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
Bitterley church and the old Court-house, with some noble trees in the
foreground and Titterstone towering behind, make a pleasing rural
picture as we draw near; and, upon passing through the wicket and
entering the green sanctuary, we come in sight of the beautiful
churchyard Cross shewn in the adjoining sketch. It dates from the
Decorated period, the slender shaft rising from a flight of worn, mossy
steps, and bearing aloft the four-sided head, or finial, in whose
crocketed niches some mouldering fragments of sculptured work may still
be discerned. This Cross is one of the finest of its kind in England.
The church itself is of Norman origin, though much altered in later
times. The best features of the interior are a fine arcaded Norman font,
a curious old lectern and iron-bound muniment chest, and slight remains
of a traceried oak roodscreen.
Beyond Bitterley church the country opens out towards the unenclosed
flanks of Titterstone Glee Hill:
'Those mountains of commande
The Clees, like loving twins, and Stitterstone that stande
Transevered,'
--as the poet Drayton hath it. So, putting the best foot foremost, we
have a lung-expanding tramp for the next half-hour amidst heather and
waving brake-fern, winning our way at last to a fine view point dubbed
the Giant's Chair. The outlook hence on a fine summer's day is a thing
to be remembered. Wide and varied as is the prospect, the gem of it all,
perhaps, is the charming bird's-eye view of old Ludlow town, down in the
vale at our feet, its warm-grey towers and house-roofs nestling beneath
the verdant slopes of Whitcliff, which in their turn are overtopped by
the brindled heights of Bringwood Chase, stretching away towards the
blue Welsh hills where the horizon meets the sky.
[Illustration: Crow Leasow.]
Having spied out the land from this lofty eyrie, we plunge down again
through the breast-high bracken, and then, working our way by
cross-country lanes, come presently to Crow Leasow.
Crow Leasow is a substantial brick farmhouse dating from the early days
of the seventeenth century. Its weatherbeaten front has some good
moulded brickwork about the doorway, eaves and gables, and a bulky
chimney-stack projects towards the northern end. The massive doors and
thick beams and rafters of the interior look quite in character; while a
gigantic oak tree, of enormous girth but hollow within, flings its vast
limbs athwart the greensward before the entrance way.
In bygone days Crow Leasow belonged to a family of the name of
Shepheard, who lived here for five successive generations, and were
probably the builders of the existing house.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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