opposite to the station. Almost at once, at the point where the road
touches the Severn, we pass a long, low house of timber and plaster
on our right. It was from this house that Admiral Benbow ran away to
sea. He was living here as an apprentice, to his father or another,
and, since it was the custom to entrust the house-key to the care of
the apprentice, he had, fortunately for himself and England, special
facilities for making his escape. He hid the key in the tree that is
marked with a ring of whitewash, and stands between the house and the
railings; and there to this day it hangs.
Between Shrewsbury and Whitchurch there is nothing of particular
interest except the old farmhouse called Albright Hussey, which stands
in a field on the right about three miles out of Shrewsbury. It is
a pretty old moated house, partly black-and-white; but its greatest
beauty is within, where there is as charming a room as one need wish
to see, a room to make a housewife weep tears of covetousness--low,
oblong, oak-panelled to the ceiling, with seats in the mullioned
windows and a carved fireplace. The house is inhabited, but I
believe there is never any difficulty in obtaining leave to see
it. Its sixteenth-century walls were once threatened by a party of
Parliamentarian horse. There were only eight men to defend the place,
but their leader was a crafty man, and shouted his orders aloud within
hearing of the enemy. “Let ten men stay here, and ten go there, and
twenty stay with me!” he cried; and the attacking force, dismayed by
the number of mythical defenders, rode away and left the stone and
timber, the mullioned windows and oaken wainscotes, to be a joy to us
to-day.
In Wem, however, through which we presently pass, it was the
“Parliament men” who were in the ascendent. The place acted a prominent
part in the Civil War, and has a history many centuries long, but on
the surface is commonplace enough. In the List of the Owners of the
Manor of Wem the twenty-fourth name is the grim one of “Sir George
Jeffreys, Knight and Baronet, and Lord Chief Justice of the King’s
Bench, created in 1685 a peer of England by the style and title of
Baron Jeffreys of Wem.”
At Whitchurch we must draw up at the door of St. Alkmund’s Church;
not because it is old or beautiful, for the original church fell down
in 1711 and was entirely rebuilt; nor because Dean Swift subscribed
to the rebuilding of it; but because it contains the dust of the
great Talbot, first Earl of Shrewsbury, “the scourge of France.” His
valiant heart lies beneath the white stone in the porch, where careless
thousands have trodden it underfoot. It was found there in an urn when
the church was rebuilt, and with it were some figures of Christ and
the Virgin Mary from Talbot’s rosary. His bones are in the chancel,
whither, about fifty years after his death, they were brought from the
battlefield of Chastillon, where a little chapel had been raised on
the spot where he fell.[3] His effigy lies on a tomb that is an exact
copy of the original one. While this restoration was in progress the
bones of the great soldier were shown to the public, with the skull
cleft by the axe that killed him. “This is that terrible Talbot,” says
Thomas Fuller, “so famous for his sword ... which constantly conquered
where it came, insomuch that the bare fame of his approach frighted the
French from the siege of Bordeaux. Being victorious for twenty-four
years together, success failed him at last.... Henceforward we may say
‘Good-night to the English in France,’ whose victories were buried with
the body of this earl.”
From Whitchurch we drive about fourteen miles in a westerly direction
to Overton Bridge, by Hanmer and Overton village, a pretty little
place with a churchyard surrounded by yew-trees. Having crossed the
bridge, which is about two miles beyond the village, we turn to the
left at right angles and approach Erbistock by a road whose greatest
recommendation to inveterate lovers of speed will be that it is short.
After one experience, however, most of us will agree, I think, that
this by-road needs no recommendation but the fact that it leads to
Erbistock. A tiny church and a tiny inn at the brim of the Dee--that is
all that there is at Erbistock. But it is all enclosed in trees, and
the trees dip into the river, and the river is rather big and gentle
and gurgles sweetly at one’s feet, and the woods on the other side are
tangled and mysterious and full of fairies. One may have one’s tea
close beside the water, or one may cross the river in a ferry, and soon
be quite alone in the woods. There is no need to hurry, for when we
leave Erbistock we need not stop again till we reach Shrewsbury.
For Ellesmere, “wher was a castelle,” says Leland, “and very fair polis
yet be,” has now nothing left of its castle but the memory of it, and
the fair pools may be seen as we pass. More than once Ellesmere was
given as a dowry to the daughters of English kings, on their marriage
with Cymric princes; for as the rulers of the two countries were sure
to fall out soon after the wedding the gift was quickly taken back by
the donor, and so was ready for the next bride. Thus, though Henry II.
gave it to his sister Emma, there was nothing to prevent King John from
giving it to his daughter Joan, twenty-seven years later, when she
married Llewelyn the Great.
I think it must have been beside the lake, where on the level ground
there would be room for the dramatic scene, that Rupert, halting here
at Ellesmere, made his prisoners cast lots upon the drum to decide
which of them should die. Thirteen were doomed; but at the last
moment one of them was saved by Sir Vincent Corbet, who as he rode
past interceded for the man, who had been a servant in his family.
The rest were hanged there and then. Yet it is not they who haunt the
rushy banks of the mere; but the White Lady of Oteley. Long ago, it is
said, she robbed and ruined a monastery, and built herself a home here
with the spoils--a home that she has never left since then, except to
walk by night along the margin of the water. She was not even allowed
to move to the new house when it was built about a hundred years ago,
for a fragment of the old one was left standing in the park on purpose
for her accommodation. The new house faces us very conspicuously as we
drive close beside the water on the opposite side of the mere, and go
on our way to Shrewsbury, which is about sixteen miles away.
* * * * *
In the south-west, which is the hilliest, and therefore the prettiest,
part of Shropshire, there is a variety of little runs, which may
be lengthened or shortened according to circumstances and tastes. A
pretty round of about fifty miles is by Chirbury and Bishop’s Castle,
whence either of two lovely roads will bring us back to Shrewsbury.
Nineteen miles of nearly level road lead to Chirbury through several
villages--Westbury, Worthen, Marton, and others--all of which are
fairly picturesque, but with nothing very noteworthy about them. Just
before Marton is reached there is an exceedingly sharp turn, which
should be borne in mind. At Chirbury our road turns to the left in the
middle of the village.
The name of this obscure little place has been known to the world for
some centuries in connection with that strange person Lord Herbert of
Chirbury, half ruffler, half scholar, who in a house only a few miles
from here, across the Welsh border, wrote the famous autobiography
that Horace Walpole called “perhaps the most extraordinary account
that was ever given seriously by a wise man of himself.” His home for
the greater part of his life, when he was not seeking adventures and
duels in France or London, was in Montgomery Castle, whose ruins we
may see by driving four miles further. Nothing but a fragment is left
of it now, but when the Herberts lived there it must have been a fine
sight on its wild crag; a more fitting home for Edward the soldier than
for his gentler and still more famous brother George. Chirbury itself
had a castle and a priory once; but of the castle, which was built
by the ever active Ethelfleda, nothing remains but the site; and of
the monastery there are only fragments left, for the present church,
ancient as it is, was not used by the monks, but was then, as now, the
parish church.[4] It has seen strange doings. It is hard to realise,
when the bells ring in this lonely little village, and the quiet
country folk take their seats for the morning service, that here within
these very walls the congregation of Chirbury was once electrified by
the clashing of armour and the clatter of horses’ hoofs in the aisle.
It was during the Civil War, and Mr. Edward Lewis, “a very goodly man,
did preach twice a day”; a rash thing for a Puritan to do when Captain
Corbet was no further off than Caus Castle. A party of Royalist horse
“rode into the church to the great fright and amazement of the people;
and with their pistols charged and cocked went up into the pulpit and
pulled down Mr. Lewis, pulling and tugging him in a most unworthy
manner ... and so left the people without their pastor because they
would not be content with one sermon a day.”
It was this same Edward Lewis who brought to Chirbury the chained
library that almost certainly belonged to George Herbert; for Isaac
Walton tells us of “a choice library which Mr. Herbert had fastened
with chains in a fit room in Montgomery Castle.” This choice library
contains books dating from 1530 to 1684, and among them is a
black-letter folio copy of Chaucer. They are kept in the vicarage, and
I believe may be seen by any one.
Turning to the left in Chirbury we soon pass Marrington Hall, or
_Havodwen_, the White Summer-house, as the Welsh call it; a very fine
example of sixteenth-century black-and-white work. The lovely little
valley beyond it is Marrington Dingle, and a mile or two further on
is Churchstoke. It is in this pretty part of Shropshire that the uses
of the motor-car are especially noticeable, for railway stations are
few and distant from each other, and the hilliness of the country is
not encouraging to bicyclists. Of Bishop’s Castle there is little to
be said, for pretty as the country is all round it, the town itself
is unattractive, and the castle is no more. But all the ways back to
Shrewsbury from here are lovely. We may join the Stretton road, which
we already know, at Marshbrook, and so see one of the most charming
little bits of wooded country in Shropshire; or we may follow the hilly
road through the wild scenery near Ratlinghope, down Cothercott Hill,
and through Longden and Hookagate. Cothercott Hill is very steep and
has a bad surface, but it is only for a short way that the gradient is
really severe, and the view from the top is one of the wildest in the
country. Personally, however, I should recommend the third way back to
Shrewsbury--over the moor to the Roman Gravels, and down through the
woods of the winding Hope Valley to Minsterley.
As there is nothing in the whole of this little run to delay us, we may
lengthen it, if our car is good on hills and we are of an enterprising
temperament, by going on from Bishop’s Castle to Clun, or even to
Knighton, and round by Leintwardine to join the Ludlow road. This is
a beautiful bit of country, and full of interest. Leland tells us
of the “faire forest of Clun.” “Cumming from Bisshop’s Castelle to
Clunne lordshippe,” he says, “cummeth doune a greate woode grouing
on a hille.” Much of this great wood is gone now, but there is still
enough to make the country very “faire,” and to compensate a motorist
for the climbing of a long hill. Suddenly, as we round a corner, Clun
comes into sight between two hills, with the stern tower of its castle
standing conspicuously above the river. “Clunne Castell,” says Leland,
“longynge to the Erle of Arundel, sumewhat ruinus. It hath bene bothe
stronge and well builded.” It is more than somewhat ruinous now, which
is hardly surprising when one considers all it has gone through at
the hands of Welshmen and Roundheads since it was built in Stephen’s
reign. There is a story that the stones of which it is made were passed
from hand to hand by a chain of men, from the quarry, a mile away, to
the river-bank where the castle stands; but be that as it may, these
crumbling stones, with their soft tints of grey and yellow, embody
enough romance to satisfy us, I think, seeing that they are connected
with all the greatest names of Wales. They have been stormed and
burnt by Rhys of the south; they have been attacked in vain by great
Llewelyn of the north; they have been overcome by Owen Glyndwr. They
are connected with modern romance, too, for it is supposed that the
“Garde Dolareuse,” in the “Betrothed,” represents the Castle of Clun,
and the Buffalo Inn claims to have sheltered Sir Walter Scott while he
was writing part of the book.
Everything is old at Clun: the church; the fine old bridge, of whose
building there is no record; and the “Hospital of the Holy and
Undivided Trinity at Clunn,” which was founded by the Duke of Norfolk
in 1614 for distressed tradesmen, who were each to receive yearly “a
gown ready-made of strong cloth or kersey, of a sad colour.”
The road between Clun and Knighton is not one to be undertaken lightly
by small cars of uncertain hill-climbing powers, for it is mostly
composed of long and precipitous hills, with gradients varying from 1
in 8 to 1 in 10; but the surface is good, and though the scenery is not
particularly interesting at first, it becomes really lovely as we draw
near Knighton, which lies in a valley, surrounded by wooded hills. Here
we turn to the left, and by way of compensation the road from Knighton
to Leintwardine is particularly level, along a narrow valley between
green hills that belong to Shropshire on the left and to Herefordshire
on the right. As the valley widens out into open country we reach
Brampton Brian, associated for ever with the name of Brilliana, Lady
Harley. That gallant-hearted lady was alone in her husband’s castle of
Brampton when it was threatened by the forces of Charles I., for the
Harleys were “Parliament men.” “I acknowleg,” she writes, “I doe not
thinke meself safe wheare I am.” Safe she certainly was not, but she
thanked God that she was “not afraide”; and when the Royalists bade
her surrender she simply answered, “I must endeavour to keep what is
mine as well as I can, in which I have the law of nature, of reason,
and of the law on my side, and you none to take it from me.” The siege
lasted some weeks, and Lady Harley, always delicate, suffered greatly;
but when pressed to yield said “she would rather choose an honourable
death.” She died; but this first siege was raised before her “heavenly
and happy end,” and so she never knew that the castle was besieged
again, was surrendered, and burnt to the ground.[5]
A few miles further on is Leintwardine, which I believe to be full of
antiquarian interest, and know to be picturesque as an artist’s dream;
and here, if we care to face a narrow byway with a rough surface, we
may leave the main road and take the more direct route to Craven Arms
by way of Clungunford. At Craven Arms we rejoin the road from Ludlow to
Shrewsbury.
* * * * *
Of the many main roads that converge in Shrewsbury I have left to the
last the one that is in some ways the most important, the one that
is certainly the most famous; that road of great memories and great
achievement, by which so many Royal Mails have travelled breathlessly
at the dashing pace of eleven miles an hour, and by which we may travel
to-day at a pace that nothing shall induce me to betray: Telford’s road
to Holyhead. It is the road by which, if we are fortunate, we are going
into North Wales. If, however, it is our sad fate to turn our backs on
that most beautiful land, we must on no account neglect to run over to
Llangollen, a distance of thirty miles: for though I have left it to
the last on the assumption that we are going on to Wales, it is one of
the most enjoyable drives in this neighbourhood.
We leave Shrewsbury by the Welsh Bridge, the scene of Henry VII.’s
remarkable entry into the town over the body of the stout, wise
bailiff; and as we reach the top of the hill beyond it we pass on the
right the house in which Charles Darwin was born. At the corner where
the Holyhead road turns sharply to the right, about half a mile beyond
the last houses of the town, there stands in a private garden a famous
tree known as the Shelton Oak. I mention it merely because its fame
rests on a libel. There are those who will tell you--cheerfully taking
a great man’s name in vain--that Owen Glyndwr sat in this tree watching
the Battle of Shrewsbury when he should have been taking part in it.
Our knowledge of this fiery prince’s characteristics might be enough,
one would think, to discredit the tale, without the proved fact that he
was extremely occupied in South Wales at the time! But still the tale
is told.
Soon, at Montford Bridge, we cross the Severn, white with water-weeds
in the summer, and fringed with purple wild-flowers, and then, with
what speed we may, spin happily towards the Welsh hills. We can see
them on our left; the striking outline of the Breidden, with Rodney’s
Pillar on its topmost point, and beyond it a long blue range that
limits all the western horizon. At one spot only we have a choice of
roads. Telford’s road goes by Oswestry, an ancient town with an immense
history but few relics; but if at the “Queen’s Head,” fourteen miles
from Shrewsbury, we turn to the right, following the telegraph-posts,
we shall cut off more than a mile of distance and shall see Whittington.
There are some places that are peculiarly haunted. One is infinitely
more conscious in them of the past than of the present. Such are Hay
and Beaupré--both of which we shall see later on. But Whittington
is not so much haunted as haunting. Hay and Beaupré are enchanted:
Whittington is itself the enchantment. It stands in a clump of trees
by the wayside, in the middle of the village, and one comes upon it
suddenly: a great fortified gateway of pale grey stone, reflected in
the weed-grown water of what was once its moat--and leading nowhere.
One thinks, not of its history, but of itself. One cannot believe that
it is merely the entrance to a vanished mediæval castle; it is rather
the Gate of Dreams, through which every man sometimes passes in search
of his heart’s desire.
There is an old Norman-French romance that tells us how the White
Tower was built by William Peverel of the Peak, and how he promised
it as a dowry to Melette, the fairest of his nieces. “But none found
favour with her. And William reasoned with her, and besought her that
she would discover unto him if there was in the world any knight whom
she would take for lord.... ‘Certes, Sire,’ said she, ‘no knight is
there in all the world that I would take for the sake of riches and the
honour of lands, but if I ever take such an one he shall be handsome,
and courteous, and the most valiant of his order in Christendom.’” So
William proclaimed a tourney at the Peak, with Melette and the White
Tower for the prize; and among those who came to try their fortune was
one Guarin de Metz, well clad in red samite, with a crest of gold. “To
record the blows and the issues I am not minded,” says the story, “but
Guarin de Metz and his company proved that day the best, the fairest,
and the most valiant, and above all, Guarin was the most praised in all
ways.” So Guarin won the fastidious Melette of the White Tower, “and
with great joy did he take her, and the damsel him.”[6]
This romance is not very reliable history, I fear, but it is true that
Whittington belonged at one time to the Peverels, and later to the
Fitz-Warines or Guarins, of whom it was probably the third who built
this gate in the reign of John.
Two miles beyond Whittington is Gobowen, where we rejoin the main road;
and soon afterwards we dip into the narrow valley below Chirk, and with
the railway and the canal high above us on the left, cross the little
Ceiriog into Wales.
[Illustration: WHITTINGTON CASTLE.]
[Illustration: THE LLEDR VALLEY, FROM THE HOLYHEAD ROAD.]
A TOUR IN NORTH WALES
Here, on the very border of Wales, one is conscious of the Celtic
atmosphere. We left the quiet orderliness of England behind us when
we dipped down into this little valley, where the sparkling, bubbling
Ceiriog--every inch a Celt--calls to us to follow it up into the hills.
And so we will, as soon as we have climbed the other side of the valley
into Chirk village; turning there to the left, though our rightful
road, the road to Llangollen, lies directly in front of us. In Wales we
shall find ourselves constantly tempted to leave the highway, and in
most cases we shall be rewarded if we yield to the temptation without
ado. In this particular case we shall be rewarded with a dear little
glen, feathery birch-trees on the steep slopes, a yellow carpet in
primrose time, and a most charming little hotel about six miles up the
valley, at Glyn Ceiriog.
Near Chirk the road sweeps round under the trees of the deer-park,
where “there is on a smaul hille a mighty large and stronge castel
with dyvers towers”; towers that have stood here for many generations,
defying time and war; for this castle of Chirk is no ruin like most of
its contemporaries, but an inhabited house. Yet not these towers, I
believe, but the old Welsh Castell Crogen, stood here when Henry II.,
with “the chosen warriors of England,” and of several other countries,
marched up this valley to join battle with the great Owen Gwynedd and
all the might of Wales, who were encamped near Corwen. The English,
finding the trees in their way, cut them down as they advanced, which
so much infuriated some of the Welsh who were separated from their
main army, that the Ceiriog ran red with the blood of Henry’s chosen
warriors. This Battle of Crogen took place just below the older castle.
Perhaps the most dramatic event in the life of the present Chirk
Castle was when it fell into the hands of the cavaliers, and its owner,
Sir Thomas Myddleton, a Parliamentary leader, was obliged to besiege
his own house in his own person. I believe that on one day of the week
the world at large is allowed to pass through the beautiful gates of
wrought iron, and up the long slope of the avenue, and into the castle
itself, to see all the treasures of art and history that George Borrow
saw when he was here: the cabinet of Charles II., and the portraits of
Nell Gwynne, and of “the very proud daughter of the house,” as Borrow
calls Addison’s wife, “the Warwick Dowager who married the Spectator,
and led him the life of a dog.”
Across Chirk Park runs Offa’s Dyke, the long embankment “that was cast
up with great labour and industry by Offa the Mercian, as a boundary
between his Subjects and the Britains, from the mouth of Dee to that
of the River Wye.... Concerning which Joannes Sarisburiensis in his
‘Polycration’ saith that Harald establish’d a law that whatever
Welshman should be found arm’d on this side the limit he had set up,
then ... his right hand should be cut off by the King’s Officers.” It
touches the high-road a few miles beyond Chirk, just before we begin
the wonderful descent into the Vale of Llangollen; that long slope down
which we swing for several miles on a perfect gradient and a perfect
surface--marred, however, by an awkward turn--with the whole beautiful
valley spread out before us, and the Dee sweeping far below us, spanned
by the remarkable aqueduct called Pont-y-Cysylltau. Beyond it rise
the Eglwyseg crags, and far away the shattered fortress of Dinas Bran
is visible almost from the first on its peak above Llangollen. “The
castelle of Dinas Brane,” says Leland, “was never a bigge thing, but
sette al for strenght as in a place half inaccessible for enemyes.”
Even in his day it was “al in ruine,” and now there is only a fragment
left of it to remind us of those princes of ancient Powys who built
it in days so old as to be unchronicled, and defied the power of the
Saxon from within its walls; and of its owner in later days, Madoc ap
Gryffyth Maelor, who built the Abbey of Valle Crucis; and of the fair
Myfanwy, “all smiles and light,” who was loved by a poor bard of the
fourteenth century, and celebrated by him in a poem that still exists.