Holy Well, King’s Newton.
Besides its ruined hall, there is at King’s Newton a Holy Well, the structure over which was erected by Robert Hardinge in 1660, and restored a few years back by one of his descendants. It bears on its front the inscription—“Fons sacer hic strvitvr Roberto nominis Hardinge, 1660.”
The Trent and Weston Cliff.
In the neighbourhood of Melbourne, too, are many pleasant places and delightful “bits” of scenery. Weston Cliff,
“Just rising from fair fields clad now in green,
Its beauteous church-spire tap’ring o’er the wood,”
on the banks of “silver Trent,” is one of the most favourite and famous fishing resorts of the district, and its manifold attractions have often been the theme of the local poet’s song:—
“Sweet Weston Cliff! how beautiful art thou!
How dark the firs that crown thy rugged brow!
Adown thy sides the straggling white sloe falls,
And blossom’d thorns outspread their snowy palls,
And the glad furze hath beauteously unrolled
For the Spring’s feet her gorgeous cloth of gold.”
Donington Cliff, too, on the river margin of the broad lands of Donington, the seat of the late Marquis of Hastings and of Mr. Hastings, father of the present Earl of Loudoun, is a charming spot, especially where, as shown in our engraving,