***********************************************************
2 February Meeting
This month we welcome Robert Galloway to speak to us on the subject of Quarrying in Shropshire. at 7:30 p.m.at the Piorslee and St. Georges Parish Rooms. As we live in an area of extensive quarrying for coal, as well as extensive former quarrying for such minerals as limestone, this should be of considerable interest. Mr Galloway is also a student under our member Dr White and the recipient of funding from the Pagett Trust, of which several of our members are trustees.
********************************************************************.
Extract from a poem on the Wrekin by Richard Corfield
The summit gained, the weary toil’s repaid
By prospects varied, mountain, wood and glade;
O’er Salop’s plains with beauteous verdure dress’t
The Cambrian mountains stretch along the West
Turn to the North, and Hawkstone hills you see
With Cheshire prospects reaching to the Dee
When to the East, you bend th’ admiring gaze
The barren Peak your startl’d thoughts amaze !
More eastwards still, you ken in distant view
Edge-Hill, where Charles his faithful follow’rs drew
This fairy circle let us onward trace,
O’er Brecon’s beacons, Radnor’s forest chase
And as the outline may be further known,
So past its limits may our love be shown---
Love to our country---,and to all held dear,
By ties of kindred, friendship’s off,ring bear---
Love to our county---AND TO ALL FRIENDS ROUND
THE WREKIN’S circle, may our love resound---
Such wishes these, all Shropshire hearts inspire,
In social converse round the Winter’s fire.
These lines, perhaps the most famous ALL FRIENDS AOUND THE WREKIN lines, were
written in about 1800 by the Rev.Richard Corfield, rector of Pitchford
and it can be confirmed that the view from the top of the Wrekin is just as extensive as
the author says. It is possible to detect an anti-Whig bias in the sentiment.