10 
the ground, sixty-five in extent of boughs, and contains two hundred and fifty-six feet of solid timber. About 
the centre of the group stands an urn with the following inscription : 
To the Memory 
Of my 
Two Highly Valued Friends, 
Thomas Tyrwhitt, Esq. 
~ And i 
The Rey. C. M. Cracherode, M.A. 
In this once fayour’d walk, beneath these Elms, 
Whose thicken’d foliage, to the solar ray 
Impervious, sheds a venerable gloom, 
Oft in instructive converse we beguiled 
The fervid time which each returning year 
To friendship’s call devoted. Such things were ; 
But are, alas! no more. 
S. Dune. 
Pleasing as it always is to see worth and genius paying tribute to kindred associations, it is particularly so 
in the present instance, from the illustrious Prelate who, in these lines, hands down the names of his friends to 
posterity, and whom it is most delightful to contemplate amidst shades with which he is almost coeval, being at 
this time in his ninetieth year, and which in freshness and tranquillity are emblems of his own green and 
venerable old age. 
PLATE XVII.—-THE SHELTON OAK. 
Tus stately tree stands on the road-side, where the Pool road diverges from that which leads to Oswestry, 
about a mile and a half from Shrewsbury; whose spires form a pleasing object in the distance, whilst above. 
them, the famous mountain called the Wrekin lifts its head, and inspires a thousand social recollections, as the 
well-known toast, that includes all friends around its ample base, is brought to mind by the sight of its lofty 
summit. The appearance of the Shelton Oak, hollow throughout its trunk, and with a cavity towards the 
bottom capable of containing at least half a score persons, sufficiently denotes its antiquity. ‘Tradition informs 
us, that just before the famous battle of Shrewsbury, June 21, 1403, headed on one side by Henry the [Vth in 
person, and on the other by the gallant Henry Percy, surnamed Hotspur, Owen Glendower, the powerful Welsh 
Chieftain, and the firm adherent of the English Insurgents, ascended this tree, and from its lofty branches, then 
most probably in the full pride of their vigour, reconnoitred the state of the field: when finding that the King 
was in great force, and that the Earl of Northumberland had not joined his son Henry, he descended from his leafy 
observatory with the prudent resolution of declining the combat, and retreated with his followers to Oswestry. 
This caution seems scarcely in character with the fierce and heedless courage of 
“The irregular and wild Glendower,” 
whose martial daring is well pourtrayed by our great dramatic poet, in Hotspur’s account of his combat with 
“the noble Mortimer ;” of whom he says: 
“To prove that true, Three times they breathed and three times did they drink, 
Needs no more but one tongue for all those wounds, Upon agreement, of swift Severn’s flood ; 
Those mouthed wounds, which valiantly he took, Who then, affrighted with their bloody looks, 
When on the gentle Severn’s sedgy bank, Ran fearfully among the trembling reeds, 
In single opposition, hand to hand, And hid his crisp head in the hollow bank, 
He did confound the best part of an hour Blood-stained with these valiant combatants.” 
In changing hardiment with great Glendower. Kine Henry IV, Ist part, a. 1. se. 3. 
The great age of the Shelton Oak, thus pointed out by the tradition which connects it with the name of 
Glendower, is likewise attested by legal documents belonging to Richard Hill Waring, Esq., whose ancestors 
possessed lands in Shelton, and the neighbourhood, in the reign of Henry III.; probably deriving them from 
Waring, son of Athef, a Saxon, who had land in the market-place of Shrewsbury, before the use of dates was 
known. Among this gentleman’s title-deeds is the following paper, inscribed, “per me Adam Waring,” and 
entitled, ‘“ How the grette Oake at Shelton standeth on my grounde :” 
Sa a ae ee 
