Vanishing England. P. H. Ditchfield

in 1748, though the old tower remains; St. Alkmund's; the Church of St. Chad; St. Giles's Church; and the nave and refectory pulpit of the monastery of SS. Peter and Paul. It is distressing to see this interesting gem of fourteenth-century architecture amid the incongruous surroundings of a coalyard. You can find considerable remains of the domestic buildings of the Grey Friars' Monastery near the footbridge across the Severn, and also of the home of the Austin Friars in a builder's yard at the end of Baker Street.

       Tower on the Town Wall, Shrewsbury

      In many towns we find here and there an old half-timbered dwelling, but in Shrewsbury there is a surprising wealth of them—streets full of them, bearing such strange medieval names as "Mardel" or "Wyle Cop." Shrewsbury is second to no other town in England in the interest of its ancient domestic buildings. There is the gatehouse of the old Council House, bearing the date 1620, with its high gable and carved barge-boards, its panelled front, the square spaces between the upright and horizontal timbers being ornamented with cut timber. The old buildings of the famous Shrewsbury School are now used as a Free Library and Museum and abound in interest. The house remains in which Prince Rupert stayed during his sojourn in 1644, then owned by "Master Jones the lawyer," at the west end of St. Mary's Church, with its fine old staircase. Whitehall, a fine mansion of red sandstone, was built by Richard Prince, a lawyer, in 1578–82, "to his great chardge with fame to hym and hys posterite for ever." The Old Market Hall in the Renaissance style, with its mixture of debased Gothic and classic details, is worthy of study. Even in Shrewsbury we have to record the work of the demon of destruction. The erection of the New Market Hall entailed the disappearance of several old picturesque houses. Bellstone House, erected in 1582, is incorporated in the National Provincial Bank. The old mansion known as Vaughan's Place is swallowed up by the music-hall, though part of the ancient dwelling-place remains. St. Peter's Abbey Church in the commencement of the nineteenth century had an extraordinary annexe of timber and plaster, probably used at one time as parsonage house, which, with several buttressed remains of the adjacent conventual buildings, have long ago been squared up and "improved" out of existence. Rowley's mansion, in Hill's Lane, built of brick in 1618 by William Rowley, is now a warehouse. Butcher Row has some old houses with projecting storeys, including a fine specimen of a medieval shop. Some of the houses in Grope Lane lean together from opposite sides of the road, so that people in the highest storey can almost shake hands with their neighbours across the way. You can see the "Olde House" in which Mary Tudor is said to have stayed, and the mansion of the Owens, built in 1592 as an inscription tells us, and that of the Irelands, with its range of bow-windows, four storeys high, and terminating in gables, erected about 1579. The half-timbered hall of the Drapers' Guild, some old houses in Frankwell, including the inn with the quaint sign—the String of Horses, the ancient hostels—the Lion, famous in the coaching age, the Ship, and the Raven—Bennett's Hall, which was the mint when Shrewsbury played its part in the Civil War, and last, but not least, the house in Wyle Cop, one of the finest in the town, where Henry Earl of Richmond stayed on his way to Bosworth field to win the English Crown. Such are some of the beauties of old Shrewsbury which happily have not yet vanished.

       House that the Earl of Richmond stayed in before the Battle of Bosworth, Shrewsbury

      Not far removed from Shrewsbury is Coventry, which at one time could boast of a city wall and a castle. In the reign of Richard II this wall was built, strengthened by towers. Leland, writing in the time of Henry VIII, states that the city was begun to be walled in when Edward II reigned, and that it had six gates, many fair towers, and streets well built with timber. Other writers speak of thirty-two towers and twelve gates. But few traces of these remain. The citizens of Coventry took an active part in the Civil War in favour of the Parliamentary army, and when Charles II came to the throne he ordered these defences to be demolished. The gates were left, but most of them have since been destroyed. Coventry is a city of fine old timber-framed fifteenth-century houses with gables and carved barge-boards and projecting storeys, though many of them are decayed and may not last many years. The city has had a fortunate immunity from serious fires. We give an illustration of one of the old Coventry streets called Spon Street, with its picturesque houses. These old streets are numerous, tortuous and irregular. One of the richest and most interesting examples of domestic architecture in England is St. Mary's Hall, erected in the time of Henry VI. Its origin is connected with ancient guilds of the city, and in it were stored their books and archives. The grotesquely carved roof, minstrels' gallery, armoury, state-chair, great painted window, and a fine specimen of fifteenth-century tapestry are interesting features of this famous hall, which furnishes a vivid idea of the manners and civic customs of the age when Coventry was the favourite resort of kings and princes. It has several fine churches, though the cathedral was levelled with the ground by that arch-destroyer Henry VIII. Coventry remains one of the most interesting towns in England.

      One other walled town we will single out for especial notice in this chapter—the quaint, picturesque, peaceful, placid town of Rye on the Sussex coast. It was once wooed by the sea, which surrounded the rocky island on which it stands, but the fickle sea has retired and left it lonely on its hill with a long stretch of marshland between it and the waves. This must have taken place about the fifteenth century. Our illustration of a disused mooring-post (p. 24) is a symbol of the departed greatness of the town as a naval station. The River Rother connects it with the sea, and the few barges and humble craft and a few small shipbuilding yards remind it of its palmy days when it was a member of the Cinque Ports, a rich and prosperous town that sent forth its ships to fight the naval battles of England and win honour for Rye and St. George. During the French wars English vessels often visited French ports and towns along the coast and burned and pillaged them. The French sailors retaliated with equal zest, and many of our southern towns have suffered from fire and sword during those adventurous days.

       Old Houses formerly standing in Spon Street Coventry

      Rye was strongly fortified by a wall with gates and towers and a fosse, but the defences suffered grievously from the attacks of the French, and the folk of Rye were obliged to send a moving petition to King Richard II, praying him "to have consideration of the poor town of Rye, inasmuch as it had been several times taken, and is unable further to repair the walls, wherefore the town is, on the sea-side, open to enemies." I am afraid that the King did not at once grant their petition, as two years later, in 1380, the French came again and set fire to the town. With the departure of the sea and the diminishing of the harbour, the population decreased and the prosperity of Rye declined. Refugees from France have on two notable occasions added to the number of its inhabitants. After the Massacre of St. Bartholomew seven hundred scared and frightened Protestants arrived at Rye and brought with them their industry, and later on, after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, many Huguenots settled here and made it almost a French town. We need not record all the royal visits, the alarms of attack, the plagues, and other incidents that have diversified the life of Rye. We will glance at the relics that remain. The walls seem never to have recovered from the attack of the French, but one gate is standing—the Landgate on the north-east of the town, built in 1360, and consisting of a broad arch flanked by two massive towers with chambers above for archers and defenders. Formerly there were two other gates, but these have vanished save only the sculptured arms of the Cinque Ports that once adorned the Strand Gate. The Ypres tower is a memorial of the ancient strength of the town, and was originally built by William de Ypres, Earl of Kent, in the twelfth century, but has received later additions. It has a stern, gaunt appearance, and until recent times was used as a jail. The church possesses many points of unique interest. The builders began in the twelfth century to build the tower and transepts, which are Norman; then they proceeded with the nave, which is Transitional; and when they reached the choir, which is very large and fine, the style had merged into the Early English. Later windows were inserted in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The church has suffered with the town at the hands of the French invaders, who did much damage. The old clock, with its huge swinging pendulum, is curious. The church has a collection of old books, including some old Bibles, including a Vinegar and a Breeches Bible, and