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

At the east end of the south aisle rises a beautiful fifteenth-century chantry chapel, dedicated to St. Mary, upon the walls whereof considerable remains of ancient frescoes are still discernible. They appear to represent, the Fall: the Redemption of Man: the Annunciation: and the Salutation; but, as they are all much worn and faded, this is somewhat conjectural.

Upon the wall of the adjacent aisle is a curious old altar-frontal, which formerly belonged to St. Mary's chantry. It dates from about 1470, and is wrought upon coloured silk, depicting the Church at rest in Abraham's bosom. The figure of Abraham is admirably portrayed, his countenance being of a decidedly Jewish cast; while the Church, in the form of a group of diminutive figures, is seen snugly ensconced in a sort of napkin, held between Abraham's outstretched hands.

The west tower is early Norman, and in spite of late excrescences, is probably the oldest part of the church. Nor must we omit to mention the very ancient 'excommunication' door, now blocked, near the west end of the north aisle. An inscription of some interest to the Freemason fraternity appears upon the outer lintel of this doorway; to wit: ano .

domini . 1585 : IHON . DAAIS . FREEMASON : This fine church was well restored by Blomfield, in 1878.

From Alveley we make a detour to visit Pool Hall, which is interesting mainly from its past a.s.sociations, the present house being a somewhat shabby, neglected-looking building of no great antiquity. 'Polehous'

first figures in history about the middle of the fourteenth century, when we find it in the possession of Henry de la Pole. The Manor of Alveley, in which Pool Hall is situated, formed one of the four manors held by Algar, Earl of Mercia, before the Normans had penetrated into this part of England.

Retracing our steps to Alveley, we drop down to the ferry at Potter's Load, a pleasant, sequestered spot, where the ferryman's picturesque cottage is the only habitation in sight. A shady path, climbing steeply up through the woods, soon brings us to Highley village. The place, as its name suggests, stands at a considerable elevation, affording frequent glimpses of the surrounding country, a hilly-and-daley region.

Conspicuous at the top of the village rises its parish church, on the south side whereof we find the interesting fragment of a Calvary cross depicted in the sketch on p. 213. The broken shaft, which has angle chamfers terminating in small heads, stands upon a ma.s.sive base edged with bold cable mouldings, and ornamented with sphinx-like faces at the corners. On the west side of the base is the curious crocketed niche seen in the cut; it may conjecturally have been used to display the Paschal light at Easter-tide. The southern side has a hand and the letters I . H . C cut upon it.

The adjacent church, though ancient, is somewhat featureless; and the Church-house, an antiquated structure of timber and plaster overlooking the graveyard, seems quite the oldest residence in the village.

Southward from Highley, the Severn itself forms for several miles the Shropshire boundary, an outlying elbow of Staffordshire coming in upon the east, and giving a curious local twist to the frontier hereabouts.

Until comparatively recent times, there was an isolated cantle of Shropshire lying derelict, so to speak, far away towards the east, upon the confines of Worcester and Stafford. The quiet old townlet of Halesowen, with its ruined Premonstratensian Abbey founded by King John, was formerly included in Shropshire; as was also the curious little chapel of St. Kenelm, on the slopes of the Clent Hills, and the pleasant estate of the Leasowes, with its groves and pseudo-cla.s.sic ruined temples, in the taste of the last century, and its memories of Shenstone the poet.

But we digress, so now, revenons a nos moutons.

Laying a south-westerly course from Highley, we set out anon for Kinlet Hall, a place seated in a wild, secluded locality, on the borders of Wyre Forest. Our way lies in the main through a country of low, tumbled hills, thatched with woodland; one or two colliery chimneys, emitting grimy smoke, seeming out of place amid these green, pastoral landscapes.

After pa.s.sing the vicarage we enter Kinlet Park, a tract of undulating country about 500 acres in area, containing bosky dells and sylvan glades, where flourish some of the finest oaks and beeches in the county.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Kinlet Hall.]

The Hall and church soon come in sight, the former a fine, s.p.a.cious structure of brick, with stone quoins, built in the year 1729 by an ancestor of the present proprietor; the original half-timbered mansion, which stood nearer the church, having been pulled down at that time.

Though lacking the picturesque variety of an earlier style, Kinlet Hall impresses one by a certain serene dignity as it rises, four-square and ruddy, and flanked by large arched gateways, from the smooth, close-cropped greensward of the home-park; a worthy example of an English country residence of the early Georgian period. Some good ancestral portraits lend interest to the interior, including likenesses of the builder of the existing mansion, and his lady.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Kinlet.]

At the time of the Norman Conquest, the estate of Kinlet appertained to Editha, Edward the Confessor's widow, and in after years pa.s.sed successively to the houses of Cornewall and of Blount. The Blounts, as Camden tells us, were 'an antient, ill.u.s.trious, and numerous family in these parts, who have extended their branches a great way, and who certainly have their name from their yellow hair.' Kinlet eventually came into the possession of the Baldwyns, a widely connected Shropshire family, and is now the residence of Captain C. Baldwyn-Childe.

Kinlet church, nestling in a grove of trees almost under the shadow of the Hall, is a small but interesting cruciform structure. In the Blount chapel we find monuments to various members of that family, as well as to the Childes. The finest of these is a richly canopied table-tomb, with the figures of Sir George Blount and his wife kneeling beneath niches, a rec.u.mbent effigy in the arched vault below, and a quaint Latin epitaph alongside. This knight was a distinguished soldier, and sometime High Sheriff of Salop; he died in the year 1581. Against the adjacent wall there is a curious representation of the Crucifixion, in stone, and there are one or two sixteenth-century marble monuments in the chancel.

Some idea of the exterior of Kinlet church may be gathered from the little sketch on the previous page, which shews the half-timbered clerestory, the pretty gable-end of the Blount chapel, and a certain small stone structure which rises in the churchyard. It is square on plan, with an arched recess on each side, the one towards the west having a shallow niche on the inner face. It appears to have been surmounted by a cross, of which the base-stone may be seen upon the apex of the roof.

Dotted here and there about the valley of the Rea, as it comes down from Brown Clee Hill, are a number of obscure villages and isolated hamlets, which have remained as primitive, probably, as any in all broad Shropshire. It is the country, par excellence, of stiff red clay, as the oft-repeated name of 'Clee' plainly indicates; and its sunny barley fields, its orchards and bosky woodlands, have given rise to the local adage:

'Blest is the eye 'twixt Severn and Wye, But thrice blessed he 'twixt Severn and Clee!'

Ditton Priors, with its interesting old church, carved oak roodscreen, stalls and lectern, lies under the shadow of Brown Clee, near the head-waters of the Rea. Cleobury North, on the Ludlow road, had a church subject to Brecon Priory as long ago as Henry the First's time. One or two epitaphs in the graveyard here are worth a pa.s.sing notice.

Then we come to Burwarton, whose inn, the Boyne Arms, offers bed and board for the wayfarer in a better style than one is wont to find in this remote locality, where as a rule the traveller is fortunate who, like the proverbial Scotsman, is 'contented wi' little, an' cantie wi'

mair.'

Burwarton church is mainly of Norman date, having a plain, semi-headed chancel arch of that period, and a little carved woodwork. Brown Clee Hill, lying due west, may be easily climbed from here; and the view from the top, described on a previous page, will well repay the scramble.

A mile south-east is Aston Botterel, where, in the south aisle of the church, may be seen an altar-tomb with pillared canopy to one of the Botterels, who held the Manor of Aston of the Earls of Arundel. At the Bold, hard by, are some slight remains of an ancient building, probably a chapel.

Proceeding on our way adown the vale, we come presently to Wheathill, a place that in the Conqueror's time formed a portion of the vast estates of Earl Roger de Montgomery. Wheathill church is of Norman origin, having a fine south doorway with cable moulding, and tympanum with axe-hewn ornamentation. The Hakets were the great folks here in olden times, John Haket, Rector of 'Wheathull,' being mysteriously drowned in the Teme, near Ludlow, in 1342.

Some forty minutes later we find ourselves at Stottesdon; our way thither leading by unfrequented lanes across the Rea brook. Here we happen upon a church which, though restored about thirty years ago, retains many points of interest to the antiquary.

Stottesdon church has one of the finest Norman fonts in the county. It is ornamented with an interlaced border, and other enrichments; and the carvings of the west doorway are so rude and primitive, they might have formed part of the earlier church known to have existed here in Saxon times. The base of the tower is also possibly pre-Norman, while the Wrickton chantry dates from the fourteenth century.

In 1085, Roger de Montgomery gave Stottesdon church, with all its rich endowments, to his great Abbey at Shrewsbury. When visiting Stottesdon in the year 1290, so poor was this neighbourhood, that Bishop Swinfield had to send all the way to Kidderminster market for provender, and for shoes for his coach horses.

Bestowed by the Conqueror upon Roger de Montgomery, the 'Marquis de Carabas' of the Welsh border, Stottesdon manor became the caput, or chief place, of one of the Shropshire Hundreds. Becoming forfeit to the Crown, the King bestowed the manor, about 1159, on G.o.dfrey de Gamages, in which family it remained until the year 1230. Thereafter we find de Plaesto and de Seagrave enrolled as over-lords of Stottesdon; claiming free-warren, and holding free-courts, with all the rights and privileges thereto attached.

Pushing on towards Cleobury Mortimer through a rough, broken country, we come by-and-by to a farmhouse called Walltown, occupying the site of a Roman encampment, whose outer lines are still clearly traceable. In Blakeway's time, the old road from Cleobury to Bridgnorth pa.s.sed directly through the centre of the camp, 'entering at the Praetorian, and pa.s.sing out at the Dec.u.man Gate,' but its course has since been altered.

Leaving Neen Savage in the vale upon our right, we cut off a corner by a lane that drops steeply to the Rea; and after sighting the broken walls of Lloyd's Paper-mill, looking like a ruined castle, we make our entry into Cleobury Mortimer, with the tall, twisted spire of St. Mary's church rising above the housetops, like a crooked, beckoning finger.

So, while beating up for the 'Talbot,' let us call to mind a few facts about the history of the town. 'The village of Clebyri,' to quote Leland once again, 'standythe in the Rootes by est of Cle Hills, seven myles from Ludlow, in the Way to Beaudeley.' At the time of Domesday Survey 'Claiberie' was held by Queen Editha, and in mediaeval days formed, with the circ.u.mjacent country, part of the great Honour of Mortimer. These haughty Mortimers, indeed, ruled the roost for many a long day at Cleobury; but their castle was destroyed during the Barons' Wars, and the site alone, 'nighe the churche by Northe,' was to be seen in Leland's time.

Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, Queen Elizabeth's 'sweet Robin,' was for a while the lord of Cleobury. In the 'Lives of the Dudleys' we read: 'He was a compleat Gentleman in all suitable employments; an exact seaman, an excellent architect, mathematician, physician, chymist and what not. He was a handsome, personable man, tall of stature, red haired, and of an admirable comport; and above all noted for riding the great horse for tilting, and for his being the first of all that taught a dog to sit in order to catch partridges.'

At Cleobury was born in the fourteenth century William Langland, the 'Poet of the Lollards.' About the year 1362, Langland composed those 'Visions of Piers Plowman,' which have caused their author to be acknowledged as one of the earliest of England's songsters.

So much, then, for the brave days of old. Cleobury Mortimer as we see it to-day is a long, straggling, torpid townlet, whose agricultural proclivities are chequered by the mining industries carried on around t.i.tterstone Clee Hill, and the woodcraft of the people who dwell in the neighbouring Forest of Wyre.

Having secured a night's billet at the Talbot Inn, we sally forth again and proceed to spy out the land. Out in the High Street is seen a block of timeworn sandstone, whereon, according to a credible tradition, young Arthur Tudor's body was laid, he having died while travelling this way from Ludlow Castle to Bewdley.

A few yards farther on we come to the parish church, a n.o.ble old pile dedicated to St. Mary the Virgin, the central and dominant feature of Cleobury town. Its graceful arches and elegant fenestration mark the Early English period; though the tower, the oldest portion of the fabric, dates back to Norman times. Far aloft soars the tall wooden steeple, whose old warped timbers, stripped of their clumsy boarding, are now being clad in a weatherproof garb of stout oak shingles.

A large, handsome south porch gives access to the interior, where, inter alia, we observe a remarkably shapely chancel arch, and some modern stained gla.s.s in the east window, a memorial to William Langland, the poet, who may be descried therein, dreaming over his 'visions' as he reclines on a bank, with Malvern Hills away in the background.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Cleobury-Mortimer, from the Wells.]

A further ramble about the town introduces us to Cleobury College, a handsome building in a pleasant situation, erected, as a tablet informs us, by Sir Lacon W. Childe, of Kinlet, in 1740, and recently enlarged and improved. Then, down in a hollow of the highway, we stumble across the quaint view which our artist has here reproduced; the crooked church steeple soaring heavenwards above a tall Scotch fir, while the foreground is occupied by an arched grotto enclosing the crystal-clear, perennial spring, called the Wells, whence the townsfolk draw their unfailing supply of water.

From Cleobury Mortimer we will make an excursion towards Bewdley; our route, for a large part of the way, lying through the heart of Wyre Forest. The forest is worth a visit, though nowadays the 'tall oaks' of Camden's time are conspicuous by their absence, having long since been cut down and carried off to smelt the iron ore of the Midlands, ere 'sea-coal' came into use.

'When soon the goodlie Wyre, that wonted was soe hie, Her statelie top to reare, ashamed to behold Her straighte and goodlie Woods unto the furnace sold; And looking on herself, by her decay doth see The miserie wherein her sister forests bee.'

Covering a broken, dimpled country, with many quiet sylvan nooks enlivened by streams and brooklets, Wyre Forest is still a pleasant, wild, out-of-the-way district to ramble in; and is a favourite haunt of birds, b.u.t.terflies, beetles, moths, and similar 'small deer,' as many a naturalist knows. The former extent and importance of the forest may be gathered from the fact that the County of Worcester is named after it, and that to this day it remains one of the largest tracts of woodland in the Marches of Wales. Old, disused coalpits here and there, shew that the coveted 'black diamonds' lie underfoot, though of a quality so poor as scarce to repay the cost of winning--'thank goodness,' one is minded to say.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Dowles Manor House.]

So by cross-country cuts and woodland ways we ramble through the forest, until, just short of the Bewdley road, we get a pretty peep of Dowles Manor-house, an ancient timbered dwelling seated in a dell, embosomed amidst trees, and bearing the date 1560 cut upon one of its old black beams. Then we come to Dowles church, a fifteenth-century building, though it doesn't look it, having been encased in brick about a hundred years ago.

Strolling along the towing-path by Severn side, we presently catch sight of

'Fair seated Bewdley, a delightful Towne, Which Wyre's tall oaks with shady branches crown.'