[Ill.u.s.tration: Delbury Church.]

Dedicated to St. Peter, Delbury church is a fascinating spot to the lover of old things, for the fabric bears the stamp of its first Saxon builders, while other hands in later years have added variety of style in pleasingly blended contrast.

A large portion of the north wall, including the base of the tower, is pure Saxon work, built herring-bone wise inside, and of nicely squared masonry without. A blocked doorway shews the long-and-short construction, while high up in the wall is seen a small, semi-headed window, evidently as old as the wall itself. This window bears traces of having had an internal shutter.

The old western tower, as may be gathered from the sketch, is a curious architectural jumble. Owing to superinc.u.mbent weight, the original arch of the west doorway has a.s.sumed a squat, horseshoe form, and a later but still ancient arch has been inserted beneath it. With its rough, timeworn b.u.t.tresses, and dilapidated string-courses fringed with moss and splotched with lichens, this old tower looks exceedingly picturesque, and forms a capital subject for a sketch.

Many quaint bits of carved work, both in wood and stone, come to light as we potter about the interior. In the chancel, upon a bra.s.s plate under the arch of the Easter Sepulchre, appears an inscription which runs as follows: M . S . CAROLUS . BALDWYN . DE . ELSICH : ARMIGER . HIC . SITUS . EST : OBIJT . 140 . DIE . FEBRUARIJ . ANO . DNI . 1674 : ANNO . aeTATIS . SUae . 77. The Charles Baldwyn here referred to held Stokesay Castle under a long lease from Lord Craven, and his son Samuel was in command of the garrison there at the time of the Civil Wars.

The north chapel here has been, from time immemorial, devoted to the use of the Cornewall family, of Delbury Hall.

Regaining the highroad we get a pretty rearward view of Delbury, the tranquil hamlet with its low grey steeple nestling in a wooded vale, while lofty hills rise away in the background. Thence we push on for Munslow through an orchard country, where the landscape is brightened by the flower-laden trees whose fragrance permeates the air.

A mile short of our destination, the Swan Inn, with its half-timbered gables, its worn stone steps and swinging sign, makes a comely show at the crossways; and presently after we find ourselves at the Crown Hotel, the old Hundred House of Stottesdon, on the outskirts of Munslow village. At The Crown, then, we will outspan awhile, for, situated in the very heart of Corve Dale, the house will suit us 'to a T' as a starting-point while exploring that locality; the more so that, as a rule, the Dale boasts little accommodation above the hedge-alehouse character.

Munslow is a rather scattered village, whose cottages seem to be playing hide-and-seek with one another about a rough, out-cropping hill. As for the church, the place seems at first sight not to possess such an appendage, until, surmounting a steep rocky lane, we presently come upon it down in a secluded nook, embosomed amidst apple orchards, with the comfortable-looking parsonage house peeping out from a grove of trees.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Old Church Porch. Munslow.]

Two or three dark yews and a curious wooden erection, apparently an old lich-gate, lend an air of rusticity to the churchyard. The beautiful old timbered porch shewn in our sketch is the most pleasing feature of the exterior: but the window tracery is worthy of notice, being of excellent though simple character, and original in treatment. The interior of the church has been a good deal renovated, but in one of the nave windows we notice a Virgin and Child in fourteenth-century gla.s.s, and a foliated cross cut upon the sill below.

Some later gla.s.s in the aisle windows is remarkable for its quaint anagrams and inscriptions, and upon an old slab near by may be seen the following queer effort at rhyme:

AO 1602: IN . TE . HOVVER . OF . HIS . POVVER . ONE . DEAD .

BY . CHRIST . DOE . RISE .

AND . VVEE . VVHOSE . BOANES . ROT . VNDER . STONES .

OVR . DVST . HEEL . NOT . DESPISE .

Some of the original pews in the nave are of ma.s.sive old moulded oak, with geometrical patterns incised on their ends of earlier character than is usually found in such cases.

Down past the church, from the westward hills, comes a lane that in any but the best of weather must be a mere mountain torrent, paved with the naked rock and overarched by ancient yews. Our way, however, lies through the fields, until, striking the Wenlock road, we diverge to the right, cross the river Corve by a footbridge, and threading our way through deep, sandy lanes, come presently to Tugford. This takes us past Broncroft Castle, a modernized, castellated residence, seated in a curiously out-of-the-way spot for such an imposing pile.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Tugford Church.]

With the ivy wreathing tower and porch, and moss and lichens encrusting its old plastered walls, Tugford church looks thoroughly in keeping with its secluded sylvan situation. Low down outside the chancel walls are certain arched recesses of unknown origin. The small blocked doorway seen in our sketch has a semicircular tympanum, carved in low relief, of evident antiquity; and a Norman arch with excellent mouldings is found inside the ivied porch. Internally, two curious, grotesque little figures are perched aloft on either side of this door.

Across the west end, hiding a good pointed tower arch, extends the musicians' gallery, where, amidst dusty music scores and other disjecta membra, the old wormeaten band-stand may still be seen. From this same gallery might be heard, until comparatively lately, those mellifluous strains of flute, clarionet, melodion and all sorts of music, wherewith the 'rude forefathers of the hamlet' were wont to wake the slumbering echoes on a Sunday morning; indeed the present rector himself can still recall those 'piping' times.

The very parish bier at Tugford boasts a respectable antiquity, as witnesses the inscription 'Bartholomew Lutley, Anno Dom. 1617,' carved upon it.

From Tugford we climb by rambling footpaths to The Heath, a secluded, upland district, forming a sort of western b.u.t.tress to the Brown Clee Hill.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Heath Chapel.]

Emerging from a tangle of plantations, we traverse a few rough pasture fields and soon come to the Heath Chapel, a small, ancient edifice, standing all alone in a green meadow, with sheep browsing leisurely around its grey stone walls. Simple and un.o.btrusive as it is, this lowly chapel is extremely interesting to the antiquary, from the fact that it has remained practically untouched since the Norman builders brought their work to completion, seven hundred years ago.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Interior of the Heath Chapel. Looking East.]

The fabric consists of nave and chancel, and has a fine south doorway enriched with nook-shafts and chevron mouldings; while the walls are strengthened by the flat b.u.t.tresses characteristic of that early period, through two of which, curiously enough, the east and west windows have been pierced. A plain string-course runs inside and out around both nave and chancel.

Inside, the old oaken box pews, grey with age, remain in situ, their timeworn panels bearing touches of carved work and quaint iron hinges; the walls retain their coating of faded, mildewy plaster; and the whole wears an air of archaic simplicity, and immemorial repose. Upon the rough stone-flagged floor stands a plain, bowl-shaped font, evidently coeval with the building itself, while the beams of the open-timbered roof look almost equally primitive.

The chancel arch is quite unadorned, save for a little carving upon the capitals. The altar table and rails around, though plain, are not bad specimens of their kind, and inside the western gable is suspended the solitary bell.

As may be readily understood, the congregation here is at the best of times but a scanty one; indeed, it is said that in bygone days the parson, perceiving but 'two or three gathered together,' would sometimes adjourn the service to the snug fireside of a neighbourly farmer's kitchen! The wonder, indeed, is that a church should ever have been erected in such a spa.r.s.ely-peopled, out-of-the-way locality.

Well, let us now bid farewell to the Heath Chapel, not omitting to notice the old Gothic hinges upon its oaken door, now alas! bereft of that famous key which, if tales be true, was so fearfully and wonderfully constructed that the clerk alone could prevail upon it to 'open sesame!'

The day proving fine and clear lures us onwards towards Brown Clee Hill, whose broad, bulky ma.s.s looms prominently, no great distance away to the eastward. In about a mile and 'a bittock,' after pa.s.sing through a gate, we enter upon a wild, go-as-you-please sort of country, and clamber up the steep gra.s.sy vallum of Nordy Bank, a large Roman encampment in an unusually good state of preservation. The bank is very high and steep, with a ditch on its outer side, though much lower, as the custom was, upon its inner face.

Hence a fine, wild glen comes into view, running up into the heart of the hills, t.i.tterstone rears his dark craggy crest away to the right, and the Wrekin peeps over the shoulder of Brown Clee Hill, towards which we now bend our steps.

Dropping to a sandy ford across a stream, we slant gradually away athwart the open furze-clad hillside, and then breast the rough, steep, rock-strewn bank, called Abdon Burf, which encircles the loftier of the twin summits of Brown Clee Hill.

Perched up here beside the cairn, 1,792 feet above sea level, we look down upon every other height in all broad Shropshire; indeed, to find a rival to Brown Clee Hill, we should have to travel across the Welsh border. So let us now turn our attention to the s.p.a.cious landscape which lies outspread around; a prospect that embraces the greater part of west-central England, and a good cantle of wild Wales to boot.

Away towards the south-east rise the graceful peaks of the Malvern Hills, with the Cotswolds far beyond them. Then to the left are seen the Clent and Lickey heights, and the dingy pall of smoke overhanging the Black Country. Glancing athwart a number of inferior eminences, the eye is arrested by the great rounded dome of the Wrekin, unmistakable in its lonely isolation. League upon league extends the broad plain called Yale Royal, stretching far away into Cheshire, and blurred with a filmy cloud indicating the whereabouts of Shrewsbury:

'Far set in fields and woods the town we see Spring gallant from the shadows of her smoke.'

The Berwyns come next, a pale grey stripe silhouetted upon the skyline, followed by the sharp-peaked Breidden Hills, on the farthest confines of Shropshire. Quite near neighbours by comparison seem the Stretton heights, Caer Caradoc, and the spiny Stiperstones; while over those rolling uplands we can faintly discern the topmost crests of Cader Idris, in Wales.

Corve Dale, a chequer-work of ruddy plough lands and varied greensward, lies like a map at our feet, with the rough holts of Wenlock Edge fringing its farther side. Radnor Forest and the Black Mountains extend athwart the south-west, with perhaps a peep of the Brecon Beacons, mere shadows of a shadow these, upon the remotest horizon.

Yonder away lies Ludlow, marked by its tall church tower; and, still following along the skyline, we descry the abrupt form of the Skyrrid near Abergavenny. Finally our neighbour t.i.tterstone Clee thrusts his rugged cone aloft; a fine, dark, basaltic crag, around whose crest the cloud shadows love to linger; fitting throne for the giant who, in days of old, haunted those lonely heights.

And overarching all this fair landscape spread the 'infinite shining heavens,' and the glorious architecture of the clouds; completing a picture worthy to be stored up in memory's garners for many a day to come.

From the carnedd we make a bee-line down through broad reaches of heather, gorse, and wine-red bilberry shoots, flushing now and then a hawk or a curlew as we tramp along. Hugging the course of a l.u.s.ty stream, we soon find ourselves once more at Tugford; whence by lanes and field paths we work our way back to Munslow, crossing the Corve at Beam Bridge, where the blacksmith plies his trade in a curious, nondescript structure, half smothered in ivy, built, it is said, as a memorial to some member of the More family who was slain upon foreign soil long, long ago.

In a retired nook of the hills, about a mile and a half, as the crow flies, from Munslow, lies the old farmhouse of Upper Millichope.

[Ill.u.s.tration: UPPER MILLICHOPE.]

The house is considered by connoisseurs to have been built in the twelfth century, and thus may claim to be the most ancient abode in Shropshire; in point of age, indeed, it probably has few rivals throughout the whole of England.

The oldest, or western, wing of the building, is ma.s.sively constructed of the grey limestone of the district, its walls being in places at least 6 feet thick, while the steep roof is covered with old moss-clad stone-slates. The original entrance was through the semicircular-headed doorway seen in our sketch, the arch whereof is enriched with hallflower ornament, as is that of a small round window of similar character alongside. The other windows in the lower story are very narrow, mere ceilets, or loops such as were used for archery, but are widely splayed within.

Access to the upper regions was obtained by a stone staircase built in the thickness of the wall. This staircase, though now partially destroyed, bears traces of having been protected by no less than three doors between the bas.e.m.e.nt and the room above.

Owing to the reduced thickness of the west wall, the chamber on the first floor is larger than the room below. It is lighted by a pair of double windows in the northern and eastern sides, each window having an attached pillar with moulded cap and base, a projecting socket for inserting a beam across the window, and a stone seat, or bench, in the wall upon either side.

This first-floor room was probably the living-room, or Solar, of the establishment. A small adjacent chamber is supposed to have been used as a chapel, or oratory. In the roof are one or two rickety, dust-laden garrets, long since deserted and given over to mice, spiders, and such-like small deer.

Huge oaken beams support the floor of the Solar, and the internal walls are constructed of wattle-and-dab, now much fallen to decay.