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 Copograjabtes
 
 THE TEMPLE 
 
 TOPOGRAPHIES 
 
 STRATFORD-ON-AVON 
 
 By HERBERT W. TOMPKINS. 
 With Illustrations by E. H. 
 NEW. 
 
 KNUTSFORD 
 
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 By ALGERNON GISSING. With 
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 Written and Illustrated by 
 E. H. NEW. 
 
 SELBORNE 
 
 By HERBERT W. TOMPKINS. 
 With Illustrations by H. J. 
 HOWARD. 
 
 LUDLOW &- STOKESAY 
 
 By ALGERNON GISSING. With 
 Illustrations by E. H. NEW. 
 
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 LUDLOW 
 STOKESAY 
 
 BY ALGERNON GISSING 
 
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 PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 IT does not come within the scope of 
 these little books to indicate authorities ; 
 but, for a subject so full of interest as 
 Ludlow and Stokesay, I may mention the 
 following books for the benefit of those 
 general readers who may wish to go 
 more fully into the history of the neigh- 
 bourhood. It is, of course, only a handful 
 of books out of many. 
 
 " The History of Ludlow," by Thomas 
 Wright, M.A., F.S.A. (1852). 
 
 " Ludlow : Town and Neighbourhood," 
 by Oliver Baker (1889). 
 
 "The Council in the Marches of 
 Wales," by Caroline A. J. Skeel, D.Lit. 
 (1904). 
 
 The Welsh Wars of Edward I.," by 
 John E. Morris, M.A. (1901). 
 
 "The Gild Merchant," by Charles 
 Gross (1890), for ancient burgess con- 
 stitution and customs of Ludlow. 
 
 For Ludlow Castle also see Clark^s 
 " Mediaeval and Military Architecture " ; 
 and for Stokesay, Turner's " Domestic 
 Architecture. 1 ' 
 
 A. G.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP PAGE 
 
 I. THE GROWTH OF THE MARCHES . i 
 II. THE CASTLE . . . .19 
 
 III. THE BURGESSES . . 38 
 
 IV. RELIGIOUS LIFE .... 56 
 V. STOKESAY AND THE NEIGHBOURHOOD . 7 5
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Ludloiu from Whit cliff . . Frontispiece 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Looking East to Titterstone . , . 1 1 
 The Keep, Ludloiv Castle . .29 
 
 A Watch Tower .... 36 
 
 Broad Gate, Ludloiu . . . . 47 
 
 A Byway . . . . . 65 
 
 Stokesay Castle Jrom the North-East . 74 
 
 Stokesay : the North- West Corner . . 85 
 
 Last Glimpse 88
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE GROWTH OF THE MARCHES 
 
 WHERE the Welsh mountains die 
 away gradually to the rich vale of 
 the upper Severn lie the counties of Here- 
 ford and Salop. It is a green and pastoral 
 land of much variety, endeared by inex- 
 haustible tenderness to its natives, and 
 attractive to strangers by the force of 
 numberless beauties and interests. The 
 ancient town of Ludlow stands as a centre 
 to these. To write briefly of such a spot 
 is a difficult task, for the themes suggested 
 are literally inexhaustible, as those who 
 may be interested enough to follow out 
 what must be my mere suggestions will 
 readily find. Topography, when ration- 
 ally regarded, is of the profoundest interest, 
 and in reality the foundation stone of 
 all worthy patriotism. But a march or 
 borderland has necessarily so many peculiar 
 interests as to raise it perhaps to the 
 highest plane of topographical charm.
 
 LUDLOW 
 
 Not everybody familiar with the banks 
 of Severn knows, or at least remembers, 
 that that fair river takes its rise in far-off 
 Plinlimmon, side by side with the source 
 of the Wye. This is but a stone's-throw 
 from the waves of Cardigan Bay, and it 
 is a fact worth noticing. Since every 
 river sets off with the avowed intention 
 of rinding the sea, a fanciful moralist has 
 here an allegory ready to his hand. From 
 the long rambling journey of the Severn 
 he may draw an obvious parable of the 
 life of man in the similitude of a river. 
 Plinlimmon sends forth other children. 
 Severn and Wye have sisters, but they 
 are truly "little sisters," timid and proper 
 little things that take a demure view of 
 their duty, and slip unnoticed to the sea. 
 The chief one of these is called Ystwith, 
 known to us only through man's settle- 
 ment at her aber or mouth, Aberystwith. 
 The whole of her course, with her best at 
 winding, can stretch but to ten or twelve 
 miles. Severn, with a laugh, sets off for 
 her adventurous journey of over two hun- 
 dred. Her glad, mad acceptance of life 
 is better realised by the fact that, when all 
 is done, the distance from source to mouth 
 as the crow flies is not more than eighty 
 miles. She has travelled in a semicircle, 
 but what has she not seen and done ? 
 Valiant, full-hearted Sabrina ! 
 
 This is what may come to you from the 
 
 2
 
 GROWTH OF THE MARCHES 
 
 luck of being born on one or other side 
 of a mountain, though you draw your life 
 from the same breast. A Severn or an 
 Ystwith is your lot. Fate, we say, and 
 shrug our shoulders. Be it so. But turn 
 our moral from one of fate to one of pur- 
 pose. Clearly it is not always best to go 
 the shortest way to your end. Fill your 
 day, says Severn ; round your destiny. 
 Though the sea must have you, put off 
 the evil day, and take a wide circuit, 
 gaining and scattering gladness. What 
 joy would have been lost if Severn and 
 Wye had slipped round the shoulder of 
 the mountain, and modestly toddled their 
 ten miles down to the sea. 
 
 Within the upper part of this semi- 
 circle of Severn, Shropshire and Hereford- 
 shire lie. In amongst their numberless 
 hills many streamlets find a pathway to 
 the main river. They trickle down the 
 breezy slopes of bracken and broom and 
 gorse, and thread the wooded hollows, and 
 traverse the meadows, now rushing over 
 the stones, now pausing in the reeds, the 
 marigolds and water-lilies, but ever onward 
 and making a world of wonder as they go. 
 Two of these are called Teme and Corve, 
 and it is where these two join that Ludlow 
 stands. The Teme receives many streams 
 to swell it into one of the principal western 
 tributaries of Severn, and, for part of its 
 course, seems to form a natural boundary- 
 3
 
 LUDLOW 
 
 line between the two counties I have 
 named. But it is only for a mile or two 
 here and there that it has been actually 
 used as such. It is the case at Ludlow, 
 the little loop of country immediately to 
 the south of Ludford Bridge being part of 
 the county of Hereford. In any survey 
 of Ludlow, therefore, both these counties 
 are prominently before the mind, so that 
 although the town is territorially within 
 the county of Salop, it is better to regard 
 it merely as a town of the marches than 
 as an appanage of any narrower territory. 
 This is more particularly the case since so 
 much of the history and interest of the 
 place centres in the drama of this Welsh 
 borderland as a whole. The story of it 
 is indeed of the profoundest interest, and, 
 before proceeding to our glimpse of Ludlow 
 as a locality, I want to glance at this 
 wider aspect of the scenery. 
 
 Looking back to the remotest historical 
 times we here touch the principality of the 
 Silurians, that fine old British race which, 
 at any rate in the person of its heroic 
 chieftain, Caractacus, awakens the enthu- 
 siasm of every schoolboy. We can all see 
 the majestic figure raising the triumphal 
 procession of the Emperor Claudius at 
 Rome to such a height of dignity as to 
 evoke the admiration of the conquering 
 Romans ; but we do not always remember 
 the clue that this same race possibly gives 
 4
 
 GROWTH OF THE MARCHES 
 
 us to an even remoter past, which carries 
 us to the very dawn of human life in these 
 islands. This Caractacus and his Silurians 
 have been held to show traces of descent 
 from that dark and long-skulled people 
 that possessed our hills and forests before 
 even the Celts had wandered to the land, 
 and who, in what is called the Neolithic age, 
 polished those beautiful stone axes, spear- 
 heads, and other primitive^tools and weapons, 
 which we now see in our museums. This 
 thought adds impressiveness to the many 
 dark-eyed, black-haired faces that you see 
 in the groups of market folk in Ludlow 
 any Monday. 
 
 This picturesque stock developed into 
 a fine race in Celtic times, and this land- 
 scape formed the scene of their immortal 
 though ineffectual stand against the Roman. 
 Those great earthworks on Malvern Hills 
 are claimed as " the first line of defence 
 thrown up by the Silurian chief against 
 the advance of Ostorius, who had crossed 
 the Severn to attack him with all the 
 troops collected from the numerous stations 
 that dot the surface of the Cotswolds"; 
 whilst the camps at Whitborne, Croft- 
 Ambrey, Thornbury, and Wapley (all 
 only a few miles to the south-east of 
 Ludlow), "seem to belong to a later 
 campaign, when the line of the Malverns 
 was abandoned, and Caractacus was forced 
 to fall back upon his secondary range of 
 5
 
 LUDLOW 
 
 fortresses in the rear." But, as we know, 
 all was hopeless. A chapter of British 
 history was to be closed ; and the last 
 desperate struggle is held to have taken 
 place by that hill on the banks of the 
 Teme, called Coxwall Knoll, seven or eight 
 miles due west of Ludlow, just beyond 
 Leintwardine. It was from this spot that 
 Caractacus fled. His wife and daughter 
 and brothers were already captives to 
 Ostorius. But even yet he did not utterly 
 despair. Penetrating that wilderness of 
 forest, the gallant chieftain sped to the far- 
 off territory of the Brigantes (our present 
 Yorkshire), whose queen, Cartismandua, 
 was a relative of his own. But she, 
 though sovereign of the most powerful 
 British tribe, treacherously sided with the 
 foe ; and instead of finding furtherance of 
 his heroic efforts, Caractacus was delivered, 
 bound, to the victorious enemy and forth- 
 with carried off to Rome. 
 
 With this, local resistance ended, and 
 the district fell into the Roman province. 
 It was then that the life of this region we 
 now call Salop began to centre in the 
 Wrekin ; and in the name Uriconium, 
 which became the principal Roman station 
 of the Upper Severn, it is not difficult to 
 see traces of this ancient appellation of 
 the famous hill. By the time the legions 
 withdrew from Britain (say A.D. 400) this 
 Wrekin district formed part of a Welsh 
 6
 
 GROWTH OF THE MARCHES 
 
 principality of Powys, with Uriconium 
 (our present Wroxeter) for its capital. 
 But presently other foes have landed on 
 the south coast, and, penetrating the Severn 
 valley after conquering Bath and Glou- 
 cester, the West Saxons poured up the 
 old Roman road to Uriconium, slew 
 "Kyndylan the Fair," burned the town, 
 and took up fresh farms in the surround- 
 ing country. These new colonists called 
 themselves the Wroken-saete, or settlers 
 by the Wrekin ; and Uriconium became 
 Wroken-cester, a name worn down in 
 time to Wroxeter. 
 
 But these West Saxons only occupied 
 a small part of the land beside the Severn. 
 After the fall of Uriconium the princes 
 of Powys retreated to the forest region 
 in the rear, and there, in a bend of the 
 Severn where Shrewsbury now stands, 
 they established their capital of Pengwern. 
 It was Offa, the Mercian king, that was 
 ultimately to drive them from their strong- 
 hold, conquer this district, and turn it 
 into what it has ever since remained a 
 march or borderland. To mark out his 
 new dominions, this king threw up the 
 vast earthwork known still by the name 
 of Offa's Dyke, which runs from Holywell, 
 in Flintshire, to the Wye. But, of course, 
 the native Welsh were not exterminated. 
 They remained as tributary proprietors, 
 and Offa's code regulated the relations of 
 
 7
 
 LUDLOW 
 
 the two races in the conquered territory. 
 Not only did those Welsh remain, but 
 in time they learned to speak the English 
 tongue, and to consider themselves as 
 Englishmen. 
 
 It is now that we come to the origin 
 of the present name of the county and 
 its county town. The greater part of 
 Shropshire was still covered with wood- 
 land, and so the district came to be known 
 by the English as the Scrob that is to 
 say, the Scrub or Bush. The inhabitants 
 were known as Scrob-saete, the Scrub- 
 settlers, and the old capital of Pengwern 
 became Scrobbes-byrig or Scrobbes-burh, 
 the town or bury in the Scrub. Hence, 
 in course of time, Shrewsbury. When, 
 somewhat later, the shire was formed, in 
 an analogous way its name arose Scrob- 
 scir, and so to Shropshire. The short 
 form, Salop, is merely a Norman corruption 
 of the native English Scrob. Just as they 
 made Sarum or Saresbyrig into Salisbury, 
 so did Scrob-scir become Salopes-sire. As 
 Grant Allen says, "Our ordinary speech still 
 bears traces of the distinction of tongues ; 
 for when we use the English form shire 
 we say Shropshire, but when we use the 
 Norman-French word county we say the 
 county of Salop." 
 
 Both natives and visitors who wish to 
 find the full charm of this beautiful scenery 
 will no doubt take pleasure in tracing these 
 8
 
 GROWTH OF THE MARCHES 
 
 ancient footsteps in the grass, as well as in 
 examining the more obvious relics of later 
 life. In connection with this let them 
 also pay heed to the names of the hills, 
 rivers, and villages. Few remains of our 
 ancestors are more interesting or more 
 significant of long-forgotten facts of his- 
 tory. It is true, a curious beginner can 
 find so little help in following such a 
 subject. He may bring home from his 
 rambles a handful of flowers or a pocketful 
 of fossils from the quarries, and with some 
 little perseverance soon name and under- 
 stand them all by the aid of books or a 
 museum, but the science of our local 
 names has been strangely neglected. The 
 subject is, to be sure, so intricate and in- 
 exhaustible that no one work could com- 
 prehend it. But for gaining a fascinating 
 insight into general principles there is a 
 book which everybody may have, and that 
 is Isaac Taylor's Words and Places, and 
 it may be fearlessly stated that even a slight 
 acquaintance with such a book will keenly 
 stimulate any reader desirous of regarding 
 the picturesque past of his country with 
 intelligence. A glance at the names round 
 Ludlow, and indeed throughout Shropshire 
 and Herefordshire generally, will afford 
 abundant evidence of this history I have 
 referred to. The name Ludlow itself offers 
 difficulties which I am not learned enough 
 to solve. The books confidently explain 
 
 9
 
 LUDLOW 
 
 it as composed of two Anglo-Saxon words, 
 /eodznd law, signifying " the peopled hill" ; 
 but, since the place was even in Domesday 
 Book called simply Luda, this explanation 
 ceases to satisfy. The latter half, low or 
 law, is, of course, easy enough, and nobody 
 who looks at the beautiful old town from 
 the opposite height of Whitcliff will doubt 
 the propriety of its being christened some 
 hill or other, but why that of Luda or Lude 
 I must not speculate. In addition to the 
 evidence of Domesday there is that of 
 ancient coins, of which some, even so far 
 back as the later Anglo-Saxon kings, are 
 preserved, showing that they were minted 
 at Lude. I have not traced when the low 
 was first added. It was at any rate well 
 established by the time of Henry III., 
 for that king, in 1272, grants licences 
 to various merchants, not of Lude, 
 but of Lodelowe or Ludelawe, to export 
 wool. 
 
 No doubt such a favourable site will 
 have been occupied from very early times. 
 Britons, English, and Normans in succes- 
 sion have fortified themselves upon that 
 prominent rock, with the river winding 
 round its base. Though always rich and 
 beautiful, the prospect they have had will 
 have varied considerably. Leagues of our 
 rich meadows must have been forest and 
 scrub. The name of the neighbouring 
 village of Bromfield (broom field) tells us 
 10
 
 GROWTH OF THE MARCHES 
 
 of the thickets of broom that in May must 
 have turned those riverside pastures into a 
 waving wilderness of gold. But, of course, 
 the main outlines of the landscape were 
 the same. Those beautiful hills still lay 
 at full length all round the prospect ; one 
 here and there with his head, as it were, 
 
 LOOKING EAST TO TITTERSTONE 
 
 propped up from the elbow. Whitclift, 
 Bringwood Chase, and the Vinnals cannot 
 have much changed. The ridges of Long 
 Mynd and Wenlock Edge, the rugged 
 tops of Caer Caradoc, and the bold 
 forehead of Titterstone would attract 
 the sentinel's eye as they do ours, but 
 with other purpose than the search of the 
 picturesque. 
 
 ii
 
 LUDLOW 
 
 Having reached the Norman times in our 
 general glimpse, we touch the actual fea- 
 tures of Ludlow as they engage us at the 
 present day. Whatever his peculiar object 
 of interest, nobody can be insensible to the 
 appeal of that magnificent ruin still com- 
 manding the vale, and around which so 
 much of the mediaeval story of these Welsh 
 marches inevitably gathers. We shall, of 
 course, presently glance at the details of 
 this great castle. I only mention it now 
 to introduce the wholly new phase of life 
 that the conquering Norman introduced. 
 The conquest of England, as we know, 
 did not mean the conquest of Wales. 
 Though they passed up to Chester, Shrews- 
 bury, Ludlow, and Hereford, the Nor- 
 man kings did not undertake this latter 
 conquest. Their hands were otherwise 
 quite full. But they foresaw it and indi- 
 cated its general lines. They took up the 
 task which the English Harold before 
 their arrival had begun. As Miss Skeel 
 says in her valuable history of The 
 Council in the Marches of Wales^ "The 
 conqueror was content to plant along the 
 Welsh Border a line of castles for pro- 
 tection against invasion. In them were 
 placed men who, with their Norman 
 instinct for righting and plunder, might 
 be trusted to conquer Wales for their 
 own profit. The task would be hard 
 enough, he thought, to prevent them 
 12
 
 GROWTH OF THE MARCHES 
 
 from growing overpowerful as against 
 himself." 1 
 
 The three main bases were Chester, 
 Shrewsbury, and Hereford. At these three 
 points William placed three of his ablest 
 and most trusted followers : Hugh of Av- 
 ranches,hisown nephew, in Chester; Roger 
 of Montgomery in Shrewsbury ; William 
 Fitz-Osbern, the best soldier at Senlac, in 
 Hereford. For a time the conquest went 
 on apace under the earls and their fol- 
 lowers. Castles were built, and near them 
 in many cases grew up bourgs where Frank- 
 born burgesses lived in enjoyment of cer- 
 tain privileges as tenants of some great 
 lord. Then came a check. First the 
 Welsh, by Viking aid, slew Hugh of 
 Montgomery, Roger's second son, and 
 regained Anglesey. His death left his 
 elder brother, Robert of Belleme, the holder 
 of immense possessions, and he it was who, 
 in the first years of Henry I., tried to be- 
 come independent of the Crown. But 
 this was not in the purpose of the kings. 
 He was crushed, with a consequence that 
 at the same time Norman progress was 
 checked throughout Central and North 
 Wales. 
 
 1 For an exhaustive account of this mediaeval history 
 I may refer the reader to the two books I have freely 
 used, The Welsh Wars of Edward /., by J. E. 
 Morris, M.A., and the work by Miss C. A. J. Skeel, 
 D.Lit., from which I have quoted. 
 
 '3
 
 LUDLOW 
 
 Indeed, as we know, it was not until 
 1283, by the consistent energy of Edward 
 L, that the conquest of Wales was com- 
 pleted. With this came the need of 
 strictly organising the hitherto turbulent 
 life of the border, and though it required 
 centuries to achieve, it was this first Ed- 
 ward that laid the foundation of the work. 
 The lords marchers, as these great terri- 
 torial feudatories were called, were slow 
 to relinquish their practice of settling all 
 disputes by private war. But, at any rate, 
 the machinery of law was instituted. By 
 statute the Welsh shires were allotted to 
 various justices, and the appointment of 
 such officers as sheriffs, coroners, and bailiffs 
 was ordained. But between the newly- 
 conquered districts and the western shires 
 of England lay the crescent-shaped march 
 almost on the circumference of which 
 Ludlow stood. The powerful lords who 
 were established throughout this border 
 tract had of necessity acquired extensive 
 privileges which Edward I. had so strenu- 
 ously assailed, but which for two centuries 
 no other king had time and vigour to take 
 in hand. Of the actual life of the border 
 we get a vivid glimpse in the Statute of 
 Rhuddlan (1284), whereby the sheriff is 
 directed to inquire amongst other things "of 
 mascherers that sell and buy stolen meat 
 knowingly ; of whittawers, that is, those 
 that whiten hides of oxen and horses, 
 14
 
 GROWTH OF THE MARCHES 
 
 knowing the same to have been stolen, that 
 they may not be known again ; of redub- 
 bers of stolen cloths, that turn them into 
 a new shape and change the old one, as 
 making a coat or surcoat of a cloak and the 
 like ; of them that shear sheep by night in 
 the folds, and that flay them and any other 
 beasts ; and of them that take and collect 
 by night the ears of corn in autumn and 
 carry them away." 
 
 The right of deciding all these local 
 troubles was long contested between the 
 lords marchers and the king. How 
 uncertain the hold upon these lords was 
 felt to be by the Crown is shown in a 
 statute of 1354, by which it is enacted 
 that they "shall be perpetually attending 
 and annexed to the Crown of England, 
 as they and their ancestors have been in 
 all times past, and not to the Principality 
 of Wales, in whose hands soever the same 
 Principality be or hereafter shall come." 
 To show the importance of these ques- 
 tions to the Crown it is only necessary 
 to point out that the chief holders of these 
 privileges, the Mortimers of Wigmore, 
 came to be themselves heirs to the Crown 
 of England, whilst the heiress of another 
 great marcher family, Mary de Bohun, 
 became the wife of Henry Bolingbroke, 
 and ultimately queen. 
 
 The great disorder of Wales and the 
 border is reflected in the many laws 
 15
 
 LUDLOW 
 
 passed. The legislation of Henry IV. is 
 particularly severe against the Welsh, for- 
 bidding them to become citizens or bur- 
 gesses, or to purchase lands and tenements 
 in any city, borough, or market town, or 
 to hold any civic office. No Englishman 
 was to be convicted by a Welshman ; an 
 English burgess marrying a Welshwoman 
 was to lose his franchise ; and no Welsh- 
 man was to hold office under the king 
 or be of the council of any English lord. 
 The Welsh naturally retaliate. Some- 
 times by day and sometimes by night, 
 it is said, they came within the 
 counties adjoining the marches of 
 Wales, and took distresses of horses, 
 sheep, and cattle, driving them away to 
 the seigniories where they dwelt, and 
 retaining them " till gree be made . at 
 their will." 
 
 The blame for all this disorder was 
 thrown largely on the lords of the 
 marches, who were bidden to set "suffi- 
 cient stuffing and ward in their castles 
 and seigniories of Wales " to guard 
 against its repetition. But they had 
 various purposes to serve, and too keen 
 an eye upon personal aggrandisement. 
 What was needed, as Miss Skeel points 
 out, was some authority which should 
 ensure the due punishment of crimes and 
 impartial justice even between men of dif- 
 fering race. It was this at which the kings 
 16
 
 GROWTH OF THE MARCHES 
 
 aimed, but no permanent improvement was 
 made until the powers of the marcher 
 lords passed to the Crown, as to a large 
 extent they had by the reign of Henry 
 VII. He it was who proved able to carry 
 out really effectual repressive measures, 
 whence virtually rose the well-known 
 Council of the Marches from which so 
 much of the early importance of Ludlow 
 sprang. It had apparently been instituted 
 before by Edward IV. ; but, as is stated by 
 an old writer, "the matter proceeded no 
 farther, for the troubles and disquietness 
 of his kingdom coming heavy upon him, 
 and the shortness of his reign after his 
 establishment not permitting, he was 
 forced to leave that to others which him- 
 self thought once to bring about." It 
 was during the reigns of Henry VIII. and 
 Elizabeth that the Council reached its full 
 development, but it continued into Stuart 
 times, and was not finally abolished until 
 the Revolution of 1689. But as this in- 
 stitution of the Council and the selection 
 of Ludlow Castle as the principal official 
 residence of its President brings us to the 
 heyday of Ludlow Castle and town, this 
 general survey may well end here. The 
 more detailed story of Ludlow itself can 
 be considered in connection with the 
 existing structure of the place. It is this 
 ancient atmosphere that gives the locality 
 its principal charm, but since it is com- 
 
 i B
 
 LUDLOW 
 
 bined also with a natural beauty which 
 our industrial age has not greatly harmed, 
 the appeal of the place is to all who know 
 wherein the deepest interests and the most 
 civilising recreations lie. 
 
 18
 
 THE CASTLE 
 
 IN 1631 Richard Baxter (the great 
 Puritan divine), then a lad about 
 sixteen, ready to leave Wroxeter school, 
 had been advised, he says in his auto- 
 biography, not to go immediately to 
 college, but to become private attendant 
 for a while to Mr. Thomas Wickstead, 
 Chaplain to the Council of Wales, under 
 whom he was told he would have every 
 advantage. He accepted the suggestion, 
 and for a year and a half young Baxter 
 lived in Ludlow Castle. But exceptional 
 seriousness was inherent in the boy even 
 then, and the situation was not at all to his 
 taste. As the divine himself afterwards 
 remarks, Mr. Wickstead had nothing to 
 teach him, unless it were to sneer at 
 Puritans, and there was much tippling 
 and other profanity in the castle and the 
 town, crowded as they were with officials 
 and their servants. All Shropshire was 
 then, he had found, in a grievous con- 
 dition spiritually, and had he remained 
 in Ludlow the bad influence of the place 
 might have obliterated the serious im- 
 
 '9
 
 LUDLOW 
 
 pressions he had received from his good 
 father's teaching and the perusal of Sibbes's 
 " Bruised Reed." One youth, who was his 
 intimate friend, and most zealously pious 
 when he first knew him, did fall a victim 
 and became a confirmed drunkard and 
 scoffer. Had Baxter remained a little 
 longer at the castle he might have been 
 present at the curious spectacle of a 
 stage-play in rebuke of riot, and, oddly 
 enough, written by the great poet who 
 stands for after time as one of the 
 principal embodiments of Puritanism, 
 John Milton. This was the masque 
 known to us as " Comus," although, when 
 first produced, it had no definite title. 
 
 In June of the very year in which 
 Baxter went to Ludlow, the Earl of 
 Bridgewater was nominated President of 
 the Council, but did not take up his 
 residence at Ludlow until more than two 
 years after. It was during this interval 
 that Baxter passed his time there, and 
 much of the unseemly licence that shocked 
 the serious boy may legitimately be attri- 
 buted to the absence of authority. In 
 1633 it was resolved that the earl should 
 go to his post. On the I2th May, that 
 year, a Royal Letter of Instructions was 
 issued defining his powers afresh, and 
 regulating the arrangement of the Council, 
 both judicial and executive. It was to 
 consist of above eighty persons named, 
 20
 
 THE CASTLE 
 
 many of them bishops and great state 
 officers of England,, whilst others were 
 knights and gentlemen of Shropshire and 
 other parts of the Welsh border. But 
 of these eighty, four were nominated as 
 salaried officers bound to residence and 
 the regular duties of circuit judges. In 
 all proceedings of the Council three were 
 to be a quorum, of which, however, the 
 President, Vice-president, or the Chief 
 Justice of Chester was always to be one. 
 
 The new Lord President entered 
 upon his official residence with unusual 
 solemnity. " He was attended," says 
 Oldys, " by a large concourse of the 
 neighbouring nobility and gentry." And 
 to add to the picturesqueness there is the 
 story that Milton's " Comus " is based upon 
 the actual adventures of the earl's house- 
 hold when lost in the Haye Woods as 
 they travelled to the town. From Ludlow 
 these woods Jie to the south, and the back, 
 as it were, of Bringwood Chase, that 
 great bank of woodland that stretches 
 westward from the velvet turf of Whit- 
 cliff. The place has the unfortunate 
 local name of Sunny Gutter, and is a 
 densely-wooded hollow in the steep hills, 
 open only at one end. If the earl's house- 
 hold actually approached their destination 
 from this side they could not have found 
 a more impressive way of doing it. You 
 have no great difficulty in getting lost 
 21
 
 LUDLOW 
 
 in these woods to-day, but if you bear 
 upwards and can get out at the top, and 
 escape the penalties of trespassing, you 
 will have no reason to regret the ex- 
 perience. At the head of this defile, and 
 towards its eastern side, is a cluster of fir 
 trees on the hill-top, from which on any 
 clear day is to be obtained a view that 
 will not soon be forgotten. But you 
 cannot see Ludlow. If you follow a 
 delightfully vague track, however, by the 
 hedgerow on the top of the ridge, you 
 come in a few hundred yards to a gate 
 into the upper wood, and by taking the 
 left-hand path you will find a very wonder- 
 ful way to the old border town. After 
 about a mile of woodland a high road is 
 reached which leads on to a bit of breezy 
 common known as Whitcliff. You have 
 already had many glimpses of the scene, 
 but here the full landscape bursts upon 
 you with the Lude-lawe just in front. 
 
 This was the position taken up by the 
 Parliamentary forces under Sir William 
 Brereton when he besieged the castle, 
 which was holding out for the king. 
 His intrenchments are still quite distinct 
 in the green turf. Sir William took the 
 place on gth June 1646. It does not 
 require any great amount of military skill 
 to see the advantages of such a site for a 
 siege of Ludlow. Slightly higher than 
 the opposite hill on which the town 
 22
 
 THE CASTLE 
 
 stands, there is but a narrow defile be- 
 tween, through which the Teme flows 
 in a semicircle from the foot of the castle 
 rock, at Dinham Bridge, to the ancient 
 bridge at Ludford. From its green sum- 
 mit of softest turf Whitcliff drops with 
 rugged abruptness to the river, leaving 
 just space for a footpath along the water's 
 edge. On the other side are orchards, 
 without fence or hedge, sloping to the 
 river from the town wall, and above, the 
 clustered town with its magnificent church 
 and castle. To the north spreads the vale 
 of Corve, and all around the landscape is 
 closed in by an amphitheatre of hills. 
 This open summit of WhitclifF is the 
 spot for dreaming of all that Ludlow and 
 this wonderful prospect means. For many 
 centuries this breezy site has been the 
 property of the people of Ludlow, for it 
 was given to them so long ago as the 
 thirteenth century, by Jourdan de Ludford, 
 as public ground. 
 
 When the Earl of Bridgewater came 
 there, in 1633, the townsfolk were no 
 doubt gathered in numbers to receive him. 
 The presence of the Lord President, with 
 all his retinue, meant additional prosperity 
 for them, and we can hear the shouts and 
 the church bells that would mingle with 
 the placid tumble of the weir in the river 
 below. No doubt, by Ludford Bridge the 
 earl entered, and ascended the steep road 
 
 23
 
 LUDLOW 
 
 to the Broad Gate, under the archway of 
 which he and his noble retinue gained 
 access to the town. There were then 
 five gates to the town, but this one alone 
 now remains, though it is wholly trans- 
 formed and all built over. Nevertheless, 
 it gives a picturesque aspect to this ap- 
 proach. The street within, rising still 
 upwards to the Cross, with the noble 
 church behind, is still as full of old- 
 world charm as any street in the king- 
 dom. But, in this early seventeenth 
 century, it must have been a wonder 
 indeed. At the head, where all the 
 streets meet, would not then have been 
 the structure that we now call the Butter 
 Cross, built many years later ; but, no 
 doubt, a still earlier and more picturesque 
 Market Cross would at the time stand 
 there. About half a century before (1587) 
 the native poet, Thomas Churchyard, had 
 broken into enthusiasm over his town 
 
 " But further speake, of shiere it is no neede, 
 Save Ludloe now, a towne of noble fame : 
 A goodly seate, where oft the councell lyes, 
 Where monuments are found in auncient guyse : 
 Where kings and queenes in pomp did long abyde, 
 And where God pleasde that good Prince Arthur 
 dyde. 
 
 The towne doth stand most part upon an hill, 
 Built well and fayre with streates both large and 
 
 wide ; 
 
 The houses such, where straungers lodge at will, 
 As long as there the councell lists abide, 
 
 24
 
 THE CASTLE 
 
 Both fine, and cleare the streates are all throughout, 
 With condits cleere and wholesome water springs : 
 And who that lists to walke the towne about, 
 Shall finde therein some rare and pleasant things : 
 But chiefly there the ayre so sweet you have, 
 As in no place ye can no better crave." 
 
 Turning to the left at the Cross (at 
 which point possibly the official burgesses 
 gave greeting to the President), the caval- 
 cade would advance directly to the castle 
 and enter by the great gateway into the 
 yard or outer court as we, too, may do 
 to-day. This is now a large green en- 
 closure, within great walls, and is browsed 
 by sheep. The main buildings occupy the 
 farther corner at the north-west, so that 
 they, on the outside, surmount the rugged 
 limestone rock which drops precipitously 
 to the river, but which has afforded foot- 
 hold for trees that have attained so huge 
 a stature as now to hide the walls. There 
 seems some little doubt as to the actual 
 founding of this magnificent structure, but 
 we traced the historical lines of its growth 
 in the first chapter. It is said to have been 
 built by Roger of Montgomery, that first 
 Earl of Shrewsbury, and was forfeited to 
 the Crown by the attainder of his aspiring 
 son, Robert of Belldme. Inevitably a 
 whole world of history and romance 
 gathers about these ancient stones. For 
 details of all this, I can only refer readers 
 to the excellent books mentioned in the 
 preface. All I can attempt is to give 
 25
 
 LUDLOW 
 
 glimpses of it in vignette, gathered from 
 these books. Here we have before us the 
 principal residence of all those turbulent 
 Norman adventurers who plundered and 
 fought with the Welsh and one another, 
 and to which the various Lords President 
 travelled with their retinue. 
 
 In earlier days, after the first attainder, 
 Henry I. granted it to Fulk de Dinan, 
 who was succeeded by his son, Joce de 
 Dinan, between whom and Sir Hugh de 
 Mortimer, of Wigmore, arose a feud of 
 the true Border type. Sir Joce got pos- 
 session of his enemy, and held him prisoner 
 until he should pay a ransom of three 
 thousand silver marks, as well as his plate, 
 horses, and birds. The tower where 
 Mortimer was confined still bears his 
 name. After the death of Joce de Dinan 
 the castle seems to have been in the hands 
 of the Crown again, till the sixteenth year 
 of King John, when it passed to the Lacy 
 family. Walter de Lacy left as his 
 heiresses two granddaughters : the one, 
 Matilda or Maud, married Geoffrey de 
 Genevile or Joinville. In the Calendar 
 of Patent Rolls, of the Record Series, for 
 the eighth year of King Edward I., 3rd 
 April 1280, 1 find a grant to this Geoffrey, 
 " in aid of his town of Ludelawe," of 
 murage for five years from Easter 
 murage being the right to exact a toll on 
 merchandise and the like, for the purpose 
 26
 
 THE CASTLE 
 
 of keeping in repair the town wall. The 
 grant is renewed at the necessary intervals, 
 but it is interesting to note the change of 
 phraseology. In 1294 it is to Peter de 
 Genevile "for his town"; on 1 6th May 
 1299, however, it is a grant "at the 
 instance of" the said Peter "to the 
 bailiffs and good men of the town of 
 Ludelawe." And so, henceforth j a sign 
 of the slackening of feudal power. 
 
 The co-heiress of Matilda had married 
 one John de Verdun. But the divided 
 inheritance was ultimately reunited as 
 the possession of Roger de Mortimer, Earl 
 of March, the husband of Joan, great- 
 granddaughter of Maud de Genevile. 
 Henceforth Ludlow took the place of 
 Wigmore as the seat of the Mortimers, 
 and here it was that Roger, Earl of March, 
 entertained Edward III. with tourna- 
 ments and other diversions. Through the 
 fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the for- 
 tunes of the Mortimers were of a varied 
 kind, and Ludlow Castle shared them. 
 At length Edmund Mortimer, aged six, 
 became the ward of Henry, Prince of 
 Wales, was taken prisoner by Owen 
 Glendower, served in France, and died 
 as Lord - Lieutenant of Ireland in the 
 twenty-fourth year of his age. It was 
 his cousin Richard, Duke of York, who 
 became his heir, and who made Ludlow 
 Castle his principal place of residence. 
 27
 
 LUDLOW 
 
 This is how Ludlow came to take a 
 leading part in the Wars of the Roses, 
 and to be the centre of the region from 
 which the Yorkist armies were drawn. 
 One of these was hopelessly dispersed at 
 the so-called Rout of Ludford Bridge, 
 and the town, being left a prey to the 
 king's soldiers, was pillaged and burned. 
 As a compensation for its losses Ludlow 
 enjoyed special favour during the reign 
 of the Yorkist kings, and it was from 
 Edward IV. that it received a renewal 
 and enlargement of its charter. 
 
 But we must turn from these historical 
 memories to the actual building before us. 
 Crossing the green Yard or Outer Court 
 we come, as I have said, to the main castle 
 in the north-west corner. It is guarded by 
 a moat, spanned formerly by a drawbridge 
 of course, but now by an overgrown stone 
 bridge of three arches, built by that ener- 
 getic President of Elizabethan times, Sir 
 Henry Sydney, during his long residence 
 here. He made many alterations in the 
 old structure, as even the unlearned in 
 military architecture can discern. The 
 great square keep to the left is the original 
 portion of the castle, and the portal, with 
 the adjoining building, by which we come 
 to the inner court, is plainly seen to be 
 of a very different period. It resembles 
 an Elizabethan manor-house, with its 
 pointed gables and transom windows, and 
 28
 
 THE CASTLE 
 
 forms another part of Sir Henry Sydney's 
 additions. Within the inner court the 
 whole impressiveness of the ancient building 
 strikes us. Around a smaller green enclosure 
 the grey walls rise, and in the midst of it, 
 apart, stands the circular Norman chapel 
 of St. Mary Magdalene. This is said to 
 have been built by the Joce de Dinan 
 already mentioned, in the reign of Henry I. 
 or that of Stephen. It is not of striking 
 beauty only, but of particular interest as 
 one of the two earliest round churches in 
 the kingdom. Behind it, occupying the 
 north side of the court, stands the prin- 
 cipal mass of buildings which contained the 
 hall and the state apartments. Though 
 the main outline is impressively complete, 
 the interior is total ruin. Where Prince 
 Arthur laughed, and where " Comus " was 
 so brilliantly enacted lurk the enchanter's 
 nightshade, nettles, and wild arum, whilst 
 from crannies in the walls around stretch 
 ivy and wallflower, crane's bill and pelli- 
 tory. This, of course, is as an ancient 
 castle should be. We can contemplate 
 the majesty of age without being fretted 
 by the impertinences of present-day life. 
 But, through all the picturesqueness, what 
 squalid horrors sleep amidst the stones of 
 these feudal strongholds. It is as well to 
 realise this as also to exult in the romantic 
 picture. With regard to Ludlow they are 
 abundantly recorded, and any reader wish- 
 
 3 1
 
 LUDLOW 
 
 ing to trace out the dark passages will have 
 no difficulty in finding the clue. Though 
 not, of course, in their lamentable fate, the 
 two princes, children of Edward IV., who 
 were murdered in the Tower, are associated 
 with these walls. It was in 1472 that the 
 king created his eldest son, who was an 
 infant, Prince of Wales and Earl of the 
 County Palatine of Chester, and sent him 
 with his younger brother to the castle of 
 Ludlow. They stayed here whilst their 
 father lived, and the rooms which they are 
 said to have occupied are in the east or 
 right-hand corner of the main buildings. 
 What happened to them when, on their 
 father's death, they were taken to London 
 we all know. But Richard Hunchback's 
 time was short. After him Henry VII. 
 sent his son Arthur, Prince of Wales, to 
 live at Ludlow, and to hold there his 
 Welsh Council. But he died whilst still 
 a boy, and from that time may be dated 
 the change from the "Prince's Council' 1 
 to the " Council in the Marches of Wales," 
 with its regular Lord President and other 
 officials for carrying on its court of juris- 
 diction. The apartment which is called 
 Prince Arthur's Room is at the west or 
 left-hand extremity of the group of main 
 buildings of the inner court. The Great 
 Hall, or Council Room, immediately 
 adjoins it. The ground still slopes upward 
 to what was formerly the entrance to this 
 32
 
 THE CASTLE 
 
 latter. The slope represents several 
 steps of marble which were removed 
 when the castle was dismantled and was 
 quarried for whatever it contained of 
 value. 
 
 In addition to its great architectural in- 
 terest, and to that connected with it as the 
 great Council Chamber, this hall claims 
 the literary distinction of having afforded 
 the first stage for the enactment of Milton's 
 masque, known as " Comus," already re- 
 ferred to. It is amongst the very latest 
 associations of the place, and arose, as I 
 have said, out of the installation of the 
 Earl of Bridgewater as Lord President of 
 the Marches. We have glanced at the 
 pageantry of the earl's approach to his 
 official residence. There was abundance 
 of stately ceremonial. His inaugural hos- 
 pitalities stretched over the greater part of 
 the year 1634. As Dr. Masson says, to 
 the younger members of the family it 
 seemed that the hospitalities would not be 
 complete unless they included some poeti- 
 cal and musical entertainments. The 
 well-known musician, Henry Lawes, was 
 a member of the earl's household as 
 musical teacher, and in all probability 
 it was he that asked young Milton to 
 write the libretto for the occasion. 
 Lawes and his three young pupils (chil- 
 dren of the earl) took prominent parts 
 when it was produced on Michaelmas 
 33 c
 
 LUDLOW 
 
 night, I634. 1 This ruined hall, of which 
 even the floor no longer parts it from 
 the cellar beneath, was brilliant enough 
 that night, and on a sunny day in June 
 you cannot do better than come with 
 your Milton in your pocket and recon- 
 struct the whole scene to your imagination 
 whilst reading his stately verses on the 
 grass to the jocular comment of the 
 jackdaws that flit about the ruined battle- 
 ments above. 
 
 Sucli was one of the lighter aspects of 
 the life that proceeded within these walls. 
 But by those Stuart times much of the 
 need for its more serious side had vanished. 
 It is deplorable to think that nearly all 
 the records of the judicial proceedings of 
 the Council at Ludlow and elsewhere 
 have perished. They must have been 
 numerous and invaluable for the detailed 
 elucidation of the history of this border 
 life. Often two or three hundred cases 
 each term were brought before the Court. 
 In the earlier days of the Council its 
 Acts and Decrees were registered " in 
 faire paper bookes of great volumes fully 
 and at large like as in the Chancery." 
 In the instructions from the Crown, safe- 
 keeping of the records is repeatedly urged, 
 but with little effect, in spite of Sir 
 Henry Sydney's provision of rooms under 
 
 1 For full particulars see Dr. Masson's " Life of 
 Milton," vol. i. 
 
 34
 
 THE CASTLE 
 
 the Court-House for the express purpose. 
 Nevertheless, large numbers survived down 
 to 1642. Perhaps some were destroyed 
 when Sir William Brereton took the 
 Castle in 1646, but there is no mention 
 of the fact. Probably, therefore, the bulk 
 survived till 1689, when the Court was 
 finally abolished, and no doubt perished 
 in the wanton dismantling of the noble 
 edifice, the reports of which so disturb 
 our later historic instincts. 
 
 It is surprising, though, how gradual 
 the actual destruction must have been. 
 In 1708 forty rooms were entire. In 
 1774 "many of the royal apartments 
 were entire, and the sword of state with 
 the velvet hangings was preserved." In 
 the museum at Ludlow is an ancient 
 record or deed chest with three locks, which 
 in the early part of the eighteenth century 
 was filled with tapestry and armour, 
 and conveyed from the castle into St. 
 Lawrence's Church for safety ; but in 
 vain, for even there it was rifled of its 
 contents. A description of the castle 
 (also in the museum) says : " It is not 
 to be wondered that this noble castle is 
 in decay, when we consider that the 
 inhabitants of the neighbourhood live 
 upon the sale of the material." 
 
 Such is the sad record that explains the 
 ruined condition of the place as we now 
 behold it. But it is useless to lament 
 35
 
 LUDLOW 
 
 what has been. Compared with number- 
 less relics of former life we have infinite 
 cause of satisfaction in the ruins of 
 Ludlow Castle. As I have said, it has 
 at least been spared the processes of 
 adaptation to a mode of life for which it 
 
 A WATCH TOWER 
 
 was never formed. It stands a magnificent 
 memorial of a violent and pagan time, 
 when the dignity of life was promoted 
 by the sword rather than by the ledger, 
 and when at least many secrets were im- 
 parted to unregenerate man which we 
 might profitably give some of our later 
 civilisation to recover. Volumes might 
 be written upon the life that has been 
 36
 
 THE CASTLE 
 
 enacted within these walls alone. In 
 glancing at my f;w inadequate words, 
 I regret especially that I could not have 
 given a more distinct glimpse of the long 
 life here of that most distinguished of all 
 Lords President, Sir Henry Sydney. The 
 family name is peculiarly endeared to 
 students alike of letters and of history, 
 and not only the notable public activity, 
 but also the social worth of Sir Henry 
 and his family (of which Sir Philip was 
 one), would well repay a detailed scrutiny. 
 In mere picturesqueness Ludlow Castle 
 cannot easily be surpassed. Whether to 
 the lover of the past or the present, 
 the place offers attractions which no 
 partiality can exaggerate, and which the 
 fuller revelation and examination of 
 details can only deepen and intensify. 
 To those who go to local story mainly 
 for the purposes of intellectual recreation, 
 historical interest and physical beauty of 
 course strongly affect one another, and, 
 where both are combined in a very marked 
 degree, the highest point of topographical 
 charm is reached. 
 
 37
 
 THE BURGESSES 
 
 OUTSIDE those formidable castle 
 walls grew up a life of everyday 
 industry which, though in appearance 
 less romantic, is possibly more full of 
 human interest than the chivalrous pageant 
 at which we have glanced. The growth 
 and development of our various market- 
 towns is a branch of historical inquiry 
 which has only of late years begun to 
 engage attention and still offers an un- 
 bounded field. Our old topographers 
 fancied their duty done when they had 
 laboriously tabulated the devolutions of 
 the feudal manors, and constructed vast 
 areas of more or less mythical genealogical 
 trees. These compilations no longer 
 satisfy us, and what we seek in local 
 history is a sympathetic, as well as 
 scientific, exposition of the growth of the 
 whole community from the days of flint 
 implements until now. It is, of course, 
 only the increasing accessibility of our 
 vast wealth of national records that begins 
 to make such a conception possible. 
 There is little doubt that we shall 
 38
 
 THE BURGESSES 
 
 presently get not only our historical 
 materials sufficiently marshalled, but also 
 our local intelligence so far educated as 
 to enable every locality to set about 
 writing its own history. The work is 
 so vast that, unless it is undertaken in 
 some such co-operative manner, assuredly 
 it can never be begun. 
 
 Even a town like Ludlow, on which so 
 much excellent work has been spent, 
 shows us what there is yet to do. There 
 is an infinite amount of interesting detail 
 to be filled in before we can get anything 
 like a true picture of the life of the place 
 through all the centuries. A casual walk 
 about the town cannot fail to stimulate 
 the curiosity of any visitor, for the streets 
 are full of the picturesque suggestions of 
 far-off days. Though, as I said in a 
 former page, the name Lude takes us back 
 to a time before the Norman, I must not 
 linger over that twilight period. Long 
 before the crest of this limestone hill 
 was girt with the fortified wall which 
 we can still trace, it was used as a place 
 of human settlement. A burial-place of 
 some of the earliest inhabitants lay where 
 the parish church now stands, for it is 
 recorded that in 1199, when the church 
 of that day had to be enlarged, the work- 
 men removed a large mound of earth in 
 which were found relics of interment. 
 This was a barrow of some sort, but of 
 
 39
 
 LUDLOW 
 
 what period we have not sufficient details 
 to decide. Perhaps Caractacus called here 
 when gathering for his last rally on 
 Coxwall Knoll, a few miles westward. 
 Coins were minted here. Some primitive 
 agricultural and industrial life must have 
 gone on, but it is from the strong hand 
 of the Norman that the real organisation 
 of the mercantile life began. 
 
 I have mentioned that William the 
 Conqueror established his cousin William 
 Fitz-Osbern as Earl of Hereford. This 
 mighty soldier was already Duke William's 
 seneschal of Breteuil, in Normandy, and 
 on his settlement in Hereford he intro- 
 duced from thence the mercantile laws 
 and customs that became ultimately 
 known as "The Customs of Hereford." 
 These were extended to Ludlow, Shrews- 
 bury, and other towns which grew up 
 over the Welsh border. Mercantile life 
 was then as rigorously organised as all 
 other branches, and merchants naturally 
 settled in places where the shade of the 
 feudal stronghold afforded a guarantee of 
 their privileges being upheld. As most 
 readers know, this led to the establishment 
 of guilds, or close-companies into which 
 all the trades and crafts were formed, 
 and into which every craftsman had to 
 be admitted before he could pursue his 
 calling. The question of tariffs, protec- 
 tion, and the like were then rigorously 
 40
 
 THE BURGESSES 
 
 and summarily disposed of. Local jealousy 
 was acute, and contests between baron 
 and burgess, guild and borough, were 
 perpetual. It must be remembered that 
 the guild and the borough were distinct. 
 The guildhall was not necessarily the 
 town or moot hall. Influential guilds 
 allowed the town authorities to use their 
 hall for general municipal purposes ; at 
 first occasionally, then more and more 
 frequently, until finally the hall became 
 town property by purchase, gift, or 
 prescriptive possession. Thus at Ludlow 
 the later town hall appears originally to 
 have belonged to a simple social-religious 
 guild that of the Palmers. So late as 
 the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries 
 the tailors, mercers, drapers, cappers, 
 hatters, glovers, and skinners of Ludlow 
 were united in an association which, after 
 1710, was called the Stitchmen. It 
 appears to have had supervision over the 
 whole trade of the town, and continued 
 in existence until 1862. The officers of 
 the society were then six men and two 
 stewards. In the museum at Ludlow 
 are the documents of the Guild of 
 Hammermen, in the original seventeenth- 
 century oak chests, which were presented 
 some years ago by the oldest surviving 
 member of the Guild, Mr. Thomas 
 Cook. 
 
 But of the brotherhood of the Palmers'
 
 LUDLOW 
 
 Guild there are other important relics in 
 the town. Their college, though plain 
 and modernised, stands to the west of the 
 churchyard, and Mr. Oliver Baker gives 
 some interesting details observed by him 
 during structural alterations some years 
 ago, and which he ineffectually endea- 
 voured to save from destruction. In 
 illustration of the history of the fraternity 
 Mr. Baker gives the following extract from 
 Leland's "Itinerary": "This church (of 
 Ludlow) hath been much advanced by a 
 brotherhood, therein founded in the name 
 of St. John the Evangelist. The original 
 thereof was (as the people say there) in 
 the time of King Edward the Confessor, 
 and it is constantly affirmed there that the 
 Pilgrims that brought the Ring from be- 
 yond the sea as a token from St. John the 
 Evangelist to King Edward were the 
 inhabitants of Ludlow. This Fraternity 
 hath a Guardian chosen annually among 
 the burgesses, and to this college belong 
 nine or ten Priests, partly found by endow- 
 ment of landes, partly by gathering the 
 devotion of the people about there. And 
 these Priests have a fair house at the west 
 end of the Paroche Churche yard, and by 
 it an hospital or almshouse for thirty poor 
 folks for the most part and sometimes 
 more, maintained partly by the Fraternity 
 and partly by money given for obbits of 
 men buried there in the church." Of the 
 42
 
 THE BURGESSES 
 
 legend of the Pilgrims and the Ring I will 
 say more when we make our survey of the 
 parish church. As a sample of the en- 
 dowment of the priests I may give an 
 extract from the Calendar of Patent Rolls 
 for 27th May 1292, when a licence is 
 granted for alienation in mortmain by 
 Henry Pygyn of 535. 4d. rent in Lodelowe 
 to a chaplain celebrating divine service in 
 the church of St. Lawrence, Ludelowe. 
 But this fraternity touched the town on its 
 social and religious side rather than its 
 mercantile. The relationship with the 
 burgesses, however, must have been more 
 than nominal, not only through the annual 
 Guardian chosen from the latter, but also 
 from the fact previously referred to of the 
 town authorities enjoying the use of the 
 Guildhall of the Fraternity. 
 
 In the thirty-fifth year of Henry III. the 
 burgesses of Ludelawe are complained of 
 as selling merchandise in Montgomery 
 against the latter's charter and buying 
 things not permitted to be bought away. 
 In 1273 are granted licences to export 
 wool, twenty sacks apiece, to Thomas 
 Eylich, merchant of Lodelowe, Thomas 
 de Langeford, Philip de Wygemor, and 
 Laurence Colet, also all merchants of the 
 same place, and on the 8th June 1274, to 
 Nicholas Alriche "to trade in wool or 
 other goods as usual within the realm, and 
 he is not to be molested by reason of the 
 
 43
 
 LUDLOW 
 
 late prohibition against the exportation of 
 wool without the realm on condition that 
 he do not take them without the realm 
 or to the use of Flemings or others of the 
 power of the COUK ?ss of Flanders during 
 the present contention." I cannot multiply 
 such extracts here, and only give them to 
 afford vivid glimpses of the establishment 
 of the town at that early date. We get 
 interesting examples, too, of how the 
 armies were recruited in those days, records 
 like the following being not uncommon : 
 " Pardon (by reason of his service in Scot- 
 land) to Richard le Leche of Ludelawe for 
 robbery from the Abbot of Mirivall in 
 the county of Warwick, also for many 
 other robberies, and of his abjuration of 
 the realm for the said robberies." 
 
 It is not surprising to find that a Guild 
 of Fletchers (or Arrow-makers) flourished 
 in so warlike a district as Ludlow. The 
 north transept of the parish church is 
 called the Fletchers' Chancel, and was the 
 gift of that company. If visitors will look 
 at the point of the gable of this part of the 
 building, they will see an arrow there 
 standing upright from its point. But tradi- 
 tion gives a better explanation of the mark. 
 By the racecourse, some two miles away, 
 is a hillock called " Robin Hood's Butt," 
 and it is here that the famous archer stood 
 to shoot at Ludlow church-tower. But 
 he fell short of his mark for once, and the 
 44
 
 THE BURGESSES 
 
 arrow stuck in the gable of the north 
 transept. Ecce signum. 
 
 In examining the burgess life of Ludlow it 
 is unfortunate that thevaluable body of town 
 documents has never been even calendared, 
 not to say printed at large, as so precious a 
 collection demands, if it were only to save 
 them from the chances of time. We are 
 apt to think our historical documents fairly 
 safe in what we rather too securely call 
 these days of enlightenment, but that we 
 may be over confident is proved, to go no 
 further, by an examination of the volume, 
 entitled "Shropshire Parish Documents,"" 
 issued by the County Council. We here 
 find that even yet a sub-committee of a 
 Parish Council, deputed a year or two ago 
 to put its papers in order, can report that 
 it found a quantity of material for parish 
 history (stretching over nearly a century 
 previous to 1864) valueless, and " these we 
 destroyed." The papers subsequent to this 
 being preserved as, no doubt, of rateable 
 importance. The dangers of such mis- 
 judgment would be very greatly reduced 
 if, at least, every county authority would 
 forthwith follow the admirable example 
 of Shropshire, and issue a detailed report 
 like this upon the documents surviving in 
 all the parishes within its jurisdiction. 
 
 No place could offer better material for 
 a full study of a mediaeval town than Lud- 
 low. The reconstruction of the life of 
 45
 
 LUDLOW 
 
 those various craftsmen, and their relation- 
 ship to the inmates of the great castle, of 
 the Carmelite Monastery by Corve Gate, 
 of the Friary of St. Austin's outside Gal- 
 deford, the Hospital of St. John Baptist by 
 Ludford Bridge, and their intercourse with 
 the pilgrims who rested at Barnaby House, 
 just below the Grammar School in Mill 
 Street, not to mention a score of other 
 matters, would fill a volume of wondrous 
 interest. This may be called the indigen- 
 ous story in contradistinction to the wider 
 range that its association with the Council 
 of the Marches brings it. But, of course, 
 all was interwoven. We have already had 
 glimpses of the effect of the castle upon 
 the place. The association became yet 
 more intimate from the fact that several 
 members of the Council built themselves 
 houses in the town. In the Elizabethan 
 time we are told of the " fayre house by 
 the gate, of the making of Justice Walter " 
 (whose tomb is in the parish church) ; of 
 the " fayre house that Maister Secretarie 
 Foxe did bestowe great charges on" ; of one 
 Mr. Townesend, also, that " hath a fayre 
 house at Saint Austin's, once a friarie." 
 
 In comparatively later times, 4th Novem- 
 ber 1616, we have a vivid picture of the 
 town at a time of festival ready to our hand. 
 This is preserved for us by Clive in his 
 " History of Ludlow," and consists of a 
 contemporary narrative by David Powel, 
 46
 
 THE BURGESSES 
 
 of the ceremonies that took place in " the 
 creation of the high and mighty Charles, 
 Prince of Wales and Earle of Chester, in 
 his maiesties Palace of White-hall." The 
 Lord President, Lord Eure, and three of his 
 Councillors, were attending his Majesty in 
 London, but at the local pageant were 
 present the Chief- Justice of Chester, Sir 
 Thomas Chamberlaine, with his colleagues 
 Sir Thomas Cornewall, High Sheriff of 
 Shropshire, and Mr. Thomas Harley, be- 
 sides the solicitor and attorney attending 
 the Council, and many gentlemen from the 
 neighbourhood. The celebration began 
 by affixing the arms, name, and style of the 
 prince under the pulpit in St. Lawrence's 
 Church, in the Castle Chapel, and in the 
 Council-house ; also on the town gates 
 and High Cross, and the principal posts and 
 pillars of the market-place. About nine 
 o'clock (early for November) a procession 
 came up to the castle to escort the Justice 
 and Council to church the bailiffs, magis- 
 trates, and chief brethren, very richly clad 
 and apparelled, with the officers and the 
 church choir, and six of the free scholars 
 bearing pennons of the prince's arms. Be- 
 fore them went the town waits ; and the pro- 
 cession was headed by two hundred soldiers 
 with halberds, pikes, corslets, muskets, 
 and calivers. On the castle green they 
 met the Justice in his scarlet robes, and 
 the other councillors, counsellors-at-law, 
 
 49 D
 
 LUDLOW 
 
 attorneys, clerks, officers of the castle, and 
 other gentlemen. These were all very 
 richly apparelled, and had " another com- 
 pany of waits and good consorts of musicke, 
 as cornets, sagbuts, and other winde instru- 
 ments playing and sounding all along the 
 way before them. 1 " Hereupon the mus- 
 keteers discharged a volley, "to the great 
 admiration and much rejoicing of all the 
 spectators " ; and then the procession starts 
 for the church, where another volley was 
 discharged. Divine service is gone through, 
 and "one M. Thomas Pierson, a grave 
 reverent divine and worthy Preacher, made 
 a very learned sermon of an houre and halfe 
 long." As the company came out into 
 the market-place they passed by a scaffold 
 near the High Cross, from which the 
 scholars in turn delivered verses composed 
 for the occasion. Those in Latin were 
 " principally invented and made by the 
 painful Industrie of that iudicious and 
 laborious maister of Artes, Humfrey Her- 
 bert,ChiefeSchoole maister of HisMaiestie^s 
 Free Schoole there, upon one daye's warn- 
 ing." The others in English were contri- 
 buted by a worthy alderman of the town, 
 Master Richard Fisher. After the scholars 
 had received applause for their " gracious 
 boldnesse in delivering their speeches," 
 the procession passed to the court-house, 
 where the Justice delivered an oration in 
 praise of the prince. At the conclusion of 
 50
 
 THE BURGESSES 
 
 the speech " the Musick played, Drums 
 were strucke, Flutes whistled, Trumpets 
 sounded, people showted, and another pierc- 
 ing and Thundering Volley of shot was let 
 flie, the eccho and report whereof resounded 
 admirably to the great solace and comfort 
 of all present." 
 
 This brought them to one o'clock, and 
 the Justice and Council, with the knights, 
 esquires, and best sort of gentlemen, went 
 to dine in the castle. The bailiffs and 
 burgesses went down to the town to spend 
 the rest of the day " in all joyful! and 
 ioviall manner." After the castle dinner 
 the bailiffs again appeared with the choir, 
 pennon -bearers, and waits, for evening 
 service in the castle chapel. At its con- 
 clusion the scholars offered up their pen- 
 nons to the Justice, who ordered them to 
 be placed in the chapel as mementoes of 
 the day. The bailiffs and their company 
 then took leave of the Council, and next 
 day they celebrated the deliverance of 
 king, queen, prince, and parliament from 
 " the Papists' treasonable and horrible con- 
 spiracie and unmatchable intended Practise 
 of the Gunne - powder Treason." A 
 sermon was preached by the chaplain in 
 attendance on the Lord President and 
 Council, " which Sermon being ended, 
 every man returned to their homes, the 
 Musicke, Ringing, and Bone-fires con- 
 tinuing, to the great comfort of all his
 
 LUDLOW 
 
 Maiestie's said loving and faithfull Subjects 
 all the said day." 
 
 Miss Skeel gives some interesting ex- 
 tracts from the Borough MSS., further 
 illustrating the connection of the Council 
 with the town, but I can only find room 
 for one or two graphic glimpses of male- 
 factors. Orders came from the castle for 
 the bailiffs to proceed to the castle lodge 
 and receive prisoners who were to be set in 
 the pillory or whipped in the market-place. 
 Once the bailiffs were ordered to set in 
 the stocks John Clenche " for stealinge of 
 our pewter out of o r Castle of Ludlowe." 
 He was to be set in the stocks in the 
 midst of the market-place, with one of 
 his legs through the same, and a pewter 
 dish about his neck hanging before him, 
 and remain thus from eleven in the fore- 
 noon till one in the afternoon. Another 
 order directs the bailiffs to whip out of 
 the town as a rogue and vagabond a man 
 who "alleadgng himself to be deafe, and 
 upon pretence of suites in lawe before 
 o r said Councell, is fallen utterlie to neclect 
 the honest course of lief whereby he hath 
 bin and still is able to mayntayne himself, 
 abusing also the late charitie here bestowed 
 upon him and geving himself to nothing 
 but ydlenes and lewd and evill speeches, 
 to the evill example of others and utter 
 rapine of himself if" he be longer suffered 
 in this disordered course." 
 52
 
 THE BURGESSES 
 
 These, then, are glimpses of the varying 
 life that the ancient streets of Ludlow have 
 witnessed before settling down to the more 
 or less quiet routine of the present day. 
 Of course, many circumstances of situation 
 and history have imparted to it an excep- 
 tional measure of picturesqueness and in- 
 terest, but, if varying slightly in degree, 
 there is not a parish in the land that has 
 not its individual charm, and, as I have 
 said elsewhere on many occasions, there 
 lies in this neglected material a great force 
 to be turned to account in the task of re- 
 animating our country districts. What 
 more enjoyable (and withal edifying) 
 recreation could be proposed for Ludlow 
 on a wide scale than the organisation of 
 an historic pageant such as Sherborne has 
 so lately shown us ? In the castle grounds 
 is an ideal stage, and, unless I have failed 
 utterly in the object of these few pages, it 
 is not necessary to speak of the dramatic 
 possibilities of its history. We need not 
 undertake it with a view to attracting the 
 whole world. The essential value will be 
 as great if quite simply done, for the object 
 is the living realisation of local story so 
 that it may add the radiance of imagina- 
 tion to our life of the present day. It is 
 surely no cynicism to say that it has sore 
 need of the stimulus, and few will doubt 
 that the mission lies with just such places 
 as Ludlow. No local story is a private 
 53
 
 LUDLOW 
 
 possession, for the reason that it can never 
 be separated from a wide sphere of action ; 
 but certainly one of its best and strongest 
 influences must lie in the promotion of 
 genuine local attachments. Except as 
 the effect of mere listless habit, such 
 attachment grows weaker daily from the 
 fact of our interest being sought in cos- 
 mopolitan sources. It is from this that 
 the pernicious custom has grown up of 
 regarding local things as petty and pro- 
 vincial. The scope of any interest is 
 determined wholly by a point of view. 
 If we can regard our own street and 
 neighbour with a proper relation to the 
 nation and to the universe at large, there 
 is no possibility of our interests in those 
 homely topics proving narrow or pro- 
 vincial, and assuredly we may have a 
 consummate acquaintance with every 
 feature of the globe without of necessity 
 gaining any broad or enlightening opinions 
 therefrom. 
 
 That I have exhausted my space in a 
 retrospective survey of the town does not 
 mean that it lacks present interests. It is 
 full of such, whether we regard the actual 
 life or the structural beauty of the place. 
 The streets, as they stand, consist mainly 
 of the quaint and delightful old houses and 
 business places that the ancient burgesses 
 built for themselves. Indeed, where there 
 is apparent alteration, it is frequently but 
 54
 
 THE BURGESSES 
 
 superficial, being the result of plastering 
 over the face and woodwork of some over- 
 hanging gable, and such as the revival of 
 historic or aesthetic enterprise could even 
 yet remove. It might almost be said that 
 most of the houses have still their antique 
 internal appointments in a wonderful state 
 of preservation, and it is to be hoped that 
 the more general diffusion of taste may 
 prevent the danger of further needless 
 destruction. 
 
 55
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 IN surveying ancient churches or monas- 
 tic remains we generally regard them 
 as objects of aesthetic or archaeological in- 
 terest instead of tangible fragments of actual 
 life. This is to lose the real interest of 
 the structures. Nobody would ignore the 
 value of the artistic instinct, but when 
 this is dissociated from what is too com- 
 monly called the literary sense, it becomes 
 as injurious as any other too exclusive 
 habit of mind. Religious edifices were 
 just as much an outcome of the daily 
 actual life of our forefathers as the Guild- 
 hall, the Butter Cross, or the beautiful 
 domestic building which we now know as 
 the " Feathers Hotel." It is unfortunate 
 in topography that objects of interest have 
 to be taken separately at all. To realise 
 the full interest of a place we want, so to 
 speak, its biography, an advancing ac- 
 count of its growth and structure in which 
 all characteristics are duly blended to the 
 formation of a congruous whole. This is 
 especially needful to-day, when we have 
 lost so much of the art of blending in 
 56
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 actual life. We think of our civic life, 
 our commercial life, our religious life, as 
 things almost dissociated and apart, instead 
 of all essential stones in a single structure, 
 or, to better our metaphor, as indispensable 
 limbs of one body. We know very well 
 that these various limbs in former days 
 frequently had terrible quarrels, even as 
 they do now, but the very contention only 
 emphasised the union, whereas now we 
 are very content to quarrel and finally 
 part. 
 
 If I had had the art to do it, therefore, 
 the religious life of old Ludlow would have 
 found as appropriate a place in the chapter 
 of the burgesses as in one to itself. The 
 mention of the Palmers' Guild, indeed, 
 might have helped me to the accomplish- 
 ment, for this Fraternity here had a pecu- 
 liarly unifying effect upon the life of the 
 town. I quoted Leland's account of the 
 " originall thereof," but we will now look 
 more fully into the sources of the society. 
 Most of us are familiar with the general 
 character of a palmer, if only through the 
 services of Sir Walter Scott. He was the 
 palmiger, or palm- bearer, who had per- 
 formed his pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre, 
 and had returned or was returning home 
 after the fulfilment of his vow. He ob- 
 tained his name from the custom of carry- 
 ing branches of the Oriental palm in token 
 of his expedition. His first duty on arriving 
 
 57
 
 LUDLOW 
 
 at his destination was to repair to the 
 church to return thanks to God and to 
 offer the palm to the priest to be placed 
 upon the altar. There is a pretty legend 
 to account for the first association of the 
 palmers with Ludlow, which is depicted 
 in the glass of the east window of St. 
 John^s Chapel in the parish church. This 
 Legend of the Ring tells how King Edward 
 the Confessor, having no coin to relieve an 
 old man who asked him alms, gave him a 
 valuable ring. Some time afterwards the 
 same ring was given to some pilgrims from 
 Ludlow in the Holy Land by an old man, 
 who told them he was John the Baptist, 
 and who charged them to re-deliver it to 
 King Edward as a token that his death 
 would shortly come. The impressive 
 mission was fulfilled, and no doubt the 
 travellers returned home to Ludlow very 
 devout and thoughtful men. Of the 
 establishment of the consequent guild we 
 have no historical account. The earliest 
 existing document is said to go back to the 
 reign of Henry III. or John, and this con- 
 tains evidence of a guild still earlier than 
 that. That it became influential and 
 wealthy is obvious enough. The Guild- 
 hall of the town (entirely rebuilt) was, as 
 already stated, the property of this brother- 
 hood. It added St. John's Chapel to the 
 parish church, and raised it to the collegiate 
 dignity. The actual college of the Fra- 
 58
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 ternity stands on the west side of the 
 churchyard. In addition to all this the 
 Grammar School of the town is of the 
 Guild's institution and endowment. It is 
 significant of the altered current of life to 
 notice that, although this company was not 
 included in the Dissolution of Henry VIII., 
 in the reign of Edward VI. it was sur- 
 rendered to the Crown on condition of its 
 being handed over to the corporation for 
 the same charitable purposes as those for 
 which it had always been maintained. 
 The manuscripts relating to this transac- 
 tion are among the town records, from 
 which we learn that "all suche burgages, 
 messuages, lands, tenements, wooddes, and 
 all other hereditaments what soe ever " 
 belonging to " the guylde or fraternitie of 
 palmers of our Ladye in Ludlow," were 
 granted to "the bayliffes, burgessis, and 
 commonaltie," on condition that they 
 "alwayes finde in the same towne, at 
 their own charges, a free grammar schole, 
 with a schoolmaster and an hussher for 
 the erudicion of youth in the Latine 
 tonge, and also xxxiij poore and impotent 
 people, every one of them to have a 
 chamber and iiijs. a week, and alsoe on 
 honeste learned man to preache Goddes 
 word, which shall be named the preacher 
 of the towne of Ludlowe, and on honeste 
 and discrete minister to assist the parson 
 in the ministracion of the devine sacra- 
 59
 
 LUDLOW 
 
 mentes and service there, wich shall be 
 called the assistant to the parson." Truly 
 the good Palmers justified their pious ex- 
 istence, and they will remain amongst the 
 most vivid of the figures with which we 
 people these ancient streets. 
 
 The history of the parish church, which 
 they did so much to magnify, has to be 
 read in the structure as it stands. We 
 have no record of the date of the original 
 building. If there was one before the 
 Normans, we do not know it. We have 
 that interesting record which the old 
 traveller, Leland, got from a document he 
 found in the monastery at Cleobury Mor- 
 timer, and which a monk there copied for 
 him, to the effect that in 1199 the people 
 of Ludlow found it necessary to enlarge 
 their church, and in doing so disturbed 
 the barrow or tumulus to which reference 
 has already been made. The site itself is 
 a magnificent one, and the edifice well 
 worthy of its position. It is situated in a 
 line with the castle, to the eastward of the 
 latter, and on the northern edge of the 
 hill of rock upon which the whole town 
 stands. At this north-west corner the 
 hill offers a precipitous front, and what 
 now affords us a situation of the utmost 
 picturesqueness, naturally recommended 
 itself to an earlier time, as a post of some 
 strategic importance. If we take any of 
 the narrow pathways between the houses 
 60
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 that conduct us from the streets into the 
 cloistral calm of the churchyard and pass 
 round to the terrace on the north side, 
 the full effect of this is very impressive. 
 Leaning on the parapet of the wall, which 
 is the old town wall, and which drops here 
 many feet, we get an unbroken prospect 
 across the dales of Teme, Onny, and 
 Corve, from the Welsh hills in the west, 
 round Long Mynd, Wenlock Edge, and 
 Caer Caradoc, to the bold Clee headland 
 in the extreme east. The vale before us 
 seems from here to offer an extensive and 
 comparatively flat landscape, but if you 
 traverse it you find how deceptive this 
 appearance has been. The delightful old 
 villages that are scattered amongst the 
 woods and fields of its surface are hidden 
 from one another by undulations and irregu- 
 larities of all sorts, offering varieties of soil 
 and situation which afford not only the 
 charm of outline, but foster a multitude of 
 birds and flowers not possible to unifor- 
 mity. Turning our backs on all this we 
 see the stately structure of the church in 
 all its majesty. Differences of age in 
 various parts of it will strike even the 
 casual eye, but its gradual growth through 
 several centuries is only to be traced by 
 the architectural enthusiast. The out- 
 lines of this I will borrow freely from 
 Mr. Baker. The main body he attributes 
 to that Early English time, the actual date 
 61
 
 LUDLOW 
 
 of which Leland's record preserves for us. 
 Of the Norman structure only the font 
 and questionable bits of wall remain. The 
 early part of the fourteenth century, when 
 the Palmers' Guild obtained formal recog- 
 nition, is the probable date of the decorated 
 alterations and additions, namely, the north 
 aisle, porch, portions of the chapels, the 
 south transept, reredos, and parts of the 
 stalls. The next alteration, late in the 
 fourteenth century, would probably be 
 the building of the north transept by the 
 Fletchers, or arrow-makers, whose name 
 is still connected with it, and whose badge, 
 as already said, it bears on the gable. 
 And when the town flourished so much 
 through the favour of Edward IV., the 
 tower was rebuilt, as we now see it 
 (thoroughly restored, 1889-91), together 
 with the nave and greater part of the 
 building, including all the roofs. About 
 this time, probably, the screen, stalls, 
 vestry, and many windows were also 
 added. 
 
 Such is the brief chronicle of dates. No 
 doubt many, who none the less feel the 
 impressiveness of the situation, will not 
 trouble themselves much about them. 
 They don't help greatly to the real under- 
 standing of the spot, and it is quite pos- 
 sible to engross oneself in such matters of 
 fact without realising other aspects quite 
 as, if not more, important. In many ways 
 62
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 a parish church is more solemn than a 
 cathedral, and in walking round the quiet 
 enclosure here, hemmed in by houses but 
 for that wonderful outlook to the north, 
 the simple dignity of the life suggested has 
 a very profound effect. It is a pity that 
 in the external appearance one has so 
 much to regret. The west side, occupied 
 by the Palmers' College and the ancient 
 almshouse, a true " harbour of refuge," 
 ought to, and might, have been as striking 
 yet to the eye as they are to the imagina- 
 tion. But, unfortunately, both have in 
 evil times been needlessly destroyed archi- 
 tecturally. When so many ancient relics 
 linger unharmed in the streets, it is 
 peculiarly sad that these should have 
 suffered a meaningless transformation. 
 They went back to a very distant day, 
 and would have been a precious accom- 
 paniment to the noble church and to the 
 beautiful old house that has fortunately 
 survived on the east side of the square. 
 Of a much more recent date, this latter, 
 called the Reader's house, is one of the 
 best features of domestic architecture in 
 the town. The black woodwork of its 
 face, elaborately carved from top to 
 bottom, will scarcely escape any eye in 
 search of the picturesque. Artists object 
 to our moralising on such objects, but it 
 is hard not to do so. When we see a 
 very different class of architecture illus- 
 63
 
 LUDLOW 
 
 trating, and associated in character with, 
 a very definite phase of life, it is hardly 
 possible to escape the conclusion that there 
 must have been some natural affinity, also, 
 between the stability, the beauty, and the 
 dignity of these ancient buildings and the 
 human existence of their times. It was not 
 in the effort only to realise a religious ideal 
 that beauty and dignity were evolved. 
 Every cottage and homestead, every mar- 
 ket-cross and burgher's counting-house, 
 was reared in so sublime a form that all 
 our later aspirations find their best expres- 
 sion only in our attempts to copy them. 
 
 Whether tenable or not, we can be none 
 the worse for taking such thoughts with us 
 into the church from the peaceful quad- 
 rangle outside. The solemn interior fulfils 
 all the outward promise. From its having 
 been collegiate this church has much of 
 the ornate detail of a cathedral, and will 
 amply repay close examination. Aisles, 
 transepts, chapels, and choir, all are full of 
 historical and architectural interest which 
 has been carefully and sympathetically 
 shown by Mr. Oliver Baker. Perhaps one 
 is rather disappointed in the tombs, there 
 being none of very early date. The only 
 pre-Reformation one consists of a group of 
 five Gothic arches in a corner of the north 
 aisle. Tradition appropriates this to Prince 
 Arthur, the son of Henry VII., and whose 
 association with Ludlow we noticed in our 
 64
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 survey of the castle. But in any case only 
 a portion of his remains lay here, for we 
 know that his body was embalmed and 
 carried to Worcester, in the cathedral of 
 which city his principal tomb now stands. 
 All the other monuments of note are to 
 various members of the Council and their 
 
 A BYWAY 
 
 ladies, and we look in vain for any memorial 
 of the opulent merchants whose bones lie 
 mouldering here. Mr. Baker explains the 
 absence of early tombs by the probability 
 of burials in the churches of the monastic 
 bodies which were stationed by the town, 
 and to which I shall presently refer. Of 
 these, unfortunately, all visible remains 
 have vanished. 
 
 65 E
 
 LUDLOW , 
 
 In addition to these monuments, we get 
 from the churchwardens' accounts further 
 glimpses of the association of the Council 
 with the parish church. These, it is true, 
 refer chiefly to the upholstery part of 
 worship, but this has its perennial import- 
 ance, and possesses even now a distinct 
 human interest. It was fitting that the 
 Lord President, his lady, and retinue should 
 be properly accommodated when they at- 
 tended divine worship here, we accord- 
 ingly find that in 1607 it was necessary to 
 expend a sum of 175. 5d. on "a walnut 
 boorde to make the dext in my laddy 
 Ewer's pew," for a plank to enlarge the 
 pew door, for five yards of " fflanders bayes 
 and Inckell to put abought my Ladyes 
 seate," for " matting in the gentlewomen's 
 pew," for a " mat and a tumpe for my 
 ladyes pewe," and for a lock and key. 
 Spelling in the old days was never a strong 
 point, but it may be mentioned that in 
 1610, the wardens frankly state the case 
 in these accounts thus, " It : for writing 
 and castinge of these bokes wee beynge 
 illyterate." In the same year IDS. was 
 spent on the Lord President's pew for 
 " Bayes, Incle, Tacks and Workeman- 
 shipp," as well as 4d. for a mat to lie under 
 his seat in the high chancel. In 1619 
 was paid i6d. for " matts and tumps for 
 my lord and the counsell pewes," and 8d. 
 for " doees heare for stuffing the countise 
 66
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 pew." Such items might be multiplied, 
 as well as disbursements to the bell-ringers 
 for various causes, but these are enough as 
 samples. Just one more of interest, how- 
 ever, at the time of the Restoration, when 
 Griffith Edwards received 2OS. for " newe 
 Lyminge (limning) the King^s Armes 
 w ch were washt out in the late warres." 
 
 Very much of various kinds was washed 
 out in those same late wars as well as the 
 King's Arms the President and whole 
 Council of the Marches for one thing, 
 after Sir William Brereton, encamped up 
 there on Whitcliff, had taken possession 
 of castle and town for the Parliament. 
 We know that the ceremonies of religion 
 were radically interfered with, and no 
 doubt Ludlow shared the experiences of 
 other places. Pepys, in his Diary, gives us 
 plain glimpses of this in his graphic way. 
 For instance, on the Jth October 1660, 
 he finds it worth noting: "After dinner 
 to the Abbey, where I heard them read 
 the church-service, but very ridiculously. 
 A poor cold sermon of Dr. Lamb's, one of 
 the prebends, in his habitt." And again on 
 the 4th of the next month : "In the morn 
 to our own church, where Mr. Mills did 
 begin to nibble at the Common Prayer 
 by saying * Glory be to the Father, &c.,' 
 after he had read the two psalms : but 
 the people had been so little used to it 
 that they could not tell what to answer. 
 67
 
 LUDLOW 
 
 . . . .After dinner to Westminster, where I 
 went to the Abbey, where the first time 
 that ever I heard the organs in a cathedral." 
 Though Pepys was then twenty-eight 
 years of age. Presumably, Ludlow organs 
 had also long been silent, although the 
 church had from of old been furnished 
 with so profane an addition to worship, for 
 there is an interesting entry in the Leo- 
 minster churchwardens 1 accounts for the 
 year 1613, to this effect : "Item, paid to 
 the organ player of Ludlow for his paines 
 to come to see the organes, xvjd." 
 
 But, though we naturally associate the 
 town life mainly with their stately parish 
 church, there were several other houses of 
 devotion which must have exercised their 
 influence also on the place. The castle, 
 as we have seen, had its own unrivalled 
 Norman chapel. Just beside its walls, by 
 Dinham Gate, was also another little 
 chapel of Early English date, of which 
 nothing, however, is known, but which 
 still stands, though reduced to lay uses. 
 There was the Hospital of St. John the 
 Baptist by Ludford Bridge, the great flood 
 of 1886 having swept away the last relic 
 of their property which had till then 
 lingered there in the shape of a ruined 
 fulling mill. Leland says : " On the 
 North syde of the brydge, in ripa sinistra 
 Teme, a Church of St. John standing 
 without Broad Gate, sometime a College 
 68
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 with a Dean and fellows, of one Jordan's 
 foundation." And Tanner, in his Notitia, 
 adds that this seems to be " the Hospital 
 for a Prior, Warden or Master, which one 
 Peter Undergod, in the latter end of the 
 reign of John, built to the honour of the 
 Trinity, St. Mary, and St. John the Baptist, 
 valued at the Dissolution at 13, 33. 3d. 
 The Warden and brethren ought, as it is 
 sayd, to discharge ye cure and say divine 
 service in ye king's chapell of Saynt Peter 
 within ye Castell of Ludlow." Nothing 
 now actually remains but the name, St. 
 John's Close, to remind us of this pious 
 settlement. Nobody is likely to disregard 
 the beauty of the situation where the 
 river Teme passes smoothly under the 
 ancient bridge between the two weirs, 
 whose constant murmur forms so insepar- 
 able a part of the landscape. On one side 
 the slope up to Broad Gate, the main south 
 entrance to the town, and on the other 
 the ancient gables of Ludford and the 
 bank of trees that sweeps round by Whit- 
 cliff to complete the semicircle opposite 
 the castle, and which holds the town hill 
 almost like a shell its kernel. There is 
 a path by the riverside, right round this 
 curve from Ludford bridge, coming out at 
 the bridge by Dinham just at the foot of 
 the castle rock. If we take this way, and, 
 after crossing the latter bridge, instead of 
 climbing up to Dinham Gate, keep to the 
 69
 
 LUDLOW 
 
 low road by the flour mill, we pass right 
 under the towering castle and rock, now 
 hidden in trees, and can see for ourselves the 
 natural defences on this side of the Lude- 
 law. With castle and church crowning the 
 precipice on our right, we join a lane 
 called Linney, which leaves the town wall 
 and strikes into the level meadows to the 
 north. A few minutes will bring us to 
 the site of the Carmelite monastery, of 
 which there are virtually no remains. Its 
 place is occupied by the Church of St. 
 Leonard and its burial-ground, standing 
 at the bottom of Corve Street, the broad 
 highway into Corvedale from this northern 
 face of the town. But even so late as 
 Leland this monastery was "a fair and 
 costly thing, without Corv-gate by the 
 north." Ascending to this same Corve 
 Gate, of which, however, no vestige re- 
 mains, we are again in the town at the point 
 where Old Street and Galdeford meet. If 
 we turn down the latter, a gradual descent 
 brings us to the old cattle market, now a 
 disordered and untidy waste. Here stood 
 the Priory of Austin Friars, of which the 
 foundations were discovered when the 
 cattle-market was made. That the house 
 was established at any rate by 22nd Feb- 
 ruary 1284 is shown by the following, 
 which I find in the Calendar of Patent 
 Rolls under that date : " Licence for the 
 Prior and Augustinian Friars of Ludelawe 
 70
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 to enclose with a wall or hedge a lane 
 running from a messuage late of John le 
 Hore in a street called Olde Street to a 
 street called Galdeford adjoining the area 
 of the said prior and brethren in the 
 suburb of Ludelawe." But prior and 
 friars, with every vestige of their retreat, 
 have gone, and, if truth be told, the scene 
 of their devotions remains at the present 
 day the most unattractive spot in the 
 neighbourhood of Ludlow. 
 
 This conflict of past and present comes 
 constantly to the mind in dealing with 
 our beautiful places. It is a wide and 
 vital question, going far beyond fastidious 
 aestheticism from which it is generally pre- 
 sumed to rise. The unbridled riot of an 
 industrial century has brought upon us 
 such confusion, and so many grave pro- 
 blems of national economics and character, 
 that it is advisable to attack the matter 
 upon every opportunity that offers. One 
 of the objects of this series of little books 
 is to bring before the mind the beautiful 
 corners of our land. It is not possible to 
 look at these without seeing that, if in- 
 teresting at all, they are also edifying, and 
 that as an open and universal source of 
 national education it is a public duty to 
 preserve such beauty as is left to us, and 
 upon every possible opportunity restore 
 some of that which has been lost. One 
 of the greatest charms, and a great part of 
 
 7 1
 
 LUDLOW 
 
 the value of Ludlow and its neighbour- 
 hood lies just in this, that it has hitherto 
 received comparatively so little injury. 
 It is surely the first obvious duty of its 
 inhabitants now to see that it does not 
 receive more. We talk daily of the need 
 of reanimating our country places, socially 
 and economically, but we may be quite 
 sure that no lasting restoration can take 
 place without the aid of attractiveness and 
 beauty. If there is any lesson to be had 
 from Ludlow it is this, whether we regard 
 its civil, religious, or military existence. 
 It may be said that beauty may be 
 exaggerated through the hallowing of age. 
 But age cannot hallow anything originally 
 ignoble. Will the dilapidated relics of 
 our industrial age be picturesque in ruin ? 
 
 7 2
 
 STOKESAY AND THE NEIGHBOURHOOD 
 
 IF we leave Ludlow by any of the five 
 ancient gates, only one of which, as I 
 have said, has any kind of representative 
 to-day, the prospect before us is one of 
 endless charm. Each road leads out into 
 an unsullied country, consisting of every 
 variety of lane and meadow, common and 
 woodland, river and hill. Whatever our 
 mood, whether for broom and gorse in the 
 open, fern and foxglove in the deepest shade, 
 reed and meadow-sweet and water-lily in 
 river or pool, or even bilberry and heath 
 on the wind-swept crag of the sky-line, all 
 can be humoured, and humoured, moreover, 
 in a short ramble of a single day. This 
 wealth of diversity may seem an exaggera- 
 tion, but no, the variety cannot be exag- 
 gerated. In this land the characters of 
 many districts intermingle, and for lovers 
 of the earth and sky the feast is literally 
 endless. It is, of course, only to the per- 
 manent resident that any land will reveal 
 itself, but even to the casual visitant this 
 border district offers very much at every 
 season of the year. 
 
 75
 
 LUDLOW 
 
 This variety makes it hopeless to attempt 
 in small space any adequate description of 
 its spirit. But we must escape out into 
 the meadows for a breath of the real 
 countryside before leaving the scene. Sup- 
 pose we pass round the front of the castle, 
 that is, the town approach, which was 
 really the back, where formerly the deep 
 moat ran. It is all long since filled up 
 level with the road, and is now a public 
 walk with a seat or two beneath the tower- 
 ing elms, which far out-top the huge castle 
 wall. I always regret that they do so, 
 regret indeed that any trees are there at 
 all. Though a devoted lover of trees, I 
 don't love them in the wrong place, and 
 here they distinctly interfere with the 
 castle. How finely those great grey walls 
 would rise from a belt of plain green sward 
 without bush or twig upon it, whilst still 
 the pellitory, the blue bird's-eye speedwell, 
 and the lovely little shining crane's-bill 
 could nestle at its foot. Going round the 
 walls to Dinham Gate, then, we drop 
 quietly to the bridge, in view of the chil- 
 dren clambering up amongst the gorse of 
 the steep and rugged green face of Whit- 
 cliff opposite. The swifts are always wheel- 
 ing and screaming over this bridge, just as 
 the weir is always splashing by the flour- 
 mill, and the boys are always paddling with 
 a bit of string and a worm. At least so it 
 seems. I suppose the swifts go after the 
 76
 
 STOKESAY 
 
 heat of July like other swifts ; the weir 
 roars in the winter flood ; and even the 
 boys find it too deep and cold to paddle. 
 But still summer will return and they all 
 will be there again as if they had never 
 left. 
 
 Across the bridge we keep the road to 
 the right between undulating fields, and 
 after a couple of miles of birds and flowers, 
 and the black and white cottages of Prior's 
 Halton,we enter the gates of Oakley Park. 
 Here we leave the encumbrance of hedges, 
 and have nothing along the roadside but 
 an unlimited margin of incomparable green 
 turf dotted with majestic trees, very much 
 in their proper places, amidst which the 
 woodpecker dips from trunk to trunk and 
 flings his laugh across the landscape. This 
 lasts all the way to the village of Bromfield, 
 a lovely spot buried in trees by the river- 
 side, the water lingering here as if loth to 
 go forward. In the dip by the bridge is an 
 old mill (two, indeed, one on each side), and 
 on a hillock just above it stands the Priory 
 Church, presiding over its scattered cottages 
 which are not to be seen from here. The 
 place suffices to itself. But for the mill 
 weir just below you can't tell which way 
 the stream runs. All the scene is repose 
 the realm of the water-hens with the 
 outside world shut off. The river is the 
 Teme, but through the glade, a little way 
 down the water, the Onny comes in from 
 77
 
 LUDLOW 
 
 its journey through the country to the 
 north-west. This is the direction we will 
 take. After leaving the bridge we soon 
 pass the Priory Gate-house, consisting of a 
 massive antique stone archway, pointed at 
 the top, and a solid buttress on either side, 
 with a black and white timber storey built 
 over it, altogether a beautiful object. But 
 everything is beautiful here. The trees 
 are wonderful on every hand, and between 
 them, now that we have joined the Ludlow 
 and Shrewsbury highway, we get glimpses, 
 across the green pastures, of the landscape 
 that looked flat from Ludlow churchyard 
 and castle. At the end of the village where 
 the road forks we take to the right, and 
 soon see what we may expect in the vale 
 of the Onny. But not until we pass the 
 village of Onibury does a bit of its chief 
 beauty strike us. From here for two or 
 three miles the stream passes through a 
 distinct valley, with a wooded hill on either 
 side, and sloping meadows on its banks. 
 The road is parallel to the stream, just 
 above it, with the width of afield between. 
 There the little river meanders, sometimes 
 under trees, sometimes nibbling the open 
 pasture and fringed with marsh marigolds. 
 But all the spring flowers here will astonish 
 even those accustomed to take note of such. 
 So many of the roads and lanes round 
 Ludlow are bordered by steep banks of 
 wood, which are parted by no hedge or 
 78
 
 STOKESAY 
 
 fence, so that the woodland moss and ferns 
 and flowers come to the very highway and 
 mingle with the others which we usually 
 associate with the roadside. Primroses in 
 moss, with the great bright-coloured wood 
 violet, the blossoms of wild strawberry 
 (often nine inches high), ferns, bilberry, 
 the wonderful golden-green wood-spurge, 
 stitchwort, and bird's-eye, with a budding 
 foxglove, the big wood-rush, and other 
 things, all on a bank together, form a col- 
 lection of delicate beauty not often found 
 by the roadside. And as for the woods, 
 the fields, and the river banks, they offer 
 simply a paradise of wild flowers, not to 
 speak of the numberless other natural 
 beauties with which they abound. 
 
 If you care for these things you will 
 get through the Ludlow lanes and fields 
 but slowly. But when you do get through, 
 you will find that they all lead you on to 
 other and even wider interests and beauties 
 beyond. If we keep on our way by the 
 Onny for about a couple of miles we 
 come to where the road crosses the stream 
 (over an ugly iron bridge, by-the-bye, of 
 open bars like the two ends of a bedstead), 
 and just raised up on our left amidst the 
 orchard trees is Stokesay. On ' f s hillock, 
 the place stands at the mouth of the 
 valley we have traversed, and in front the 
 land opens wide for a few miles. So here 
 we will end ; but, as we have come to a 
 79
 
 LUDLOW 
 
 place of exceptional interest, let us ex- 
 amine it in detail before retracing our 
 steps. 
 
 Amidst those orchard trees, and raised 
 above the willows and alders that line 
 the river Onny, stand the church and 
 manor-house of Stokesay. It cannot be 
 called a village, for there is nothing but 
 a church and farmhouse ; but between 
 them, and within the precincts of both, 
 stands what is commonly but erroneously 
 known as Stokesay Castle. When you 
 have approached and walked round the 
 moated place, you can see why the archae- 
 ologists require you to call it a fortified 
 mansion instead of a castle. Though 
 obviously prepared for a siege, it has none 
 of the stern solidity of a castle. But by 
 whatever name we call it, none can fail 
 to be impressed by the extraordinary beauty 
 and interest of the structure. Though 
 not now inhabited, it is in perfect preser- 
 vation even to the roof; and it has suf- 
 fered so little injury, and only such altera- 
 tions as can be readily associated with 
 their centuries, that it remains perhaps 
 the best example of this especial kind of 
 building that England can afford. 
 
 The necessary historical details I may 
 take from the late Mr. Thomas Wright, 
 the Ludlow historian, after a word of 
 explanation as to the origin of the name. 
 This was in the first place merely Stoke, 
 80
 
 STOKESAY 
 
 and meant simply The Place. Stoke or 
 Stow in the names of places generally 
 occurs in connection with other explana- 
 tory syllables, as Basingstoke, Padstow, 
 and so on. Alone it literally signified 
 a stake or the trunk of a tree, and was 
 applied to a situation, often on a hill, 
 protected by a stockade, or surrounded 
 by stocks or piles. If the name of such 
 a situation became established simply as 
 Stoke or Stow, we may presume that it 
 was a place of peculiar importance in its 
 vicinity. Stokesay, at its valley mouth, 
 certainly sustains such a supposition. Mr. 
 Wright tells us that at the time of the 
 Norman Conquest the manor of Stoke was 
 held by ^Eldred, a freeman, under Edric 
 Sylvaticus, a powerful Saxon thane, but 
 that, on the said Edric joining in a revolt 
 of the Welsh, he was deprived of his estate, 
 which, with much other property, was 
 conferred on Roger de Montgomery with 
 the earldom of Shrewsbury. We had 
 mention of this Roger in the early history 
 of Ludlow. Mr. Wright translates the 
 reference to Stoke in Domesday Book 
 as follows : " The same Roger holdeth 
 Stokes. Here are seven hides geldable. 
 The arable land is sufficient for fourteen 
 ox teams. In demesne are five teams, 
 and sixteen among the male and female 
 serfs ; and there are twenty villeins with 
 eight teams and nine female cottars. Here 
 81 F
 
 LUDLOW 
 
 is a mill yielding nine quarters of wheat 
 yearly, and here is a miller and a keeper of 
 bees. ' But, as with the Ludlow property, 
 this manor of Stoke also came into the 
 hands of the Lacys, and was by them 
 bestowed on a branch of the family of 
 Say, Lord of Clun and Richard's Castle. 
 This name was then affixed to the simple 
 Stoke; and, in 1156, when Theodoric de 
 Say gave the advowson of the place to the 
 abbey of Haughmond, it is for the first 
 time called Stokesay. And so it has been 
 ever since, although the family of Say soon 
 ceased to be associated with the place. 
 
 It would be hard to find an ancient 
 building more impressive, standing there 
 unharmed amidst the hills since the thir- 
 teenth century. One can only pause in 
 silence as the structure appears before 
 you for the first time on passing through 
 the gate from the churchyard. Its soli- 
 tude and remoteness from all later incon- 
 gruous life perfects the hallowing touch 
 of time. Only the scent of hay and kine, 
 the sights and sounds of husbandry, add 
 their sentiment to the scene. Yes, there 
 is the railroad near, but in our present life 
 we cannot revile the railway when it does 
 not really injure a site. It is too great a 
 boon to us, and is, moreover, by now even 
 old-fashioned. 
 
 Here, perhaps, as the train sweeps by, 
 it affords a distinctly attractive com- 
 82
 
 STOKESAY 
 
 ment upon the ancient life we have come 
 to contemplate. That we lament certain 
 losses by no means signifies that we de- 
 precate all change. As Bishop Blougram 
 aptly reminds us : 
 
 " The common problem, yours, mine, every one's, 
 Is not to fancy what were fair in life 
 Provided it could be, but, finding first 
 What may be, then find how to make it fair 
 Up to our means : a very different thing ! " 
 
 Unless our aesthetic impulses remain 
 strictly a rational "criticism of life," 
 they become mere pedantry and vapours. 
 We may be as fastidious as we like, so 
 long as we are so in a robust and pro- 
 gressive spirit. But why should progress 
 be hideous, vulgar, noisy, and inane ? 
 
 Assuredly none of these qualities can 
 ever have been applicable to the life repre- 
 sented here by Stokesay church and castle, 
 nor happily have they got any permanent 
 place there to-day. There would be noise 
 and bustle enough when the drawbridge 
 was hauled up and the siege began ; but, 
 then, the uproar would certainly not be 
 "signifying nothing." As we now peace- 
 ably approach, from the churchyard, the 
 situation of this same drawbridge, we find 
 its place taken by a solid pathway filled 
 up in the moat. Here we stand before 
 the gatehouse which is one of the later 
 additions, a beautiful timber-gabled struc- 
 ture of Elizabethan times. By an arch- 
 83
 
 LUDLOW 
 
 way through it we gain access to the 
 grassy courtyard of the place, and the full 
 beauty of the ancient manor-house is be- 
 fore us. The mind wanders to other 
 lands for any reminiscence of the im- 
 pression that the sight affords. The grey 
 steep roof is beautifully varied by the 
 window gables of the great hall that 
 occupies the central part of the building, 
 and this is flanked at one end by the 
 many-sided embattled tower rising a little 
 higher than the main roof, and at the 
 other by a timber storey raised on the grey 
 stone loopholed walls, and hanging over 
 the northern moat upon great oak brackets. 
 This latter beautiful addition is seen to be of 
 the same age as the Elizabethan gatehouse. 
 It is the central hall, and onwards to the 
 south tower that is the ancient portion ; and 
 it is by that wonderful old pointed doorway 
 in the midst that Richard, Bishop of Here- 
 ford, with his great retinue of thirty-six 
 horsemen, entered, in 1289,10 the boister- 
 ous hospitality of Stokesay. For ten days 
 they were entertained there, and then go 
 on their way. No doubt they made mirth 
 enough under those arched rafters that 
 their smoke blackened. It is all there 
 now, just as they revelled in it, and you 
 need know nothing of architecture to see 
 and enjoy the beauty of it. These rafters 
 rise overhead like a network of branches 
 supporting the high steep roof, and the 
 84
 
 STOKESAY 
 
 three tall windows on each side of the 
 room are exquisite in their dignified sim- 
 plicity. Whether architecturally inclined 
 
 or no, it is not likely that any ^visitor ..will 
 fail to explore every cranny of the delight- 
 ful old building, and as elsewhere, Mr. 
 Oliver Baker in his book is a sympathetic 
 85
 
 LUDLOW 
 
 and careful conductor. As he justly says, a 
 goodly volume would be required in which 
 to deal adequately with the subject. The 
 charm is greatly enhanced by the fact of 
 the building being unoccupied and yet 
 standing in admirable repair, whilst at the 
 same time it is free from the dreary sug- 
 gestion of the museum or the tricked-out 
 show-place. Nothing but its own inherent 
 dignity and beauty assail us, and out of 
 every window is obtained a glimpse of 
 purest sky and landscape, such as England 
 alone can afford. From the battlements 
 of the loopholed tower this landscape is 
 about us in the full range of its surpassing 
 variety and loveliness. Whilst we are 
 upon it, I must not omit to mention the 
 peculiar form of this tower. It is not the 
 plain four-square of the peel or castle keep. 
 From what I may call the front that is, 
 the south-west face it has the appearance 
 of twin towers joined, and each in shape 
 an octagon. To compare the difference 
 of effect arising from this, we may turn 
 the eye to the squat little solid tower of 
 the church, which terminates the buildings 
 at the other or northern end. 
 
 Indeed, in thinking of Stokesay Castle, 
 the quaint old church forms an insepa- 
 rable part. Though rebuilt, it comes from 
 Norman times, and the plain circular- 
 headed doorway remains unharmed. After 
 a survey of the ancient manor-house it is 
 86
 
 STOKESAY 
 
 good to come into the secluded quiet of 
 this little church, and recover some of the 
 many emotions and associations with which 
 one's mind has been filled. That homely 
 and deliciously quaint interior may well 
 mingle for ever with the impressions that 
 we wish to take away. One is thankful 
 even for the old wooden gallery, so unusual 
 nowadays is it, and so well it seems to go 
 with the high dark oak pews, the fine old 
 four-post bedstead pew with its arched 
 openings by the chancel, and all the sug- 
 gestions of flute, violin, and clarionet that 
 the vision of an old-world choir calls up. 
 The walls, too, are singularly quaint. On 
 the old wash all round, in ancient character, 
 are painted the Commandments, Creed, 
 and hortatory texts, whilst gigantic figures, 
 ghostly in their indistinctness, gradually 
 loom upon you from the unoccupied spaces 
 between. The Titanic bearded Moses 
 there presiding over the Decalogue has for 
 me personally quite a spectral significance, 
 for his outlines dawned upon me so vaguely, 
 that, for an instant, I had the fullest con- 
 viction of a supernatural apparition, and in 
 that momentary impression my thrill was 
 one of joy that at last I had seen a ghost. 
 But, alas, an instant more and I knew the 
 mistake. Still, the delusion remains part 
 of the first impression of Stokesay, and 
 that is one altogether of rare and imperish- 
 able enjoyment. 
 
 8?
 
 LUDLOW 
 
 There with its orchards, green fields, and 
 willow-lined river, the place lies in repose 
 at the valley mouth. But really at the 
 mouth of several valleys, for on no side are 
 the hills more than a mile or two away, and 
 they radiate from that hollow centre like 
 the spokes of a wheel. But the hills im- 
 mediately at hand are Stoke and Norton 
 hills, on the west and east side respectively. 
 
 - 
 
 -*^*> -vr-Av * x^~r^->- '-i-. 
 
 They both rise steeply, with the greenest 
 of fields below, and the upper halves wood- 
 crowned. Buried in the trees on the 
 summit of Norton hill are deep old en- 
 trenchments, and even if the wanderer be 
 not historically disposed, he will be hard to 
 please if the track through the fields and 
 woods up to it do not afford ample com- 
 pensation for the climb before going to a 
 train, or retracing his steps to Ludlow. It
 
 STOKESAY 
 
 will supply not one but many fresh aspects 
 of this borderland, every feature of which 
 is beautiful. If he is wise, too, it will 
 strengthen the appeal to feelings which 
 spring from something more than "the 
 aesthetic sense." This, let us remember, 
 is the English landscape. Nestling amidst 
 those hills and woods are the rural parishes 
 which, not only politicians but our own 
 eyes tell us, are being depopulated and dis- 
 integrated by that illusive summons to the 
 towns. What are we going to make of 
 them when they are utterly depopulated ? 
 Or if we mean to arrest such a fate, in what 
 way do we mean to arrest it ? By organis- 
 ing a highly artificial community on strictly 
 sound and economic lines ? Never. By 
 planting agricultural labour-colonies of the 
 industrially "unemployed"? God forbid. 
 We must find another and a better way. 
 
 THE END 
 
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