le-full fall on your crown!

The rock that it stands on is steep,
Bloudie Jacke!
To gain it one's forced for to creep;
The Portcullis is strong, and the Drawbridge is long,
And the water runs all round the Keep;
At a peep
You can see that the moat's very deep!

So rhymed the author of the _Ingoldsby Legends_, when in his "Legend
of Shropshire" he described the red stone fortress that towers over
the loop of the Severn enclosing the picturesque old town of
Shrewsbury. The castle, or rather its keep, for the outworks have
disappeared, has been modernized past antiquarian value now. Memories
of its importance as the key of the Northern Marches, and of the
ancient custom of girding the knights of the shire with their swords
by the sheriffs on the grass plot of its inner court, still remain.
The town now stands on a peninsula girt by the Severn. On the high
ground between the narrow neck stood the castle, and under its shelter
most of the houses of the inhabitants. Around this was erected the
first wall. The latest historian of Shrewsbury[8] tells us that it
started from the gate of the castle, passed along the ridge at the
back of Pride Hill, at the bottom of which it turned along the line of
High Street, past St. Julian's Church which overhung it, to the top
of Wyle Cop, when it followed the ridge back to the castle. Of the
part extending from Pride Hill to Wyle Cop only scant traces exist at
the back of more modern buildings.

[8] The Rev. T. Auden, _Shrewsbury_ (Methuen and Co.).

The town continued to grow and more extensive defences were needed,
and in the time of Henry III, Mr. Auden states that this followed the
old line at the back of Pride Hill, but as the ground began to slope
downwards, another wall branched from it in the direction of Roushill
and extended to the Welsh Bridge. This became the main defence,
leaving the old wall as an inner rampart. From the Welsh Bridge the
new wall turned up Claremont Bank to where St. Chad's Church now
stands, and where one of the original towers stood. Then it passed
along Murivance, where the only existing tower is to be seen, and so
along the still remaining portion of the wall to English Bridge, where
it turned up the hill at the back of what is now Dogpole, and passing
the Watergate, again joined the fortifications of the castle.[9] The
castle itself was reconstructed by Prince Edward, the