h its mixture of debased Gothic and classic
details, is worthy of study. Even in Shrewsbury we have to record the
work of the demon of destruction. The erection of the New Market Hall
entailed the disappearance of several old picturesque houses.
Bellstone House, erected in 1582, is incorporated in the National
Provincial Bank. The old mansion known as Vaughan's Place is swallowed
up by the music-hall, though part of the ancient dwelling-place
remains. St. Peter's Abbey Church in the commencement of the
nineteenth century had an extraordinary annexe of timber and plaster,
probably used at one time as parsonage house, which, with several
buttressed remains of the adjacent conventual buildings, have long ago
been squared up and "improved" out of existence. Rowley's mansion, in
Hill's Lane, built of brick in 1618 by William Rowley, is now a
warehouse. Butcher Row has some old houses with projecting storeys,
including a fine specimen of a medieval shop. Some of the houses in
Grope Lane lean together from opposite sides of the road, so that
people in the highest storey can almost shake hands with their
neighbours across the way. You can see the "Olde House" in which Mary
Tudor is said to have stayed, and the mansion of the Owens, built in
1592 as an inscription tells us, and that of the Irelands, with its
range of bow-windows, four storeys high, and terminating in gables,
erected about 1579. The half-timbered hall of the Drapers' Guild, some
old houses in Frankwell, including the inn with the quaint sign--the
String of Horses, the ancient hostels--the Lion, famous in the
coaching age, the Ship, and the Raven--Bennett's Hall, which was the
mint when Shrewsbury played its part in the Civil War, and last, but
not least, the house in Wyle Cop, one of the finest in the town, where
Henry Earl of Richmond stayed on his way to Bosworth field to win the
English Crown. Such are some of the beauties of old Shrewsbury which
happily have not yet vanished.

[Illustration: House that the Earl of Richmond stayed in before the
Battle of Bosworth, Shrewsbury]

Not far removed from Shrewsbury is Coventry, which at one time could
boast of a city wall and a castle. In the reign of Richard II this
wall was built, strengthened by towers. Leland, writing in the time of
Henry VIII, states that the city was begun to be walled in when Edward
II reigned, and that it had six gates, many fair towers, and streets
well built with timber. Other writers spe