f
steeply-winding alleys, each being almost a continuous stairway: they
are known as the "Steps." A bridge with projecting bastions crosses the
river and connects the higher with the lower parts of the town, thus
giving the place its name.

[Illustration: HOUSE WHERE BISHOP PERCY WAS BORN, BRIDGENORTH.]

[Illustration: LODGE OF MUCH WENLOCK ABBEY.]

About twelve miles south-east of Shrewsbury is the village of Much
Wenlock, where there are remains of a magnificent abbey founded by the
Black monks, and exhibiting several of the Early English and Gothic
styles of architecture, but, like most else in these parts, it has
fallen in ruin, and many of the materials have been carried off to build
other houses. Portions of the nave, transepts, chapter-house, and
abbot's house remain, the latter being restored and making a fine
specimen of ecclesiastical domestic architecture built around a court.
An open cloister extends the entire length of the house. There are
beautiful intersecting Norman arches in the chapter-house. There are
some quaint old houses in the town--timbered structures with bold
bow-windows--and not a few of them of great age. Roger de Montgomery is
credited with founding Wenlock Abbey at the time of the Norman Conquest.
The site was previously occupied by a nunnery, said to have been the
burial-place of St. Milburgh, who was the granddaughter of King Penda of
Mercia. This was a famous religious house in its day, and it makes a
picturesque ruin, while the beauty of the neighboring scenery shows how
careful the recluses and religious men of old were to cast their lots
and build their abbeys in pleasant places.

[Illustration: WENLOCK.]

LUDLOW CASTLE.

[Illustration: LUDLOW CASTLE.]

The most important of all the castles in the middle marches of Wales was
Ludlow, whose grand ruins, mouldered into beauty, stand upon the river
Tame, near the western border of Shropshire. It was here that the lord
president of the Council of Wales held his court. Its ruins, though
abandoned, have not fallen into complete decay, so that it gives a fine
representation of the ancient feudal border stronghold: it is of great
size, with long stretches of walls and towers, interspersed with thick
masses of foliage and stately trees, while beneath is the dark rock on
which it is founded. It was built shortly after the Conquest by Roger de
Montgomery, and after being held by the Norman Earls of Shrewsbury it
was fortified by Henry