Noake's Worcestershire Page 319

SHIPSTON AND TREDINGTON. 319

of hops, fruit, and corn. There are 95 seats in the church. All these seats are free, and there is one elaborately-carved oak pew attached to the ancient Court-house. This house (seventeenth century timber structure) is occupied by Mr. Joseph Smith, and was in olden time said to have been haunted by a Lady Lightfoot ; many antiquities are shown here, and in the garden a fine specimen of the abies morinda. Earl Dudley owns the whole parish, but Sir Edward Blount is lord of the manor. There is a place here called "Witchery Hole," and it was an old saying when the people thought some hag was exercising a malicious influence, "The wind comes from Witchery Hole."

Shipston and Tredington.

SHIPSTON-ON-STOUR was so called as being a town on the river Stour famous for its sheep market. It was formerly a township or chapelry in the parish of Tredington; and other townships, manors, chapelries, and places, were Tidmington, Newbold, Blackwell, Armscott, Longdon, Goldicote, Talton, Darlingscott, and Alderminster. Shipston is now a separate parish, to which the rectory of Tidmington is annexed. Newbold and Armscott are also a distinct parish for ecclesiastical purposes, and so is Alderminster, which has been already treated of. The whole forms an isolated part of Worcestershire, surrounded by the counties of Warwick and Gloucester. Tredington includes nearly 3,000 acres, with a population of 1,100. Its church is a fine old structure, large and stately, with Norman and later work of various styles, the old rood-screen, and some memorial relics; and the village consists of small irregular stone houses, an agreeable variation from brick and cross-timber of the rest of Worcestershire.