DGNORTH

[Bridgnorth: 19.jpg]

Population, 6,569.

Market day--Saturday. Fairs--January 20th, February 17th, May 1st, June
9th, July 14th, August 18th, September 15th, October 29th, December 28th.

Principal Hotel--The Crown, for which, as well as for the Swan, the
Raven, and the George, see Advertisements.

The station, at the southern termination of the tunnel, is a chaste
building of freestone, and forms an additional ornament to the town. It
occupies a position from which its two divisions come pleasantly into
view, the Low Town lying peacefully in the valley by the Severn, the High
Town dotting the terraced sides, and crowning the bold impending rocks
that give it, in the eyes of travellers, such an eastern aspect. Caverned
in the hill, at many stages from its foot, and reached by winding walks,
are picturesque holes and habitations--happily now no longer used,
excepting in very few instances indeed--where the first settlers crowded
when the ruthless Dane perched himself like a famished eagle on the rocks
of Quatford down below. In the foreground are the time-worn relics of
its two castles, to which the little colony was indebted for protection
from fierce and threatening foes. The one opposite is Pampudding Hill, a
smooth, grassy mound, on which the daughter of the great Alfred, Queen
Ethelfleda, built a fortress. According to Florence of Worcester, what
we now call Bridgnorth was then _Brycge_. In his time, as in that of
Leland, who so well described its position, the Severn ran nearer to the
frowning cliffs on which the town is built than at present.

The discriminating eye of the outlawed Belesme was not slow to perceive
the advantages nature had given to the place, when he sought to raise a
fortress that should shield him from the wrath of his royal master, and
he removed the materials, it is said, of his house at Quatbrigia--a
bridge having, it is supposed, succeeded the ford--to _Brycge_,
afterwards Bridgnorth, or the bridge north of the one at Quatford.
Florence of Worcester says: "Earl Robert carried on the works night and
day, exciting Welshmen to the speedy performance of his wishes by
awarding them horses, lands, asses, and all sorts of gifts." With such
aids, and advantages of site, the Norman earl erected a castle that held
out three weeks against a large force marshalled by Henry, who, as an old
Saxon chronicle states, came here "with all his army" to besiege it. It
stood a second si