In this direction however we must not proceed, but passing along the terrace on the south-east side of the Gaol, continue our walk on “the gentle Severn’s sedgy bank,” at the base of a steep and rugged declivity, most picturesquely planted and crowned with the Castle’s “worm-eaten hold of ragged stone,” and the antique gables of the Council House, and presenting pleasing views of the venerable Abbey, the adjacent suburb of the Abbey Foregate, and the massive and really grand
over the river Severn, consisting of 7 elliptical arches, 45 feet span, rising 18 feet above the springings. The Viaduct is quite level throughout its whole length, in width is 39 feet, and the level of the rails about 36 feet above the ordinary level of the river.
Passing under an arch of the Viaduct we see immediately before us the elegant English Bridge, and arrive at
memorable as the avenue through which the Parliamentary forces were treacherously admitted into the town, at the siege of Shrewsbury, 22nd February, 1644–5.
Advancing up this narrow lane, we leave, on the left, the site of
long since cleared of its buildings, and now converted into a wharf, warehouse, and excellent gardens. These friars established themselves here as early as 1222, and assumed as their founder Matilda, grand-daughter and co-heiress of Walter de Lasci, lord of Ludlow, and wife of Geoffrey de Joinville, of Vaucoulour.
Edward IV., who, throughout the whole of his reign regarded Shrewsbury with much affection, selected this religious house as his occasional residence, and the place in which his Queen was delivered of her second and third sons, Richard Shrewsbury, (1473–4,) Duke of York, afterwards murdered in the Tower, and George Plantagenet, who died young. Many persons of distinguished rank, who fell in the battle of Shrewsbury, 1403, received interment here.
On levelling the ground in 1823, the foundations of three spacious apartments, fragments of mullions and pillars, emblazoned tiles, several skeletons enclosed in rude stone coffins, and great quantities of bones, were disclosed to view. The site is now the property of the Corbets of Sundorne.
The sloping ground rising above the site of this friary, and extending to the south and south-eastern wall of the town, where the Infirmary and other houses now stand, was, as we learn from a charter of Henry III., dated 1227, confirming the possessions of the Abbey of Shrewsbury, given by “divers citizens of Salopesbury” to the monks of that house “for the planting of a vineyard:”—a situation, according to the best writers on horticulture, eminently adapted to the cultivation of the vine.