PITCHFORD HALL, 



SHREWSBURY. 



THE SCAT OF 



COLONEL C J. COTES. 



k HAT beautilul home of 

 old Englishmen which 

 we depict lies in a 

 chosen part of the pleasant county of Silop, and is within 

 about six miles of Shrewsbury. You mav approach it, if yu 

 Choose, by a delightful walk through the fields tro:n Con.Uer 

 n- .IN \ou go old Condover Hall, which, in its 

 fine old frontage of st,:ne. presents a very suggestive contrast 

 to the more picturesque charms of ancient timber-framed 



iford. You will not forget that about a mile and a-half 

 beyond the object of your journeying is the village .f Acton 

 Burnell. which is rather famcus in our history. There is a 

 castle there which closely resembles the Bishop's Pakue at 



s, and was. indeed, built by the same hands. When 

 Hdward I. held the great council of his Parliament at Shrews- 

 bury, in 12X1, one of its sessions was held at Acton Burnell, 

 and the King took advantage of the thronging thither of many 

 representatives of the commercial classes to issue the ordinance 

 known as the Statute of Merchants, which confirmed their 

 rights and gave them power against their debtors. The 



ibuuring village of Pitchford took its name in very ancient 

 times from a curious bituminous spring, which w is described 

 by Marmaduke Kawdon of York in the seventeenth century. 

 That old writer speaks thus of the fountain : " Thir is in this 



well four little M. Miles, about halle 



a \arddiep, out ot uhi.h coin -, 



little lumps of pitch, but that 



which is alt tile tope ot the well is s-iMis!,. and swunes 



upon the water hk.- tarr. but being skim.l t'.g-ther itt 



incorporates, and is knead together like soft wax and becomes 



hard." 



There was a landed family at Pitchford in the time <-f 

 King Stephen, who took their name fiom the place, and still 

 in the ancient church is a:i oaken ligare supp ,sed to represent 

 one i that srcuk. What manner ot house they had in this 

 place we cannot tell, but the property had not l-.ng bc-en in 

 the hands ot the ancestors ot its pu-sriit ..vsner. the ( )ttlr\ s. 

 to whom it came by puuhise in 1470. when the existing 

 mansion was erected. It is said to have been built by 

 William Oltley. Sheriff ot the county. I his u.is a |..iest 

 country, where materials for the building lay reads' to the hand. 

 and many an oak bowed to the woodman's .i\<-. < io where 

 you will, you will find fevs more beautiful examples 

 st\le i if architecture dear to the tinglish mind, found mostly 

 in Shropshire and northward through Cheshire and Lancashire, 

 but in which no part of the country is p>or. Happily, PiMitord 

 Hall has remained in excellent hands, and is n .w practically 

 unchanged from the asp.-ct it anciently bore, except that the 



THE ENTRANCE 1>IVE. 



