In Unfamiliar England: A Record of a Seven Thousand Mile Tour by Motor of the Unfrequented Nooks and Corners, and the Shrines of Especial Interest, in England; With Incursions into Scotland and Ireland.Murphy, Thos. D. (Thomas Dowler)
History
In Unfamiliar England: A Record of a Seven Thousand Mile Tour by Motor of the Unfrequented Nooks and Corners, and the Shrines of Especial Interest, in England; With Incursions into Scotland and Ireland.
Murphy, Thos. D. (Thomas Dowler)
Great Britain -- Description and travel
Bidding Boscobel Manor farewell, we pause for a hasty glance at the
scant ruin of White Ladies, an old-time nunnery standing quite apart
in a field near by; then we retrace our way to the main road leading
through Tong to Newmarket and Market Drayton. The latter town should
be of considerable interest to an Englishman, since here was the home
of Robert Clive, who, according to a well-known historian, "will ever
be remembered as the man who laid deeply the foundations of our Indian
Empire and who at a time of national despondency restored the tarnished
honor of British arms." Aside from this, there is little to interest
the wayfarer save several fine Elizabethan houses and a mighty church
that quite overshadows the town and country.
We are soon away for Shrewsbury, the ever charming county town of
Shropshire, fleeting over as fine a road as ever tempted the winged
wheels of a motor car. It is nearly deserted, straight, broad and
level, and it is quite too late to fear the minions of the law--but
this is not a record of miles per hour. Suffice it to say that very
shortly we stop at the sign of the Raven in Old Salop.
One could never grow weary of the old town, and we saw another phase
in its life and activity on a Saturday evening. The whole population
seemed to have turned loose, and the brilliantly lighted main street
was quite metropolitan. The quaint old fronts had a rather odd and
out-of-place look in the glare of the electric light; the narrow, dimly
lit side streets were more in accord with the spirit of the place. The
shops were crowded and on the whole seemed surprisingly up to date and
well stocked for a town of thirty thousand.
The Sunday following was as quiet as the evening before had been
animated, and was as perfect as an English June day can be. In the
afternoon we were off for a run, with scarcely any definite point in
view, though a jaunt of an hour or two brought us in front of Lichfield
Cathedral just as the afternoon service was beginning. We joined the
rather diminutive body of worshippers who occupied but a small part of
the great church. We were perhaps quite as intent on the interior--a
very epic in warm red sandstone--as upon the dreary chant of the
litany. A thorough restoration has been made recently and an air of
newness prevails, but no one interested in cathedral architecture
will miss Lichfield--in some respects the most harmonious and best
proportioned of them all. We have seen the town before, but not the
large square house before which we pause, for a moment, and which bears
a bronze tablet to the memory of its one-time occupant, Erasmus Darwin,
grandfather of Charles Darwin.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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