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CAUS CASTLE-MARCHE MANOR

-OLD PARR

Α

S the name of Dieulacres Abbey often puzzled my early readings of Cheshire history, so did that of Caus Castle in the History of Shropshire. The names looked foreign and the places were unknown to me. There are few Norman names in our part of England, but these are of them. and the places have not prospered. Perhaps if they had prospered the names would have been more Anglicised. X claimed Caus as one of the homes of his ancestors, and therefore it must be found even if we got lost in the hills and had to stay out all night.

Arrived at Shrewsbury we found a local train would take us some miles farther into the country to the west It stopped at a place called Minsterley, as if it could get no farther, and there is a black-and-white hall where lives the agent of the Marquis of Bath, in whose garden we set up the camera close to a peach tree that was laden with fruit, and they were not the well-known variety named Royal George. In the spoilt church hang maidens' garlands, or love tokens. A road-mender shows us a wooded ridge about two miles away, where stands all that is left of Caus. He tells us of two routes to get there, one through the fields and woods, the other a mile or two farther by the lanes. Roadmen or highwaymen, unlike their namesakes of old, are generally good persons from whom to ask one's way.

We try the first, then go by the second. At Castle

Farm, on a long hill, we ask a herdsman for the castle, who tells us in local English, "It's a steepish pitch, but yo mun owd up th' rack an' roun by th' coppy, an' yo'll getten theer."

We leave "them things," that is bikes, in a calf-cote, asking him to mind the pigs do not eat them, for there are swine all about the place, and if some becaine premature pork through eating our tyres, the simple farmers might want heavy damages. We have to climb over fastened gates, and up a steep path in the woods, until we stand on a precipitous conical mound, where remnants of masonry are all overgrown with wild peas or vetches in great profusion of pods.

From the topmost peak there is a fine view over the great plain of Salop, to where the Wrekin dimly rears its lonely height. Nearer at hand is the long range of the Stiperstones, once a chase for Saxon kings. Where the grey spoils of rubbish show for miles that mining has been done, there have been found pigs of lead stamped with the superscription of the Cæsars. The august Emperor Hadrian heaped up riches, and the seed of his barbarians treasure them as curiosities to look at, not as objects of art or value, but for the sake of his imperial mark. Round to the west are the mountain strongholds of Powysland, and on that side the castle lacks the commanding site of Montgomery. By far the greatest work, that still endures all the wear and tear of ages, is the well. The top of it is some yards square, lined with masonry as far as can be seen, and its depth must be very great to go anywhere near the brook below the hill. At the present day it would be a wonderful work to construct, but in those days it would be a necessity, for water was all-important in a siege, where cattle, the wealth of the country, were always driven within the castle walls for safety when a border raid

was on.

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Among the followers of Roger de Montgomery was another Roger, probably a kinsman, from Pays de Caux, in Normandy. This one was nicknamed Corbet, or Corbie the raven. To help his lord against the Welsh he built this castle here, and called it after his Norman home. The Corbets were named the Warden of the Host against the Welsh, and the family increased and multiplied exceedingly. Eyton says no present Corbet can have come from any later Baron than he of 1222; therefore, their exact affinity must be the work rather of a magician than an antiquary, but as some of these Normans were proud of holding the office of "camerarius," which any schoolboy would translate as holder of the camera, there is here reproduced a snapshot of one of the tribe when on the very summit of the castle's mound he was calmly considering the value of the stranger's lands around him.

Here is a very interesting bit I ferreted out, a special Act referring doubtless to the district round. A patent of the King, dated 4th of May 1281, that is, two years before the Parliament met at Acton Burnell, informs all his officers that Peter Corbet of Caus is commissioned to destroy all wolves, and they are to assist with dogs and other devices. In our school days we were taught that wolves were extinct in England long before this date, but in the wild borderland they must have lingered much longer, and been too plentiful, or there would have been no special command to destroy-not merely to hunt them. The sheep dogs in the neighbourhood even now look little different from wolves. They would not change and become civilised as soon as their masters, for with the dogs inbreeding would last longer and be closer. Elsewhere I find that about this time the wolves pulled down a buck on Cannock Chase, which was eaten by lepers.

After a long climb down the underwood from the

CAUS CASTLE

305 castle top to the farm below, which is on a high hill, we have a fine roll down to Westbury, where in the inn are many well-set-up specimens of falcons, capercailzie, gamecocks, and other birds. A puncture and refreshment delay us; then, winding up and down and roundabout through many lanes, we come again nearly to the bottom

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of Caus Castle hill, nearly to where we were, after many miles of wandering. Our map had marked the place, but in these wild districts we cannot always trust to maps, and often there is not any one from whom to ask the way.

Marche Manor is a charming old house, rather small compared to many of the country houses, but not perhaps the worse for that. The moat is mostly dry with

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