to be
unsafe when eaten to excess, for an old gentleman, writing from
melancholy experience in 1595, records that "sodden bread which bee
called simnels bee verie unwholesome." The Shropshire legend about its
origin is that a happy couple got into a dispute whether they should
have for dinner a boiled pudding or a baked pie. While they disputed
they got hungry, and came to a compromise by first boiling and then
baking the dish that was prepared. To the grand result of the double
process--his name being Simon and her's Nell--the combined name of
simnel was given. And thus from their happily-settled contention has
come Shrewsbury's great cake, of which all England acknowledges the
merit.

BRIDGENORTH AND WENLOCK ABBEY.

[Illustration:

BRIDGENORTH.

1. From near Oldbury.
2. Keep of the Castle.

]

Following down the Severn River from Shrewsbury, we come to Bridgenorth,
an ancient town planted on a steep hill, full of quaint houses, and
having an old covered market where the country-people gather on
Saturdays. The lower part is of brick, and the upper part is
black-and-white-timbered, but the human love for what is old and
familiar is shown by the way in which the people still fill up the old
market-house, though a fine new one has recently been built. The most
prized of the old houses of this venerable town is a foundry and
blacksmith shop standing by the river; it was in this house that Bishop
Percy, author of the _Reliques_, was born. On the promontory of
sandstone, which steeply rises about one hundred and eighty feet above
the river, the upper part of the town is built, and here are the ruins
of Bridgenorth Castle, which stood in an exceptionally strong situation.
The red sandstone predominates here, but not much of it remains in the
castle, there being little left excepting a huge fragment of the massive
wall of the keep, which now inclines so much on one side from the
settlement of the foundation as to be almost unsafe. This castle was
built eight hundred years ago by the third and last of the Norman Earls
of Shrewsbury: it was held for King Charles in the Civil Wars, and
underwent a month's siege before it surrendered, when the conquerors
destroyed it. Bridgenorth is the most picturesque of all the towns on
the Severn, owing to the steep promontory up which the houses extend
from the lower to the upper town and the magnificent views from the
castle. The communication with the hill is by a series o