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Handbook to the Severn Valley Railway - Illustrative and Descriptive of Places along the Line from Worcester to Shrewsbury by John Randall
page 23 of 60 (38%)
panelled hall, and a number of cells carved out of the solid rock, as
storerooms. In making some alterations recently the little cemetery was
disturbed, and skeletons of several of the monks, embedded in spaces cut
out of the rock, in the form of a sarcophagus, were exposed. In the
Cartway is the "Old House" in which Bishop Percy, author of the "Relics
of Ancient English Poetry," was born, a fine specimen of the domestic
architecture of the 16th century; and in the entrance-hall of which are
the following words in large letters in relief, "Except the Lord BVILD
THE OWSE The Labourers Thereof Evail Nothing. Erected by R. For * 1580."
Another of these quaint old structures, called Cann Hall, contains some
curious unlighted double dormitories in the roof; one is called King
Charles' Room, and another is pointed out as that in which his nephew,
Prince Rupert, is said to have slept. The house is supposed to be
haunted, and the present tenant is not loth to admit that he sometimes
hears strange noises, a fact, if such it be, at which one can scarcely
wonder, seeing that the wind and the bats have undisputed sway. The
Townhall, in the Market Square, built in the place of the one destroyed
during the civil wars, is thus noticed in the "Common Hall Order Book" of
the Corporation: "The New Hall set up in the Market Place of the High
Street of Bridgnorth was begun, and the stone arches thereof made, when
Mr. Francis Preen and Mr. Symon Beauchamp were Bayliffs, in Summer, 1650;
and the timber work and building upon the same stone arches was set up
when Mr. Thomas Burne and Mr. Roger Taylor were Bayliffs of the said town
of Bridgnorth, in July and August, 1652." The new Market Hall, with the
Assembly Room, the rooms of the Mechanics' Institution, &c., is a
handsome building, situated at the lower end of the same large open
square.

The grand promenade round the Castle Hill, which King Charles pronounced
the finest in his dominion, commands a prospect that cannot fail to
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