CHAPTER V.
GATLEY CARRS.
We live by admiration, hope, and love,
And even as these are well and wisely fixed,
In dignity of being we ascend.
WORDSWORTH.
THERE is not a more delightful ride out of town, at any season of the year, than through Rusholme and Didsbury to Cheadle. The country is on either hand fertile and pleasantly wooded, and in many places embellished with handsome grounds, while gardens and shrubberies succeed one another so fast that the road seems completely edged with them. The variety of trees presented to view is greater than upon any other road out of Manchester. In the five miles between Ducie–street and Abney Hall, we have counted upwards of forty different species, some of them by no means frequent in these parts, while others are uncommonly fine examples of their kind. The finest sycamore, and, after the great horse–chestnut between Singleton and Besses–o’–th’–Barn, perhaps the finest tree of any sort near Manchester, as regards either symmetry or altitude, stands upon the lawn of Mr. T. H. Nevill’s house at Didsbury, the second on the Manchester side of the College. Oak, willow, elm, poplar in three different kinds, lime, ash, and beech, both green and purple, are also represented very fairly. There are examples, too, of walnut, of negundo, and of tulip trees. A noble specimen of the last–named stood not far from the Didsbury sycamore until about 1855, and was covered with flowers every season; but, like the cedar in the grounds adjoining Mr. Callender’s late residence at Rusholme, which was another of the finest trees on the road, fell a victim about that time to the axe of “improvement.” Each was a cruel case of what Miss Mitford well calls “tree murder.” Such trees cannot be replaced in less than three generations; the sycamore at Mr. Nevill’s is already over a hundred years old; so near to Manchester, it will probably be impossible ever to see the like of them again; let us hope, then, that what remain will be cherished. Cut them down when they become ruinous, if you will,—though nothing makes a more beautiful ornament of true pleasure–grounds than the torso of an ancient tree from which the living glory has departed,—but spare them as long as vigorous life endures. So numerous are the lilacs, laburnums, chestnuts, thorns, both white and red, and other gay–blossomed contributors to this charming arboretum, that from the end of May till the middle of June the road is one long flower–show. Before these commence their gala, there are the apple and pear trees; earlier yet the silver birches, covered with their pendent catkins; and in the autumn we seem to have flowers over again in the scarlet berries of the holly and mountain ash.
Not only is the road beautiful in itself, but to residents upon the Greenheys and Chorlton side of the town, the opportunities which it provides of access to scenes of rural beauty are peculiarly advantageous. Stretford way, there is nothing worth mention till we reach Dunham. There are plenty of quiet lanes, it is true, and the farm–land is well cultivated; but in landscape, the whole of the great plain intersected by the Bowdon Railway is totally and admittedly deficient. With Didsbury, on the other hand, we enter a country fit for a Linnell. We may turn down by the church to the river–side, and follow the stream through pleasant fields to Northen; or we may push forward another mile, cross the Mersey at Cheadle Bridge, and strike into a scene of such singular and romantic beauty, and so thoroughly unique in its composition, that we know of nothing in the neighbourhood to liken it to. This is the place called “Gatley Carrs.” It is easily found. Immediately the bridge is crossed, take the broad path through the meadow on the right, and look out for the chimney of Mr. Jowett’s corn–mill. Go through the mill–yard, and over the brook, then through another field or two into a lane red with refuse from a tile–croft, and in a little while there will be seen, again upon the right, a cluster of cottages and barns. These surround a bit of sward called “Gatley Green,” which must be traversed, and after a hundred yards further walk by a runnel of water, we have the Carrs straight before us. The term “Carr” is of Gothic derivation, and denotes an expanse of level land, near a river, covered with alders or other water–loving trees. Such is the character of the scene here. An extensive and verdant plain, smooth and level as a bowling–green, stretches from our feet away to some undiscoverable boundary, its further portion covered with tall poplars, entirely bare of branches for half their height, and leafy only towards their summit, the trunks standing just near enough together to form a grove of pillared foliage, and just far enough apart for every tree to be seen in its integrity, and for the sunshine to penetrate and illuminate every nook. They are not the kind of poplar commonly understood by the name—the slender, spire–like tree, which is quite exceptional even among poplars—but one of the species with ample and spreading crowns. The number of trees is immense—at a rough guess, perhaps a thousand. They were planted by the late Mr. Worthington, of Sharston Hall; the timber, though almost useless to the joiner, being well adapted for cutting into the thin, narrow strips called “swords,” upon which it is customary to fold silks. The path commanding this beautiful view runs along the upper margin of the plain. It is somewhat elevated above the grass, and keeps company with a stream, the opposite bank of which rises still higher, and is covered with oaks and ferns. The superiority of position thus afforded, though trifling, gives to the plain the aspect of a vast amphitheatre, and so calm and delicious is the whole scene, so tranquil and consecrated the look of the untrodden wood, that it seems surely one of the sacred groves of the Druids, and one can hardly think but that presently we shall see the priests enter in grand procession, in their white robes and ancient beards, and carrying the golden knife that is to sever the misletoe bough. In the evening there come effects of yet rarer charm, for then the declining sun casts long interlineations of shadow across the level, and lights up every leaf from underneath.
The botany of the Carrs corresponds in extent with that of Mobberley, though in many respects quite different. The greatest curiosity, perhaps, is the toothwort, or Lathræa, that singular plant which, disliking the solar ray, lives recluse in woods and groves, often half–concealed in dead tree–leaves, and scarcely lifting its cadaverous bloom above the surface. Here also grows the Poa nemoralis. The meads yield occasional specimens of a pretty rose–coloured variety of the creeping bugle, and are so rich in wild–flowers in general as to form, along with the woods beside the stream, quite a natural botanic garden. The further part of the wood, towards Sharston, is, no doubt, the abode of many plants of interest, and only wants searching out. The reputation of a given locality for rare plants comes not infrequently of some one of ardour having gone to work upon it; innumerable places, were they thoroughly explored, would rise from unimportance into fame. Happily, as regards Gatley Carrs, Mr. Edward Stone, son of the able and well–known chemist, whose collection, both of indigenous and exotic plants, in his garden at Cheadle, has done so much good service to the cause of botany, is devoting himself to the task.
The stream above–mentioned curves, after a little while, to the right, and the path changes to the opposite side. It is at this point that the extent of the wood is developed, and that we turn to go homewards. If time permit, it is well to continue awhile along the middle path in front, and visit first the Upper Carrs, which, as seen from the terrace that runs all the way from Cheadle to Baguley, are remarkably beautiful. The wood, as here disclosed, is full of invitation, and where the branches stand asunder, we see great prairies, the green grass all a–glow with red sorrel blossom, and dotted with islands of radiant white, where that giant of field flowers, the great moon–daisy, shows its pride. This noble ornament of our meadow–land, called on the other side of the Tweed the “horse–gowan,” is one of the class of flowers called “compound,” being made up of some hundreds of “florets” or miniature flowers, enclosed in a kind of basket. An average specimen has been found to contain five hundred and sixty, and a fine one no fewer than eight hundred. The florets are disposed in exquisite curving lines, exactly resembling the back of an engine–turned watch. What has the ingenuity of man ever devised that has not its prototype somewhere in nature? The chalice holding this remarkable flower is of the most elegant construction, and in form like an acorn–cup. Moving on by the brookside, after crossing it at the bridge, we soon enter a spacious meadow upon the left, and find ourselves again in sight of the Mersey. On the bank of the stream, just before quitting it, may be seen the wild red–currant, making, with its neighbours, the wild raspberry and the wood strawberry, a show of native fruits without parallel in this neighbourhood. The meadow is of exuberant fertility, owing to the annual flood from the river. Leaving it, we come next to a rising ground, planted with white willows, and from this emerge into a lane, and so over the brow of the hill to Northen churchyard. Northen, of course, becomes a resting–place, and a very pleasant one it is. Both church and churchyard deserve examination. The former contains a neat monument to the memory of Mr. Worthington, the planter of the poplars in the Carrs, and another with an epitaph attributed to the pen of Alexander Pope.[12] Several pretty memorials of the dead occur likewise among the tombstones outside. On one fragment there is seemingly written with green moss, the graving in the stone being entirely filled up with the plant—
ANNE – DOVG
HTAR – OF –
HVMFREY – SA
VAGE – DYED