IN THE CELLAR
The highways from Stafford and Wolverhampton to Kidderminster
and the South, and that from Halesowen to Bridgenorth, cross each
other at Kinver, and a bridge traverses the Stour, near Stourton
Castle, once a royal residence, and one that was a favourite with
King John. The great Irish Road from Bath and Bristol to Chester
passed through Kinver, to the great emolument of the town and
neighbourhood. At that time, Chester and its port, Park Gate, received the packets from Ireland.
An old soldier in the wars of Queen Anne, a native of the
place, settled there when her wars were over, and, as was
customary with old soldiers, set up an inn near the bridge, at
the cross roads. He had been quartered at Estepona, in the south
of Spain, and thence he had brought a Spanish wife. Partly in
honour of her, chiefly in reminiscence of his old military days, he entitled his inn, "The Estepona Tavern." The Spanish name in English mouths became rapidly transformed into Stewponey. The spot was happily selected, and as the landlord had a managing wife, and provided excellent Spanish wine, which he imported himself, and with which he could supply the cellars of the gentry round, the inn grew in favour, and established its reputation as one of the best inns in Staffordshire.
The present landlord, Cornelius Rea, was a direct descendant
of the founder of the house.
The Stewponey was resorted to by the gentry of the south of
Staffordshire, Worcestershire, and Shropshire, on the approach of
an election, to decide on the candidates to be proposed and
elected.
It was also frequented by travellers on their way north, south, east, or west, who arrived at Kinver at ebb of day, and were disinclined to risk their persons and their purses by proceeding at night over the heaths of Kinver, through the forest of Stourton, and among the broken ground that was held to be a lurking-place for footpads and highway robbers.
Indeed, the neighbourhood for a century bore an evil name, and
not without cause. Several and special facilities were here
afforded to such as found profit and pleasure in preying on their
fellow-men. As already intimated, at this point on the map of
England, the territories appertaining to the counties that meet
have gone through extraordinary dislocations. There are no
natural boundaries, and those which are artificial are
capricious. Nothing was more easy for one who desired to throw
out his pursuers, armed with a warrant signed by the magistrate
of one county, than to pass into the next, and if further pursued
by legal process there, to step into a third.
A highwayman, at the beginning of the century in which we
live, who honoured Kinver with residing in it, planted his
habitation at the extreme verge of the county, divided from the
next by a hollow way, and when the officers came to take him, he
leaped the dyke, and mocked them with impunity from the farther
side.
But this was not all. The geological structure of the country
favoured them. Wherever a cliff, great or small, presented its
escarpment, there the soft sandstone was scooped out into
labyrinths of chambers, in which families dwelt, who in not a few
instances were in league with the land pirates. The plunder could
anywhere be safely and easily concealed, and the plunderers could
pass through subterranean passages out of one county into
another, and so elude pursuit.
The highwaymen belonged by no means to the lowest class. The
gentlemen of the road comprised, for the most part, wastrels and
gamesters of good blood, who thought it no dishonour to recover
on the high-road what they had lost on the green table. Occasionally, but only occasionally, one was captured and hung, but the gang was not broken up, the gap was at once refilled. Of applicants there no lack, and the roads remained as insecure before. The facilities for escape at the confines of three counties, and in a country honeycombed with places of refuge, were too many, and the business was too profitable, to enable the sheriffs, during an entire century, to put an end to a condition of affairs which was at once a scandal and a nuisance.