ermit grew.
The moss his bed, the cave his humble cell,
His food the fruit, his drink the crystal well.
Remote from man, with God he passed his days,
Prayer all his business--all his pleasure praise."

Henry III., in order to afford the said anchorite, Nicholas de Denton,
greater leisure for holy exercises, and to support him during his life,
or so long as he should be a hermit on the aforesaid mountain, granted
him six quarters of corn, to be paid by the Sheriff of Shropshire out of
the Town's Mills of Bridgnorth.

On leaving Cressage, Eyton-upon-Severn is seen on the right, and on an
eminence close by is the "Old Hall," built by Lord Chancellor Sir Thomas
Bromley. It was the birthplace of Lord Herbert of Chirbury, of whom Ben
Jonson wrote:--

"If men get fame for some one virtue, then
What man art thou that art so many men,
All virtuous Herbert! on whose every part
Truth might spend all her voice, Fame all her art?"

The railway now passes Cound Hall, Cound Church, and Cound Mill, a manor
which Henry III. gave to his brother-in-law, Llewellyn, and which was
afterwards held by Walter Fitz-Alan, who entered the service of David,
King of Scotland, and became head of the royal house of Stuart. It
crosses the Devil's Causeway, and passes Venus Bank, with Pitchford and
Acton Barnell on the left; the latter celebrated for the ruins of the old
castle where Edward I. held his parliament, the Commons sitting in a
barn.

Berrington, forty-seven miles from Worcester, and four and a half from
Shrewsbury, lies a short distance from the station. Its church has many
points of interest, being of Anglo-Norman and Early English architecture;
it also possesses a fine Norman font, and a curious monumental figure of
a cross-legged knight, carved in wood.

[Atcham Church: 39.jpg]

The little village of Atcham may be reached from here by a very pleasant
foot walk of about a mile through the fields. It is celebrated as the
birthplace of Ordericus Vitalis, chaplain to William the Conqueror, and a
famous historian of that time. The church is an ancient structure reared
on the little grassy flat round which the river bends; tresses of
luxuriant ivy conceal its walls, in which are found sections of a Roman
arch and a sculptured Roman column, part of the spoil of the city of
Uriconium. Among its relics is a reading-desk, carved, it is supposed,
by Albert Durer, with panels representing passages in the parabl