welsh pool to oswestry. 97 



Oswestry 



Is a confiderable market town in Shropfliire, and a 

 place that during the Saxon times was much cele- 

 brated.— ^A little diftance from the town I pafTed a 

 large and elegant brick building, a houfe of indujify, 

 eredled a few yeaSrs ago by the joint fubfcription of 

 feveral of the adjacent parifhes, for the ufe of their 

 poor. From every prefent profpe£t, this place pro- 

 mifes to afford greater comforts to the poor, and in 

 time to be much lefs expeniive to their maintainers, 

 than if they were fupported in their refpedive pa- 

 riflies. 



This town was anciently called Ofwaldjlre^ a name 

 that it isfaid to have obtained from the following event: 

 In the year 642, the contending armies of Ofwald 

 king of Northumberland, and Penda, the ferocious 

 king of Mercia, met here : the former was routed, 

 and Ofwald fell on the field of battle. Penda, with 

 Imexampled barbarity, caufed the breathlefs body 

 of Ofwald to be cut in pieces, and ftuck on poles, 

 as fo many trophies of his vi£lory. Thus the place 

 was called Ofwald^ s Tree, and fome time afterwards 

 Ofweftry*i — In a manufcript account of the town; 

 written in 1635, I find the following note : " There. . 

 was an old oake lately (landing in Mefburie, within 



* Qfnjuahl/lre, as a WelfK word, fignifies only Ofiuahi^s town, 

 Frevious to the death of Ofwald, this place was called Macftr- 

 fekh, or Ma^rferfield, in the kingdom of Mercia. 



VQJL. LL. ' It th^ 



