Shropshire is undoubtedly one of the most fascinating of all the English Counties. Shropshire's most famous sons, Robert Clive "Clive of India", Charles Darwin, Rowland Hill, controversial natives as these Shropshire Sons always tended to be but it is Housman's 'Shropshire Lad' that encompasses a picture from the past of the country and country life, scenes of yesteryear-a life now redunddant-The Wagoner's Boy and the Shire Horse, jangling its collar brasses against the evil eye now beaten by the tractor-the Hayrick and Straw Stack replaced by the utilitarian tin barn-hedgerow and old woods grubbed up.
"Ay, the horses trample
The harness jingles now
No change though you lie under
The land you used to plough"
A.E. Housman "The Shropshire Lad