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Updated: August 20, 2024
Once the West Saxons penetrated to the borders of Chester, and Uriconium, a town beside the Wrekin which has been recently brought again to light, went up in flames.
The other circumstance to which we have above referred was the discovery of the Roman city of Uriconium, near Wroxeter, about five miles from Shrewsbury, in the year 1788. The situation of the place is extremely beautiful, the river Severn flowing along its western margin, and forming a barrier against what were once the hostile districts of West Britain.
The old Roman city of Uriconium was founded in the early part of the second century, if not before this date; and it was destroyed, according to Mr. Wright, probably between the middle of the fourth and fifth century. The inhabitants were massacred, and skeletons of women were found in the hypocausts.
The name of Rome was made known, and made terrible, through Wales by a great battle fought on the eastern slopes of the Berwyn. The Romans had conquered the lands beyond the Severn, and had placed themselves firmly near the banks of that river at Glevum and Uriconium. Glevum is our Gloucester, and its streets are still as the Roman architect planned them.
Chad's, at Shrewsbury; the other was the discovery of the ruins of the Roman city of Uriconium, in the immediate neighbourhood. The church of St. Chad's was about four centuries old, and stood greatly in need of repairs. The roof let in the rain upon the congregation, and the parish vestry met to settle the plans for mending it; but they could not agree about the mode of procedure.
The Romans turned it into Uriconium; but after their departure, it was captured and burnt to the ground by a party of raiding West Saxons, and its fall is graphically described in the wild old Welsh elegy of Llywarch the Aged. The ruins are still charred and blackened by the West Saxon fires.
The Roman road was twin to the railroad; Uriconium was well worth Shrewsbury; Wenlock and Buildwas were far superior to Bridgnorth. The shepherds of Caractacus or Offa, or the monks of Buildwas, had they approached where he lay in the grass, would have taken him only for another and tamer variety of Welsh thief.
Having visited Uriconium, the English Pompeii, the Burtons made for Vichy, where they met Mr. Sartoris. His companions on this journey, as on so many others, were two books one being the anodynous Camoens, the other a volume consisting of the Bible, Shakespeare and Euclid bound together, which looked, with its three large clasps, like a congested Church Service. Mrs.
The raid ended in a crushing defeat which broke the West-Saxon strength, but a British poet in verses still left to us sings piteously the death-song of Uriconium, "the white town in the valley," the town of white stone gleaming among the green woodlands.
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