RYDAL WATER (p. [290]).
GRASMERE (p. [290]).
As the poet was probably born near the Burnley which has been described on a previous page, he no doubt knew his Lancashire well, and spoke from the book when he claims that it gives name to the town and the county. The LUNE is what in the North-country is called a bonny river, and it rises, not on the edge of Richmondshire, as is sometimes stated, but at the upper extremity of a dale to the south-east of Wharton, in Westmorland. This is a portion of the upheaved Lancashire country, however, that stands something midway between sea-level and the summits of its best mountains. The uplands and highlands of the early course of the Lune range between 500 feet and 1,000 feet, and the lower half is below the smaller figure. The course, however, is through a section of valleys watered by innumerable creeks, and kept in bounds by the lonely fells. Sometimes, as at Howgill, there are fairy glens, and the occasional intervals of fertile pastures and wooded levels are a not ungrateful contrast. On one of the plains of the Lune is Kirkby Lonsdale, the capital of a vale which stretches away with Ingleborough in the distance. The river courses round a half-circle, and the scene, with its mountainous background in the east, is particularly beautiful.
It is a rare kind of panorama for this part of the country. The radiating valleys in the Lancashire portion of the Lune’s course bring in the Greta and the Wenning. The former must not be confounded with the other Greta that is born near Helvellyn, nor with the tributary of the Tees in the North Riding, at the bridge of which Nicholas Nickleby, old Squeers, and the wretched boys were put down from the coach en route to Dotheboys Hall. This Greta which is a tributary of the Lune is a rocky-bedded, brawling, rushing little stream, tumbling down from Whernside, and, between Ingleborough and Ingleton Fells, finding its way through a dale which is much visited for the sake of the roaring subterranean waterfall of Wethercote Cave, the charming surroundings of Ingleton village, and the caves and fells of Kingsdale valley.
The Wenning is the larger tributary, and its popular attractions are the subterranean grotto called Ingleborough Cave, in the gloomy Clapdale ravine, and Hornby Castle, conspicuously placed on a craggy height fringed with old trees. This interesting country is now traversed by a railway branching west from Settle, with a junction at Clapham for the aforesaid Ingleton, and affording to the traveller a sight of Giggleswick Scar and the geological curiosity of Craven Fault. The Hornby Castle referred to was built by one of the Normans on the site of a Roman villa, and the ruins near are those of a priory reared in the sixteenth century. The vale of Caton, within a five-mile walk of Lancaster, at the navigable limit of the Lune, moved the poet Gray to remarks which might fairly be applied to more than one spot in Lunedale. These are the words: “To see the view in perfection, you must go into a field on the left. Here Ingleborough, behind a variety of lesser mountains, makes the background of the prospect. On each hand, up the middle distance, rise two sloping hills, the left clothed with thick woods, the right with variegated rock and herbage. Between them, in the richest of valleys, the Lune serpentines for many a mile, and comes forth ample and clear, through a well-wooded and richly-pastured foreground.” For the last seven miles of its course the Lune runs almost parallel to and within a short distance of Morecambe Bay, and the narrow neck of land which it forms is distinguished by the designation of Little Fylde.
While Preston, as we have seen, has been rising into importance as a port, and the Ribble has been made worthy of vessels of considerable tonnage, Lancaster, though the county town, has declined very swiftly in maritime importance in the course of the last hundred years. No one looking at John of Gaunt’s old home in the present day, and upon the business transacted on the Lune, which passes by it, could guess that it was a very considerable emporium of commerce, being, indeed, ranked above Liverpool when Charles I. levied the ship-money which brought him to disaster. At that time Lancaster was assessed at £30 and Liverpool at £25. Even then the Lancaster ships sailed regularly to the West Indies and the Baltic. The sinuosity of the channel and the shallowness of the ancient ford near the town became a serious hindrance to navigation, but by dint of enterprising dredging Lancaster is still reckoned amongst the English ports, and at Glasson, where the little Conder flows into the estuary under the railway, there is a harbour and dock which may yet revive the prosperity of the town.
Lancaster is one of the many Roman settlements about whose name antiquaries are entitled to contend. A piece of brass money, found under one of the foundation-stones of the arch of a former Lancaster bridge, was described as Danish, and in the time of King John the Abbot of Furness had royal permission to get timber from the King’s forests of Lancaster for such of the repairs of the bridge as he was “liable to” for his fisheries. These fisheries, like those of the Ribble, were once of the first class, and were granted to the Abbot of Furness in the reign of Stephen. There were always disputes, however, and sometimes hot quarrels, as to the rights in both salmon and timber, and king after king, according to the necessity of those days, backed up the Church, while legal regulations from time to time controlled the fisheries. From this, coupled with the fact that its first charter was granted by Richard I., we may without more ado conclude that Lancaster is an ancient borough. Indeed, there are many curious evidences of this kept alive in surviving customs, the origin of which must be found in musty grants and charters.