is an isolated portion of the parish of St. Chad, situated three miles
south east from Shrewsbury. Robert Burton, Esq., of Longner hall, is
owner of the whole township, which in 1841 is returned as containing four
houses and 13 inhabitants. The hall is a handsome and commodious
mansion, with projecting gables ornamented with turrets and pinnacles,
and fronted with the beautiful white Grinshill free stone; it stands on
an acclivity commanding a rich view of the surrounding country, and of
the Severn, which rolls immediately beneath it. The views up and down
the river and over the adjoining highly cultivated and well wooded
country are peculiarly picturesque and beautiful, affording a great
variety of landscape scenery. An extensive and finely timbered park
surrounds the hall, the immediate vicinity of which is tastefully
ornamented with pleasure grounds and shrubberies. The interior of the
mansion is elegantly furnished, and contains some beautiful paintings; a
fine portrait of Queen Elizabeth is supposed to have been presented by
her Majesty to the ancestors of the present proprietor. A magnificent
gothic window of stained glass ornamented with figures of different
members of the family, lights the entrance hall.
In the garden is a tomb placed over the body of Edward Burton, Esq., a
zealous protestant in Queen Mary’s days, and is by Fox, in his Acts and
Monuments, named among those who by various means escaped persecution.
He one day sitting in his parlour alone, meditating on the troubles of
the times, and the deliverances he and others had found; and whilst thus
reflecting heard a general ring of bells in Shrewsbury, which he
concluded must be for the accession of the Lady Elizabeth to the throne.
Anxious to know the truth, and not daring to send any of his servants to
inquire, he sent his eldest son—a youth about sixteen years of age,
ordering him if the bells rang for the Lady Elizabeth’s accession to
throw his hat up into the air on his arrival at a certain place where he
could he seen from the hall. The young man finding it as was expected,
threw up his hat, which his father seeing, was suddenly affected with a
transport of joy, that he with difficulty reached a chair, and
immediately expired. By his will he ordered that his body should be
buried in the parish church of St. Chad, in Shrewsbury, and that no mass
monger should be present at his interment. His friends designing to
execute his will in this respect, brought his corpse to the church, and
were there met by the curate, who said that “Mr. Burton was an heretic
and should not be buried in his church.” His friends were therefore
obliged to carry his body back again, and bury it in his own garden. A
monument was set over him, which, being injured and defaced with the
weather, Edward Burton, Esq., his grandson, in the year 1614, re-edified
the tomb. The following is the epitaph placed on the tomb, written by
Sir Andrew Corbet, Bart.:—
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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