinet minister at dinner tell the story of how his schoolmaster one day declared to him that he was a lazy, troublesome boy, always in some mischief, a disgrace to the school, that he would never do any good for himself or any one else. In after years, when the boy had become one of Her Majesty's ministers, the very same schoolmaster, then an old man, met him and clapped him on the back, declaring, "I'm proud of you, my boy. I always said there was the making of a clever man in you." The story must be true, for a Cabinet minister would not tell a lie—about a trifle, but only for the good of his party.
BUILDWAS ABBEY, LOOKING EAST.
BUILDWAS ABBEY, LOOKING EAST.
BUILDWAS ABBEY, LOOKING EAST.
The next village of Leighton was almost ideal, with its picturesque black and white cottages half drowned in foliage; then our road became as beautiful as a dream till we came in sight of Buildwas Abbey, gloriously situated by the banks of the Severn, where the river flows gently by. But the situation is robbed of much of its charm by the intruding railway, that passes close to the abbey's ruined walls and sadly disturbs its quiet. All you can do is to try and forget the railway as though it were not. Amidst the ruins you cannot see it, but alas! you can hear it; and how can one romance to the sound of a railway train and the locomotive's blatant whistle?
Buildwas Abbey is the relic of a splendid building, beautiful and stately even in decay, seemingly too proud to mourn its long-lost grandeur, "cased in the unfeeling armour of old time." Its massive pillars and stout walls, braving all weathers, stand strong and enduring still. Time, that gentle healer, has tinted and adorned its broken walls with many hues, and fringed their rugged tops with bright wild-flowers, grasses, and weeds; here and there, too, the ivy creeps over them and peeps in from without through the vacant windows. Its silent stones seem laden with memories: would that they could tell their story apart from the written one! Its open arches frame pleasant pictures of rich meadows, of woods beyond them, of blue hills beyond again, with bits of sky peeping above. Says Disraeli, "Men moralise amongst ruins"; here is a rare spot to moralise in for those so minded.
The abbey church is cruciform in plan, with a central tower ruined low; its stout Norman pillars with their square capitals are very effective in their suggestiveness of strength. There is a massive dignity, purity, and simplicity about the architecture of Buildwas that pleases the cultured eye; there is nothing petty or pretty about it, rather perhaps it errs on the side of sternness, if it errs at all. Grace of outline rather than ornamentation was evidently the monkish designer's guiding inspiration, but what the building lacks in richness of detail it gains in breadth and quiet harmony.
The site of the abbey in a valley formerly lonely and of much sylvan beauty, with a river running by, was one that commended itself to the Cistercians, and none were better judges of scenery than they. How did the abbey come by its name? Some antiquaries assert that it came from "beild," a shelter, and "was," a level; others declare, equally sure they are correct, that it came from "build" and "was," a building by the wash of the river. I am inclined to favour the former view; but when learned antiquaries disagree, how shall a mere layman decide?
BUILDWAS ABBEY, LOOKING WEST.
BUILDWAS ABBEY, LOOKING WEST.
BUILDWAS ABBEY, LOOKING WEST.
It was an unwelcome change, from the rural pleasantness of the country about Buildwas, coming to the squalid and smoky town of Ironbridge in Coalbrookdale, a town that climbs the steep hillside above the Severn, and practically joins the almost as mean a town of Madeley above, around which latter are numerous collieries with their tall chimneys and heaps of slack, that scar and make hideous the countryside. Ironbridge gains its name, of course, from the bridge of iron that spans the Severn there in one bold arch. At the time of the building of this bridge in 1779 it was considered a great engineering feat, even a thing of beauty, though I saw no beauty in it excepting the curve of its arch. Its black colour is out of tone with the landscape; it seems to have no part in it. Now a bridge constructed of the local stone, such as the monks would have built, would be in agreeable harmony with the scene, and, growing grey with age, would not force its unwilling attention on the traveller; moreover, stone does not need periodical painting to keep it from rusting. Such a fine stone bridge as the onethat takes the old mail road over the Towy at Llandilo with one mighty arch, how grandly effective a similar bridge would look spanning the Severn boldly so at Ironbridge! There are one or two places called Stonebridge in England, I believe, and to me the name has a pleasant sound; but that of Ironbridge has not. I can imagine a picturesque bridge of stone, perhaps old and weather-worn and stained, but what can one imagine of an iron bridge but something very precise and proper? Nothing about it with any appeal to sentiment. I believe that this structure at Ironbridge was the first of the kind of any size that was built in England, and was thought a wonder in its day. How distant seems that day! Now people have ceased to wonder at it, or at anything else. A wireless message from Mars would probably be but a nine days' wonder; to fly across the Atlantic a no astonishing thing.
Climbing through Ironbridge to Madeley, I pulled up there to replenish my petrol supply. Madeley has been called the "Methodists' Mecca," for there lies buried the famous Methodist, the Rev. John Fletcher, of whom Southey said, "He was a man of whom Methodism might well be proud as the most able of its defenders." But what a Mecca! Whilst waiting for my petrol I got a-chatting with a motor cyclist who was on the same errand as I. I am afraid I made a not very complimentary remark about the place to him, but he did not resent it. He even owned he thought the same; but, said he, "I can tell you of something worthseeing close by. There's an old house called Madeley Court not a mile away that might interest you, and prove that there is something worth seeing here. It's a grand old house, and worth a visit. Charles II. once hid in it, they say. Lots of people go to photograph it." Then he kindly described the way to it, "down a roughish and narrow lane"; but I thought I might as well escape Madeley in that direction as well as any other, in spite of the rough lane. On consulting my map I found Madeley Court plainly marked upon it, so I presumed it was, or at least it had been, a house of some importance. My road that day had provided me with many pleasant surprises, and here was still the promise of another.
CHAPTER XIIIMadeley Court—Chat with a collier—The miner's rule of life—Charles II. in hiding—The building of Boscobel—The story of a moated house—A stirring episode—A startling discovery—A curious planetarium—A wishing-well—Lilleshall Abbey—"The Westminster Abbey of Shropshire"—A freak in architecture—Tong Castle—Church clerk-hunting.It was certainly a rough and narrow lane, as the cyclist remarked, that led to Madeley Court, and it led past a lot of untidy colliers' cottages, for the hilly country around was well dotted with collieries; yet I fancy from the lie of the land that a hundred years or so ago, before the mines were sunk or the cottages built, that lane must have been a very rural and retired one. At one of the cottages I noticed a collier at work in his little garden; his face and hands and clothes were black as though he had only recently come up from the pit, but there he was busy amongst his flowers and vegetables, and there I pulled up the car and ventured to bid him good-day. "'Tain't a bad day," responded he, and went on with his work unconcernedly. Then I said a word in praise of his flowers, adding I supposed he was fond of gardening. "Well, a few flowers do look a bit cheerful like, so I grows 'em." Now there hadbeen a miners' strike lately, and I wanted to learn his opinion about strikes. Nothing loth he gave it me. Miners I have found, as a race, openly and frankly express their opinions "without fear or favour," and I rather think they even enjoy a chance to express them, sometimes pretty strongly too, for miners have no respect of persons nor of other people's feelings. "We just says what us think and have done with it," as one of them declared to me. "As to strikes," said he, "I'm not gone on them; maybe they's necessary at times, I don't know. You see, we're bound to belong to the trade union lest the masters should best us; but the masters be all right in these parts and we've no need to strike, but us have to strike to help other folk when the unions tell us. Striking's poor game, I'd rather work than play any day; I likes to get my money regularly every week, then I know where I be. Now one never knows when the order may come to 'down tools.' What I say is that every herring should hang by its own tail." What exactly he meant by the last remark was not very clear to me, nor had I ever heard it before, nor was I able to obtain any enlightenment on the matter, for just then he exclaimed, "There be the missus a-calling me in for tea, and I wants it," and without another word he went to his tea. Just as I was leaving two of the miner's children ran out into the garden; one of them plucked a flower, then ran and gave it to me, saying, "Father told I to pluck it for thee"—a graceful little act that was pleasing. So often under rough exteriors kindhearts beat. That miner had not forgotten me, though he left and spoke so abruptly. Yet the following, I am told, is the miner's rule of life:—Hear all, see all, say nought,Eat well, drink well, and care nought;If thou dost ought for noughtDo it for thyself.But I do not believe all I hear. A parson told me the miners were not a bad lot as a whole, but they wanted knowing. They do! Now the poor country folk have often manners; the miners have none.Then we left the cottages behind and dropped sharply down into a sheltered hollow, and there below was revealed to us the rambling and ghostly-looking old manor-house of Madeley Court, a romance in stone, built in the far-off Elizabethan days when men built pictures as well as homes. A large, cheerless pool of water, dark and still, on one side of the ancient and time-dimmed house added to the dreary and eerie impression of the spot as it is to-day: that pool was suggestive to me of some evil deed done in past days, though why I know not, but over all the ancient place there brooded a certain indefinable sense of mystery. It seemed to hold a life apart from its present-day, commonplace surroundings.MADELEY COURT.It was probably on this very lane that, wet through to the skin, weary and hungry, Charles II. recently escaped from Worcester, sought shelter with his guide, Richard Penderel, under a hedge from the pouring rain. Charles had fled from "the faithful city" with a few followers and had sought temporary asylum at White Ladies, the house of Charles Giffard, that gentleman being recommended to the king by the Earl of Derby. Giffard, however, advised the king not to tarry there, as his house was well known, and suggested that he should go to his retired hunting-box of Boscobel, where there were hiding-holes that had not been discovered; so to Boscobel the king went escorted by one Richard Penderel, a trusted retainer of Giffard's. Now two other retainers of the same family of the Penderels, William Penderel and Joan his wife, had charge of Boscobel, where they assisted, from time to time, in secreting persecuted Roman Catholic priests; indeed chiefly, if not wholly, for this purpose of giving refuge to such fugitives was Boscobel in reality built and planned: the hiding-holes there were no after-thoughts. Boscobel was then "an obscure habitation in a wilderness of woods," and was ostensibly merely a hunting-box. After resting there a few days the king became uneasy, for it had become known to the Parliamentarians that he had escaped into Shropshire, and troops of soldiers were scouring the country all around in search of him. So Charles determined to endeavour to make his way into Wales, but before starting forth he had himself disguised by having his locks cut off, his face and hands stained with walnut juice, and then to complete the disguise he donned a woodman's attire belonging to one of the Penderels, and he consented to be known as Will Jones. Thus disguised, one stormy night the king, with the faithful RichardPenderel for a guide, tramped to Madeley close to the Severn, trusting to find shelter there either at Madeley Court, the home of that staunch Royalist, Sir Basil Brooke, and personal friend of Giffard's, or at another house on the hill above, the abode of William Woolf, a yeoman and an honest man well known to Giffard, both houses having the conveniences of hiding-holes. The king deemed it prudent to go first to Woolf's house, as being a comparatively small one and that of a simple yeoman; he thought it less likely to be suspected or searched than Madeley Court, especially as Sir Basil Brooke was known to favour the Royalists, and he had many servants, some of whom might prove curious and become suspicious. A thousand pounds was the price for betraying the king, and death the penalty for harbouring him.So late that night the faithful Penderel went alone to Woolf's house, and rousing its owner inquired of him if he would be willing to give shelter for the night to a gentleman of quality. Mr. Woolf said he would gladly do so, but it was impossible, he was a suspect; his son had lately been arrested and put in prison; moreover his house had been searched, all his hiding-holes discovered, so they were useless, and his house might at any moment be searched again. Then Penderel confided to him that he for whom he sought shelter was no less a personage than the king himself. Hearing this Woolf exclaimed, "I would the king had come anywhere than here, for soldiers are all round about and are watching the Severn in case any fugitives should escape that way. Now that I know who it is that desires shelter I would risk my life to do that service, but it is not safe for the king to be here." Whereupon Penderel explained that the king was tired out and famished and knew not where to go. After this the two consulted as to what was best to be done, and it was arranged that the king should hide himself in one of the barns amongst the straw. Woolf saw to this and brought the king out refreshments, and there the king with Penderel lay hiding that night and the whole of the next day. Finding it would be folly to attempt to cross the closely guarded Severn, they walked back to Boscobel on the following night.MADELEY COURT, GATEHOUSE.But to return to Madeley Court, this fine old house, now going, alas! to decay, being converted into miners' abodes and left to their tender care, still retains some semblance of its former stateliness. It is approached by a fine gate-house flanked by two octagonal and roofed towers, of which I give an illustration; beyond the gate-house the many-gabled building stands, and with its big chimneys presents an effective and picturesque outline against the sky. It is the very ideal of a haunted house, but now that it is divided into miners' tenements I can hardly imagine that any self-respecting ghost would remain in such quarters; even ghosts may have their feelings. Madeley Court possesses the abiding charm of antiquity. An ancient time-worn home like this that has made its history, what a wide gulf separates it from a modern building that has no story to tell, even though the modern building bebeautiful in itself, which it seldom is. I believe it was Ruskin who said he could not live in a land that had no old castles, and I should like to add ancient houses of the eventful and picturesque Elizabethan or Jacobean era. Castles have their lure to lovers of the past, though they beat the big drum too loudly for my fancy; give me rather a grey-gabled, rambling, old moated house, remote in the country and away from other human habitations, pregnant with traditions that have gathered round it; and if I fail to unearth those traditions, I am quite capable of inventing some for myself suitable to the place, and to my liking.Some years ago during my road wanderings I came, in Worcestershire, upon the decayed but delightfully picturesque moated hall of Huddington Court, standing, isolated and with a sadly forlorn look, in a desolate district, far removed from the beaten track. Of its history, at the time, I could glean nothing, but that it had some story to tell I felt convinced; there was a certain subtle something about the place, actual enough to me but indefinable, that suggested old-time romance. I could not get away from that feeling; I had it with me for days long after. Now in a previous book I described the old place and the glamour it cast over me, and this brought me from a reader of my book and a direct descendant of its former owner a long and most interesting letter giving a graphic account of certain stirring events connected with it, and I take the liberty of here quoting a portion of this letter as showing the share in history, often forgottenhistory, which many an old house inherits. This, then, is the story of the ancient home as given to me:—"Huddington Court, with its moat, its priest-holes, was the ancestral home of the Winters, and has played a notable part in many a stirring scene intimately connected with some of the most romantic and fascinating pages of English history. It was at Huddington Court that the famous Gunpowder Plot was in part hatched, Robert Winter (or Wintour, or again Wyntour), the then owner of the Court, being one of the chief conspirators with Thomas, his redoubtable brother. It was at that top window, under the great gable, shown in your excellent photograph, that Lady Mary Winter stood to watch the horseman who should bring her news as to the success, or failure, of the Plot. The prearranged signal was a raised hand (in case of success), and it is an easy matter to picture her look of eagerness and poignant inquiry as she caught a glimpse of the mounted messenger coming down the very road where in all probability you left your car whilst inspecting the Court. As the horseman drew near, what, think you, must have been her feelings when with bowed head he clattered onwards without a sign? There was no necessity for a spoken word; she knew only too well that the Plot had failed, and that the consequences must be swift and terrible. So in truth they were."Riding like fiends before the breath of destruction the conspirators fled into the night, and from London and elsewhere converged, one and all, upon the Court House of Huddington. The day after thediscovery of the Plot they were all assembled there, and received absolution at the hands of a priest who had journeyed post-haste from Coughton Court, another historic old home in the neighbourhood. Under the shadow of the Court, just across the moat, you will remember the little church into which you failed to obtain entrance; there it was that the conspirators met in those last solemn rites of the church. Then as a last desperate effort they rode forth to raise the countryside. They visited Hewell Grange, and failing to enlist the sympathy, or assistance, of the then Lord Windsor or his followers, they turned to and sacked the place, carrying away with them arms and ammunition from its well-stored armoury. By this time the forces of armed justice were close upon their heels, and their plight was desperate indeed. Fate played into the hands of their pursuers, and they found themselves 'hoist with their own petard,' for crossing the Stour (then in flood) the bags of gunpowder attached to their saddles became wet. They presently dismounted and carried them into an inn so that they might dry before the open fire. During the risky operation a spark flew out from the fire and blew the majority of the conspirators to atoms. Leaving the injured to their own devices, the remaining portion of the band clambered again into the saddle and made off in every direction. Thomas Winter, with several other desperate companions, turned to bay in a house near by, where a hand-to-hand fight ensued of a most sanguinary character. Thomas, whose sword must have done deadly service for a time, for hewas a noted swordsman, only succumbed after being grievously wounded in the stomach by a pike, and was taken prisoner. Robert Winter escaped to the house of a friend and lay in hiding for several weeks, only to be eventually discovered and captured. Both Thomas and Robert suffered death upon the gallows in London for their share in the Plot, and John Winter, a half-brother, was executed at Worcester. No wonder an air of desolation and the mystery of an untold sorrow still seems to hang about the place; it would be strange if it were not so."Such is the tragedy connected with Huddington Court. Most old houses have some story to tell, at least most old houses of former importance seem to be haunted by the memory of some interesting episode in which they have had their part. Sooner or later, as in the case of Huddington Court, their story will out. The spirit of place calmly awaits discovery. One old house that took my fancy the first time I saw it I afterwards found was connected with quite a romantic incident that reminded me of Dorothy Vernon's famous exploit. Early in the eighteenth century it appears that the daughter of the house clandestinely eloped with her lover, letting herself down from her chamber by the aid of two sheets tied together, just before sunrise one morning. Reaching the garden below safely and unobserved she met the man of her choice, who was quietly waiting near by with two saddle-horses, one for him and one for her, when the pair galloped off to a distant church, where all was arranged for theirwedding. This is a true story and no invented legend, and the very sheets are still kept by the family as heirlooms.Writing of old houses, here is an account of a curious discovery made in one that I transcribe verbatim from my morning paper of July 10, 1912: "Whilst repairing the fireplace and chimney at the Feerm Farm, near Mold, workmen have discovered a revolving stone, which on being moved revealed a secret chamber. The house was built in the early part of the sixteenth century and was once a manor-house. In the chamber was antique oak furniture, including a table on which lay old firearms, household utensils, and the remains, reduced to dust, of a repast. It is surmised that the room was used as a hiding-place by Royalist fugitives during the Civil War in the reign of Charles I., and that since then it had remained undisturbed." Still a stranger discovery, and a most tragic one, relating to an old house in England is recorded by Mrs. Hugh Fraser inA Diplomatist's Wife in Many Lands, and this is her account of it: "The owners of a certain old house, having inherited it from another branch of the family, decided to clear away a crowded shrubbery that almost covered one side." Upon the shrubbery being cut down, we learn, "it became evident that a part of the building ran out farther into them than any one had noticed. Measurements were taken and proved that a room existed to which there was no entrance from within; this was finally effected by breaking down a bricked-up window, and then the long-excluded daylight showed a bedroom,of the eighteenth century, in wild confusion, garments thrown on the floor, and chairs overturned as if in a struggle. On the mouldering bed lay the skeleton of a woman, still tricked out in satin and lace, with a dagger sticking between the ribs. Under the bed was another skeleton, that of a man, who seemed from the twisted limbs and unnatural position to have died hard. No clue had been obtained to the story."After this who shall say that old houses have not their romances, recorded or unrecorded? Mrs. Fraser's account of a hidden chamber and of skeletons found therein is not the only one of the grim kind that has come to my notice. A book indeed would be needful to tell all the strange and, I believe, truthful tales about old houses in remote spots that I have gathered during many years of road wandering. Boscobel, like many another house of its kind, might never have become famed or known to the outer world but for the chance sojourn there of the hunted king.I have been digressing: it was the sight of that ghostly-looking old house of Madeley Court with its haunting charm of suggested romance that set my thoughts and my pen a-wandering thus. To return to Madeley Court, its walled-in pleasure garden is now but a pathless, grass- and weed-grown space—a play-ground for pigs when I was there. When I opened the gate to peep into it, a miner's wife bade me be careful not to let the pigs out. "Them's our pigs," she exclaimed. Lucky miners to live in a stately, if dilapidated, old hall and tokeep pigs galore, and yet to go on strike, as they had lately done, though as the honest old miner I met, as already mentioned, frankly confessed, "we hereabouts has nothing to complain of." As a mere onlooker it appeared to me that these miners felt the need of a trade union to protect their interests, yet were themselves half afraid of the power they had set up over them. One thing remains in the neglected spot that once was, I presume, a garden trim and gay with flowers, and that is a large and remarkable sun-dial or planetarium. This consists of a great square block of stone raised on four stout pillars above some steps; on the four sides of the stone are large cup-like recesses that formerly contained the dials; these, I was informed, not only showed the time, but also the daily or nightly position of the moon and the planets. How they could do all this passes my comprehension; the position of the moon I might possibly grant, but that of the various planets that change positions every twenty-four hours is "a big order."Had only Madeley Court been a little cared for and in pleasanter surroundings, it would have been one of the most picturesque homes imaginable. But the country about being blest with coal beneath is, by the getting of it, curst with ugliness above. I left Madeley by a rough lane that threaded its way through a hilly country and past many collieries, but in time I escaped the spoilt scenery, where both the buildings and the land looked sombre and sad, and reached a fairer country, though for some distance the atmosphere was dull and grey with the driftingsmoke from the chimneys of the mines. Then as the evening came on I found myself in the little town of Shifnal, where I discovered a decent inn, and that, to me, was the chief attraction of the place.That night I consulted my map to hunt up the position of Boscobel, for I was minded to see that historic and ancient house next day, and the study of my map revealed the fact that Lilleshall's ruined abbey and the remains of White Ladies Nunnery were not far off, so I determined to make a round of it and see them on my way, and a pleasant cross-country expedition, mostly over winding lanes, it promised to be. I had heard of Lilleshall Abbey but not of White Ladies Nunnery that I found marked plainly on my map, at a spot apparently remote and not far from Boscobel.From Shifnal I went to Sheriff Hales, a small village of no interest, but it was a convenient point to make for first on the complicated way to Lilleshall. Somehow, though I used my eyes and consulted my map, I managed to successfully miss the abbey, notwithstanding the fact that it stood close to the road I was on; but so screened by trees were the ruins that I passed them unawares, and soon found myself a little beyond them in the village of Lilleshall, where there is nothing notable to see unless it be a tall obelisk that crowns the hill above. This obelisk, erected to the memory of a former Duke of Sutherland, is a prominent landmark for miles around, and from the hill-top is a grand panoramic prospect over a goodly country, a prospect that well repays the easy climb.The church of Lilleshall is uninteresting; the only thing that attracted my attention in it was a monument in the chancel with the recumbent effigy of a stately dame on it, her head bound round with a fresh linen bandage. It appears that the nose of the figure had been broken off, and had been replaced and cemented on again, and that the bandage was there to hold the nose in position until the cement hardened. But in the church's gloom the freshly bandaged head gave the effigy a curious look, as though it were alive and suffering severely from toothache!At Lilleshall there still exists an ancient pond of considerable size, the water from which once drove the abbey mill, and the course of the mill-race may still be traced. From near this pond I found a footpath over the fields that led to the abbey ruins, and half-way to them I came to a little lonely railed-in well, known of old as "Our Lady's Well."Above the well a little nookOnce held, as rustics tell,All garland-decked, an image ofThe Lady of the Well.Nowadays it is known as "The Wishing Well," and it is said that whoever drops a pin in it and wishes, his or her wish will be fulfilled. Having no pin with me I was unable to test the efficacy of the well; but this I can say, that I know a certain "Wishing Gate" in the Lake District, much esteemed for its virtues, where all you have to do is to lean against the gate and wish; now when I was much younger I leant against it inthe company of one and wished, and my wish was realised.Approaching the abbey ruins by the footpath, they made an effective and pathetic picture lightened and warmed by the soft sunshine, with the green woods behind them, the ruins so old and wan, and the woods so freshly green. The chief feature of the abbey is its bold and beautiful late Norman west doorway, and from this wide portal the whole of the church can be seen at a glance, so that one can judge the extent of it, and a glorious and stately fane it must have been when the last abbot in 1538 meekly handed it over to the minions of Henry VIII., "with all its manors, lordships, messuages, gardens, meadows, feedings, pastures, woods, lands, and tenements." A rare and rich morsel for that greedy monarch.Lilleshall Abbey has been picturesquely ruined, yet I wish it had been a little less ruined, for one misses the graceful tracery that once adorned its now vacant windows; it is the tracery of their windows that gives such an added charm to Tintern and Melrose. The abbey was fortified and held for the king in the Civil Wars, and was bombarded by Cromwell's merciless cannon-balls; afterwards it was utilised as a ready-made stone quarry, so that one wonders, and is thankful, that so much of it remains. Past the abbey's walls runs a little slothful stream with scarcely a murmur, a stream now weed-grown and overhung by trees, and very pleasant it was to ramble by its cool and shady side with the grey ruins on one hand and the tangledwoods on the other; the quiet wind just whispering as it passed by, it might be, the secrets of the past. I had the abbey to myself; not a soul did I see; not a sound did I hear but the hardly audible lisp of the stream, and the subdued rustle of the wind-stirred leaves. The spell of peace was there. I fancy the abbey is little visited, for, like Haughmond, it lies out of the track of tourist travel, and there is no inn or railway within miles of it as far as I can remember; now the tourist demands an inn and refreshment in near proximity to the places he haunts. To get beyond railways and inns, that is the thing for the peace-loving traveller. The motor-car he must suffer, but the average motorist loves the highway; on the Shropshire byways I met scarcely one.From the abbey I started forth to discover White Ladies Nunnery and Boscobel. Eventually I discovered both, but so out of the world are they that I had much difficulty in making their discovery. Signposts were useless, for not one directed me to either place. First I went to Tong, as the road to that village is fairly clear to follow, and it appeared to be on my way; moreover I had been told of a wonderful old church at Tong, so full of stately monuments that it is locally known as the "Westminster Abbey of Shropshire," and is sometimes termed the "Church of the Dead"; also it has gained the title of the "Minster of the Midlands." Quite a choice of names.Just before Tong I observed an Arabian Nights sort of a building, a freak in architecture standing desolate in a large neglected park. The house, with its Oriental domes, looked strangely un-English and out of place in the landscape. It might have been bodily conveyed from the East and boldly set down there. I even rubbed my eyes to be quite sure that I saw aright. This I found to be Tong Castle, though anything more unlike a castle I could not imagine; but I learnt that a castle once stood on the spot, and there was a big board put up in the park that told its story, for boldly painted on it was "Tong Castle. For Sale."LILLESHALL ABBEY.At Tong I pulled up at the church to find that the door of it was locked, so I went to hunt for the clerk; fortunately I found him at home close by, and at my service. It does not always happen so, for at different times I have spent many an hour clerk-hunting, and failed to run down my quarry. It is the most uncertain of sports. It seems passing strange to me how in a small village this minor official occasionally entirely disappears, and no one can tell you where he is, not even the publican; on the other hand, so contrary do things arrange themselves that frequently, when you stop in a village for any purpose, the clerk ferrets you out at once and almost insists on showing you the church whether you desire to see it or no. On a former tour, coming to a small country town in the Eastern Counties where I had been told the church contained a very curious and interesting old tomb, unique of its kind in the kingdom, I spent one whole hour clerk-hunting. Nobody appeared to have seen the clerk that morning, and nobody could tell me wherehe was. The last person of whom I made inquiries was an old woman standing by her house door. Neither did she know, but she had seen him yesterday, which was not very helpful. Then, perhaps noticing my look of disappointment, she suddenly exclaimed, "I be sorry you can't find the church clerk; but I've the key of the Methodist chapel, if you would like to see over that"!
Madeley Court—Chat with a collier—The miner's rule of life—Charles II. in hiding—The building of Boscobel—The story of a moated house—A stirring episode—A startling discovery—A curious planetarium—A wishing-well—Lilleshall Abbey—"The Westminster Abbey of Shropshire"—A freak in architecture—Tong Castle—Church clerk-hunting.
It was certainly a rough and narrow lane, as the cyclist remarked, that led to Madeley Court, and it led past a lot of untidy colliers' cottages, for the hilly country around was well dotted with collieries; yet I fancy from the lie of the land that a hundred years or so ago, before the mines were sunk or the cottages built, that lane must have been a very rural and retired one. At one of the cottages I noticed a collier at work in his little garden; his face and hands and clothes were black as though he had only recently come up from the pit, but there he was busy amongst his flowers and vegetables, and there I pulled up the car and ventured to bid him good-day. "'Tain't a bad day," responded he, and went on with his work unconcernedly. Then I said a word in praise of his flowers, adding I supposed he was fond of gardening. "Well, a few flowers do look a bit cheerful like, so I grows 'em." Now there hadbeen a miners' strike lately, and I wanted to learn his opinion about strikes. Nothing loth he gave it me. Miners I have found, as a race, openly and frankly express their opinions "without fear or favour," and I rather think they even enjoy a chance to express them, sometimes pretty strongly too, for miners have no respect of persons nor of other people's feelings. "We just says what us think and have done with it," as one of them declared to me. "As to strikes," said he, "I'm not gone on them; maybe they's necessary at times, I don't know. You see, we're bound to belong to the trade union lest the masters should best us; but the masters be all right in these parts and we've no need to strike, but us have to strike to help other folk when the unions tell us. Striking's poor game, I'd rather work than play any day; I likes to get my money regularly every week, then I know where I be. Now one never knows when the order may come to 'down tools.' What I say is that every herring should hang by its own tail." What exactly he meant by the last remark was not very clear to me, nor had I ever heard it before, nor was I able to obtain any enlightenment on the matter, for just then he exclaimed, "There be the missus a-calling me in for tea, and I wants it," and without another word he went to his tea. Just as I was leaving two of the miner's children ran out into the garden; one of them plucked a flower, then ran and gave it to me, saying, "Father told I to pluck it for thee"—a graceful little act that was pleasing. So often under rough exteriors kindhearts beat. That miner had not forgotten me, though he left and spoke so abruptly. Yet the following, I am told, is the miner's rule of life:—
Hear all, see all, say nought,Eat well, drink well, and care nought;If thou dost ought for nought
Do it for thyself.
But I do not believe all I hear. A parson told me the miners were not a bad lot as a whole, but they wanted knowing. They do! Now the poor country folk have often manners; the miners have none.
Then we left the cottages behind and dropped sharply down into a sheltered hollow, and there below was revealed to us the rambling and ghostly-looking old manor-house of Madeley Court, a romance in stone, built in the far-off Elizabethan days when men built pictures as well as homes. A large, cheerless pool of water, dark and still, on one side of the ancient and time-dimmed house added to the dreary and eerie impression of the spot as it is to-day: that pool was suggestive to me of some evil deed done in past days, though why I know not, but over all the ancient place there brooded a certain indefinable sense of mystery. It seemed to hold a life apart from its present-day, commonplace surroundings.
MADELEY COURT.
MADELEY COURT.
MADELEY COURT.
It was probably on this very lane that, wet through to the skin, weary and hungry, Charles II. recently escaped from Worcester, sought shelter with his guide, Richard Penderel, under a hedge from the pouring rain. Charles had fled from "the faithful city" with a few followers and had sought temporary asylum at White Ladies, the house of Charles Giffard, that gentleman being recommended to the king by the Earl of Derby. Giffard, however, advised the king not to tarry there, as his house was well known, and suggested that he should go to his retired hunting-box of Boscobel, where there were hiding-holes that had not been discovered; so to Boscobel the king went escorted by one Richard Penderel, a trusted retainer of Giffard's. Now two other retainers of the same family of the Penderels, William Penderel and Joan his wife, had charge of Boscobel, where they assisted, from time to time, in secreting persecuted Roman Catholic priests; indeed chiefly, if not wholly, for this purpose of giving refuge to such fugitives was Boscobel in reality built and planned: the hiding-holes there were no after-thoughts. Boscobel was then "an obscure habitation in a wilderness of woods," and was ostensibly merely a hunting-box. After resting there a few days the king became uneasy, for it had become known to the Parliamentarians that he had escaped into Shropshire, and troops of soldiers were scouring the country all around in search of him. So Charles determined to endeavour to make his way into Wales, but before starting forth he had himself disguised by having his locks cut off, his face and hands stained with walnut juice, and then to complete the disguise he donned a woodman's attire belonging to one of the Penderels, and he consented to be known as Will Jones. Thus disguised, one stormy night the king, with the faithful RichardPenderel for a guide, tramped to Madeley close to the Severn, trusting to find shelter there either at Madeley Court, the home of that staunch Royalist, Sir Basil Brooke, and personal friend of Giffard's, or at another house on the hill above, the abode of William Woolf, a yeoman and an honest man well known to Giffard, both houses having the conveniences of hiding-holes. The king deemed it prudent to go first to Woolf's house, as being a comparatively small one and that of a simple yeoman; he thought it less likely to be suspected or searched than Madeley Court, especially as Sir Basil Brooke was known to favour the Royalists, and he had many servants, some of whom might prove curious and become suspicious. A thousand pounds was the price for betraying the king, and death the penalty for harbouring him.
So late that night the faithful Penderel went alone to Woolf's house, and rousing its owner inquired of him if he would be willing to give shelter for the night to a gentleman of quality. Mr. Woolf said he would gladly do so, but it was impossible, he was a suspect; his son had lately been arrested and put in prison; moreover his house had been searched, all his hiding-holes discovered, so they were useless, and his house might at any moment be searched again. Then Penderel confided to him that he for whom he sought shelter was no less a personage than the king himself. Hearing this Woolf exclaimed, "I would the king had come anywhere than here, for soldiers are all round about and are watching the Severn in case any fugitives should escape that way. Now that I know who it is that desires shelter I would risk my life to do that service, but it is not safe for the king to be here." Whereupon Penderel explained that the king was tired out and famished and knew not where to go. After this the two consulted as to what was best to be done, and it was arranged that the king should hide himself in one of the barns amongst the straw. Woolf saw to this and brought the king out refreshments, and there the king with Penderel lay hiding that night and the whole of the next day. Finding it would be folly to attempt to cross the closely guarded Severn, they walked back to Boscobel on the following night.
MADELEY COURT, GATEHOUSE.
MADELEY COURT, GATEHOUSE.
MADELEY COURT, GATEHOUSE.
But to return to Madeley Court, this fine old house, now going, alas! to decay, being converted into miners' abodes and left to their tender care, still retains some semblance of its former stateliness. It is approached by a fine gate-house flanked by two octagonal and roofed towers, of which I give an illustration; beyond the gate-house the many-gabled building stands, and with its big chimneys presents an effective and picturesque outline against the sky. It is the very ideal of a haunted house, but now that it is divided into miners' tenements I can hardly imagine that any self-respecting ghost would remain in such quarters; even ghosts may have their feelings. Madeley Court possesses the abiding charm of antiquity. An ancient time-worn home like this that has made its history, what a wide gulf separates it from a modern building that has no story to tell, even though the modern building bebeautiful in itself, which it seldom is. I believe it was Ruskin who said he could not live in a land that had no old castles, and I should like to add ancient houses of the eventful and picturesque Elizabethan or Jacobean era. Castles have their lure to lovers of the past, though they beat the big drum too loudly for my fancy; give me rather a grey-gabled, rambling, old moated house, remote in the country and away from other human habitations, pregnant with traditions that have gathered round it; and if I fail to unearth those traditions, I am quite capable of inventing some for myself suitable to the place, and to my liking.
Some years ago during my road wanderings I came, in Worcestershire, upon the decayed but delightfully picturesque moated hall of Huddington Court, standing, isolated and with a sadly forlorn look, in a desolate district, far removed from the beaten track. Of its history, at the time, I could glean nothing, but that it had some story to tell I felt convinced; there was a certain subtle something about the place, actual enough to me but indefinable, that suggested old-time romance. I could not get away from that feeling; I had it with me for days long after. Now in a previous book I described the old place and the glamour it cast over me, and this brought me from a reader of my book and a direct descendant of its former owner a long and most interesting letter giving a graphic account of certain stirring events connected with it, and I take the liberty of here quoting a portion of this letter as showing the share in history, often forgottenhistory, which many an old house inherits. This, then, is the story of the ancient home as given to me:—
"Huddington Court, with its moat, its priest-holes, was the ancestral home of the Winters, and has played a notable part in many a stirring scene intimately connected with some of the most romantic and fascinating pages of English history. It was at Huddington Court that the famous Gunpowder Plot was in part hatched, Robert Winter (or Wintour, or again Wyntour), the then owner of the Court, being one of the chief conspirators with Thomas, his redoubtable brother. It was at that top window, under the great gable, shown in your excellent photograph, that Lady Mary Winter stood to watch the horseman who should bring her news as to the success, or failure, of the Plot. The prearranged signal was a raised hand (in case of success), and it is an easy matter to picture her look of eagerness and poignant inquiry as she caught a glimpse of the mounted messenger coming down the very road where in all probability you left your car whilst inspecting the Court. As the horseman drew near, what, think you, must have been her feelings when with bowed head he clattered onwards without a sign? There was no necessity for a spoken word; she knew only too well that the Plot had failed, and that the consequences must be swift and terrible. So in truth they were.
"Riding like fiends before the breath of destruction the conspirators fled into the night, and from London and elsewhere converged, one and all, upon the Court House of Huddington. The day after thediscovery of the Plot they were all assembled there, and received absolution at the hands of a priest who had journeyed post-haste from Coughton Court, another historic old home in the neighbourhood. Under the shadow of the Court, just across the moat, you will remember the little church into which you failed to obtain entrance; there it was that the conspirators met in those last solemn rites of the church. Then as a last desperate effort they rode forth to raise the countryside. They visited Hewell Grange, and failing to enlist the sympathy, or assistance, of the then Lord Windsor or his followers, they turned to and sacked the place, carrying away with them arms and ammunition from its well-stored armoury. By this time the forces of armed justice were close upon their heels, and their plight was desperate indeed. Fate played into the hands of their pursuers, and they found themselves 'hoist with their own petard,' for crossing the Stour (then in flood) the bags of gunpowder attached to their saddles became wet. They presently dismounted and carried them into an inn so that they might dry before the open fire. During the risky operation a spark flew out from the fire and blew the majority of the conspirators to atoms. Leaving the injured to their own devices, the remaining portion of the band clambered again into the saddle and made off in every direction. Thomas Winter, with several other desperate companions, turned to bay in a house near by, where a hand-to-hand fight ensued of a most sanguinary character. Thomas, whose sword must have done deadly service for a time, for hewas a noted swordsman, only succumbed after being grievously wounded in the stomach by a pike, and was taken prisoner. Robert Winter escaped to the house of a friend and lay in hiding for several weeks, only to be eventually discovered and captured. Both Thomas and Robert suffered death upon the gallows in London for their share in the Plot, and John Winter, a half-brother, was executed at Worcester. No wonder an air of desolation and the mystery of an untold sorrow still seems to hang about the place; it would be strange if it were not so."
Such is the tragedy connected with Huddington Court. Most old houses have some story to tell, at least most old houses of former importance seem to be haunted by the memory of some interesting episode in which they have had their part. Sooner or later, as in the case of Huddington Court, their story will out. The spirit of place calmly awaits discovery. One old house that took my fancy the first time I saw it I afterwards found was connected with quite a romantic incident that reminded me of Dorothy Vernon's famous exploit. Early in the eighteenth century it appears that the daughter of the house clandestinely eloped with her lover, letting herself down from her chamber by the aid of two sheets tied together, just before sunrise one morning. Reaching the garden below safely and unobserved she met the man of her choice, who was quietly waiting near by with two saddle-horses, one for him and one for her, when the pair galloped off to a distant church, where all was arranged for theirwedding. This is a true story and no invented legend, and the very sheets are still kept by the family as heirlooms.
Writing of old houses, here is an account of a curious discovery made in one that I transcribe verbatim from my morning paper of July 10, 1912: "Whilst repairing the fireplace and chimney at the Feerm Farm, near Mold, workmen have discovered a revolving stone, which on being moved revealed a secret chamber. The house was built in the early part of the sixteenth century and was once a manor-house. In the chamber was antique oak furniture, including a table on which lay old firearms, household utensils, and the remains, reduced to dust, of a repast. It is surmised that the room was used as a hiding-place by Royalist fugitives during the Civil War in the reign of Charles I., and that since then it had remained undisturbed." Still a stranger discovery, and a most tragic one, relating to an old house in England is recorded by Mrs. Hugh Fraser inA Diplomatist's Wife in Many Lands, and this is her account of it: "The owners of a certain old house, having inherited it from another branch of the family, decided to clear away a crowded shrubbery that almost covered one side." Upon the shrubbery being cut down, we learn, "it became evident that a part of the building ran out farther into them than any one had noticed. Measurements were taken and proved that a room existed to which there was no entrance from within; this was finally effected by breaking down a bricked-up window, and then the long-excluded daylight showed a bedroom,of the eighteenth century, in wild confusion, garments thrown on the floor, and chairs overturned as if in a struggle. On the mouldering bed lay the skeleton of a woman, still tricked out in satin and lace, with a dagger sticking between the ribs. Under the bed was another skeleton, that of a man, who seemed from the twisted limbs and unnatural position to have died hard. No clue had been obtained to the story."
After this who shall say that old houses have not their romances, recorded or unrecorded? Mrs. Fraser's account of a hidden chamber and of skeletons found therein is not the only one of the grim kind that has come to my notice. A book indeed would be needful to tell all the strange and, I believe, truthful tales about old houses in remote spots that I have gathered during many years of road wandering. Boscobel, like many another house of its kind, might never have become famed or known to the outer world but for the chance sojourn there of the hunted king.
I have been digressing: it was the sight of that ghostly-looking old house of Madeley Court with its haunting charm of suggested romance that set my thoughts and my pen a-wandering thus. To return to Madeley Court, its walled-in pleasure garden is now but a pathless, grass- and weed-grown space—a play-ground for pigs when I was there. When I opened the gate to peep into it, a miner's wife bade me be careful not to let the pigs out. "Them's our pigs," she exclaimed. Lucky miners to live in a stately, if dilapidated, old hall and tokeep pigs galore, and yet to go on strike, as they had lately done, though as the honest old miner I met, as already mentioned, frankly confessed, "we hereabouts has nothing to complain of." As a mere onlooker it appeared to me that these miners felt the need of a trade union to protect their interests, yet were themselves half afraid of the power they had set up over them. One thing remains in the neglected spot that once was, I presume, a garden trim and gay with flowers, and that is a large and remarkable sun-dial or planetarium. This consists of a great square block of stone raised on four stout pillars above some steps; on the four sides of the stone are large cup-like recesses that formerly contained the dials; these, I was informed, not only showed the time, but also the daily or nightly position of the moon and the planets. How they could do all this passes my comprehension; the position of the moon I might possibly grant, but that of the various planets that change positions every twenty-four hours is "a big order."
Had only Madeley Court been a little cared for and in pleasanter surroundings, it would have been one of the most picturesque homes imaginable. But the country about being blest with coal beneath is, by the getting of it, curst with ugliness above. I left Madeley by a rough lane that threaded its way through a hilly country and past many collieries, but in time I escaped the spoilt scenery, where both the buildings and the land looked sombre and sad, and reached a fairer country, though for some distance the atmosphere was dull and grey with the driftingsmoke from the chimneys of the mines. Then as the evening came on I found myself in the little town of Shifnal, where I discovered a decent inn, and that, to me, was the chief attraction of the place.
That night I consulted my map to hunt up the position of Boscobel, for I was minded to see that historic and ancient house next day, and the study of my map revealed the fact that Lilleshall's ruined abbey and the remains of White Ladies Nunnery were not far off, so I determined to make a round of it and see them on my way, and a pleasant cross-country expedition, mostly over winding lanes, it promised to be. I had heard of Lilleshall Abbey but not of White Ladies Nunnery that I found marked plainly on my map, at a spot apparently remote and not far from Boscobel.
From Shifnal I went to Sheriff Hales, a small village of no interest, but it was a convenient point to make for first on the complicated way to Lilleshall. Somehow, though I used my eyes and consulted my map, I managed to successfully miss the abbey, notwithstanding the fact that it stood close to the road I was on; but so screened by trees were the ruins that I passed them unawares, and soon found myself a little beyond them in the village of Lilleshall, where there is nothing notable to see unless it be a tall obelisk that crowns the hill above. This obelisk, erected to the memory of a former Duke of Sutherland, is a prominent landmark for miles around, and from the hill-top is a grand panoramic prospect over a goodly country, a prospect that well repays the easy climb.
The church of Lilleshall is uninteresting; the only thing that attracted my attention in it was a monument in the chancel with the recumbent effigy of a stately dame on it, her head bound round with a fresh linen bandage. It appears that the nose of the figure had been broken off, and had been replaced and cemented on again, and that the bandage was there to hold the nose in position until the cement hardened. But in the church's gloom the freshly bandaged head gave the effigy a curious look, as though it were alive and suffering severely from toothache!
At Lilleshall there still exists an ancient pond of considerable size, the water from which once drove the abbey mill, and the course of the mill-race may still be traced. From near this pond I found a footpath over the fields that led to the abbey ruins, and half-way to them I came to a little lonely railed-in well, known of old as "Our Lady's Well."
Above the well a little nookOnce held, as rustics tell,
All garland-decked, an image ofThe Lady of the Well.
Nowadays it is known as "The Wishing Well," and it is said that whoever drops a pin in it and wishes, his or her wish will be fulfilled. Having no pin with me I was unable to test the efficacy of the well; but this I can say, that I know a certain "Wishing Gate" in the Lake District, much esteemed for its virtues, where all you have to do is to lean against the gate and wish; now when I was much younger I leant against it inthe company of one and wished, and my wish was realised.
Approaching the abbey ruins by the footpath, they made an effective and pathetic picture lightened and warmed by the soft sunshine, with the green woods behind them, the ruins so old and wan, and the woods so freshly green. The chief feature of the abbey is its bold and beautiful late Norman west doorway, and from this wide portal the whole of the church can be seen at a glance, so that one can judge the extent of it, and a glorious and stately fane it must have been when the last abbot in 1538 meekly handed it over to the minions of Henry VIII., "with all its manors, lordships, messuages, gardens, meadows, feedings, pastures, woods, lands, and tenements." A rare and rich morsel for that greedy monarch.
Lilleshall Abbey has been picturesquely ruined, yet I wish it had been a little less ruined, for one misses the graceful tracery that once adorned its now vacant windows; it is the tracery of their windows that gives such an added charm to Tintern and Melrose. The abbey was fortified and held for the king in the Civil Wars, and was bombarded by Cromwell's merciless cannon-balls; afterwards it was utilised as a ready-made stone quarry, so that one wonders, and is thankful, that so much of it remains. Past the abbey's walls runs a little slothful stream with scarcely a murmur, a stream now weed-grown and overhung by trees, and very pleasant it was to ramble by its cool and shady side with the grey ruins on one hand and the tangledwoods on the other; the quiet wind just whispering as it passed by, it might be, the secrets of the past. I had the abbey to myself; not a soul did I see; not a sound did I hear but the hardly audible lisp of the stream, and the subdued rustle of the wind-stirred leaves. The spell of peace was there. I fancy the abbey is little visited, for, like Haughmond, it lies out of the track of tourist travel, and there is no inn or railway within miles of it as far as I can remember; now the tourist demands an inn and refreshment in near proximity to the places he haunts. To get beyond railways and inns, that is the thing for the peace-loving traveller. The motor-car he must suffer, but the average motorist loves the highway; on the Shropshire byways I met scarcely one.
From the abbey I started forth to discover White Ladies Nunnery and Boscobel. Eventually I discovered both, but so out of the world are they that I had much difficulty in making their discovery. Signposts were useless, for not one directed me to either place. First I went to Tong, as the road to that village is fairly clear to follow, and it appeared to be on my way; moreover I had been told of a wonderful old church at Tong, so full of stately monuments that it is locally known as the "Westminster Abbey of Shropshire," and is sometimes termed the "Church of the Dead"; also it has gained the title of the "Minster of the Midlands." Quite a choice of names.
Just before Tong I observed an Arabian Nights sort of a building, a freak in architecture standing desolate in a large neglected park. The house, with its Oriental domes, looked strangely un-English and out of place in the landscape. It might have been bodily conveyed from the East and boldly set down there. I even rubbed my eyes to be quite sure that I saw aright. This I found to be Tong Castle, though anything more unlike a castle I could not imagine; but I learnt that a castle once stood on the spot, and there was a big board put up in the park that told its story, for boldly painted on it was "Tong Castle. For Sale."
LILLESHALL ABBEY.
LILLESHALL ABBEY.
LILLESHALL ABBEY.
At Tong I pulled up at the church to find that the door of it was locked, so I went to hunt for the clerk; fortunately I found him at home close by, and at my service. It does not always happen so, for at different times I have spent many an hour clerk-hunting, and failed to run down my quarry. It is the most uncertain of sports. It seems passing strange to me how in a small village this minor official occasionally entirely disappears, and no one can tell you where he is, not even the publican; on the other hand, so contrary do things arrange themselves that frequently, when you stop in a village for any purpose, the clerk ferrets you out at once and almost insists on showing you the church whether you desire to see it or no. On a former tour, coming to a small country town in the Eastern Counties where I had been told the church contained a very curious and interesting old tomb, unique of its kind in the kingdom, I spent one whole hour clerk-hunting. Nobody appeared to have seen the clerk that morning, and nobody could tell me wherehe was. The last person of whom I made inquiries was an old woman standing by her house door. Neither did she know, but she had seen him yesterday, which was not very helpful. Then, perhaps noticing my look of disappointment, she suddenly exclaimed, "I be sorry you can't find the church clerk; but I've the key of the Methodist chapel, if you would like to see over that"!