No one who had not visited it before would miss the Lake District in the north of England. A former trip through this section by coach caused us to omit it from our tour, though we would gladly have seen this delightful country a second time. One could depart from the main highway from Lancaster to Carlisle at Kendall and in a single day visit most of the haunts of Ruskin, Coleridge, Wordsworth and Southey, whose names are always associated with the English lakes. Many steep hills would be encountered, but none that would present great difficulty to a moderate-powered motor. It would be much better, however, if two or three days could be given to the Lakes, and this time might also include Furness Abbey and Lanercost Priory. Volumes have been written of the English lakes, but with all the vivid pen-pictures that have been drawn one will hardly be prepared for the beauty of the reality.
The Peak District in Derbyshire we omitted for the same reason—a previous visit. At Nottingham we were within ten or fifteen miles of this section, and by following a splendid road could have reached Rowsley Station, with its quaint inn, near Chatsworth House and Haddon Hall. No one who makes any pretense of seeing England will miss either of these places. Haddon Hall is said to be the most perfect of the baronial mansion houses now to be found in England. It is situated in a wonderfully picturesque position, on a rocky bluff overlooking the River Wye. The manor was originally given by the Conqueror to Peveril of the Peak, the hero of Scott's novel. The mansion is chiefly famous for its connection with Dorothy Vernon, who married the son of the Earl of Rutland in the time of Queen Elizabeth, the property thus passing to the Rutland family, who are still the owners. The mansion is approached by a small bridge crossing the river, whence one enters under a lofty archway the main courtyard. In this beautiful quadrangle, one of the most interesting features is the chapel at the southwest corner. This is one of the oldest portions of the structure. Almost opposite is the magnificent porch and bay-window leading into the great hall. This is exactly as it was in the days of the Vernons, and its table, at which the lord of the feast sat, its huge fireplace, timber roof and minstrel gallery are quite unaltered. It has recently been announced that the Duke of Rutland will make repairs to this old place and occupy it as one of his residences, closing Belvoir Castle, his present home, on account of the great expense of maintaining it.
Four or five miles from Haddon Hall is Chatsworth House, the splendid country seat of the Duke of Devonshire. This was built over a hundred years ago and is as fine an example of the modern English mansion as Haddon Hall is of the more ancient. It is a great building in the Georgian style, rather plain from the outside, but the interior is furnished in great splendor. It is filled with objects of art presented to the family at various times, some of them representing gifts from nearly every crowned head in Europe during the last hundred years. Its galleries contain representative works of the greatest ancient and modern artists. Even more charming than the mansion itself are its gardens and grounds. Nowhere in England are these surpassed. The mansion, with its grounds, is open daily to the public without charge, and we were told that in some instances the number of visitors reaches one thousand in a single day. As I noted elsewhere, the Duke of Devonshire owns numerous other palaces and ruins, all of which are open to the public without charge—a fine example of the spirit of many of the English nobility who decline to make commercial enterprises of their historic possessions.
In this immediate vicinity is Buxton, another of the English watering places famous for mineral springs. The neighborhood is most romantic, with towering cliffs, strange caverns, leaping cataracts and wooded valleys. However, the section abounds in very steep hills, dangerous to the most powerful motor.
In Yorkshire we missed much, chiefly on account of lack of time. A single day's journey would have taken us over a fine road to Scarborough, an ancient town which has become a modern seacoast resort, and to Whitby, with one of the finest abbey ruins in the shire, as well as to numerous other interesting places between. Barnard Castle, lying just across the western boundary of Yorkshire, was only a few miles off the road from Darlington, and would have been well worth a visit. These are only a few of the many places which might be seen to advantage if one could give at least a week to Yorkshire.
From Norwich an hour or two would have taken us to Yarmouth through the series of beautiful lakes known as the Norfolk Broads. Yarmouth is an ancient town with many points of interest and at present noted principally for its fisheries.
On the road to Colchester we might easily have visited Bury St. Edmunds, and coming out of Colchester, only seven miles away is the imposing ruin of the unfinished mansion of the Marneys, which its builder hoped to make the most magnificent private residence in the Kingdom. The death of Lord Marney and his son brought the project to an end and for several hundred years this vast ruin has stood as a monument to their unfulfilled hopes.
It may seem that as Americans we were rather unpatriotic to pass within a few miles of the ancestral country of the Washingtons without visiting it, but such was the case. It is not given much space in the guide-books and it came to us only as an afterthought. It was but five or six miles from Northampton, through which we passed. In the old church at Brington is the tomb of George Washington's great-great-great-grandfather and also one of the houses which was occupied by his relatives. In the same section is Sulgrave Manor, the home of the Washingtons for several generations, which still has over its front doorway the Washington coat-of-arms. In the same vicinity and near the farmhouse where George Eliot was born is Nuneaton, a place where she spent much of her life and to which numerous references are made in her novels.
In Scotland we also missed much, but very little that we could have reached without consuming considerably more time. A day's trip north of Edinburgh, across the Firth of Forth into Fife, would have enabled us to visit Loch Leven and its castle, where Queen Mary was held prisoner and was rescued by young Douglas, whom she afterward unfortunately married. Had we started two or three hours earlier on our trip to Abbottsford and Melrose, we could easily have reached Jedburgh and Kelso, at each of which there are interesting abbey ruins. Of course it would have been a fine thing to go to the extreme northern point of Scotland, known as John O' Groats, but this, at the rate we traveled, would have consumed two or three days. The country is not specially interesting and has few historical associations. Tourists make this trip chiefly to be able to say they have covered the Kingdom from Lands End to John O' Groats.