Just south of Berrington, our stop was Cantlop Bridge. Thomas Telford was County Surveyor for Shropshire between 1787 and 1834 and probably designed this bridge in 1818. It has a lightweight lattice structure of cast iron, showing how technology had moved on from the Ironbridge.
We continued on via beautiful narrow roads to St Peter’s church in Cound, grid reference SJ558050.
We parked next to the church in the grounds of the Guildhall, and discovered they have a bookshop. The Guildhall looks fun – with its own website – with a village celebration of Agincourt later this month (an historical re-enactor, supper, and a showing of Henry V). Julie was in her element.
There isn’t a guidebook for this church and I don’t have a copy of Pevsner for Shropshire. It is a C13 church with original door and a six bell tower built 1500.
Inside you can walk among the six bell ropes – and the most amazing heating system (note the large vent). The bells were all cast in 1726 by Abraham Rudhall II, one of a family of bell founders in Gloucester.
On the top left of the chancel arch are the remains of a doom painting.
Good carved pulpit, dated 1633.
There are some lovely memorials – worth giving further study to.
According to this website, HMS Grecian spent a lot of time intercepting slave ships. Henry Thursby Pelham, the incumbent, was the man who built the Chancel.
Stained glass ranges from the medieval, with some C19 Kempe.
There is some new Millennium glass. The baptism windows were made by Jane Gray for the Millennium. The Chi-rho symbol and the fish (the earliest symbol of Christianity), the inverted cross and keys of St Peter, corn and grapes of the Eucharist, the dove of the Spirit, and a lighted candle. The Alpha and omega, and the church’s Norman font (12th century). The streams are the Cound Moor and the Cound brook, and they flow together under Telford’s bridge.
Outside was fun too, with some interesting figures high on the tower.
I came back from photoing the church to find Julie had a huge pile of books, including Lost Railways of Shropshire … what a wonderful wife.
