A dinner like thy mutton-chops preceded by thy char!
EASTERN SHORE.
There, there! you seem to have had enough of that, and I, having let off my superabundant steam, may now get on in a sedate, business-like manner. The placid lake and its winding shores you are now staring at, and tastefully, as you perceive, are its winding shores decorated with timber disposed in rich variety of thriving young plantations, clump, grove, coppice, hedge-row, solitary tree, avenue, and shrubbery, gracefully interblended here, and separated by fields and wide pastures of glorious verdure there, the whole finished off on the east, which we shall dispose of first, by miles and miles of heath purpled moorland. Along the lake on its said eastern side, are the finely-sheltered grounds of Tent Lodge, Bank Ground, Conistone Bank, Brantwood, and Water Park. The lake appears to terminate at about five miles distance—in fact, a little below “the Gridiron,” or a mile and a half from the lake foot—the water thereabout making a gentle sweep to the east. The southward prospect is bounded by the high-lying moor of Gawthwaite, from whence the green and cultivated slopes of Lowick and Blawith appear to descend in easy gradation to the water edge. Bringing the eye back along the western shore, your attention is next arrested by the brightly verdant, WESTERN SHORE.cultivated and conical height of Stable Harvey, standing out in fine contrast against the dark brown Beacon hill in Blawith, which considerably overtops it, and forms, with its broken outline, a highly picturesque background to the landscape in that direction. The landward edge of Stable Harvey is hidden from where you are, by the lengthened heath-clad summit, and coppiced and furze-clad side of Torver common, which rises steep from the margin of the lake to a considerable height. As you follow up the margin of the lake, you next descry the beautiful farm of Hawthwaite, with its rookery, plantations, and numerous single trees, occupying a fine situation under the northern shoulder of Torver common, and presenting one of the most eligible sites for a gentleman's seat, with extensive grounds, in the north of England. Nearer still, you see a promontory covered with bright verdure, and tipped, or fringed, with low spreading wood, running out, as it seems from the Water Head, into the very middle of the lake. It is the Hall Point; the grounds lying between it and Hawthwaite, and extending from the water side to the tops of the heights more than a mile to the westward, form the ancient deer-park, which possesses such a luxuriant and widely-extended covering of natural timber, as might gladden the hearts of those who affect to hold that any utilitarian interference with nature tends grievously to degrade or destroy the romantic characteristics of lake scenery. The Hall itself is concealed by the upper arm of the bay, with the trees and neat, but singular and high, steep-roofed edifice upon it. The said building is a boat-house belonging to “The Thwaite,” a handsome residence upon the southern declivity of the richly-wooded eminence to your right, over which you may note “The Old Man,” anciently, and more correctly, “Alt Maen” (British),
“Whose ridgy back heaves to the sky,”
and looks, from this window, something like part of the back and head of a huge elephant, with his trunk slightly extended and a wart on his forehead.
GROUNDS, FELLS, AND VILLAGE.
You had better now take a boat and row a mile or two down the lake, and row yourself, or, if you are lazy, at least sit with your face to the stern, and fresh beauties will open upon your enraptured gaze at every stroke of the oars.
Beyond, or above, the inn you are leaving, is the residence of Mr James Garth Marshall, one of the princely manufacturers of that name in Leeds; it is surrounded by—excepting in some particulars Rydal Hall—decidedly the finest demesne in the Lake district, so far as the most beautiful combination of all the elements of natural and artificial loveliness can establish its superiority; for nowhere else have I seen wood and water, hill and valley, green sward and purple heather, rugged crag and velvet slope, grey rock and bright blossoming shrubs brought under the eye at once, in such magnificent contrast. Over the western side of the grounds, you may note the picturesquely rugged and jagged summit of Raven Crag, at the head of Yewdale, and nearer to you, but still more to the west, the wild, precipitous and lofty Yewdale crags. Over them the long ridge of Henn Crag, and higher still the broad summit of Weatherlam; and, as you row farther down the lake, the lofty undulating range connecting those with the Old Man, which last you may now contemplate in all his hoary grandeur and rugged magnificence. And, having just shewn you one of the finest demesnes and grandest mountain groups in the Lake district, I now shew you the most romantically situated village, parts nestled at the foot of the steep craggy hills, and parts stuck here and there upon the face of the adjacent declivity, every separate detachment, whether consisting of one or many houses, having its own separate designation, “TIME’S CHANGES.”but forming altogether the village of Church Conistone, and containing, by the last census, twelve hundred people. Its scattered appearance suggests the idea of something having, at some former period, flown across the country with a bagful of houses, and losing a number here in irregular lots through a hole in the sack. And here, close by in the apex, or, to speak nautically, the bight of the bay, between a row of lofty sycamores and the wide-spread woods of the old park, stands Conistone Hall, the ancient seat of the once warlike family of le Fleming, but now a farm house—with a considerable portion removed, and the banquet hall, wherein, of old, knightly revellers befuddled their brains in honour of high born ladies, converted into a barn, and a mighty commodious barn it makes; but how very applicable would be a quotation from Hamlet here, were it not hackneyed. The hall's most striking features now are its massive ivy-clad chimneys, though it is well worthy a closer inspection, and I shall perhaps tell you more about it at our next confabulation.
