2-914-050 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"The Red Castle", at Hawkstone Park, 1854. Ruins in Shropshire. 'The remains of this ancient Castle built of red sandstone, form a ruin of great interest...There are many curious legends respecting this Csstle; but it was destroyed in the Civil Wars...The dungeon still remains...The decayed walls and the hewn rocky sides are of great extent. You can reach the interior only through a winding passage blasted in the rock. Out of this tunnel you emerge into a picturesque alley of rock, with smooth high walls overarched with mountain-ashes. On the side you perceive a cavern. Climbing the rock, you reach the upper part of the ruin - a high roofless tower, in whose walls, fifteen feet thick, many trees have struck their roots, and in the interior of which is a well. The tower, and the rock on which it stands, look down from a giddy height, in a perfectly perpendicular line, upon the valley...'. From "Illustrated London News", 1854.