38 BEWDLEY, RIBBESFOBD, AND WRIBBENHALL.

to tell, and as showing that the town could not have been so badly served under the Tory dynasty, after all, the newly-elected body in 1835 were all Conservatives. W. H. Ryland, Esq., is the present mayor, a gentleman of wealth and liberality, who has worthily inaugurated his year of office by proposing to erect by public subscription a church upon Wyre Hill (formerly known as the Bewdley "St. Giles's"), with schools attached thereto; the whole to serve as a testimonial of respect to Miss Pountney, who for many years has laboured so successfully in establishing a Home Mission there foffthe benefit of her poor neighbours.

But now let us take a glance at ecclesiastical matters. The parish church, as before stated, is at Ribbesford, a mile south of Bewdley. It belonged to the Church that is, the monastery of Worcester; and the villans of the manor were bound to furnish nets and other materials for catching fish. A piece of sculpture on the tympanum of the Norman doorway of the old church is supposed to refer to this custom, though some fanciful people have converted it into a legend of Robin of Horsehill, the ranger to the manor, aiming an arrow at a buck but shooting a salmon. Ribbesford was taken from the monastery by those firebrands the Danes, and was never restored; one Thurstan, a Norman, afterwards seizing it, and the manor passing into the hands of the families of De Ribbesford, the Barons Lisle, the Actons, Herberts, &c. The church consists of a chancel, nave, aisles, and bell-cot on the western gable. A few monuments, carvings, and fragments of stained glass, are worth lingering over; and there are some curious epitaphs in the churchyard, some of which refer to the rough experiences of bo^giaen's life on the Severn. The Court House, which stands a little to the south of the church, was probably erected about the time of James I on the site of a still older mansion. Only a small part of the original structure remains, the rest having been modernised. In this house was the scene of poor Lord Herbert's tragedy, who committed suicide here in 1738. In 1655 the constables,