Is forty-three miles from Worcester, and eight and a half from
Shrewsbury. The name is an abbreviation of Christsache, _ache_ been the
old Saxon term for oak. The folk-lore of the district is, that the old
tree was one under which the early Christian missionaries preached, that
it stood in the centre of the village, and that upon its decay it was
supplanted by a market cross, which cross itself has disappeared. Our
engraving represents another of these venerable trees standing a quarter
of a mile from the village, known as the Lady Oak.
[The Nddel's Eye: 37.jpg]
Before the railway caused a deviation in the road, it stood by the
wayside, where it was regarded with veneration by the inhabitants, who
cramped it with iron, and propped it with blocks of wood to preserve it;
they also planted an acorn within its hollow trunk, from which, as will
be seen by our engraving, a young tree mingles its foliage with that of
the parent oak. About a mile from Cressage is Belswardine, the seat of
Sir George Harnage, an old border estate, in possession of the same
family which received it from the Conqueror. Cressage station is the
nearest and most convenient on the Severn Valley line from which to reach
the Wrekin. The distance is three miles. The road crosses the river by
an ancient wooden bridge, and at Eaton Constantine passes the house in
which Richard Baxter lived when a boy; and which the great Puritan divine
describes as "a mile from the Wrekin Hill." The visitor, in his ascent
of the hill, passes a conical knoll of deep red syenite, clothed with
verdure, and known as Primrose Hill. The summit is 1,320 feet above the
level of the sea, and commands a prospect embracing a radius of seventy
miles. Our engraving represents a severed cliff of greenstone at the
top, called the Needle's Eye, and which tradition alleges to have been
riven at the Crucifixion. Near it is a culminating boss of pinkish
felspar known as the Bladder Stone, a name derived, it is supposed, from
Scandinavian mythology; whilst at a short distance is the Ravens' Bowl, a
basin in the hard rock, always containing water. On its sides are
stratified rocks which the trap has pierced in its ascent; and which, by
the action of heat, have been changed into a white crystalline substance.
At the northern termination is an entrenched fortification called Heaven
Gate, supposed to be of British origin; and near it is another, called
Hell Gate, with what is supposed to be a tumulus. In the valley at the
foot of the hill, on the eastern side, tumuli have been opened, in which
hundreds of spear heads and other broken weapons have been found. Here
formerly,
"Unknown to public view,
From youth to age a reverend hermit grew.
The moss his bed, the cave his humble cell,
His food the fruit, his drink the crystal well.
Remote from man, with God he passed his days,
Prayer all his business--all his pleasure praise."
Henry III., in order to afford the said anchorite, Nicholas de Denton,
greater leisure for holy exercises, and to support him during his life,
or so long as he should be a hermit on the aforesaid mountain, granted
him six quarters of corn, to be paid by the Sheriff of Shropshire out of
the Town's Mills of Bridgnorth.
On leaving Cressage, Eyton-upon-Severn is seen on the right, and on an
eminence close by is the "Old Hall," built by Lord Chancellor Sir Thomas
Bromley. It was the birthplace of Lord Herbert of Chirbury, of whom Ben
Jonson wrote:--
"If men get fame for some one virtue, then
What man art thou that art so many men,
All virtuous Herbert! on whose every part
Truth might spend all her voice, Fame all her art?"
The railway now passes Cound Hall, Cound Church, and Cound Mill, a manor
which Henry III. gave to his brother-in-law, Llewellyn, and which was
afterwards held by Walter Fitz-Alan, who entered the service of David,
King of Scotland, and became head of the royal house of Stuart. It
crosses the Devil's Causeway, and passes Venus Bank, with Pitchford and
Acton Barnell on the left; the latter celebrated for the ruins of the old
castle where Edward I. held his parliament, the Commons sitting in a
barn.
Berrington, forty-seven miles from Worcester, and four and a half from
Shrewsbury, lies a short distance from the station. Its church has many
points of interest, being of Anglo-Norman and Early English architecture;
it also possesses a fine Norman font, and a curious monumental figure of
a cross-legged knight, carved in wood.
[Atcham Church: 39.jpg]
The little village of Atcham may be reached from here by a very pleasant
foot walk of about a mile through the fields. It is celebrated as the
birthplace of Ordericus Vitalis, chaplain to William the Conqueror, and a
famous historian of that time. The church is an ancient structure reared
on the little grassy flat round which the river bends; tresses of
luxuriant ivy conceal its walls, in which are found sections of a Roman
arch and a sculptured Roman column, part of the spoil of the city of
Uriconium. Among its relics is a reading-desk, carved, it is supposed,
by Albert Durer, with panels representing passages in the parable of the
Prodigal Son.
Lord Berwick's park adjoins the village, and in front of the mansion the
Tern comes down to join the Severn. From the Bridge it is one and a half
miles to