The Story of Some English Shires (page 1/4)

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In Needwood Forest

“. . . the Roman road from leicester to Chester skirted the Forest of Needwood, and was held by a station at Uttoxeter” (p. 177) [more...]

Wordsworth’s House, Rydal Mount

“It is needless to speak of the glory shed over the Lake Country by the pen of Wordsworth, who gave an abiding expression to the influence which the varying moods of nature could exercise over the mind which frnkly lent itself to their charm. But, besides his descriptions of natural scenery, Wordsworth has also caught the historic character of the [...] by a simple and independent life. Yet his pen tended to sweep away their last remains—he made the Lakes a place of fashionable resort, and thereby drew them from their primitive isolation and made them part and parcel of the world around. As villas arose the old farmers disappeared; their land became valuable for building sites; they sold it, and disappeared from their ancestral homes. When the poet Gray visited Grassmere he found it inhabited by twenty-six dalesmen. It may be doubted if at the present day more than two or three survive.” (p. 135) [more...]

Wycliffe’s Pulpit at Lutterworth

Today John Wycliffe is remembered most for his translation of the Bible; he preached from this stone pulpit in Lutterworth Church. [more...]

Courtyard, Naworth Castle

The story of the ill-planned rising of the Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland has already been told. One of their associates was Leonard Dacre, who held the castle of Naworth, and gathered round him the ‘rank riders of the Borders.’ Elizabeth ordered him to be apprehended, and Lord Hundson set out from Berwick to join Lord Scroop at Carlisle, [...] the allegiance of the North for Queen Elizabeth, and dealt a decisive blow at the rebellion.” (p. 117) [more...]

Stokesay Castle

“Shropshire is one of the most picturesque, as it is one of the most interesting, of English counties, possessing an interest of its own, as being the border-land between England and Wales, and associated with all the scenes of their unequal contest. It owes its picturesqueness and its historical interest to the same causes; it is the district where [...] [more...]