Country Rambles, and Manchester Walks and Wild Flowers / Being Rural Wanderings in Cheshire, Lancashire, Derbyshire, and Yorkshire

by Leo H. Grindon

On another are the following pretty lines:—

The cup of life just with her lips she pressed,
Found the taste bitter, and declined the rest;
Averse then turning from the face of day,
She softly sighed her little soul away.

From Northen to Manchester the ways are many. One is to walk two miles and a half along the lanes to Sale Moor station; a second, to follow the southern bank of the river to Jackson’s boat; a third, is to cross the fields into the Cheadle road, and catch the townwards omnibus, a distance of less than a mile; and the last, to our own mind much the pleasantest—first along the northern bank for about a mile, and then across the fields towards Platt and Rusholme. The commencement of the last–named is exceedingly delightful, the water flowing on the left, woods and pastures upon the right, in the evening sweetly enlivened by the cuckoo. Nothing in the year’s round of pleasure is more heart–soothing than an hour in these quiet fields immediately after sunset, while it is too light for the stars, but the planets peer forth in their beautiful lustre, and the darkness quickens our ears to the slightest sound. The nightingale alone is wanting to complete the effect, but we have no nightingales near Manchester. There is nothing for them to eat, and they stay away. The bird sometimes mistaken for the nightingale, from its singing at the same hours, and running through a variety of notes, is the sedge–warbler.

Enjoying this sweet neighbourhood in early summer, and while it is yet broad day, one can hardly fail to notice the tribe of grasses, at least up to the time of haymaking. No fewer than sixty–three different kinds may be collected about Manchester, and fully a third of these in the meadows. The remainder are inhabitants of the woods and ponds, while a few grow exclusively upon the moors. Attaining their perfection in May and June, easily collected, and not withering on the way home, the grasses are the very best plants to begin with in forming a collection of dried flowers. We have spoken before of the pleasure that attends this pursuit: the utility, to any one who takes the slightest interest in nature, is quite upon a par. How pleasant at Christmas to turn over the pages of one’s Hortus Siccus, freshening our remembrance alike of the beautiful and diversified shapes of the plants, and of the days and scenes where they were gathered! A more interesting or instructive pursuit for a young person, of either sex, than to set about collecting specimens of the grasses, ferns, and wild–flowers in general, that they meet with in their country walks, is in truth scarcely to be found. The attraction it gives to the country is prodigious, and surely it is more sensible when out in the fields thus to employ one’s self than to wander along listlessly for want of an object, and perhaps get into mischief. The method to pursue is exceedingly simple. First get together a quantity of old newspapers, and fold them to about eighteen inches square. Then buy a few quires of Bentall’s botanical drying paper, and procure also three or four pieces of stout millboard. Such is the apparatus; nothing more is wanted; and next we must gather our specimens, selecting, to begin with, such as are of slender make and comparatively juiceless texture. Pieces of about a foot long are large enough, but if the plant be less than ten or twelve inches in height, it should be taken root and all. Having the boards and papers in readiness, lay one of the former as a foundation, and to serve as a tray; upon this place a folded newspaper, and upon this a sheet of Bentall, and then the specimen intended to be dried. Over the specimen should come a second sheet of Bentall, then another newspaper, and so on till the whole collecting is deposited. All being in order, it remains only to place a heavy weight upon the top of the pile, so as to press the plants flat, and prevent the air entering to shrivel them. The easiest weights to use are common red bricks, but, as bricks look untidy in a parlour, and are unpleasant to handle in their naked state, they should be tied up neatly and separately in smooth brown paper, and then not the most fastidious or weak–fingered can object to them. In this condition the pile should be left till the next day, when it should be turned over, layer by layer, and the specimens transferred into dry Bentall. The newspapers need not be changed unless the plants are succulent ones, and their moisture has penetrated. The weight should then be replaced, and the pile again be left to itself for three or four days, when the specimens will be found perfectly dry, their forms scarcely altered, and their colours, except in special cases, almost as bright as when growing. For very delicate plants, instead of Bentall, it is best to use sheets of clean white cotton–wadding, with tissue paper, to prevent the specimens clinging to the cotton when of adhesive nature. When quite deprived of their juices, the specimens should be transferred into sheets of white paper, and neatly fastened down, not with gum arabic, which is apt to smear and look untidy, but with a solution of caoutchouc in naphtha, sold in the shops under the name of “indiarubber cement.” The great advantage of this is that if any should exude from below the specimen, it may, when dry, be rubbed off like a pencil mark. The name of the plant, and the date and place where gathered, should be written underneath. Giving a summer to the work, it is surprising how soon a large and beautiful collection of plants will accumulate, and how rapidly we feel ourselves progressing in botanical knowledge. Taking ordinary care, there is no reason why plants should not look nearly as green and pretty when dried as when living. If an herbarium be only a heap of Latin hay, as sometimes happens, it is not that the art of preserving plants is deceptive, but that the collector has been clumsy or neglectful. Nor are dried plants, as some esteem them, mere vegetable mummies, wretched corpses devoid of all instructiveness or value, for they are far more lively than drawings, and answer all our questions with readiness. Many good botanists, it is true, have done without such collections, showing that they are by no means indispensable to the study of botany. But none who have taken the trouble to form them ever regret it, while all confess their inestimable service. Even if the herbarium served no scientific purpose whatever, there is always the pleasure of finding in it a garden all the year round.

Here spring perpetual leads the laughing hours,
And winter wears a wreath of summer flowers.

Viâ Northen is the pleasantest route to the beautiful district of which the centre is Wythenshawe Hall, a remarkably fine building of the time of James the First, and at present the seat of Mr. Thomas Wm. Tatton. It is approached through a piece of ground called the “Saxfield,” upon which tradition says there was once a terrible fight between Saxons and Danes; old maps mark the place with crossed swords. We have not much of historical interest pertaining to the neighbourhood of Manchester, but what there is seems to concentrate about Northen. The Pretender, Prince Charles Edward, crossed the river in 1745, at a place not very far below Cheadle Bridge, and it is curious that the Prince Consort’s visit, in 1857, when he came to open the Art–Treasures Exhibition at Old Trafford, should have been made by way of the very bridge alluded to. In 1644 Wythenshawe was besieged by a party of Cromwell’s soldiers, who planted a battery on the side overlooking Northen, and threw many cannon–shots against the house. During some alterations in the garden a few years since, and the conversion of a pond–bottom into flower–beds, several of the balls were found; and another, which entered by the drawing–room window, and smashed the wood–carving on the opposite wall, is shown to visitors privileged to view this beautiful hall. The carving was not replaced, so that the blank space preserves a distinct memorial of the attack. The siege was conducted by the celebrated Colonel Robert Dukenfield, the most conspicuous soldier, after Sir William Brereton, in the Cheshire history of the Civil War. It occupied some time, and was only brought to a close by getting two pieces of ordnance from Manchester, the same probably from which the balls above alluded to were discharged. During its progress, one of the maid–servants inside, for her amusement, took aim with a musket at an officer of the Parliamentary forces, who was carelessly lounging about, and managed to kill him. He is supposed to have been the “Captayne Adams,” stated in the Stockport register of burials to have been “slayne at Withenshawe, on Sunday, the 25th.” In the course of alterations in the grounds during the last century, six skeletons were discovered. They were lying close together, and are reasonably supposed to have been those of soldiers who perished during the siege. Cromwell afterwards stayed at the hall, and slept in a room still called, from his occupation of it, “Oliver Cromwell’s room.” The bed, which is dated 1619, is of elegantly carved wood, the furniture and mirrors matching it, and of the same age. The wood–carving at Lyme Hall is usually considered to show the best local work of the period, but that at Wythenshawe, in the opinion of many, is still finer. The gardens surrounding the hall are full of curious trees, many of them remarkably good and shapely specimens, especially an Arbor vitæ, consisting of a tall green pyramid, surrounded by minarets, like a spire with pinnacles round the base, and exquisitely beautiful when swayed slopingly by the wind. In 1858 there sprang up in a piece of newly–turned land at the back of the hall, many hundreds of the Rumex sanguineus, its large oval light–green leaves traced and pencilled in every direction with the richest crimson. The ordinary green–juiced form of the plant is common enough, but the crimson–juiced is one of the rarities of our Flora.

Further again, for those who care for rural pleasures and the legacies of the past, there is the interesting district of Baguley and its old hall. Only one large apartment of the latter remains, the greater portion of the structure having, at some remote period, been destroyed by fire; the buildings which surround and prop up the ancient piece are comparatively new. Baguley Old Hall is well worth a visit, and may be reached, if more convenient to excursionists, by way of Sale Moor station, and a walk of two or three miles along the lanes. In the interior, it will be observed that the doorways are formed of oaken boughs that were curved at one extremity, so that when sliced and reared on end, with the curved portions directed one towards the other, they would form arches. These arches are exceedingly curious, and, along with the numerous armorial bearings, form quite a noticeable feature of the place. A walk across a few fields leads to Baguley Mill. The lanes are full of fragrant roses; the high hedges shelter innumerable veronicas; and by the sides of the little water–courses, close to the mill, grows abundance of the hart’s–tongue fern. To attempt the whole in the space of a single afternoon, of course is not practicable, especially if one is verging towards that inexorable period of life when gravitation begins to get the better of a man sooner than he has been accustomed to; nor is it intended to recommend so much. Gatley Carrs suffice for one walk; the immediate neighbourhood of Northen and the river–banks provide another; and Baguley viâ Sale will pleasantly supply objects for a third. There is a fourth, moreover, well commenced at Didsbury, but keeping in the direction of Chorlton–cum–Hardy, so as eventually to reach Barlow Hall, the local residence of Mr. William Cunliffe Brooks. The archæological interest of Barlow Hall we have not room here to enlarge upon. It must suffice to invite attention to Mr. Letherbrow’s beautiful etching of the best fragment in preservation, the period of which is believed to be that of the reign of Henry VIII., when the hall was occupied by the very ancient and historical family of de Barlow, allied by marriage to the still more celebrated Stanleys, as shown by the heraldry of the window.