Transcribed from the [1855] George Lewis edition by DavidPrice.
THE
HISTORY OF OSWESTRY,
COMPRISINGTHE
BRITISH, SAXON, NORMAN, AND ENGLISHERAS;
THE
TOPOGRAPHY OF THE BOROUGH;
ANDITS
ECCLESIASTICAL AND CIVIC HISTORY:
WITH NOTICESOF
BOTANY, GEOLOGY, STATISTICS, ANGLING, AND BIOGRAPHY:
TO WHICH AREADDED
SKETCHES OF THE ENVIRONS.
ILLUSTRATED WITH WOOD-ENGRAVINGS,
By MR. PERCYCRUIKSHANK, after Sketches by MR. ROBERT
CRUIKSHANK.
WRITTEN ANDCOMPILED
BY WILLIAM CATHRALL,
AUTHOR OF“THE HISTORY OF NORTH WALES,”“WANDERINGS
IN NORTH WALES,” &c.
OSWESTRY:
PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY GEORGE LEWIS.
ENTERED ATSTATIONERS’ HALL.
p.iiiPreface.
The issue of this volume has been“the accident of an accident.” I was called bycommercial business last autumn to Oswestry, where I found,temporarily located, a man with humour at his finger-ends, and of“infinite jest” on paper. I allude to Mr. Robert Cruikshank, an artist scarcelyinferior to his celebrated brother, Mr. George Cruikshank—par nobilefratrum, who have both successfully laboured in theirvocation to
—“Shoot folly as it flies,
And catch the living manners as they rise.”
Mr. Robert Cruikshank, pleased with the rich and diversifiedscenery of the neighbourhood of Oswestry, undertook to illustratethe present book. To be thus pictorially aided was adistinction, and I therefore cheerfully complied with the wish ofthe respectable publisher, to try my “’prenticehand” at a History of the Borough. Mr. Cruikshank haswell executed his task. What may be my portion ofmerit will be determined by the judgment, not critically severe,I hope, of my readers.
The History of Oswestry and its neighbourhood is, however,worthy of a more elaborate and carefully-wrought p. ivvolume thanthat which I now send forth; and I should have been glad had somepen, abler than my own, been employed in the completion of sodesirable a work. Oswestry is not deficient in the talentor learning necessary to produce a