St Mary Redcliffe

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White Three Years in Europe, or Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met By William Wells Brown Letter twelve Kirkstall Abbey Mary the Maid of the Inn Newstead Abbey, residence of Lord Byron Parish Church of Hucknall Burial Place of Lord Byron Bristol, Cook's Folly Chepstow Castle and Abbey Tintern Abbey Redcliffe Church January twenty-nine In passing through Yorkshire, we could not resist the temptation it offered to pay a visit to the extensive and interesting ruin of Kirkstall Abbey, which lies embosomed in a beautiful recess of Airedale, about three miles from Leeds.

A pleasant drive over a smooth road brought us abruptly in sight of the abbey.

The tranquil and pensive beauty of the desolate monastery as it reposes in the lap of pastoral luxuriance and amidst the touching associations of seven centuries is almost beyond description when viewed from where we first beheld it.

The feathered songsters were fluttering about and pouring forth their artless lays as a tribute of joy; while the lowing of the herds, the bleating of flocks, and the hum of bees upon the farm near by, all burst upon the ear, and gave the scene a picturesque sublimity that can be easier imagined than described.

Most assuredly Shakespeare had such ruins in view when he exclaimed, The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Ye all which it inherit, shall dissolve, And, like the baseless fabric of a vision, Leave not a wreck behind.

In the afternoon we returned to Bristol, and I spent the greater part of the next day in examining the interior of Redcliffe Church.

Few places in the west of England have greater claims upon the topographer and historian than the church of St. Mary's, Redcliffe.

It's an incident.

Aubrey Cavendish and I were married in the church of St. Mary Redcliffe in Bristol, England, just before the matinee.

The wedding supper was served on the stage after the matinee.

She stooped to conquer, it was.

He steeped himself in the medieval past of Bristol.

And especially in the great church of St. Mary Redcliffe.

And then he pulled off one of the most extraordinary literary deceptions in English history.

He invented a 15th century monk poet called Thomas Rowley.

The population of Bristol, with Clifton and the Hot Wells, is about two hundred thousand.

My first excursion with the boys was to Redcliffe Church, which is thought to be the finest parish church in England.

This is the church where poor Chatterton said that he found the Raleigh manuscript.

No one of taste visits the city without repairing to this venerable pile.