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
Across the river rises Shrewsbury School, the handsome modern prototype
of the older foundation in the town, encompassed by spacious demesnes
and cricket fields, the scene in bygone times of the far-famed
'Shrewsbury Show.' Abbey Foregate, with its venerable monastic church,
occupies what may be called the English side of the city; while the
ancient suburb of Frankwell climbs the hill in a westerly direction,
away beyond the Welsh Bridge.
* * * * *
We now set forth on a peregrination of the town, keeping an eye lifting
for such relics of the past as may lie upon our road, and remarking the
quaint nomenclature of some of the older streets. Immediately as we step
outside the railway-station, the old city gives us a taste of its
quality; for yonder rise the ruddy sandstone walls and round-towers of
Shrewsbury Castle, 'built in such a brave Plott,' as an old writer
observes, 'that it could have espyed a Byrd flying in every Streete.'
Originally erected by the all-powerful Roger de Montgomery, all that now
remains of the feudal castle is a Norman gateway, two massive
drum-towers of the Edwardian keep, and some remnants of the inner ward
or bailey. So long ago as Henry the Eighth's time, John Leland found the
fortress 'nowe much in mine,' and although its ancient walls were
furbished up, and a garrison put in charge to hold the place for King
Charles, it was delivered by treachery into the hands of the
Parliamentarian forces, and so escaped demolition.
Turning up-hill into Castle Gates, we espy a flight of steps leading to
a sort of raised passage, called the Dana, whence the visitor, if so
minded, may survey a large portion of Shropshire. Returning now to
Castle Gates, we bend our steps towards a dignified-looking pile of grey
stone buildings, standing a little back from the roadway.
This is the Free Library and Museum, a building that for some three
centuries did duty as the Grammar School of Shrewsbury; a school founded
by King Edward the Sixth, enlarged by Queen Elizabeth, and numbering
among its masters men like Dr. Samuel Butler and Kennedy of Cambridge,
and made famous by such scholars as Philip Sidney, Fulk Greville and
Darwin, not to mention in the same breath the execrable name of Judge
Jeffreys.
Before the entrance gateway, which is adorned with the effigies of two
scholars in quaint Jacobean costume, stands the recently erected bronze
statue of Charles Darwin, the world-renowned scientist, an alumnus, and
a native of Shrewsbury.
The interior of the building proves quite in keeping with what the
outside would lead one to expect, for the low-ceiled rooms, with their
dark oaken panelling and doors carved with the names of long-forgotten
schoolboys, seem redolent of scholarly ways; and these studious
traditions are in some sense maintained by the purposes which these
quiet chambers now serve.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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