REYNARD’S HOLE.
After having proceeded about a mile in Dove dale, the romantic and sublime beauties of which will be hereafter noticed, by a route constantly diversified by new fantastic forms, and uncouth combinations of rock, the visitor is led to a mass of mural rock, bearing the above name, and perforated by nature into a grand arch, nearly approaching to the shape of the sharply pointed Gothic style of architecture, about forty-five feet in hight, and in width twenty. Having passed through this arch, a steep ascent leads to a natural cavern, called Reynard’s Hall, forty-five feet in length, fifteen in breadth, and in hight thirty. From the mouth of this cavern the scenery is singular, beautiful and impressive. The face of the rock which contains the arch, rises immediately in front, and would effectually prevent the eye from ranging beyond its mighty barrier, did not its center open into the above-mentioned arch, through which is seen a small part of the opposite side of the dale, consisting of a mass of gloomy wood, from the shade of which a huge detached rock, solitary, cragged, and pointed, starts out to a great hight, and forms an object truly sublime. This rock, which has received the name of Dove Dale Church, is pleasingly contrasted by the little pastoral river, Dove, and by its verdant turfy banks. A narrow opening at the extremity of the cavern is supposed to lead to other similar cavities in the rock; and on the left is a cavern, about forty feet in length, in breadth fourteen, and in hight twenty-six, called Reynard’s Kitchen, from the interior of which a pleasing view is presented of the upper part of the dale, its river and rocks.
After passing Reynard’s Hole, already described, the rocks rise more abruptly on either side, and appear in shapes more wild and irregular, but diversified and softened by shrubs.
Dove dale is nearly three miles in length; but from the sinuosity of its course, and its projecting precipices, the views are limited. Throughout the whole of this majestic feature of country, the river Dove flows, in the halcyon days of summer, with soft murmurs, innocently and transparently over its pebbly bed; but swells into rage during the winter months. Little tufts of shrubs and underwood form islands in miniature within its bed, which enlarge and swell the other objects. The scenery of this dale is distinguished from almost every other in the united kingdoms, by the rugged, dissimilar, and frequently grotesque and fanciful appearance of the rocks. To employ the words of a tourist here, “It is, perhaps, on the whole one of the most pleasing sceneries of the kind anywhere to be met with. It has something peculiarly characteristic. Its detached, perpendicular rocks stamp it with an image entirely its own, and for that reason it affords the greater pleasure. For it is in scenery as in life. We are most struck with the peculiarity of an original character, provided there be nothing offensive[offensive]
THOR’S HOUSE.
“Where Hamps and Manifold, their cliffs among,
Each in his flinty channel winds along,
With lucid lines the dusky moor divides,
Hurrying to intermix their sister tides,
Where still their silver-bosom’d nymphs abhor
The blood-smear’d mansion of gigantic Thor—
Erst fires volcanic in the marble womb
Of cloud-wrapp’d Whetton rais’d the massy dome;
Rocks rear’d on rocks, in huge disjointed piles,
Form the tall turrets, and the lengthen’d aisles;
Broad pond’rous piers sustain the roof, and wide
Branch the vast rainbow ribs from side to side.
While from above, descends, in milky streams,
One scanty pencil of illusive beams,
Suspended crags, and gaping gulfs illumes,
And gilds the horrors of the deepen’d glooms.
Here oft the Naiads, as they chanc’d to stray
Near the dread Fane, on Thor’s returning day,
Saw from red altars streams of guiltless blood,
Stain their green reed-beds, and pollute their flood;
Heard dying babes in wicker prisons wail,
And shrieks of matrons thrill the affrighted gale;
While from dark caves infernal echoes mock,
And fiends triumphant shout from every rock!”—Darwin.
This spacious cavern is situated about two miles above Dove dale, near the village of Whetton; and tradition says the Druids here offered human sacrifices, inclosed in wicker idols, to Thor, the principal deity of the Saxons and Danes, in the ages of their idolatrous worship. Beneath is an extensive and romantic common, where the rivers Hamps and Manifold sink into the earth, and rise again in Islam gardens. These rivers merit a brief description. A wooden bridge has been thrown over an abyss in the rock, out of which the river Manifold bursts with surprising force, after having pursued a subterraneous course of five miles, from the point where it had engulfed itself in the earth, called Weston hill. At the further distance of twenty yards a similar phenomenon occurs; for here another fissure of a rock presents itself, whence the river Hamps throws its water into day. This river disappears at Leek-water Houses, a place between Leek and Ashbourn; thus pursuing a subterraneous course of seven miles, before it again emerges into light. On their emersion, the temperatures of the two rivers differ two degrees and a half, the Hamps being the coldest.