Oh, my lord, lie not idle:
The chiefest action for a man of great spirit
Is never to be out of action. We should think
The soul was never put into the body,
Which has so many rare and curious pieces
Of mathematical motion, to stand still.
WEBSTER.
BEFORE the opening of the “Manchester and Birmingham”—a title now forgotten, the line having been absorbed into the London and North–Western—the road through Rusholme, Didsbury, and Cheadle was the accustomed highway to Congleton, viâ Wilmslow, to which latter place the hand still points at certain corners within a mile or two of All Saints’ Church. The Cheadle people occasionally made use of it for pic–nic carriage parties to a fir–crowned steep just beyond Chorley, a wilderness scarcely inhabited, and, save for its checking the speed of travellers from Knutsford to Macclesfield, scarcely recognized in the local geography. How vast the revolution promoted in 1842! The wilderness soon became decked with mansions and gardens; it blossomed as the rose; and “Alderley Edge” is now little less than a suburb of Manchester.
The old carriage–way being superseded by the rail, and much that is delightful being reached by train long before getting to Alderley, we will now accordingly make new departure for fair Cheshire by way of Stockport. Arrived at Wilmslow the old–fashioned, the Bollin reappears, this particular point being in truth the head of the valley through which the stream, as before–mentioned, pursues its sinuous and rapid course to Ashley. The country upon the right is full of quiet lanes and pretty meadows, none of which are more pleasing than those containing the path to the margin of Norcliffe. If permission can be obtained to visit the glen ipsissima, they are like the vestibule of a temple. Norcliffe was laid out in 1830 by the late Mr. R. H. Greg. Selecting everything that he planted with consummate taste and judgment, the slopes are rich with trees which in point of value and variety have no equal in this part of England. Beautiful from the first, the scene at the present moment is more charming than ever before; for tree–planting is one of those essentially noble and generous works the glory of which a man can rarely expect to see unfolded in his own life–time:—like a great poem, it reaches afar, and covers the generations that succeed. The very striking feature of Norcliffe, the main and characteristic one, consists in the profusion of the Conifers. The pine, the fir, the cedar, in their many and always princely forms, are represented in this delicious spot by upwards of forty species and varieties, many of them having very numerous examples, all presenting, in the best manner, the symmetrical outlines so remarkable in coniferous trees, and holding positions with regard to their immediate neighbours such as awaken the most agreeable ideas of harmony. There is no taller Deodara in the neighbourhood than one of the specimens near the lawn, nor is there anywhere in this neighbourhood a more comely Norway spruce, the top already seventy feet above the turf, and covered annually with cones, which the squirrels are glad of, the spring never finding one that the little creatures have overlooked.
Norcliffe is equally remarkable in respect of its rhododendrons, the purple splendour, early in June, tossed up like a floral surf. These last, being like the conifers, evergreens, Norcliffe, if nothing else, is a place of perennial verdure. Almost, as on the banks of old Clitumnus—
Hic ver assiduum, atque alienis mensibus æstas!
The walk through the sylvan part of the glen, tortuous, and rarely on level ground, brings many beautiful wild–flowers into view. Here, in the month of May, is the wood–millet—lightest and daintiest, after the Briza, of our native grasses—and yet more plentifully the sweet woodruff, holding up in every corner its little handfuls of snow–white crosses. Access to Norcliffe,—the grounds being strictly and in every portion private,—is, of course, only by favour. But the honoured name of Greg has always been a synonym for liberality, and leave to enter when properly sought is not likely to be refused. The same may be said of the picturesque and delightful grounds, a mile further down the valley, which appertain to Oversley Lodge, the residence of Mr. Arthur Greg. The treat here is the wilderness–walk, a portion of which was cut only in 1881, along the side of the principal cliff. During the progress of the clearing a new locality was found for the true–love.[14] So certain is the reward, not only in important shape, but in little and unexpected ways, of every man who first makes a path through the forest, whether with the axe or with the more subtle tools that are not wrought upon human forges. Spring is the time, above all others, if it can be managed, for these beautiful Oversley woods; for then we have the opening green leaves in a thousand artistic forms, and in endless shades; the violets also, and the satin–flower; and, full of promise, the so–comfortably–wrapped–up ferns that in September will show how nature revels in transformations. The Oversley woods abut very closely upon Cotterill, approaching which place there is scenery not inferior in its modest and singular sweetness to that of the vicinity of Castle Mill. The public approach is from Wilmslow, treading first the western margin of Lindow Common, then going through various lanes, and in front of “Dooley’s farm.” The greensward portion of the country now soon entered is generally distinguished by the name of the Morley Meadows, and the sylvan part by the somewhat odd title of “Hanging–banks Wood.” The phrase is designed, it would seem, to convey an idea analogous to that involved in the name of the famous “Hanging–gardens” of ancient Babylon, signifying terraces of wood and blossom disposed in parallel order upon some gentle slope. This is the part of the Bollin valley referred to in an early chapter [(p. 27)] as the asylum, it is to be hoped indefinitely, of the primrose. Here, too, Ophelia’s “long–purples” live again, while under the shadow of the trees we descry her “nettles,” those beautiful golden yellow ones that do not sting, and which blend so perfectly with the orchis and the crow–flower. One fears almost to descend to the edge of the stream, for willows are there that grow “aslant,” and that have “envious slivers” as of old. Once in these lovely meadows it is easy to find the way into the lower Bollin valley, and thence to Ashley and Bowdon. But the double walk is rather long, and prudence says return to Wilmslow. Norcliffe and Oversley, it should be added, are reached as regards carriage–way, by a nearly straight road from Handforth.
Lindow Common, famed from time immemorial for its bracing air, extends from Wilmslow to Brook Lane. There is nothing particular to be seen upon it, except by the naturalist, who, in one part or another, finds abundance to give him pleasure. The locality is remarkable alike for its sundews and the profusion of wild bees; it is one of the best known to entomologists for the class Andrenidæ.