Here the Tees, in a succession of violent cascades, makes a descent, as we have seen, of two hundred feet. At High Force it falls by only seventy-five feet; but, whereas the lonelier cataract is a long and broken slope, the water at High Force falls with plummet-like directness, in a vast broad sheet when the river is in flood, in two straight white columns when the floods are subsiding, and in a single glittering fall when the river is at its normal height. Here the contrast between the Yorkshire and the Durham side of the Tees first makes itself decisively felt. The steep but still gradual declivity of the Durham side is veiled in woods of birch and beech and fir; on the Yorkshire side the basalt descends sheer to the river’s bed, and beyond and above it there is a bare expanse of unprofitable fields, darkened here and there by patches of whin-bush and long streaks of broom. This barren character is maintained, with a gradual decrease of sternness, until the little town of Middleton-in-Teesdale comes in sight.
HIGH FORCE. / FROM YORK SIDE.
Middleton is a long, straggling town, starting away from a stone bridge over the Tees, and climbing far away up the sides of the hills. It is built entirely of stone, even to the roofs and the chimneys. This is a peculiarity of all the houses in Upper Teesdale. Slates, in small quantities, have penetrated thus far into the wilds; but of baked clay, otherwise than in the form of pottery, there is no suggestion until the village of Cotherstone is reached, whence emanates the famous Cotherstone cheese. Below the bridge at Middleton the Tees leaves behind it the stern Yorkshire moorlands and scaurs, the hills on either bank withdrawing themselves that it may glitter in the sunbeams over a pebbly bed. Henceforth, until it approaches the large towns, and when it encounters the sea-tides, it flows, broad and open, past richly-wooded banks. In all England there is no more pleasant valley than that which the Tees waters between Middleton and Pierce Bridge. There is an almost equal beauty in the valleys of its numerous tributaries. “All the little rills concealed among the forked hills” have their individual features of loveliness, and hide sweet secrets of their own. About a mile below Middleton the river Lune ripples sunnily down into the Tees. Rising in Westmorland, it flows across that portion of Yorkshire which interposes itself between Westmorland and Durham, wearing one of the deepest of channels for itself, and giving token of frequent floods in the large stones by which its bed is thickly strewn. The river Lune is a favourite stream for trout, but it is still more renowned as a spawning ground for salmon; for as that kingly fish cannot ascend the Tees beyond the seventy-foot precipice at High Force, and as some of the higher tributaries are polluted with water from the lead mines, the Lune and the Balder, a smaller stream which flows into the Tees at Cotherstone, are almost the only accessible breeding beds.
BARNARD CASTLE.
“Fish! I should think so!” says a man who has fishings to let. “Why, there are times in the year when you could take salmon out by the armful.” To the remark that this is not the time when salmon ought to be taken, he replies that there are good trout at any time of the year; and a very cursory observation of the Tees proves this to be true. The keen observation of Sir Walter Scott led him to remark on the blackness of this river. Coming down from the moorlands, it is thickly stained by the peat; but the peaty colour does not in fact obscure the clearness of the water, and looking down from above, one may everywhere see the fish shooting athwart the stream in little shoals. The river is exceedingly well preserved; indeed, on one side it is in the hands of the Duke of Cleveland, on the other it is well tended by Mr. Morritt of Rokeby, the Earl of Strathmore, and Sir Talbot Constable. Nevertheless, fishing is to be had on easy terms—from Henry Ludgate, of Winston, for example, who was formerly gamekeeper to the Earl of Brownlow, and who now keeps a public-house and writes verses. His political ideas take that turn, he observes, and the visitor to Henry’s hostelry may hear some of the verses repeated if he should be so minded as to listen to them.
There are no towns on the Tees until one of the most horrible in all England is reached—Stockton, to wit; but there are innumerable villages. Some of these are quite remarkable for their cleanliness and beauty. Romaldkirk, the second village from Middleton, on the Yorkshire side, is an incomparable village, far scattered, but bound together by a plenitude of trees. Romaldkirk—anciently “Rum auld kirk,” a serious-minded old villager observed, with a trenchant faith in his etymology—is noticeable not only for its combination of all the charms that an English village can possess, but also on account of its parish church and its parish stocks. The stocks are unique, indeed. Shackles of this ancient description are usually of wood; but the stocks at Romaldkirk are bars of iron, fastened in stone posts, and ingeniously bent so that one of the bars, locked down on the other, will imprison two pairs of feet. In winter the parish stocks of Romaldkirk must have been the most uncomfortable parish stocks in all England. The villagers preserve them now with genuine and reasonable pride, and the oldest inhabitant sits upon them and relates sad stories of the last persons who were imprisoned therein. The church has been so little restored that it remains one of the finest examples of early ecclesiastical architecture. It is unusually large for so small a village, a fact which is explained by its erection by the Barons Fitzhugh, who were buried here whenever they chanced to die in their beds. The building dates from the twelfth century, and is in the Early English style. One of the Lords Fitzhugh is kept in remembrance by a statue in chain-armour, still contemplated by the villagers with a mixture of awe and delight.
The Fitzhughs are again in evidence at the village of Cotherstone, two miles further down the Tees. They had a castle there, of which a small portion still remains, bearing the same proportion to a complete feudal castle that an odd brick will bear to a modern house. Cotherstone is a smart, businesslike village, for these parts. Some of its stone roofs have a coping of red tiles, the first to be seen in Upper Teesdale. It has recently built itself a very pretty little church. Above all, it is renowned for its cheese. This cheese of Cotherstone is in shape similar to Stilton; but, however long Stilton cheese may be kept, it can never approach that of Cotherstone in aroma. A Cotherstone cheese, truly, requires a large room all to itself; it is not the kind of cheese that one can live with, even for the short space of lunch; it is a militant sort of cheese—fit to defeat armies. Those who produce it were formerly thought to be rather pronounced rustics by the inhabitants of Teesdale. They were called “Cotherstone calves,” and uncomplimentary references were made to the strength of their heads; but the School Boards have changed all that, and a young Cotherstone calf now speaks with a certain air of refinement, and is not above feeling pleasure in giving information to the intruding stranger.