Northgate

Like many another historic town, the best way to see Bridgnorth is on foot – where the ancient corners, steps and alleyways delight the discerning visitor. The rather steep steps down to or up from Low Town is an easy walk for most people although, of course, the cliff railway is always an easier alternative.

Exploration of the town can well start at the Town Hall in the High Street – originally a barn belonging to Lady Bartue of Much Wenlock and built between 1648 and 1652. Originally of stone, the lower storey was later faced with brickwork as a means of preservation. Resting on its high brick arches the building contains many items of historic interest as well as some fine heraldic stained glass. Visitors are welcome free of charge. Following age old custom, local people sell their produce ‘under the arches’ every Saturday.

Nearby is St Leonard’s Close, a rather lovely and extremely quiet cathedral type church in miniature. The church is mostly a Victorian restoration built of red sandstone and replaced an earlier building that was burnt down during the Civil War. The church centres as the focal point for the English Haydn Festival that takes place at the very end of May each year and is one of the most prestigious in the country.
Around St Leonard’s Close are other historic buildings including Richard Baxter’s House. Richard Baxter was a pre Civil War scholar and parliamentarian who complained that Bridgnorth was full of inns and alehouses which were the undoing of great towns! Also situated in the Close are the town council offices and the half timbered Palmer’s Hospital which also dates from the late 17th century and was instituted for the ‘poor widows’ of the parish in memory of Francis Palmer’s mother who is buried in this same churchyard. Both the Church and Close form an attractive venue for the Haydn Festival with rather enjoyable picnics taking place during concert intervals.

Northgate extends from this point in the town centre and here is located the Museum of the Bridgnorth Historical Society with its quite fine collection of historic items. Here, too, is the site of the last remaining town gate and nearby are more fine timbered buildings including the Bear Inn. Two other nearby inns are the Crown and the Kings Head (both half timbered) and, at the foot of the hill, the Half Moon Battery, a fragment of the old town walls. Situated in the High Street is the beautifully timbered Swan Inn and, opposite it, the Tanners’ Wine Shop with four rather odd little figures (known as caryatids) carved on the second floor overhang. Their significance is unknown.

Cartway leads from the higher level of Low Town , past the Black Boy Inn, to Bishop Percy’s House, the most important medieval building in the town and one whose magnificent half-timbering dates from 1580 and this was one of the few buildings in Bridgnorth to escape the great fire. Indeed, it provided accommodation for many townspeople made homeless by that catastrophe. The house was built by Richard Forster (or Foster as he is sometimes called) who was a wealthy barge owner who operated from a nearby riverside wharf. The finely executed timber work and carving was so ornate that the house was often referred to as ‘Forster’s Folly’. In 1729, Thomas Percy was born here. He later became a scholar and antiquary and author of ‘Reliques of Ancient English Poetry’. After his death the house had various fortunes – or misfortunes – including periods as a lodging house, a hucksters shop and a brass foundry. In 1905, by which time it was in a very poor state of repair, the house was purchased by the Foster family of Apley Park. In 1945 they presented the house to Bridgnorth Boys’ Club who carried out substantial repairs to the building and used it for their meetings. It has been sold for re-conversion to a private dwelling.
Not far away is Low Town where the Severn is crossed by an 1823 stone bridge. An elegant construction with a clock tower that commemorates Richard Trevithick who built ‘Catch Me Who Can’, the first ever steam locomotive to carry fare paying passengers. Parts of that locomotive were made nearby in Hazeldine’s Foundry. In the days before good roads and railways the rivers were the main means of travelling and high among them was the Severn. Bridgnorth’s quays rivalled those of Bristol or Gloucester. Warehouses, offices and boatyards lined the river’s banks backed up by grog shops and drinking dens that were the haunts of the ever thirsty ‘boathauliers’. These were gangs of ragged toughs who pulled the heavy barges (called Severn Trows) before towpaths were built. The coming of horses to pull the barges and then the railways led to a sharp decline in the river trade. Whereas 250 vessels worked the Shropshire Severn in 1756, only six barges were left in business by 1862. The last barge in use in 1859 hit a pier on the bridge and sank, an event that saw the end of trade on the river – and the end of Bridgnorth as a port.

Bandon Island

An award winning project by the Town Council has been carried through and there are now fine views both of and from the bridge and river. The cliffs nearby are riddled with caves including Lavington’s Hole, a tunnel that was excavated by Cromwellian forces during their siege of the town. The idea was to burrow below the Royalists’ powder store in the Castle Chapel, fill the cavity with gunpowder, light the fuse and then run! Word of this plot by Colonel Lavington, however, called out the defenders of the garrison and they soon negotiated a surrender!

Had this early ‘gunpowder plot’ succeeded then the attractive grounds of Bridgnorth Castle would not be with us. Today it is only a fragment of its former self (at an angle of seventeen degrees from the perpendicular it is considerably more than the Tower of Pisa) having been destroyed after the Parliamentarian forces took the town. One massive fragment of the keep survives – leaning at an startling angle. From this point there are impressive views of the Severn Valley and Low Town below. The long steep road over the river climbs to the Hermitage Caves, an ancient collection of rock dwellings that were lived in as homes until 1928. One of these cave houses was once the secluded retreat of a hermit brother of the Saxon prince Aethelstan.