Nooks and Corners of ShropshireTimmins, H. Thornhill (Henry Thornhill)
History
Nooks and Corners of Shropshire
Timmins, H. Thornhill (Henry Thornhill)
Shropshire (England) -- Description and travel
It is a structure of many different dates, and has all the charm that
such variety lends. The Loton Chapel, seen in the front of the picture,
was built about the year 1340, its windows having the rather intricate
tracery in vogue about that time. Overhead we get a glimpse of the
tower, a work of earlier date, with its curious, steep, saddle-backed
roof, and primitive weather-vane. The east end of the chancel, the
oldest part of the church, is pure Norman work.
An ancient churchyard cross with tall, slender shaft, backed by the
sombre verdure of some yew trees, adds a pleasing feature to the scene.
The south aisle, used time out of mind as a chapel by the Leightons of
Loton Hall, has a richly ornamented open-timber roof, with cherubs'
heads cut upon the brackets that support it; and the massive old carved
oak benches, black with age, should not be overlooked. Quite out of the
common, also, are the windows already referred to, with their peculiar
geometrical tracery, and scraps of fourteenth-century glass.
An ugly barrel-vaulted ceiling evidently disguises the original timbered
roof of the nave, one principal whereof is still visible at the west
end, with its big stone supporting corbels. The chancel is lighted by
two semi-headed windows, surmounted by a circular light, all of Norman
date; and some fine brasses and mural tablets, to the Leightons and the
Lysters, are seen here and there about the interior.
'By Alberbyri Chirche,' notes Leland, 'appere the Ruines of Fulk Guarine
the noble Warriar's Castel.' The remains of this early,
thirteenth-century stronghold, rise a stone's throw south-westward from
the church; but they are so fragmentary and devoid of detail as to have
little attraction for the antiquary; indeed, one crumbling ivy-mantled
tourelle is about the sum-total of the fabric.
Alberbury Priory, an establishment of Benedictine monks, founded by Fulk
FitzWarine early in the thirteenth century, is represented by a few
Gothic fragments in a farmhouse called White Abbey, close to the Severn,
a long mile north-east of the village. The principal remains are the
groined ceiling of the chapel, which springs from stone corbels, and has
curious carvings, at the intersections of the ribs, representing the
Agnus Dei, a monk's head, and an angel wrestling with the Evil One; and
one or two good pointed doorways in the lower story. The monastery was
suppressed in Henry the Sixth's reign, when the estate was granted to
All Souls' College, Oxford.
Turning our backs upon the Severn, which here flows along in easy curves
between low, red, clayey banks, we now pass through a pair of tall iron
gates near Alberbury church, and make our way viâ Loton Deer Park to
Wattlesborough Castle.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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