Approaching the abbey ruins by the footpath, they made an effective and pathetic picture lightened and warmed by the soft sunshine, with the green woods behind them, the ruins so old and wan, and the woods so freshly green. The chief feature of the abbey is its bold and beautiful late Norman west doorway, and from this wide portal the whole of the church can be seen at a glance, so that one can judge the extent of it, and a glorious and stately fane it must have been when the last abbot in 1538 meekly handed it over to the minions of Henry VIII., "with all its manors, lordships, messuages, gardens, meadows, feedings, pastures, woods, lands, and tenements." A rare and rich morsel for that greedy monarch. Lilleshall Abbey has been picturesquely ruined, yet I wish it had been a little less ruined, for one misses the graceful tracery that once adorned its now vacant windows; it is the tracery of their windows that gives such an added charm to Tintern and Melrose. The abbey was fortified and held for the king in the Civil Wars, and was bombarded by Cromwell's merciless cannon-balls; afterwards it was utilised as a ready-made stone quarry, so that one wonders, and is thankful, that so much of it remains. Past the abbey's walls runs a little slothful stream with scarcely a murmur, a stream now weed-grown and overhung by trees, and very pleasant it was to ramble by its cool and shady side with the grey ruins on one hand and the tangled woods on the other; the quiet wind just whispering as it passed by, it might be, the secrets of the past. I had the abbey to myself; not a soul did I see; not a sound did I hear but the hardly audible lisp of the stream, and the subdued rustle of the wind-stirred leaves. The spell of peace was there. I fancy the abbey is little visited, for, like Haughmond, it lies out of the track of tourist travel, and there is no inn or railway within miles of it as far as I can remember; now the tourist demands an inn and refreshment in near proximity to the places he haunts. To get beyond railways and inns, that is the thing for the peace-loving traveller. The motor-car he must suffer, but the average motorist loves the highway; on the Shropshire byways I met scarcely one. From the abbey I started forth to discover White Ladies Nunnery and Boscobel. Eventually I discovered both, but so out of the world are they that I had much difficulty in making their discovery. Signposts were useless, for not one directed me to either place. First I went to Tong, as the road to that village is fairly clear to follow, and it appeared to be on my way; moreover I had been told of a wonderful old church at Tong, so full of stately monuments that it is locally known as the "Westminster Abbey of Shropshire," and is sometimes termed the "Church of the Dead"; also it has gained the title of the "Minster of the Midlands." Quite a choice of names.