322 SPETCHLEY.

A bequest of £1,000 by Chancellor Vernon, for warming and clothing old people, was left by that gentleman to be equally divided between the parishes of Hanbury and Shrawley. Near Shrawley Court farm-house are some artificial mounds, called "Court Hills," or "Oliver's Mound," and may have been raised to command a ford in the Severn. Antiquities have been found here, and there are traditions of an old castle and a town once existing in the parish.

Spetchley.

SOME three miles east of Worcester and on the Midland line of railway from Gloucester to Birmingham. There are but 779 acres in the parish, including Mr. Berkeley's park and a farm, and the population numbers but 140. Mr. Berkeley lives in a handsome mansion (date 1810) on the estate owned by his family for centuries.

In the library of Spetchley House, I am told, are a Bible and Prayer-book, bound in red velvet, which belonged to Charles I.

The manor passed through the hands of the families of De Spetchley, Lyttelton, and Sheldon, and from the latter to Rowland Berkeley, a wealthy clothier of Worcester, which city he represented in Parliament. His second son, Sir Robert Berkeley, was the celebrated Judge, who was so severely "squeezed" by the Parliament for his adherence to the Royal cause, and the Scotch Presbyterians burnt down his house at Spetchley (where Cromwell once took up his quarters) a little before the battle of Worcester, whereupon he fitted up his stables and lived in them as contentedly as did the philosopher of old in his tub. The Berkeley family have been great benefactors to Worcester. Towards the close of the last century the then Mr. Berkeley had a Mr. Falkner