The village is remarkable as being the birth-place of Ordericus, the earliest Salopian historian. He was the son of Odelerius Constantius, of Orleans, a chief councillor to Roger de Montgomery, born (as he informs us) Feb. 16, 1075, “and on the Easter Sunday following was baptised by Ordericus the priest at Ettingesham, in the church of St. Eatta the Confessor,” and received the rudiments of his education under Siward the priest, in the little church of St. Peter, Shrewsbury, on the site of which the stately Benedictine abbey was afterwards built. Ordericus’s great work is entitled an “Ecclesiastical History,” but is more properly a record of the events of his own time. Atcham once had the privilege of a fair, and the inhabitants were styled burgesses. Opposite the inn, a pleasant drive leads through the village of Uffington, by which Shrewsbury may be regained. Continuing our course for half a mile on the London road, we pass over TERN BRIDGE, below which the river Tern fells into the Severn. On the left, ATTINGHAM HALL, the elegant mansion of the Right Hon. Lord Berwick, with its lofty portico, forms a bold and imposing object, and its beautiful situation near the confluence of the rivers Tern and Severn, imparts an additional charm to the surrounding scenery. To the right is WROXETER. This village was the metropolis of the _Cornavii_, a tribe of Britons settled in Shropshire and some of the adjoining counties at the period when Julius Cæsar first invaded this island. On the subjugation of the Britons this place became the flourishing Roman station of Uriconium,—Wriconium, synonymous with the adjoining Wrekin, {221}—subsequently Wrekincester, and by contraction Wroxeter. It is situated on a gentle eminence above the Severn, possessing those advantages which the Romans generally kept in view, viz. dryness of soil, extensive prospect, and the protection of a river. From the almost impenetrable obscurity in which its early history is involved, no adequate idea can now be formed of the pristine state of this interesting place. The town was undoubtedly defended by a wall and ditch, the boundaries of which are still to be traced throughout a circumference of three miles. According to the best writers, we find that the Romans entirely quitted Britain about the middle of the fifth century, on which the Britons continued to occupy this place (deserted by their former masters) until they were ejected from it by the superior force of the Saxons sometime in the following century, and obliged to find a retreat among “the alders and willows which hid the foot and the thickets which crowned the summit of the peninsular knoll, now covered by the capital of Shropshire.” How long the fugitives remained at Caer Pengwern unmolested it is now in vain to enquire, but this appears certain, that they were soon followed thither by the unsparing Saxons, and compelled to seek another refuge in the mountain fastnesses of Wales.