Page:Remarks on a Tour to North and South Wales In the Year 1797.djvu/28

 resistance to the hand of time, as Portland Stone: It is a kind of brown Iron stone. There is no particular monument or vestige of antiquity in the interior of this edifice. The quantity of ribbons manufactured in this city, is immense: The noise of the weavers' looms assails the passenger's ear in every direction: The King's Head is a good Inn.

Pursuing our route, we passed Meriden, (where there is a large inn, which appears to have been a mansion-house) in our way to Birmingham (Warwickshire), which is approachable by a deep ascent. This town, on first appearance, by no means prepossesses the traveller in its favour—a confused mass of brick and tile rubbish piled together, enveloped in an almost impenetrable smoky atmosphere, is by no means an agreeable object to a picturesque eyeit lies nearly in the centre of the kingdom. Prince Rupert laid siege to it in 1643. In 1665,