A Walk Around Silverton - Mary Webb’s Shrewsbury By Gladys Mary Coles and Dez Quarréll A Walk Around Silverton is a circular walk of approximately two hours duration, but which can easily be made into a day out with the many attractions Shrewsbury can offer the visitor Gladys Mary Coles is the biographer of Mary Webb, the leading authority on her life and work and President of the Mary Webb Society. Her study of Mary Webb, The Flower of Light, was a ‘Book Of The Year’ in The Times. Dez Quarréll, curator of the Mythstories Museum is variously described as a writer, storyteller, artist, and composer. Like Mary Webb much of his inspiration is drawn from the mythology of the Welsh borderlands. Mythstories, museum of myth & fable The Morgan Library, Aston Street, Wem, Shropshire. SY4 5AU Registered Charity No. 1161594 url: http://www.mythstories.com Copyright © Gladys Mary Coles & Dez Quarréll, 2000 Published by Mythstories museum of myth and fable The Morgan Library Aston Street WEM, Shropshire SY4 5AU Registered Charity No. 1086122 Design and Layout: Dez Quarréll Cover photograph: ©Gladys Mary Coles Copyright © 2000 Individual copyright © remains with the authors, illustrators and photographers. The contributors have asserted their rights under Section 77of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the authors of this work. Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the publishers. A Self Guided Tour Of Silverton (Mary Webb’s Shrewsbury) Duration – approx. 2 hours see illustrative map on the final page Start At Rowley’s House between Barker Street & Hills Lane This tour of Mary Webb’s Shrewsbury – the ‘Silverton’ of her writings – takes us to some of the important places in her own life, as well as in the lives of her characters. We will see some of the streets and buildings on which she based her fictional locations. Mary Webb – Shropshire’s most famous daughter – has immortalised the county in her literature. She wrote six novels – the best known are Precious Bane and Gone to Earth, and her rich legacy also includes poetry, nature essays and short stories. She lived only 46 years, from 1881 to 1927, spending most of her life in her beloved Shropshire, proud of the countryside and its historic county town, Shrewsbury. Shrewsbury is not greatly changed from the days when Mary Webb walked here. The buildings are much the same, the ‘Shuts’ (passages), squares, churches and old inns, the River Severn and the Quarry, the Castle and the Station. The names of the streets familiar to her are retained today: Dogpole, Wyle Cop, Butcher Row, Frankwell, Mardol. And now a poem by Mary to send us on our way:- The Elf A fair town is Shrewsbury – The world over You’ll hardly find a fairer, In its fields of clover And rest-harrow, ringed By hills where curlews call, And, drunken from the heather, Black bees fall. Poplars, by Severn, Lean hand in hand, Like golden girls dancing In elfland. Early there come travelling On market day Old men and young men From far away, with red fruits of the orchard And dark fruits of the hill, Dew-fresh garden stuff, And mushrooms chill, Honey from the brown skep, Brown eggs, and posies Of gillyflowers and lent lilies And blush roses. Neither bells in the steeple Nor books, old and brown, Can disenchant the people In the slumbering town. We’ll now make our way down to the station, passing some of the poplars mentioned in her poem. Walk towards the Welsh Bridge, turn right before the bridge into Mardol Quay leading into Smithfield Road. The poplars used to line the far bank of the Severn you see on your left. Some were replaced by other species; others were rather vigorously pollarded in recent years, and then along came the flood defenses! Go along Smithfield Road, cross Roushill and pause at Riverside Surgery. Before the building of the Riverside shopping centre this was the site of the old Smithfield Cattle market. This would have been a very busy noisy and probably smelly, bustling area, in fact Roushill used to be the red light district of Shrewsbury spilling out into the Mardol with its many pubs and ale houses. There are some people alive today who remember their mothers telling them not to '‘go down the stews’ (what today’s tabloid papers might call the flesh pots) – ie Roushill and Mardol. In The Golden Arrow, her first novel (1916), Mary Webb’s central character, John Arden and his son Joe, with fiancée Lily, go to Silverton. Extract from ‘The Golden Arrow’ Chapter 26 John was taking some wool to the stapler and a calf to the auction. John had some bullocks to look at for Mr. Shakeshaft and Lily had offered to sell wimberries for a neighbour in order to go to town. She pinned some honeysuckle in her dress and tied a pink ribbon round her hat. She would have other admiration than Joe’s today. Joe was nice, of course, but he was not eloquent. She sat between the two men, who bulged over the sides of the cart like half-grown swallows from their nest. When Joe swayed the others did too. ‘You’re crushing my dress, Joe” “Well, ain’t that what its for?” A large hand crept round her waist, she was busy making calculations about a lace collar she coveted. She must have it, but she had no money. They jogged on. The calf, looking in its sack like a baby in a headwrapper, lifted its red and white face and gave a prolonged ‘moooo’, then, having made its protest against things in general, it nestled into the sack of wool and went to sleep. ‘You met help me along with the calf, Joe, If Lil can manage the berries’ Wimberries are a local name for cranberries. Carry on to the Station (follow map route) - in the station forecourt Mary went to and fro from Shrewsbury Station many times in her short life, especially when she became successful as a writer. But any separation from Shropshire was painful for her, and she was always deeply homesick when away. Coming into Shrewsbury Station was ‘coming home’. When her husband, Henry B. L. Webb, took a teaching post in London (1921), they lived in the capital but kept their home, Spring Cottage on Lyth Hill, to which Mary frequently returned. Arriving at the station she would joyfully take a cab to Lyth Hill, four miles outside the town. In the novel, Seven for a Secret (1922), young Gillian Lovekin, the central female character, is coming to stay with her Aunts, who live in Silverton. In the following passage Mary conveys her own excitement and anticipation on one of those many occasions when she would have been returning to Shrewsbury. Extract from ‘Seven for a Secret’ – Chapter 7 The country grew dimmer, grew dark, in the short journey. It only took three-quarters of an hour, but to Gillian it was like a whole day. Once she saw the far hills dark against the afterglow, once she caught a glimpse of a brook lit by reflected radiance. Then came straggling houses, a village church, houses clustering thicker, roofs all huddled together, a square church tower, two silver spires, a great bridge across the Severn – Silverton. They ran into a bay of the long station, and there stood Aunt Fanteague in her best mantle and her well- mortised bonnet, very severe. “We missed our train,” remarked Aunt Fanteague. When she used the first person plural, things were very wrong. “I’m only a country girl, A’ntie,” said Gillian. “Silverton’ll soon learn me to catch trains.” She thought of the London express. “I’ve met the train twice,” said Aunt Fanteague, half inclined to be mollified. Gillian gave her a great hug. In the station forecourt look up at the Castle founded by Roger de Montgomery in the eleventh century. In the shadow of the castle is the platform where the train in Seven for a Secret would have pulled in on what Gillian thought of as her first staging post to her goal of London. Later in her life, Mary wrote this keenly felt poem about her ‘Silverton’. My Own Town In this old town I know so well I have dwelt in heaven and in hell, And seen its folk go to and fro With faces of unthinkable woe, Ferocious as primaeval beasts, Or rapt as angels at their feasts, When close they press in silver rows While up and down the chalice goes, Made of a sapphire, filled to the brim With God. I have seen them walk like kings Pondering on majestic things. And where the gossip gables lean Chatting, I’ve met with faces mean With meanness past all grace or cure. As long as those blue hills endure, That stand around the gracious plain Which circles in the town, and rain Marches across the corn, and tears Weigh down the harvest of our years, So long what I have seen and felt, When in its churches I have knelt And wandered by the evening stream And seen the April roadways gleam, Shall live. And when the traffic’s hum Is gone, the busy market dumb As a winter bee, and all the spires Are melted in the hungry fires Of Time, and not a house remains – Then here upon the empty plains, Encircled by the changeless heights, As changeless through the days and nights As they, in colours that cannot fade, Shall stand the town that I have made With golden house and silver steeple And a strange uplifted people, Who in their charmed streets shall go Hushed with a tremendous woe And a joy as deep and vast As shadows that the mountains cast.