The history of the town of Ross is principally a mass of details, authentic and apocryphal, regarding the life, times, and labours, the recreations, walks, works, and ways of “The Man of Ross.” Few places are so entirely given up to the memory of one man as is Ross to the memory of John Kyrle. Everywhere in that quaint and clean little town, “The Man of Ross,” in some form or other, meets the eye. Here his favourite walk, there the park he gave to the people, again the pew in which he worshipped, the house in which he lived, the buildings he reared, the streets he made—everything tells of John Kyrle. He was born in the year 1637, and was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, where is still to be seen a silver tankard bearing his name. As this tankard holds five pints, it is to be inferred that the student who was to become “The Man of Ross” was a lusty drinker, although in after-life he proved himself to be a man of abstemious habits. His long life—he died aged eighty-eight—was devoted to doing good to all whom he could help, improving not only man but town and country as well:—
“But all our praises why should lords engross?
Rise, honest Muse! and sing the Man of Ross:
Pleased Vaga echoes through her winding bounds,
And rapid Severn hoarse applause resounds.
Who hung with woods yon mountain’s sultry brow?
From the dry rock who bade the waters flow?
Not to the skies in useless columns tost,
Or in proud falls magnificently lost,
But, clear and artless, pouring through the plain,