PITCHFORD HALL

H'

IDDEN away in a recess in the low hills to the south of Shrewsbury there is one of the most charming homes it has been our lot to find where'er we roam. An old home never bought and never sold, unspoilt by the restorer, unsullied by the ignorant rich, undesecrated by the hateful hammer of the auctioneer, where the treasures of bygone generations are still treasured by those who come after, the homely furniture that has outlasted the wear and tear of ages, the hereditary armour, the trophies of sport, the pictures that are not only works of art but vivid illustrations of English history, of the dresses and manners of generations of Englishmen who lived and died in this the lovely home of their fathers.

Pitchford has its name from a bituminous or pitchy well, noted in its earliest records. Why we should insert the useless letter in pitch is one of those little follies unexplained to us. At the great survey the place was even then of some importance, for it had five ox-teams and pannage for a hundred swine. Then its record is almost blank for two hundred years, when in the winter time men felled one of its gigantic oaks, which had probably been growing there for a thousand years, and yearly helping to fatten its share of the swine. This enormous bole of winter-felled oak was made by cunning craftsmen into a coffin, a work of art and heraldry, and the likeness of a man in full panoply of war, the last Pichford who died Lord of Pichford. All that may be seen to-day, for on his oaken tomb his oaken effigy lies, full seven feet in length, with fine cut

features, clad in mail armour, with enormous, almost exaggerated right arm and right hand grasping the hilt of his heavy sword, his legs crossed in mystic symbolism. The heart of native oak which forms this splendid work of art is more sharply cut to-day than if the image had been chiselled in marble. Salopia's historian Eyton considers that by the shields of arms there plainly shown this effigy should be of Sir John de Pichford, who ceased to be the Lord of Pichford in 1285. The first and third shields being Pichford, the second Devereux, the fourth Baskerville. They and others can be plainly seen in our little memento. It was almost with awe and bated breath we sat on the altar steps and stretched out the camera's tripod to take the likeness of the grim old warrior, but he never stirred. We could hear our watches tick and our hearts beat as the seconds slowly slipped into minutes, and the minutes dragged away in the ancient church's dim religious light. He still gazed steadily upward as if he waited for the sound of the trumpet, and on tiptoe we crept quietly away as if we feared to disturb that last long sleep.

Another spell of nearly two hundred years rolls away with nought of interest to tell, until in 1473 one Ottley. Sheriff of the County, here built himself a house, and that also may be seen to-day, that is, seen by those who are worthy to see it, for the cheap-tripper who sucks bottles and oranges had better keep away, it would be desecration to admit the abomination here. To us it seemed almost a crime to go on bicycles and ring a bell, especially when the handle of the bell would have made an excellent mace. The only proper way to visit here is on horseback, on eager hunter or on stately charger. But our horsey days are over. Big Sir John de Pichford would have smote on the nail-studded door with the hilt of his gigantic sword; or Sir Francis Ottley's squire would have blown a blast to rouse the echoes round and bring the feudal henchmen rushing