A Description of Modern Birmingham eBook

Charles Pye
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 160 pages of information about A Description of Modern Birmingham.

A Description of Modern Birmingham eBook

Charles Pye
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 160 pages of information about A Description of Modern Birmingham.
in Warwickshire, Trentham, in Staffordshire, or Lillenhall, in Shropshire.  This institution is now in great prosperity, the annual income amounting to near L1500; the number of its alms-women is at present thirty.  The buildings are extensive and substantial, forming a complete square, and healthfully situated on the verge of a spacious and fertile green.  The trustees are the bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, together with the Earls of Warwick and Aylesford, assisted by other respectable gentlemen in the county, who have placed the whole institution under the immediate charge of a master, with a salary of L150. per annum, who is at this time the Rev. J. Short.

To those who admire antiquity, Balsall church will be a pleasing object, as it now remains nearly in the same state as it was when first erected, about seven hundred years back.  Its dimensions are one hundred and two feet long, thirty-eight broad, and fifty-seven high.  At the east and west ends are lofty windows, extending from the roof nearly to the ground, and on each side are three noble windows.  The heads of all the windows are ornamented with beautiful tracery, and no two of them resemble each other.  There are no divisions withinside, and what distinguishes the chancel from the body of the church is an ascent of three steps.  The walls are very substantial, and so clustered with ivy, that it forces its way through any small fissures into the interior.  Over the west door there is a low turret, and below the cornice is a row of ten heads, in a good state of preservation, which are considered to be of excellent workmanship.

Near the church is the ancient hall of the templars, formerly a splendid apartment, but now it is converted into a barn, which is represented to have been one hundred and forty feet in length.

A little farther is Springfield, the elegant and delightful mansion of Joseph Boultbee, Esq. and at a short distance is Knowle, which is a small old town, on elevated ground, in the midst of fertile fields.  This church is of considerable size, and exhibits marks of antiquity in its remains of stained glass and grotesque carved work.

Not far from hence is Baddesley-Clinton-hall, the seat of Edward Ferrers, Esq. and about one mile beyond is a small inn, known by the name of Tom o’Bedlam, near to which is a venerable oak tree, supposed to be two hundred years old, measuring in girth twenty yards, from which one branch extends across a road thirty feet wide.  You next come to Wroxhall abbey, the residence of Christopher Wren, Esq. a descendant from the noted Sir Christopher Wren, who erected St. Paul’s cathedral, in London.  The church of Wroxhall is an ancient structure, forming one side of a square, the buildings of the abbey forming the other three sides.  The windows, which are ornamented with stained glass, are remarkably fine:  the two figures of Moses and Aaron are admired, not only for the drapery, but also for the splendid colours.

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A Description of Modern Birmingham from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.