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
So we will push ahead to St. George's church, whose massive western
tower and curious louvred steeple are already in sight, peering over an
old lych-gate in the foreground. This lych-gate is a very charming bit
of ancient carpentry, its solid substantial oak beams shewing excellent
workmanship, with just a touch of ornamentation here and there; while
the roof is covered with rough stone-shingles, overgrown with mosses and
lichens.
Passing through the wicket, we traverse a rustic grass-grown God's-acre,
beneath the shadow of one of those immemorial yews so common in our
country churchyards. Why they were planted in such a situation has
afforded no little matter for conjecture; whether they were intended as
emblems of immortality, or to serve the more utilitarian purpose of
supplying bows for the English archers who in bygone days formed the
backbone of our fighting line:
'Oh the crooked stick and the grey goose's wing,
But for which Old England were but a fling!'
The strong nail-studded west door of the church has its old iron hinges,
and some names cut in bold Roman letters upon it. The roomy north porch
by which we enter has a chamber, or parvise, over it, and stone benches
against the walls upon either side. The interior is large and spacious,
the fine oak roof being borne upon Norman pillars and arches, while
clerestory windows admit light from the southward wall. A modern screen
divides nave from chancel, and beside it rises a tall Jacobean pulpit
with a sounding-board, all carved in the style peculiar to that period.
The chancel is lighted by well proportioned windows with Purbeck marble
shafts. Suspended from the chancel roof hangs a curious
fifteenth-century canopy, nicely constructed of oak fashioned into
panels, and adorned with three small carved wooden angels. Its purpose
is uncertain, but it bears some resemblance to the canopied structure
called a baldacchino found in some continental churches.
In the vestry is a mural tablet to Sir Robert Howard: and the rough old
staircase leading up into the tower is worth a moment's notice, for the
rude simplicity of its construction. The Churchwarden's accounts here
shew that, in the year 1741, the sum of ten shillings was paid 'for
whipping the Doggs out of ye church, serviss time, and keeping people
from sleeping in church During divine serviss.'
[Illustration: Hospital of the Holy & Undivided Trinity at Clunn.]
In a retired spot upon the eastern side of the town stands the 'Hospital
of the Holy and Undivided Trinity at Clunn,' a refuge for decayed
tradesmen founded by the Right Hon. the Earl of Northampton, in the year
1614. And truly their lines have fallen in pleasant places, these
grey-headed old veterans; each lowly domicile giving upon a central plot
of greensward, with benches set against the wall in sunny nooks, and an
old wooden pump standing in one corner, with its bucket and chain for
drawing water:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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