IT speaks not a little for the vigorous and buoyant life of the immediate neighbourhood of our town that so few examples are to be met with of decay and ruin. Turn whichever way we will, we find new houses, new factories, new enterprises, but scarcely an instance of wasting away and dilapidation. The nearest important relic of the feudal times is Beeston Castle, just described; and the nearest memorial and sepulchre of those brave, good men who, while the rulers of our country were fighting and oppressing, conserved within the convent walls learning, religion, charity, and a hundred other things that kept the national civilisation moving until the aurora of the Reformation, is Whalley Abbey, also more than thirty miles away. Excepting a few old houses of little significance, everything about us is intact, occupied usefully, and a fine testimony to the intelligence and the energy of the province. Let a stranger visit any part of the country within the radius indicated, and he will feel that he is in a place where life is concentrated: everything bespeaks nerve; whatever has died seems to have been succeeded on the instant by a more powerful thing. Like a laurel–tree, we are dressed in this district in the foliage of perennial and vehement vitality; while there is plenty of solid stem to mark honourable antiquity, the leaves that have gone have but made way for new and larger ones.
These reflections have been suggested by a visit to Arden Hall, the solitary exception to the strong, unyielding life of the vicinity. Upon this account alone it is a place of interest. The situation, also, is one of the most delightful ever selected for a country residence. The locality may be described, in general terms, as on the Cheshire bank of the river Tame, about half–way between Stockport and Hyde. The Tame separates Lancashire from that odd bit of Cheshire which, running up in a kind of peninsula at its north–east corner, terminates with Mossley and Tintwistle, the Etherowe forming its boundary on the opposite side, and dividing it from Derbyshire. Few would suppose it possible, but the county of Cheshire is at this point scarcely more than two miles across! The ruin itself is easily found, the way to it being by Levenshulme and Reddish,[16] inquiring there for the Reddish paper–mills, which lie in the valley on the Lancashire side of the river, and are approached by a steep descent, with beautiful views of the surrounding country in front and upon the left. Crossing the river by the mills, mounting the hill, going through a few fields and a grove of trees, right before us, sooner than expected, stands the hall, a large, tall square building of grey stone. At first sight, it appears to be in tolerable preservation. The remains of the old sun–dial are still visible, the diamonded casements of some of the windows are perfect, and the exterior generally is undefaced. But the illusion soon passes away. Penetrating to the inside, the great hall—a noble apartment, some eleven yards by eight—is found heaped with rubbish and fallen beams; the ceiling, once ornamented with pendent points, is all gone, except a small portion in one corner; it seems a wonder that the roof still cares to stay. A slender turret, rising above the rest of the fabric, includes a circular staircase, leading to the gallery of the upper floor. Here the diamonded casements reappear, looking full into the western sky, and over the trees and river winding at the foot of the steep; and here we discover the loveliness of the site. Abundantly wooded, strewn with fertile meads, and opening out in every direction pretty views of distant hills, with yet more distant ones peeping over their shoulders, there is not a more picturesque valley east of Manchester, that is to say, not until we are fairly into Derbyshire, than is spread before the windows of forsaken Arden. There is not a spot upon its slopes where we may not pause and admire, and wish for our friends. As at Beeston, the mind quickly travels back to the lang syne. Out of those windows, through the open casements, how often have the eyes of fair girls gazed, in sweet summer evenings, long and peacefully, upon the woods and winding water, and painted sunset, one generation after another, all gone now, their ancient home crumbling to dust—but the woods and winding water and sunset the same. The poets talk of nature’s sympathy with man; there is nothing so marked as her lofty indifference to him.
Archæologically, Arden is interesting as a fine specimen of the domestic architecture of the sixteenth century, and is remarkable for its unusually large bay windows. The waterspouts are inscribed 1597. The history of the estate and its proprietors dates, however, as far back as the time of King John, and though no direct evidence is within reach, there is reason to believe that an earlier building once stood near, and that the present ruin is the second hall. John o’ Gaunt is said to have been an inmate of the original. The family history may be seen at length in Ormerod’s “Cheshire,” in the third volume of which work, p. 399, is a drawing of the hall as it appeared before relinquished to decay. Visitors to the Art–Treasures Exhibition of 1857 will recollect Mr. C. H. Mitchell’s pretty water–colour view of the same place, and there are few, perhaps, of our local artists who have not sketched it. It would appear from the date of Ormerod’s work (1819), where the hall is described as containing furniture and paintings, that it has been deserted only since the death of George III. Until recently one of its curiosities was a stone pulpit, in which it is said Oliver Cromwell once preached. The rustic legend of the place is that, once upon a time, long before powder and shot were invented, there lived hereabouts a doughty baron. On the opposite side of the valley was a similar castle, held by a rival baron, who returned his neighbour’s jealousy with interest. These two worthies used to spend their time in shooting at one another with bows and arrows, till at last, tired of long range, and such desultory warfare, the Baron of Arden collected his dependents, dived down into the valley, scaled the opposite heights, slaughtered his enemy, and so utterly demolished his castle, that now not a vestige of it is discoverable.
There is generally some good foundation for such legends. Upon the eastern side of the hall, some distance from the moat, traces of ancient earthworks are discoverable, extending towards the present “Castle–hill,” and which probably protected some simple fortification. Flint arrow–heads and other relics of primitive weapons found in the soil of the adjacent fields sustain the conjecture, and in truth a better seat for a manorial stronghold it would not be easy to select. The appellation of the ancient fortress when superseded by a building of more peaceful character, would naturally be transferred to the latter, and after the lapse of a little time, nothing more than the name would survive to tell the story. Originally it was Arderne, as in the reference by Webb, in 1622, to another seat of the family, “A fine house belonging to Henry Arderne, Esq.” In any case, the prefix of an H appears to be erroneous, if nothing worse. The last of this name was the Richard Pepper Arderne, born at the old hall, and educated at the Manchester Grammar School, who in 1801, three years before his death, was raised to the peerage, with the title of Baron Alvanley. Arden Hall is not only remarkable in being built wholly of stone, when so many other mansions of the period were timber, but in the high–pitched roof of the tower—a feature rarely observable in such edifices.
Leaving the hall, the road descends rapidly towards the river, here crossed by a stone bridge, shortly before reaching which there are some cottages upon the left. At one of these, with the name “Thomas Ingham” over the door, a nice tea may be obtained. It is not a very attractive place to look at, but the parlour (at the back) is as comfortable as any lady could desire; the provision is excellent, the attendance prompt and respectful, and the charge so moderate that it seems wonderful how it can pay. Forget not that in visiting such places the obligation is mutual. Excursionists have no sort of claim upon private houses, and should be glad to recompense with liberality the kindly willingness to accommodate, save for which they might have to plod for miles hungry and tired. Tea disposed of, we have a walk homewards even more pleasing than the first, by taking, that is, the contrary or Lancashire side of the river, and thus passing through the very woods admired an hour previously from the hall and the crest of the hill. The way is first over the stone bridge, then for a little distance up the hill, descending thence into the field–path, found by means of a large circular brick structure in one of the meadows, seemingly the ventilation mouth of a coal–mine. There is a path quite close to the river, if preferred, entered almost immediately after crossing the bridge, but the water after wet weather is apt to be disagreeable, and in autumn there is a thick and laborious jungle of butter–bur leaves. The hill–side at this point is decidedly the best place for viewing the hall, which crowns the tall cliff immediately in front of it. It is hard to think, as we contemplate its lovely adjuncts, how so romantic a site could have been deserted. The woods hanging the hill–sides with their beautiful tapestry, the river creeping quietly in the bottom, but seen only in shining lakelets where the branches of the trees disentangle themselves, and make a green lacework of light twig and leaf, just dense enough to serve as a thin veil, and just open enough to let the eye pierce it and be delighted; the perfect calm of the whole scene, and the sweet allurement of the path with every additional step, how came they to be ignored? Approaching Reddish the woods are unfenced, and the path lies almost beneath the trees. At the end of May these woods are suffused with the brightest blue in every direction,—the bloom of the innumerable wild hyacinth, which clusters here in great banks and masses, so close that the green of the foliage is concealed. The ground being a slope, and viewed from below, the effect is most singular and striking. Shakspeare speaks of “making the green one red;” here we have literally the green made blue. In the same woods grows the forget–me–not, in abundance only exceeded in the Morley meadows. One might almost fancy that the nymphs of ancient poetry had been transmigrated into these sweet turquoise–coloured flowers. Among the specialities of the Reddish valley, mentioned before as eminently rich in plants of interest, are the bird–cherry, Prunus Padus, and that curious fern the Lunaria. The first is quite a different thing from the ordinary wild cherry of Mobberley, Peover, Lymm, and the Bollin valley, having long, pendulous clusters of white flowers, like those of the laburnum, and with a smell of honey. It is seen not only as a tree, but sometimes forms part of the hedges. The lunaria grows in the meadows, and is in perfection about the end of May. In August and September the river–banks here are gay also with the fine crimson of the willow–herb, the young shoots of which, along with the flowers, drawn through the half–closed hand, leave behind them a grateful smell of baked apples and cream.
The upper portion of the valley, nearer Hyde, was very diligently and successfully explored in 1840–42 by Mr. Joseph Sidebotham, then resident at Apethorne,—a townsman whom we have not more reason to be proud of as a naturalist of the most varied and accurate information, and as one of the most scientific and successful prosecutors of microscopical research, than as a singularly skilful artist in photography, and this without letting the colours grow dry upon the palette from which he has been accustomed to transfer them to coveted drawings. It was Mr. Sidebotham who first drew the attention of Manchester naturalists to the fresh–water algæ of our district, and who principally determined their forms and numbers. He also it was who collected the principal portion known up to 1858 of the local Diatomaceæ. During the five or six years he devoted to the botany of Bredbury, Reddish, and the banks of the Tame generally, he added no fewer than twenty–five species to the Manchester Flora, many of them belonging to the difficult genera Rubus and Carex. His walks were not often solitary. What a broiling day was that on which we first gathered in the Reddish valley the great white cardamine!—what a sweet forenoon that vernal one when we stood contemplating the thousand anemones! Nature seems to delight again in upsetting everything human! One cannot even bestow a name, but she tries to undermine it. No epithet is more appropriate, as a rule, to this most modest of the anemone race, the wild English one, than its specific name, nemorosa, “inhabiting the groves;”—every reader of classical verse recalls, as the eye glides over the word, the nemus which grew greener wherever Phyllis set her foot in it. Giving her the least chance, see, nevertheless, how the wayward lady to whom we owe everything, laughs alike at ourselves and our nomenclature. We call the flower nemorosa, conclude that all is settled, and straightway, as in that sweet and still forenoon in the Reddish valley (1840), she flings it by handfuls over the sward, and leaves the grove as she then left the Arden woods, without a blossom and without a leaf. Similar curious departure from the accustomed habitat of the wood–anemone has since been observed at Cheadle and at Alderley.
No slight pleasure is it in connection with botany that plants and events thus link themselves together, recalling whole days of tranquil happiness spent with valued friends in the green fields. Associations with trees and flowers seem almost inevitably pleasant and graceful ones; at all events, we never hear of the reverse. When orators and poets want objects for elegant simile and comparison, they find trees and flowers supply them most readily; and, on the other hand, how rarely are these beautiful productions of nature used for the illustration of what is vicious and degrading, or in any way mixed up with what is vile and disgraceful. Trees and flowers lead us, by virtue of their kindly influences on the heart and the imagination, to a disrelish and forgetfulness of the uncomely, and to think better of everything around us; so that a walk in the fields, over and above its invigorating and refreshing value, acts as a kindly little preacher, and shows us that we may at all events read, if not
Honi soit qui mal y pense, write,
In emerald tufts, flowers purple, blue, and white.
The lapse of twenty–four years has not tended to improve the aspect of the Reddish valley. The main features are the same, but the brightness is sadly dimmed. Everything now, in 1882, illustrates the operation of town smoke and hurtful vapours, not to mention the devastating influences which come of human travel. The wild–flowers have shared the fate of those in other suburban localities; the old hall has sunk further towards decay; the Inghams, happily, are extant. Mr. Sidebotham, for his own part, practices, amid the refinements of his Bowdon home, all that he cultivated originally upon the banks of the little river, and with the added success that arises upon unbroken assiduity. He tells me now of his researches into the entomology of Dunham Park, where not long ago, for one or two successive seasons, in July, a curious beetle occurred in plenty, a fact immensely remarkable, since only one other of its kind has ever been noticed elsewhere in England, this upon an oak in Windsor Forest as far back as 1829! The insect was first detected by Mr. Joseph Chappell, a working mechanic at Sir Joseph Whitworth’s, and one of the most careful observers of nature now in our midst.