Handbook to the Severn Valley Railway: Illustrative and Descriptive of Places along the Line from Worcester to ShrewsburyRandall, John
History
Handbook to the Severn Valley Railway: Illustrative and Descriptive of Places along the Line from Worcester to Shrewsbury
Randall, John
Railroads -- England; Severn Valley Railway
"If men get fame for some one virtue, then
What man art thou that art so many men,
All virtuous Herbert! on whose every part
Truth might spend all her voice, Fame all her art?"
The railway now passes Cound Hall, Cound Church, and Cound Mill, a manor
which Henry III. gave to his brother-in-law, Llewellyn, and which was
afterwards held by Walter Fitz-Alan, who entered the service of David,
King of Scotland, and became head of the royal house of Stuart. It
crosses the Devil's Causeway, and passes Venus Bank, with Pitchford and
Acton Barnell on the left; the latter celebrated for the ruins of the old
castle where Edward I. held his parliament, the Commons sitting in a
barn.
Berrington, forty-seven miles from Worcester, and four and a half from
Shrewsbury, lies a short distance from the station. Its church has many
points of interest, being of Anglo-Norman and Early English architecture;
it also possesses a fine Norman font, and a curious monumental figure of
a cross-legged knight, carved in wood.
[Atcham Church: 39.jpg]
The little village of Atcham may be reached from here by a very pleasant
foot walk of about a mile through the fields. It is celebrated as the
birthplace of Ordericus Vitalis, chaplain to William the Conqueror, and a
famous historian of that time. The church is an ancient structure reared
on the little grassy flat round which the river bends; tresses of
luxuriant ivy conceal its walls, in which are found sections of a Roman
arch and a sculptured Roman column, part of the spoil of the city of
Uriconium. Among its relics is a reading-desk, carved, it is supposed,
by Albert Durer, with panels representing passages in the parable of the
Prodigal Son.
Lord Berwick's park adjoins the village, and in front of the mansion the
Tern comes down to join the Severn. From the Bridge it is one and a half
miles to
WROXETER,
[Uriconium: 40.jpg]
Where the ruins of Uriconium are still exposed to view. Here, after a
lapse of 1,500 years, the visitor may tread the streets and pavements,
handle the implements which the old Romans used, admire their well-turned
arches, and see the paint and plaster upon the walls of their apartments.
The "Old Wall," so long a sphinx by the roadside, suggesting enigmas to
passers-by, has found an interpreter in revelations which the spade and
pickaxe have made within its shadow. From the time when its walls first
fell down, it has furnished plunder to the country round. The old monks,
finding it easier to take down its stones than to quarry now ones, built
their churches with its spoil, whilst the "old wall" left standing served
as an advertisement of the treasures buried around it. The Romans who
selected the spot no doubt did so on military grounds; but, looking at
its position on the river, and the scenery surrounding it, one can
readily imagine that an eye for the beautiful, and a love of nature, had
some influence in the choice.
[Trout: 41.jpg]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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