[Bridgnorth: 19.jpg]
Population, 6,569.
Market day--Saturday. Fairs--January 20th, February 17th, May 1st, June
9th, July 14th, August 18th, September 15th, October 29th, December 28th.
Principal Hotel--The Crown, for which, as well as for the Swan, the
Raven, and the George, see Advertisements.
The station, at the southern termination of the tunnel, is a chaste
building of freestone, and forms an additional ornament to the town. It
occupies a position from which its two divisions come pleasantly into
view, the Low Town lying peacefully in the valley by the Severn, the High
Town dotting the terraced sides, and crowning the bold impending rocks
that give it, in the eyes of travellers, such an eastern aspect. Caverned
in the hill, at many stages from its foot, and reached by winding walks,
are picturesque holes and habitations--happily now no longer used,
excepting in very few instances indeed--where the first settlers crowded
when the ruthless Dane perched himself like a famished eagle on the rocks
of Quatford down below. In the foreground are the time-worn relics of
its two castles, to which the little colony was indebted for protection
from fierce and threatening foes. The one opposite is Pampudding Hill, a
smooth, grassy mound, on which the daughter of the great Alfred, Queen
Ethelfleda, built a fortress. According to Florence of Worcester, what
we now call Bridgnorth was then _Brycge_. In his time, as in that of
Leland, who so well described its position, the Severn ran nearer to the
frowning cliffs on which the town is built than at present.
The discriminating eye of the outlawed Belesme was not slow to perceive
the advantages nature had given to the place, when he sought to raise a
fortress that should shield him from the wrath of his royal master, and
he removed the materials, it is said, of his house at Quatbrigia--a
bridge having, it is supposed, succeeded the ford--to _Brycge_,
afterwards Bridgnorth, or the bridge north of the one at Quatford.
Florence of Worcester says: "Earl Robert carried on the works night and
day, exciting Welshmen to the speedy performance of his wishes by
awarding them horses, lands, asses, and all sorts of gifts." With such
aids, and advantages of site, the Norman earl erected a castle that held
out three weeks against a large force marshalled by Henry, who, as an old
Saxon chronicle states, came here "with all his army" to besiege it. It
stood a second siege when Hugh de Mortimer espoused the cause of Stephen,
and was attacked by Henry II., whose life was saved by the zeal of an
attendant, who received a well-aimed arrow intended for the king. It was
taken by the confederate barons, and retaken by Edward II., who
afterwards marched to Shrewsbury, where the proud Mortimers humbled
themselves and sued for mercy. It served not only as a garrison and a
prison, but, from its position on the frontier of Wales, very often as a
royal residence. King John came with a splendid retinue, of which the
bishops of Lincoln and Hereford, the earls of Essex, Pembroke, Chester,
Salisbury, Hereford, and Warwick formed part; upon which occasion the
entertainment is said to have cost, for the three days it lasted, a sum
equal to 2,000 pounds of modern currency. Prince Edward was a visitor
after the battle of Evesham; and the second Edward too--the first time at
the head of his army, the second, as a fugitive, crossing the Severn in a
small boat at nightfall. Henry IV. was here:
"On Wednesday next, Harry, thou shall set forward;
On Tuesday, we ourselves will march.
Our meeting is Bridgnorth; and, Harry, you
Shall march through Gloucester; by which account
Our general forces at Bridgnorth shall meet."
Charles I. arrived here from Shrewsbury, October, 1642, when he remained
three days and gave expression to the eulogium, which townsmen quote for
the benefit of strangers, respecting the beauty of the castle walk. It
was garrisoned for this unfortunate monarch, too, in the struggle which
cost him his head, upon which occasion the town was stormed by three
divisions of the Parliamentary army, March, 1646. The fight waxed
hottest near the north gate, and in the old churchyard, where the leader
of the loyalists fell. That the adherents of the king were not "all on
one side," would appear from the fact that the town's defenders were
pelted upon retiring to the castle by the inhabitants, treatment which
they seem to have deserved in setting fire to the town, bombarding St.
Leonard's, burning the adjoining buildings and driving the wretched
population in search of such shelter as the rocks and woods afforded.
The garrison capitulated on the 26th of April, 1646, in consequence of a
mine, by which the Parliamentary leader proposed to blow up the castle
and set fire to their magazine, then in St. Mary's Church, which stood
within the castle walls. Ecclesiastical dignitaries often then wore
coats of mail as well as cassocks, and daggers in addition to their
girdles; and this old church being collegiate, had for one of its deans
Rivallis, who forged the charter and seal of Henry III., by which the
Irish possessions of the Earl of Pembroke were invaded, and that nobleman
cruelly treated and killed. The more distinguished William of Wykeham,
who held the Great Seal in the reign of Edward III., and exercised
considerable influence in his day, both in church and state, was also a
dean of St. Mary's.
St. Leonard's occupies a position at the opposite extremity of the town.
Its crumbling tower, shattered by the cannon of Charles' army, remains,
but the nave and side aisles have recently been restored--that on the
south side at the sole expense of John Pritchard, Esq., M.P., in memory
of his brother. The celebrated divine, Richard Baxter, began his
ministry at St. Leonard's, apparently with little success, as he is said
to have shook the dust from his feet upon leaving, declaring the hearts
of the inhabitants to have been harder than the rock on which their town
was built. Nevertheless, he afterwards dedicated his well-known book,
"The Saint's Rest," to them. Adjoining the churchyard is a hospital for
ten poor widows, built and endowed, as a brass plate over the entrance
informs us, by a relative of Colonel Billingsly, who fell in the service
of "King Charles ye First," and whose sword is said now to be in the
possession of a descendant of the family, in the parish of Astley Abbots.
[Old House, Bridgnorth: 22.jpg]
Like other ancient towns, Bridgnorth had places founded for the relief of
the poor, the destitute, and the diseased. The house of the monks of the
"Friars of the Order Grey," stands near where a dilapidated sign of the
Preaching Friar still swings over the entrance of a public-house. It
forms part of the carpet works of Mr. Martin Southwell, who uses its oak
panelled hall, and a number of cells carved out of the solid rock, as
storerooms. In making some alterations recently the little cemetery was
disturbed, and skeletons of several of the monks, embedded in spaces cut
out of the rock, in the form of a sarcophagus, were exposed. In the
Cartway is the "Old House" in which Bishop Percy, author of the "Relics
of Ancient English Poetry," was born, a fine specimen of the domestic
architecture of the 16th century; and in the entrance-hall of which are
the following words in large letters in relief, "Except the Lord BVILD
THE OWSE The Labourers Thereof Evail Nothing. Erected by R. For * 1580."
Another of these quaint old structures, called Cann Hall, contains some
curious unlighted double dormitories in the roof; one is called King
Charles' Room, and another is pointed out as that in which his nephew,
Prince Rupert, is said to have slept. The house is supposed to be
haunted, and the present tenant is not loth to admit that he sometimes
hears strange noises, a fact, if such it be, at which one can scarcely
wonder, seeing that the wind and the bats have undisputed sway. The
Townhall, in the Market Square, built in the place of the one destroyed
during the civil wars, is thus noticed in the "Common Hall Order Book" of
the Corporation: "The New Hall set up in the Market Place of the High
Street of Bridgnorth was begun, and the stone arches thereof made, when
Mr. Francis Preen and Mr. Symon Beauchamp were Bayliffs, in Summer, 1650;
and the timber work and building upon the same stone arches was set up
when Mr. Thomas Burne and Mr. Roger Taylor were Bayliffs of the said town
of Bridgnorth, in July and August, 1652." The new Market Hall, with the
Assembly Room, the rooms of the Mechanics' Institution, &c., is a
handsome building, situated at the lower end of the same large open
square.
The grand promenade round the Castle Hill, which King Charles pronounced
the finest in his dominion, commands a prospect that cannot fail to
interest. Below, the river winds like a thing of life; around, are wave-
like sweeps of country, red and green, broken by precipitous rocks into a
succession of natural terraces, many of which, being higher than the town
itself, afford the most enchanting views.
The Hermitage is one of these, the prospect from which, on a clear, sunny
day, is such as to commend the choice of the anchorite, who is said to
have exchanged the excitements of a court for retirement in such a spot.
The tradition is, that Ethelwald, brother of King Athelstan, who
succeeded his father, Edward (924), retired here to escape the perils of
the period; a tradition which receives support from the following royal
presentations found on the rolls of Edward: "On the 2nd of February,
Edward III., 1328, John Oxindon was presented by the king to the
hermitage of Athelardestan, near Bridgnorth. On 7 Edward III., Andrew
Corbriggs was similarly presented to the hermitage of Adlaston, near
Bridgnorth. On 9 Edward III., 1335, Edmund de la Marc was presented to
the hermitage of Athelaxdestan," a name signifying the stone or rock of
Ethelwald.
The Cemetery lies embosomed in a sunny opening of the rocks below the
Hermitage, where nature and art combined--the former predominating so
much by means of a noble amphitheatre of rocks--have given to the spot a
quiet, pleasing interest. Outside the Cemetery, a winding path leads to
the High Rocks, the road to which the inhabitants have recently improved.
This elevated position above the Severn well deserves a visit, commanding
as it does the Vale, through which the river winds amidst alluvial lands,
bounded by the heights of Apley and Stanley, the hills of the Wrekin and
Caradoc, and those of the Brown and Titterstone Clees, with the Abberley
and Malvern hills in the distance. The castellated structure at the foot
of the High Rocks, now used for manufacturing purposes, occupies the site
of the Old Town's Mills, given by Henry III. to the inhabitants, and out
of which he made provision for the hermit of Mount St. Gilbert.