DOI Heft:
No. 17 (August, 1895)
DOI Artikel:Harper, C. G.: Letters from artists to artists, [9], Shrewsbury as a sketching ground
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17190#0158
Sketching Grounds.—No. IX. Shrewsbury
br0mf1eld
covering the origin of a place-name is inexhaustible, one comes from the suburbs of Shrewsbury, low-
and is well shown in the theory by which the alter- lying amid the level meads beyond the walls,
native name of "Salop" for town and county is More impressive still is the Castle when the sun is
setting, and the lights of the railway station begin
to twinkle down below its ponderous turrets. Its
ruddy walls then take on a silhouetted blackness
that effectually hides all these innovations and the
modern touches that are only too visible in the
broad eye of day.
When one grows, after a time, wearied of town
life, there are always interesting sketching-grounds
within easy reach of Shrewsbury. We came from
Ludlow on foot, and so I can speak from personal
acquaintance of these happy hunting-grounds of
the sketcher. Water-courses abound, and by them
most do lie the bits that the soul of the artist
loveth, be he colourist or illustrator whose only
wear is ink or washes of monochrome. Thus,
where the river Onny crosses the highway by
Bromfield, there is an excellent motif 'in the pebbly
stream, Bromfield Church, and the row of poplar
trees known to country folk as the Twelve Apostles.
There are only four of them now, but after the
manner of Wordsworth's "little maid," they are
still twelve. Then, near Craven Arms station,
comes Stokesay, one of the finest and most inte-
resting domestic buildings of thirteenth-century
derived from the ancient Erse words sa, a stream, date left to us. Returning thence to Shrewsbury,
and lub, a loop—a physical description of the site of we come at once to the Abbey Church, where in
Shrewsbury, almost encircled by the loop of the the chapter-house the first English Parliament was
Severn. Do you not admire these linguistic held. Chapter-house, cloisters, and all the domestic
efforts ? offices of this great Abbey are gone; the sole
But however correct or scientific these theories remains of them standing, amid coal- and cattle-
may be, they cannot fail of amusement, so varied trucks in the railway goods-yard, where the Refec-
are they, and so wholly irreconcilable, one with tory Pulpit, a beautiful work in carved stone, stands
another. up above the sordid commercialism of its immediate
To the Saxons succeeded in due time the Norman neighbourhood,
adventurers in " Civitas Scrobbensis," as the old C G. H.
Latin charters term Shrewsbury. Then was built
the frowning castle that even now looks down from
its rock in a majesty of eight hundred
years upon the station-yard and the
railway ; the cabs and carriages ; the
portmanteaux and Gladstone-bags, of
modern life. The keep is all that
is left of Roger de Montgomery's
stronghold. The outworks have long
since disappeared, and the walls of
the keep itself have been repeatedly
refaced. The interior, too, is a
modern residence, but the height on
which the towers stand, and the
sullen colour of their walls of deep
red sandstone, give a fine effect as miserere, ludlow church
141
br0mf1eld
covering the origin of a place-name is inexhaustible, one comes from the suburbs of Shrewsbury, low-
and is well shown in the theory by which the alter- lying amid the level meads beyond the walls,
native name of "Salop" for town and county is More impressive still is the Castle when the sun is
setting, and the lights of the railway station begin
to twinkle down below its ponderous turrets. Its
ruddy walls then take on a silhouetted blackness
that effectually hides all these innovations and the
modern touches that are only too visible in the
broad eye of day.
When one grows, after a time, wearied of town
life, there are always interesting sketching-grounds
within easy reach of Shrewsbury. We came from
Ludlow on foot, and so I can speak from personal
acquaintance of these happy hunting-grounds of
the sketcher. Water-courses abound, and by them
most do lie the bits that the soul of the artist
loveth, be he colourist or illustrator whose only
wear is ink or washes of monochrome. Thus,
where the river Onny crosses the highway by
Bromfield, there is an excellent motif 'in the pebbly
stream, Bromfield Church, and the row of poplar
trees known to country folk as the Twelve Apostles.
There are only four of them now, but after the
manner of Wordsworth's "little maid," they are
still twelve. Then, near Craven Arms station,
comes Stokesay, one of the finest and most inte-
resting domestic buildings of thirteenth-century
derived from the ancient Erse words sa, a stream, date left to us. Returning thence to Shrewsbury,
and lub, a loop—a physical description of the site of we come at once to the Abbey Church, where in
Shrewsbury, almost encircled by the loop of the the chapter-house the first English Parliament was
Severn. Do you not admire these linguistic held. Chapter-house, cloisters, and all the domestic
efforts ? offices of this great Abbey are gone; the sole
But however correct or scientific these theories remains of them standing, amid coal- and cattle-
may be, they cannot fail of amusement, so varied trucks in the railway goods-yard, where the Refec-
are they, and so wholly irreconcilable, one with tory Pulpit, a beautiful work in carved stone, stands
another. up above the sordid commercialism of its immediate
To the Saxons succeeded in due time the Norman neighbourhood,
adventurers in " Civitas Scrobbensis," as the old C G. H.
Latin charters term Shrewsbury. Then was built
the frowning castle that even now looks down from
its rock in a majesty of eight hundred
years upon the station-yard and the
railway ; the cabs and carriages ; the
portmanteaux and Gladstone-bags, of
modern life. The keep is all that
is left of Roger de Montgomery's
stronghold. The outworks have long
since disappeared, and the walls of
the keep itself have been repeatedly
refaced. The interior, too, is a
modern residence, but the height on
which the towers stand, and the
sullen colour of their walls of deep
red sandstone, give a fine effect as miserere, ludlow church
141