All that is left of Bolton Priory is before us when we reach the Cavendish Memorial. Close to this spot, though hidden from the road, is the log hut known as Hartington Seat, the point of view whence the ruin looks its loveliest. We are at the edge of a wooded cliff. The Priory lies far below us in its level graveyard, framed in trees; the river sweeps away from our feet, and after curving thrice, disappears into the blue haze of the hills. Between the churchyard and the foot of the red cliffs beyond the Wharfe lies the regular line of the monks' stepping-stones, by which for many centuries, probably, the congregation of the faithful came from the hills to their devotions; and came, too, on other occasions, laden with fruit or game for the hospitable table of the prior. Do not go to Bolton on a bank holiday, nor, if you can help it, in August, lest you should find as many people as were there in the days of its splendour, when the canons and the lay-brethren and the men-at-arms and the thirty servants and the unnumbered serfs and the frequent guests made it a stirring place. Yet it is always possible to find an early hour when there is peace in the ruined choir, where somewhere in the shadow of the arcaded walls the dust of the Shepherd Lord lies under the grass. Bolton was sold to the Shepherd's son, the first Earl of Cumberland, at the time of the Dissolution, when the building of the west tower was brought to a sudden standstill, and the nave, the parish church, was separated by a wall from the choir, the monks' church, which would be needed no more. There stands the tower, still unfinished; and here is the nave, now, as then, a parish church, where for seven hundred years without interruption, it is said, services have been held Sunday by Sunday. The beauty of the interior, unfortunately, is not great. The Early Victorian Age has left its fatal stamp upon it. It was not till forty years ago that the walls were cleansed of whitewash; and in 1851 a large sum of money was mis-spent at the Great Exhibition in acquiring some dreadful glass.
THE CHOIR, BOLTON PRIORY
The motorist's route from Bolton Bridge to Harrogate is undoubtedly the moorland road by Blubberhouses. The contour-book describes it as rough and steep; but the steepness is nowhere very severe, and the surface is now excellent, while the moors have their usual charms—charms not only for the artist, though these are appealing enough, but special charms for the motorist too, the delight of an unfenced road and a wide country. Not that this road lies altogether on the moors. There are woods here and there, and soft, green beds of bracken, and slopes of massive rock; and presently we pass the great reservoir of the Leeds waterworks. Then the country opens out again, and we have a series of fine wide views till Harrogate appears below us, occupying a considerable proportion of the landscape.
Harrogate is exactly what one would expect it to be: a place of large hotels and fine shops, a place whose ideals are comfort and prosperity. Those who like to motor round a centre—a plan which has many advantages—could hardly find a better base for their operations.
"The great merit of Harrogate," wrote George Eliot, "is that one is everywhere close to lovely open walks." Our field has widened since her day, but Harrogate's great merit is still its merit as a centre. In this respect it is superior even to York, though in itself not worthy to be named with that incomparable city. To the west, within easy distance, are Nidderdale and Wharfedale; to the north are Ripon, Fountains, and Jervaulx, with Middleham and even Wensleydale for the enterprising; to the south is Kirkstall Abbey on the outskirts of Leeds. Byland and Rievaulx may be seen in a single day's drive, and only twenty-one miles away is York itself.
Harrogate is so entirely, so aggressively modern, so resolute to let bygones be bygones, that one learns with something of a shock how it came by its name. Harrogate, it appears, means the Soldiers' Hill on the Road. The soldiers who lived on the hill were Roman: the road was the Roman road through the forest of Knaresborough. Except for this faint hint of an earlier and more strenuous life, the history of Harrogate is the history of its "Spaw." These crowded acres were a bare, uninhabited common at the end of the sixteenth century, when Captain Slingsby, wandering one day across the Stray, was led by the tewits to a spring that cured him of his ills, which had hitherto yielded only to the waters of Germany. He set a roof over the precious spot, and so this spring became the fons et origo of modern Harrogate. And the Stray, though now in the heart of a large town, is still uninhabited, still common-land; for a century after the discovery of the Tewit Well, when hotels were already thick upon the surrounding ground, an Act of Parliament was passed by which two hundred acres of land were presented for ever to the people of Harrogate, to serve for the daily walks of those who drank the waters.