Where the wild rose in its pride
Paints the hollow dingle side,
And the midnight fairies glide,
Bonnie lassie, O!
We have spoken of Boggart–hole Clough in conformity with the generally current idea, namely, that in the olden time it was a haunt or habitation of “boggarts.” Boggart–hole is thought by some to be a mistaken and enlarged spelling of Boggart Hall, the appellation of a house near the head of the clough, once and for a long while of evil repute as the home of an unclean spirit. Samuel Bamford seems to favour the popular conception, probably because unwilling to disturb it, though he himself never hints at the existence in this clough of any particular uncanny inmate. The boggart of the hall was no other, it is further contended, than the “brownie” found in some shape or other all the world over, superstitions of this character being co–extensive with human nature, sometimes vulgarized, sometimes exquisitely etherialised, and taking as many forms as there are powers of fancy in the human mind. The pixies of Devonshire and Titania’s “Sweet Puck” belong to the poetical line of thought; the ugly and mischievous “boggarts” to the rustic one. The entire subject has been dealt with by Harland and Wilkinson in the Lancashire Folk–lore. The legend is also given in the Traditions of Lancashire, the compiler of which would seem to have adopted an earlier version in the Literary Gazette for 1825. There is yet another surmise, that “boggart” in this particular instance is a mistake for “Bowker,” a family of which name is said to have once occupied the hall. Possibly. Admitting either explanation to be the true one and finally established, the received idea still goes abreast of that beautiful old tendency of the universal human heart to assign spiritual beings to every part of physical nature, the basis of all the primitive religions, and which will endure when etymology is dead. Mrs. Banks supplies yet another version, referring us to the time of Prince Charles Edward, the Pretender, one of whose unfortunate followers was constrained to hide himself in the clough, friends who were in the secret giving out, in order to hinder search by the enemy, that the place of refuge was the abode of demons.
The path through the fields referred to as the best for approaching the clough from Manchester, turns up when near Blackley through a little wood, and thence into meadows, which very agreeably abridge the distance homeward, especially if we go at that best season of all for visiting Boggart–hole, when the newly–cut hay is scenting the air, and tiny hands are trying to help the great rakes and forks of the farmer’s troop, and the beautiful crescent of the young moon hangs golden in the sky, and the bright reluctant twilight almost lasts to another day, lingering like a lover at the hand of his betrothed. The stream, it may be added, that winds its way along the bottom of the clough is a tributary of the Irk,—that unfortunate little river which, rising in or near tree–crested Tandle Hill, north–east of Middleton, seems to grow ashamed of its blackened waters as it creeps into the town by Collyhurst, and which, as it hastens to its oblivious refuge in the Irwell, is known to every one in its last leap,—the hideous fall underneath the Victoria Station, on the side next Millgate. “Manchester Rivers, their Sources and Courses,” would form a capital subject for a book. The Mersey, the Irwell, the Irk, the Tame, the Etherowe, the Bollin, the Goyt, and several others, are full of interesting associations; and if they be not of the clearest water in their lower portions, remember the work they do. A limpid stream among the hills is lovely and poetical; but the most pleasing of all rivers are those of which the banks are occupied by an industrious and intelligent population; and we must not cry out too vehemently about the soiling and spoiling, unless it be easily avoidable and a piece of downright and wilful damage, when their first and highest value is that of facilitating industrial efforts, and helping on the prosperity of a town and nation. The truly poetical man is never a sentimentalist; and though he may pity the destruction of beautiful objects, he is content to see them converted into sources of general welfare, and to look elsewhere for new materials of enjoyment.
Bamford Wood is a cluster of leafy dells or dingles, reached, in the first instance, by going to Heywood, the rather tedious and uninteresting streets of which have to be pursued till we come to “Simpson Clough.” The dells are disposed in the form of a V, the upper extremities again forked, and feathering away until at last they merge into fields. Down every dell comes a stream, rushing over large stones, the various waters all meeting eventually in the angle of the V, and soon afterwards swelling the river Roche, which in turn flows into the Irwell not far from Radcliffe. The various portions have all their distinctive names, “Dobb–wood,” upon the left, holds “Cheeseden–brook.” Beyond this we have Windy–cliff–wood, Carr–wood and Jowkin–wood; while upon the right are Ashworth–wood and Bamford–wood, emphatically so called. The stream descending the latter is Norden–water. Exact routes through these pretty glades it is impossible to prescribe, so much must depend upon personal taste and leisure. The extent, the beauty, and the wildness, require in truth many visits to be appreciated. There is more than one round natural lawn in the curves of the stream, where the silence has often been broken by pic–nics and music. Most parts may be trodden dry–shod, but it is well always to reckon upon four or five miles and a few adventures. All ladies who go the entire circuit deserve to be commended as Bamford heroines.
Not to leave the way altogether undescribed, the best mode of procedure upon arrival at Simpson Clough is perhaps, soon after entering, to ascend the path among the trees upon the left, then into some fields and to the edge of a precipice, from which a view is obtained of a considerable portion of the wood, where an idea may be formed of the route it may be pleasantest now to follow. No part is uninteresting; the question is simply where to begin. Compared with the warm glades of Cheshire, Bamford Wood is upon the average quite a fortnight later in escaping from winter. Spring’s “curled darlings” have already stepped into the green parlours of the Bollin valley, while up here a leaf is scarcely open; even the palm–willow, elsewhere always ready for the earliest April bee, is cautious and dilatory. The most interesting plant of the wood is the Rubus saxatilis, which, though found nowhere else in the neighbourhood of Manchester, is abundant near Coal–bank Bridge, but very seldom flowers. On some of the cliffs, at a tantalizing height, just out of reach of the longest arm, grows that beautiful sylvan shrub the Tutsan, Hypericum Androsæmum. The sides of the glen are in most parts lofty and steep, clothed with trees, and often decorated with little waterfalls, while the bed of the stream itself is so rugged that the wood after much rain is filled with the sound of its hindered efforts to escape. On emerging from the wood, at the upper extremity, or furthest from Simpson Clough, there is a fine walk over Ashworth Moor to Bury, from which place also it may be approached.
In 1839 there was no “Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway.” Now by its help we reach the beautiful sheet of water called, popularly, “Hollingworth Lake,” but which, like the water at Lymm, Rudyard, and Taxal, is really no more than a reservoir, constructed about seventy years ago to supply, in part, the Rochdale and Manchester Canal. The circumference, which is very irregular, exceeds two miles. Rising high upon every side, the encircling hills have a wild and rugged grandeur that contrasts most agreeably with the smooth and tender beauty of the environments of the meres of Cheshire,—from their summits, upon a sunny afternoon, the effects are quite as pleasing as the average of those gathered above Ullswater. An obelisk upon the highest point marks Whiteley Dean, the view from which is wonderfully fine, reaching southwards to Manchester; while beyond Littleborough, amid great piles of hills, stands Brown Wardle, famous, like Bucton Castle, as an ancient signal station. Amid them is a mamelon quite equal in graceful outline to Shutlings Low, and decidedly taking precedence of the more familiar one called Rivington Pike, since the latter, when looked for at particular angles, disappears; whereas the Brown Wardle mound keeps fairly true to its outline from whatever point observed, at all events upon the southern side. The best view of it, so far as we know, is obtained from near “Middleton Junction.” As the word “mamelon” does not occur in English dictionaries, it may be well to say that it denotes a smooth, round, evenly–swelling eminence, thrown up from amid hills already high, a feature in mountain scenery greatly admired by the ancient Greeks, who gave it a name of precisely similar signification, as in the case of that classic one at Samos which Callimachus connects so elegantly with the name of the lady Parthenia.
Moving along the western borders of the lake, it is impossible for the eye not to catch sight of some curious projecting crags upon the topmost crest of the highest ground in front. These are the noted “Robin Hood Rocks” of the legend, the lofty hill upon which they are perched being Blackstone Edge itself, with, just below them, the remains of the still more famous Roman road. That Littleborough stands on the site of an ancient Roman station is well known. The road mounted the steep slope, crossed it, and then descended into Yorkshire, running as far as the city where Severus died. By reason, it would seem, of the extreme steepness, the construction is different from that of any other Roman road in the country, there being a deep groove along the middle of the accustomed pavement, designed apparently with the help of proper wheels to steady the movement of heavily laden trucks. In any case, there is not a more interesting scene near Manchester than is supplied upon the slopes of this grand range—Blackstone Edge—which if unpossessed of the drear wildness of mighty Kinder, is solaced by the placid bosom of distant Hollingworth. Two ways give access. We may ascend either from the margin of the water, proceeding through fields and the little glen called Clegg’s Wood; or from Littleborough by the turnpike–road, turning off when about half–way up to the right, and then mounting again. At the height of about a quarter of a mile the road will be discovered—a belt of massive pavement, about forty feet in width, quite smooth, and overgrown with whortle and crowberry, except in parts where these have been cleared away with a view to minute examination of the stone–work. So bright is the colour of this heathy covering, compared with that of the general vegetation of the hill, that when the atmosphere is clear, and the sunshine favourably subdued, the road may be plainly discerned from the opposite side of the valley, a regular and well–defined streak of green. Arrived at the summit, a few yards over the level brow, we find the boundary–stone between the two counties, and from this point may trace the road for some distance onwards.
Running on, past Rochdale and through the tunnel, again there is a quite new sphere of enjoyment in the country which lies on the northern side of the Todmorden valley, everywhere picturesque, and constantly branching into subordinate valleys with never–silent streams. The finest of them are the Burnley valley and the vast and romantic defile called, as a whole, Hardcastle Crags, though this name applies strictly to no more than the singular insulated masses of rock at the upper extremity or beyond the bridge. A more charming resort for two–thirds of a day the West Riding scarcely offers. The path is first through the so called “streets,” at an angle of forty–five degrees, that lead towards Heptonstall, then along the crest of the hill until the point is reached for descending through the wood, at the foot of which, if the water be low enough, the stream may be crossed by stepping–stones. Clinging to them will be found in plenty that curious aquatic moss the Fontinalis antipyretica, so named by Linnæus in reference to the use which he says it was put to by the peasantry in Sweden. Possessed of properties so much the more singular from their occurrence in a water–plant, the country people, he tells us, were accustomed to use it to fill up the spaces between the chimneys and the walls of their houses, so as to exclude the air and serve as a protection against fire. The wood is in many parts quite a little natural fernery. We have on various occasions seen no fewer than five different species all growing so near together that they could be touched without moving a single step—the common shield–fern, the broad–leaved sylvan shield–fern, the hard–fern, the oak–fern, and the beech–fern. Oak–fern, Polypodium Dryopteris, is a frequent inhabitant of the dells hereabouts where moist, growing in patches more than a foot across.