now in Hanmer township, and Eglwys Cross at one end of it, which seem to show that a cross for preaching and for mass about its steps may once have existed there; and Llynbedydd, which in English is "the pool of baptism,"1 at a short distance from the spot, marks a place where the rites of Christianity possibly were first exercised; by whom, whether by the monks of Bangor or by St. Chad, is a question reaching over centuries. Yet I do not doubt that the monks of Bangor did carry their good works to all these places; and as Ur-Iconium, the site of which, under the blue shoulders of the Wrekin' hill, is on the boundary

The ground about Llynbedydd shows that it was once much larger and came nearly up to the present gate at Bettisfield. It is likely that the levels of this and other waters were greatly changed by some of the earthquakes which were prevalent in this district about the eleventh and twelfth centuries; they were mentioned a few years since in an article in the "Quarterly Review." A winter or two ago an ancient boat carefully wrapped in reeds, and hewn out of the trunk of a tree, was dug out of a bank which I had often remarked as the limit of a former shore.

2 The obvious root of this word is the name of the Roman station Ur-ikon. The Wrekin is sometimes called "Mons Gilberti" in old chronicles. Rising separately from the other hills, it seems not unlike Soracte, as well as I can remember that famous ridge, which I saw thirty years ago.

of our landscape to the south, bore the same name as the Lycaonian city which had seen and heard St. Paul, it is not unreasonable to suppose that the Christian civilization of all this district originally came from thence, and has for its author some colonizing Asian soldier of the Imperial garrisons. The name Tybroughton might seem at first to mean, in the compound of Welsh and Saxon, "the vill of the house on the hill;" but the only conspicuous rising in the township is a Roman milliary mound, proved so to have been by its position on the roadside, and by the discovery within it of coins of Constantine, and, as I read in Varro that such places were called "tebæ,"1 I think that the origin of the word may be derived from thence. Talar is a headland beyond ploughed ground, and Talarn Green, between the Sarnbridge and the ancient inclosed land at the northern end of Willington, answers exactly in position to its

1 "Nam linguâ priscâ et in Græciâ Eoleis Boeotii sine afflatu vocant collis tebas, et in Sabinis quo e Græciâ venerunt Pelasgi etiam nunc ita dicunt, cujus vestigium in agro Sabino viâ Salariâ non longe a Reate milliarius clivus appellatur Teba." -VARRO, de Agriculturâ, 1. iii.

C

British name.' Bettisfield was at first called Llysbedydd, and this form, obviously connected with the neighbouring Llynbedydd and assignable to the same date, occurs as late as the reign of King James I., in a settlement of property in the township on Sir Thomas Hanmer, Knight, of that day.

Its waters flow southward to the Severn: the other five townships, by streams which unite in the neighbouring parish of Worthenbury, send a considerable confluent to the river Dee. The otter comes up from thence, and the sweet small trout, his prey; the latter are useful to us, for I have known them grow to nearly two pounds weight in a year when they are put into Hanmer mill-pool. The courses of these famous rivers may be traced by landmarks through the plains girded by the Welsh and Shropshire hills which bind us in from north by west to south; the one coming round the Breiddin and flowing within our southern horizon till it meets the Wrekin ranges, and turns again southward under them, having encircled Shrewsbury with its stream; the other breaking through the valley at Llangollen,

1 Street Lydan, the Broadway, is our Via Lata, leading by Penley to Overton and the brown currents of the Dee.

and thence passing on to the towers of Chester on our northern landside, and often sending up the gleams of its broad estuary beyond.' Celebrated by poets from the days of Llywarch Hên, in the "Polyolbion" we may read of the Dee, as

A brook that is supposed much business to have seen ;

1 The extensive moss in Bronington and in Bettisfield, which I have mentioned farther on, called "the Fens Moss," gives rise to the river Roden. The fire-blackened trees that are found by the peat-cutters make it likely that this was the great wood mentioned in Domesday Book, within the lordship of Bettisfield, and that it was destroyed by King Edward the First, as a military precaution, when he finally took possession of Wales. A gold coin of King William the Conqueror, perhaps dropped there by some ancient hunter in the forest, was found among the peat bogs some years ago. The river Roden bounds us against the parish and lordship of Wem: in Domesday Book "Aira accipitris" is mentioned there. Six centuries later a worse bird of prey was to be found about the place, which was then owned by Judge Jeffreys. Our district has been distinguished by lawyers. The year books of King Edward III. show Sir David Hanmer to have been one, for he appears in many cases; and in the next reign he was one of the Judges at Westminster, and a Trier of Petitions in the House of Lords. Lord Ellesmere, in the time of James the First, was our neighbour at Lineal; Lord Jeffreys was Baron of Wem; Sir John Trevor was owner by acquisition from the ancient family of Dymock of a great part of the township of Willington, which still belongs to his representatives; and, in the time of

a fact not permissible for us to doubt; but we might have expected that ancient river to be described in nobler terms by Michael Drayton. Still Palestine, which contains the Jordan, is called in Deuteronomy a land of brooks of water, as well as of fountains and depths springing out of valleys and hills. Our hundred of Saxon Maelor1 rises

King George the Third, Chief Justice Lord Kenyon raised the house of Gredington, and made his name memorable and regarded among his neighbours of Hanmer, as well as throughout the realm.

1 Maelor Hundred, or Terra de Maelor Saesneg, was one of the original component parts of the county of Flint, as set forth in the establishing statute of Rothelan or Rhyddlan. Land was held there by the service "faciendi sectam ad Comitatum de Flint de mense in mensem, et ad curiam Domini Regis de Maelor Seysnek de tribus septimanis in tres septimanas, et ad quatuor Sessiones de Flint per annum."-Inquisitiones, 8th Edw. II.coram John de Hinkele Ballivo Isabelle Regine Anglie de Overton in Maelor Seysnik. The freeholders also with their men attended the king in his wars. Much learning has been bestowed on the meaning of the term "free and common socage," as it occurs in the act 12th Car. II. cap. 24, abolishing the feudal tenures. I find it explained in relation to such services as these in a plea De quo warranto against the Abbot of Conway, pp. 144-9, of the book called the Record of Caernarvon, published by Her Majesty's Commissioners, 1838:-"Abbas de Conewey summonitus fuit ad respondendum domino Principi de placito quo warranto, clamat habere Sok et Sak," &c. &c. &c., and the Abbot says, 66 quod per illum verbum Sok clamat habere sectam