COUNTRY RAMBLES.

Rostherne Mere

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Country Rambles,

AND

Manchester Walks and Wild flowers:

BEING RURAL WANDERINGS IN

CHESHIRE, LANCASHIRE, DERBYSHIRE, & YORKSHIRE.

BY

LEO H. GRINDON,

Author of “The Manchester Flora,” “Manchester Banks and Bankers,”
“Lancashire: Historical and Descriptive Notes,” and other works.

If thou art worn, and hard beset
With sorrows that thou wouldst forget;
If thou wouldst read a lesson that will keep
Thy heart from fainting, and thy soul from sleep,
Go to the woods and hills! No tears
Dim the sweet look that Nature wears.

LONGFELLOW.

MANCHESTER:
PALMER & HOWE, 73, 75, AND 77, PRINCESS ST.
LONDON: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, & CO.
1882.

MANCHESTER:
PALMER AND HOWE, PRINTERS, 73, 75, AND 77, PRINCESS STREET

PREFACE.

THE following pages consist, in part, of a reprint of the little volume published in 1858 under the title of Manchester Walks and Wild–Flowers;—in part, of brief excerpta from the author’s accounts of trips made by the Field Naturalists’ Society, as given in their Annual Reports, 1860–1881. A very considerable amount of new matter will also be found.

Giving descriptions in a novel and welcome manner, of pretty places in the neighbourhood previously unknown to people in general, and indicating in various ways the pleasure to be derived from rambles in the country, the little volume spoken of is believed to have assisted, in no slight measure, to awaken and foster the present widespread local taste for rural scenes, and for recreation in the pursuit of practical natural history. It is in the hope that similar results may ensue among the present generation that the book is now partially republished. It has long been unprocurable, and is constantly enquired for. The reprinting presents also a curious and interesting picture of many local conditions now effaced.

The preface to the original work of 1858 contained the following passages:—“No grown–up person who has resided in Manchester even twenty years, is unacquainted with the mighty changes that have passed over its suburbs during that period; while those who have lived here thirty, forty, and fifty years tell us of circumstances and conditions almost incredible. Neighbourhoods once familiar as delightful rural solitudes, are now covered with houses, and densely crowded with population; the pleasant field–paths we trod in our youth have disappeared, and in their stead are long lines of pavement, lighted with gas, and paced by the policeman. In a few years it is not improbable that places described in the following pages as rustic and sylvan will have shared the same fate, and be as purely historical as Garratt Wood and Ordsall Clough. The Botany of the district will to a certain extent be similarly affected. No longer than fifteen years ago (i.e. in 1840) the fields by St. George’s Church, in the Chester Road, were blue every March and April with the spring crocus, and on the very spot where Platt Church now lifts its tall and graceful spire, there was a large pond filled with the Stratiotes, or water–aloe. If the past be a prognostic of the future, it is easy to guess what will happen to other things, and to understand how in half a century hence our present ‘Walks’ will have become as obsolete as their author, and the entire subject require a new and livelier treatment. A descriptive history of the suburbs of Manchester as they were fifty years ago, would be a most interesting and valuable item of our local literature. It would be as curious to the lover of bygones as this book of to–day may perhaps appear to the Manchester people of A.D. 1900. How extraordinary would be the facts may be judged from the following extracts from De Quincey, whose youth, it is well known, was passed in the neighbourhood of Manchester. Mark first what he says of the place he lived in. ‘And if, after the manner of the Emperor Aurelius, I should return thanks to Providence for all the separate blessings of my early situation, these four I would single out as worthy of special consideration,—that I lived in a rustic solitude; that this solitude was in England; that my infant feelings were moulded by the gentlest of sisters; and finally, that I and they were dutiful and loving members of a pure, and holy, and magnificent church.’ And now mark where lay this ‘rustic solitude.’ He is describing the expected return of his father:—‘It was a summer evening of unusual solemnity. The servants and four of us children were gathered for hours on the lawn before the house, listening for the sound of wheels. Sunset came, nine, ten, eleven o’clock, and nearly another hour had passed without a warning sound, for Greenhay, being so solitary a house, formed a “terminus ad quem,” beyond which was nothing but a cluster of cottages, composing the little hamlet of Greenhill; so that any sound of wheels coming from the country lane which then connected us with the Rusholme Road, carried with it of necessity, a warning summons to prepare for visitors at Greenhay.’ ‘Greenhay’ was the centre of the modern Greenheys, and the ‘hamlet of Greenhill’ the predecessor of the present Greenhill Terrace.”

The changes foreboded have to an extent not unimportant, already come to pass. Almost the whole of the great suburb which includes the Alexandra Park has grown up since about 1860, effacing meadows and corn–fields. In the contemplation of this new scene of busy life there is pleasure, since it signifies human welfare and enjoyment. In other directions, unhappily, the change has been for the worse, as indicated in the notes to the original portraiture of Boggart–hole Clough, Mere Clough, and the Reddish Valley. Before deciding to visit any particular place in the immediate neighbourhood of the town it will be prudent, accordingly, to read to the end. Never mind. Few things ever go absolutely. Against the losses we are able to put the opportunities for enjoyment in localities opened up by recent railway extensions,—places quite as charming as the extinguished ones—it is simply a question now of a little longer travel.

The present volume, be it remembered, is neither a gazetteer nor an itinerary. The limits are too narrow for its making pretensions even to be a Guide–book, though the style, often, I am aware, too swift and abbreviated, may give it the semblance of one;—it proposes only to supply hints as to where and how to secure country pastimes. While constrained to leave many places with only a touch, others have been treated so admirably by Mr. Earwaker, Mr. Croston, and Mr. Waugh, that to tread the same ground would, on my own part, be alike needless and ungraceful. Others again I have described only within these few months in the “Lancashire,” to which work I may be permitted to refer the reader for particulars not here given.

Except in some few instances, I have not cared either to give minute directions as to paths and gates. One of the grand charms of a rural ramble consists in the sensation, at times, of being slightly and agreeably lost; to say nothing of the pleasure which comes of being called upon to employ our own wits, instead of always asking, like a child, to be led by the hand.

If, when visited, some of the places seem over–praised, it must further be understood that the descriptions are of their appearance in pleasant weather, in sunshine, and when cherished companions help to make the hours glad. I can say no more than that the descriptions are faithful as regards my own experience, and that I hope earnestly they may become true to the experience of every one else. From this point of view the little book is a kind of record of what I have seen and felt during forty years.

Nothing has been written for mere “cheap–trippers.” The book is addressed to the intelligent, the peaceful, and the cultivated; those who, when they visit the country, desire to profit by its inestimable sweet lessons. In many parts it is addressed especially to the young, who have ductile material in them, and are the hope of the future for us all. Neither has it been written for learned botanists or antiquaries. The botanical details are simply such as it is hoped may encourage the beginner. My main desire is to be educational, and by this I would be judged.

Many of the places described or referred to are strictly private. Permission to view them must therefore be asked some days before. Common–sense and the courtesy of civilized beings will prescribe in every case the proper method of procedure.

I have, in conclusion, to express my thanks to the artists who have so pleasingly illustrated the work, Mr. W. Morton, and very particularly, Mr. Thos. Letherbrow.

By some odd lapsus calami the passage from Wordsworth on [page 139] has been mis–written. The third line should read, “So was it when my life began.”

LEO H. GRINDON.

Manchester,
May 1st, 1882.

CONTENTS.

FULL–PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS.

Country Rambles.

CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.

The meanest floweret of the vale,
The simplest note that swells the gale,
The common sun, the air, the skies,
To him are opening Paradise.

WIDE as may be the circle covered by a great town, we come to the country at last. Let the bricks and mortar stride far as they will over the greensward, there are always sanctuaries beyond—sweet spots where we may yet listen to the singing of the birds, and pluck the early primrose and anemone. We need but take our survey from a sufficiently high point, to see that the vastest mass of houses ever heaped together by man is still only an encampment in the fields. Like the waves of the sea upon the shores of the islands, the surge of the yellow corn is still close upon our borders. We need but turn our faces fondly towards rural things and rural sights, and we shall find them.

Manchester itself, grim, flat, smoky Manchester, with its gigantic suburb ever on the roll further into the plain, and scouts from its great army of masons posted on every spot available for hostile purposes,—Manchester itself denies to no one of its five hundred thousand, who is blessed with health and strength, the amenities and genial influences of the country. True, we have no grand scenery; no Clyde, no Ben Lomond, no Leigh Woods, no St. Vincent’s Rocks, no Clevedon, no Durdham Down; our rivers are anything but limpid; our mountains are far away, upon the horizon; our lakes owe less to nature than to art; as for waterfalls, we have none but in our portfolios. Still is our town bosomed in beauty. Though the magnificent and the romantic be wanting, we have meadows trimmed with wild–flowers, the scent of the new–mown hay and the purple clover; we have many a sweet sylvan walk where we may hear

The burnie wimplin’ doon the glen,

and many a grateful pathway under the mingled boughs of beech and chestnut. Next to a fine woman, the most delightful object in creation is a noble and well–grown tree,—a group of such trees always reminds us of a bevy of fair ladies; and dull and unthankful must be the man who, in the tranquil and sacred shades of Alderley and Dunham, cannot realise to himself the most genuine and heartfelt pleasure that trees and woods can give. If they be not so sumptuous as the oaks of Worcestershire, or so stately as the elms of Surrey, our trees are as leafy and as green, and their shadows fall as softly on the summer afternoon. The great secret in the enjoyment of nature, as in our intercourse with society, is to look at its objects in a friendly light, to make the most of them, such as they are; not invidiously contrasting them with certain other objects at a distance, but recognising that absolute and positive beauty which is possessed by the very humblest. Superadd to this the habit of connecting our own feelings and emotions with the forms of nature, and, however wanting in attractions to the mere adulator of “fine scenery,” every little flower, every bend of the branches, and sweet concurrent play of light and shade, every pendent shadow in the stream, becomes animated with a meaning and a power of satisfying such as none but those who accustom themselves to look for it here, can find in the most favoured and spacious landscape. Justly to appreciate the wonderful and rare, we must first learn to regard with a tender and intimate affection the common and the unpretending; in the degree that we withdraw from the latter, treating it with indifference or contempt, as surely does our capacity diminish for the former. The common things of earth are the most gracious gifts of God. None of us extract their full value, yet every man holds it in his power to make himself tenfold happier by a wise use of them. For true and continuous enjoyment of life is not attained by the gratification of high–flown and artificial wants, connected in large measure with the idea of pounds, shillings, and pence. It is found in the culture of love for common things, the untaxed game that no man can deprive us of, and which constitute the chief part of the beauties of the country. Hence the worth of nature to the poor. If the rich have their gardens and hothouses, here are flower–beds and parks, fresh from God’s own hand, without money, and without price, and greater than the estates of all the nobles in the kingdom. Hence, too, coming close to home, we may see how little reason we have to lament the absence of the grand and wonderful, since nothing less than total nakedness of surface can take from a place its power to interest and please.

While adapted to give true pleasure, if looked for in a kindly spirit, no less fertile is our neighbourhood in materials for a large and practical culture of natural science. Most of the sciences may be cultivated by Manchester residents to perfection. For geology there are certainly fewer advantages than invite men to it in the neighbourhood of some other large inland towns. But what scope there is for botany and entomology is attested by the numbers of students of both these charming sciences who have adorned the ranks of our working men during the last half century.[1] Caley, Hobson, Crozier,[2] Crowther, Horsefield, among those no longer in this life; Percival, Carter, Evans,[3] still among us, have reflected honour upon Manchester as a spontaneous working men’s college of natural history, such as might deservedly be envied by the proudest institution in the land. These men acquired their knowledge in the scenes we speak of, and from nature’s “common things.” The plants of the fields and hedgerows, the insects of the moors, were their inspiration and instruction, the source at the same moment of a thorough and pure delight; for while they are the least expensive of pleasures, the naturalist’s are also the truest and most abiding. No one inexperienced in botany would imagine how many wild–flowers are found growing about Manchester. Taking the area which would be marked out by measuring a circle round the Exchange, fifteen miles from it in every direction, six hundred different species were catalogued in 1840.[4] Buxton’s “Guide,” printed in 1849, included one hundred and fifty others, mostly accidental omissions from the earlier list. Our own “Manchester Flora,” 1858, in which everything is brought up to that time, contains over twenty more, though, in consequence of the diversity of opinion as to what plants should legitimately be included, the figures are probably much about the same as in the “Guide,” namely, seven hundred and fifty. These seven hundred and fifty comprise the flowering plants, the trees, and the ferns. The number of mosses, fungi, lichens, and other flowerless plants, usually regarded as a separate subject of study, is in the aggregate probably quite as great, making a total of some one thousand five hundred perfectly distinct forms. Not that they are all equally abundant. We must distinguish between what botanists call the “Flora” of a given district, and its vegetation. The “Flora” may be large, and yet the mass of the vegetation consist of but few different kinds, the same plants repeated over and over again, as when hills are covered for miles together with heath and whortleberries. Such is the case with Manchester. Though there are seven hundred and fifty different kinds of flowers and ferns contained in our “Flora,” probably not half the number go to constitute the general herbage of the district. Some species are very rarely met with, only once in the season perhaps. But this is so much the more pleasing to the botanist, since it keeps his enthusiasm vigorously alive. In addition to the living objects of interest so freely supplied by the fields and woodlands, Manchester naturalists have a singular privilege in the local Free Libraries and museums. The museum at Peel Park is in many departments rich and extensive, and nowhere in the world can we consult books of greater value, or illustrated more magnificently, than are to be had for the asking in Camp Field,[5] at the Chetham College, and again at Peel Park. All three of these admirable libraries contain works on botany and entomology which it is really melancholy to think are so little known by the bulk of our town’s people, when they might contribute to an almost endless delight. Let it not be supposed that we are speaking of botany, entomology, etc., as proper to be made the chief business of life. “A man,” said Dr. Johnson, “is never so well employed as when he is earning money.” Yes. One of the best friends a man has in the world is a good round balance at his banker’s, the fruit and reward of his own toil. We speak of them as employments for the intervals of business, which it is quite as important to occupy carefully and diligently as the hours of business themselves. The more delight derived from the contemplation and study of nature a man can pack into his leisure moments, the keener, it is certain, will be his aptitude for his ordinary duties. It is not only delight of spirit either that comes of attention to nature; there are the salutary effects of it upon the body. Rambling in the fields, the town–cobwebs get dusted out of one’s lungs, and the whole frame becomes buoyant and elastic. Good as is a bathe in the cold water, scarcely inferior, when the skin is clean, is a good bathe in the blowing wind.

With these inducements and recommendations to the love of nature so amply spread before us, we purpose introducing our readers to the principal scenes of rural beauty in the immediate neighbourhood, those sweet side–chapels in the grand cathedral which no locality is absolutely without. The experience of half a life–time has shown us that no trifling source of pleasure is such familiarity with nature as we hope to encourage. Days gone by are made brighter to recollection; the present are filled with the same pleasures; for it is the peculiar property of the happiness induced by the love of nature, that if we are trained in youth to seek and find it, when we are old it will not depart from us;—even the future is made cheerful and inviting by the certainty that, leaving us our eyes, nature for her part will never grow old nor look shabby, not even in winter, which is decorated in its own way, but will always, like the Graces, be young and lovely. That which truly keeps life going is sensibility to the romance of nature. Youth and age are measured fictitiously if we count only by birthdays. Some things always find us young, and make us young, and though love and kindness may be the best known of these, none act more powerfully than does the sweet smile of living nature. It is in conversing with nature, moreover, that we learn how foolish are affectation and sentimentalism; how poor we are in leisure for mournful musing and fruitless reverie; that the truest and most precious pleasures are those which are the manliest; how rich we are in opportunities for affection and generosity. The facilities for reaching the most charming and sequestered spots are now so great and manifold that no one need be a stranger to them. It is not as some fifteen years ago,[6] when they were only to be reached by a long walk, which consumed the half of one’s time, or by a specially engaged conveyance, the expense of which compelled one’s excursions to be like the angels’ visits, few and far between. The railways, penetrating every nook and corner, now enable us to reach the very heart of the country in a very little while, fresh and nimble for our enjoyment, and, when over, the same will bring us home again. Honoured for ever be the name of Stephenson! It is in facilitating men’s intercourse with nature, and the purest and most ennobling recreations they can enjoy and are capable of, that the social blessings of railways have their highest realisation. Vast is their use to commerce, but still vaster their unreckoned friendship to health and healthy–mindedness. Now, also, there are more persons prepared to supply our wants in the way of “Tired nature’s sweet restorer, balmy tea.” Time was when the alehouse by the roadside, or the weary walk back to town, were the only choice open to our poor hunger and fatigue. But with the Saturday half–holiday, and the impetus it gave to rural visitings, there has sprung up a readiness on the part of country folks to open their doors in a hospitable spirit, which is quite tempting and delightful; and, most assuredly, nothing forms so pleasant a conclusion to an afternoon’s ramble as to sit down in a neat cottage to a comfortable farmhouse meal, with its huge broad piles of bread and butter, and inexhaustible store of green salad and new–laid eggs. There, with the sun shining aslant through the old–fashioned window, the doors open, and the breeze gently peeping in, the cows lowing in the pasture, and the very atmosphere redolent of the country, we realise the fine hearty pleasurableness of a good appetite, such as only the open air can induce, and learn the sweet savour of the plainest diet when wisely earned. And this not only because of the relish which comes of the exercise in the fresh air, but of the higher relish born of that mutual satisfaction and kind feeling which always follows a friendly visit to Dame Nature. People never feel more attached to one another than when they have been enjoying the charms of nature together; while the rose mounts to the cheek, the glow comes upon the heart. We should court nature therefore, not only for our own private and personal good, but if we would quicken our reciprocal affections. Especially with regard to this latter point, is it valuable to have some definite pursuit—something to attend to in particular when we go out for an afternoon’s or evening’s walk. A stroll in the fields is at all times good and healthful, but when two or three go out together to look for plants, or in search of curious insects, or to watch the movements, the manners and customs of the birds, quite unconsciously there get established new and pleasing links of sympathy, which lead to happiest results, both to head and heart. Some of the firmest friendships that we know of have had their origin in the exchange of ideas over a wild–flower. One of the noblest prerogatives of nature is to make men friends with one another. In the town we stand apart, excited and repelled by selfish and rival interests; but in the tranquillity of the fields and woods, united in delightful and invigorating pursuits, jealousies are forgotten, every man is an equal and a brother. Not the least useful end either, that flows from culture of love of the country, and particularly of some science having reference to natural objects, is the perennial employment it supplies for leisure hours at home. Half the mischief that boys commit comes of their having no intelligent and useful occupation for their playtime. As large a portion of the lax morality of their elders may be referred to the same cause. A naturalist never has any idle moments; if he be not at work in the country, he is busy with his curiosities indoors. Little private collections of natural objects, such as dried plants, insects, fossils, or shells, are always valuable, and always pretty, and a perpetual fund of interest and amusement. To gather together such things is not only highly instructive, and an agreeable pursuit, through the prolonged and intelligent observation which it demands; it is useful also as feeding the pleasure of possession—a noble and worthy one when well directed; and it has the yet higher recommendation of providing a diary and immortal record of past pleasures. A volume of dried plants, gathered on occasions of memorable enjoyment, becomes in a few years inexpressibly precious, an aid to memory, and thus to the perpetuity of those enjoyments, which even pictures give less perfectly, for here we have the very things themselves that were handled and looked at during those bright and fleeting moments. Such a volume of memorial–plants now lies on the table before us, spreading before the mind the souvenirs of forty years. In another part of this little book will be found instructions as to the method of commencing such collections. Meanwhile, we have cordially to recommend the idea to our readers, especially the young, and invite them to accompany us in these rambles.

CHAPTER II.
THE ASHLEY MEADOWS, AND THE LOWER BOLLIN VALLEY.

SPRING VISIT.

O Proserpina,
For the flowers now that, frighted, thou let’st fall
From Dis’s wagon!
Pale primroses
That die unmarried, ere they can behold
Bright Phœbus in his strength.

SHAKSPEARE.

THE part of the country round Manchester which supplies the greatest number of different wild–flowers, and of rare kinds in particular, is unquestionably the neighbourhood of Bowdon. Next in botanical interest come the Reddish valley, extending from Stockport to near Hyde, the Disley hills, and the delightful woods in the neighbourhood of Marple; and next to these again, and perhaps equalling them, Worsley, Tyldesley, the northern side of Prestwich, and the vicinity of Clifton. Bowdon, however, with the adjacent districts of Lymm and Cotterill, stands ahead of all. It holds precedence, too, in respect of its early seasons. While other portions of our district are scarcely giving signs of vernal life, at Bowdon the spring flowers are often open and abundant, and this quite as markedly in the fields as in the gardens. The former is the more valuable and interesting part of the testimony thus borne to the mildness of Bowdon, since the life of cultivated plants is always in some measure artificial, or under the influence of human direction, whereas the occupants of the hedgerows are pure children of nature. In the pleasant little nook called Ashley meadows, lingering with its very latest campanula and crimsoned bramble–leaf, Autumn seems hardly gone before Spring prepares to change all again and once more to green. Dunham Park offers nothing important for several weeks after the Ashley meadows have flowers to show. The total, indeed, of the botanical productions of the former place is not a fifth of what may be found within a mile of Ashley Mill. It is well to note this, because many people suppose that a scene delightful in its picturesque is correspondingly rich in wild–flowers. Generally, no doubt, it is so, since the picturesque in scenery is almost always connected with great unevenness of surface, precipitous descents, rocks, and tumbling waters, these usually coming in turn, of geological conditions, such as are highly conducive to variety in the Flora. But when the charm of a scene depends, not on cliffs and cataracts, but simply on the agreeable intermixture of differently–tinted trees, a gently undulating surface, sweet vistas and arcades of meeting branches, and the allurements held out to the imagination by green forbidden paths and tangled thickets;—then, as in Dunham Park, the primitive causes of floral variety being absent, the flowers themselves, though they may be plentiful in their respective kinds, are necessarily few as to distinct species. It does not follow that where the variety is considerable we are to look below the turf for the explanation. Meadows and pastures are always more prolific than ground covered with forest–trees (except, perhaps, in the tropics), the reason being partly that such trees offer too much obstruction to the rays of the sun, and partly that their immense and spreading roots block up the soil and hinder the growth of smaller plants. The Ashley meadows, after all, like all other places abounding in wild–flowers, are the miniature of a romantic scene. For in landscape, as in history, wherever we go, we have only the same ideas on a larger or smaller scale, the great repeated in the little, the little repeated in the great. Here is the mighty forest, clinging to the mountain–side; here the extended plain, watered by its winding river; here the terrible chasm and deep ravine,—all, however, in that delicate and reduced measure which, while it gives us the type of nature universally, enables us to see the whole at one view.

To get to the Ashley meadows, go by the railway to Bowdon, then along the “Ashley Road” for about a mile, and then down the lane on the left hand, which leads to Mr. Nield’s model farm. After passing through the field by the farm, there is seen a small wood upon the right, in which are many beautiful treasures, and descending a little, we are in the meadows, the Bollin flowing at the farther edge, and the mill, with its weir and water–wheel, at the extremity. The very earliest spring flowers to be gathered here are those of the hazel–nut, the willow, the alder, and the poplar. People unacquainted with botany often suppose that the latter and other timber–trees belong to the flowerless class of plants. They fancy that flowers occur only upon fruit–trees, and upon ornamental shrubs, such as the lilac and laburnum. The mistake is a perfectly natural and excusable one, seeing that the established idea of a flower is of something brilliant and highly coloured. A visit to the Ashley meadows in the month of April soon shows that there are other flowers than these. The hazel is by that time overblown, being in perfection about February; but the other trees mentioned above are covered with their curious blossoms, which in every case come out before the leaves. Those of the alder and poplar resemble pendent caterpillars, of a fine brownish red; the willow–blooms are in dense clusters, green or lively yellow, according to their sex. For plants, like animals, have sex, and though in most cases male and female co–exist in the same flower, it happens with some, especially with the timber–trees of northern latitudes, that the flowers are of only one sex, some of them being male and others female. Occasionally the entire tree is male only or female only—the condition of the willow and the poplar, the yellow flowers of the former of which are the male, and the greenish ones the female. On the hedge–banks below these trees may be gathered the dogs’ mercury, an herbaceous plant of distinct sexes, readily recognised by its dark green, oval, pointed leaves. Soon after the appearance of these, the banks and open sunny spots become decked with the glossy yellow blossoms of the celandine, a flower resembling a butter–cup, but with eight or nine long and narrow petals, instead of five rounded ones. Mingled with it here and there is the musk–root, a singular but unpretending little plant, green in every part, and with its blossoms collected into a cube–shaped cluster, a flower turned to each of the four points of the compass, and one looking right up to the zenith. The roots, as implied in the name, have the odour of musk. On the moister banks, such as those at the lower edge of the wood, grows also the golden saxifrage, a pretty little plant, with flat tufts of minute yellowish bloom. Yellow, in different shades, prevails to a remarkable extent among English wild–flowers, and especially those of spring. The rich living yellow of the coltsfoot is a conspicuous example. The coltsfoot flowers, like those of the poplar tree, open before the leaves, enlivening the bare waysides in the most beautiful manner, or at least when the sun shines; for so dependent are they upon the light, that it is only when the sun falls warm and animating that they expand their delicate rays, slender as the finest needle, and reminding us, in their elegant circle and luminous colour, of the aureola round the head of a saint in Catholic pictures. At first sight, the coltsfoot might be mistaken for a small dandelion. It is easily distinguishable from that despised, but useful plant, by the scales upon its stem, the stalk of the dandelion being perfectly smooth. The leaves and flowers of the dandelion open, moreover, simultaneously. The coltsfoot, like the flower it imitates, holds high repute among the “yarb–doctors,” who know more of the genuine properties of our native plants than it is common to give them credit for.

On the banks of the Bollin and its little tributaries grows also that curious plant, the butter–bur. Appearing first as an egg–shaped purple bud, by degrees a beautiful cone or pyramid of lilac blossoms is opened out, bearing no slight resemblance to a hyacinth. Here, again, as happens with many spring flowers, and, strange to say, with two or three autumnal ones, the blossoms are ready before the leaves, which do not attain their full size till after midsummer. Then they hide the river–banks everywhere about Manchester with a thick and deceitful jungle, often lifted on stalks a yard high, and in their vast circumference reminding one of rhubarb leaves. After these earlier visitants come the furze, the purple dead–nettle, and the primrose; and in the hedges, again without leaves, the sloe or black–thorn, its milk–white bloom conspicuous from a long distance. The name black–thorn, so oddly at variance with the pure white of the flowers, refers to the leaflessness of the plant when in bloom, the white–thorn, or “May,” being at the corresponding period covered with verdure. But it must not be imagined that these plants follow just in the order we have named them. To a certain extent, no doubt there is a sequence. Every one of the four seasons, whether spring, summer, autumn, or winter, resembles the total of the year as to the regularity in the order of its events. The glowing apple and the juicy pear follow the lily and the rose, and are followed in their turn, by the aster and the ivy–bloom. Similarly, in smaller compass, the crocus retires before the daffodil, and the daffodil before the auricula; to expect, however, that every particular kind of flower should open at some precise and undeviating point of time, even relative, would be to look for the very opposite of the delightful sportiveness so characteristic of the ever–youthful life of nature, which is as charming,—not to say as great and glorious, in its play and freedom, as in its laws and inviolable order. The spring flowers arrive, not in single file, but in troops and companies, so that of these latter only can succession be rightly predicated, and even here it is greatly affected by differences of shelter, soil, and aspect. Nor are those we have enumerated the whole of what may be found. At least a dozen other species arrive with the earliest breath of spring, and with every week afterwards, up to midsummer, the beautiful stream quickens unabatingly. Thoroughly to master the botany even of so limited an area as that of Ashley, requires that it be made our almost daily haunt. It is proper to add, that none of the flowers named are rare about Manchester, or anywhere in England. Almost all our first comers are universally diffused.

The phenomena of spring, as regards the vegetable world, must not be viewed as beginning with the season in question. Spring, while the harbinger and preparation of the ensuing seasons, is itself the consummation of a long series of wonderful processes, wrought in the silence and darkness of winter, and largely beneath the surface of the earth. We never see the actual beginning of anything. Covered up though they be, by the cold snow, the artizans of leaf and flower are diligently at work even from the close of the preceding summer, and only wait the vernal sunbeam to unfold the delicate product of their labours. This is strikingly exemplified in “bulbous roots,” such as those of the tulip and crocus, in which the future flower may easily be made out by careful dissection with a penknife. The hazel puts forth its infant catkins as early as September, while the rich brown clusters of the same season are but ripening, and the autumn yellow of the leaves is in the distance. Soon after this it is quite easy to find the incipient female alder–bloom of the season to come, and the rudimentary golden catkins of the next year’s sallow. Thus is the history of the flower beautifully in keeping with that of its winged image—the butterfly, which, like the flower in the bud, has been forming all along, in the grub and chrysalis, the bud–state of the perfect insect.

The river approaches the Ashley meadows by an exceedingly pleasant route, generally known as the lower Bollin valley. The whole course of the stream, from beyond Macclesfield downwards, is interesting, and at Norcliffe it begins to meander through the prettiest rural scenery near Manchester. The gentle rise and fall of the ground on either side, the plentiful and comely trees, the innumerable windings and turnings that bring with every successive field a new and pretty prospect, the sound of the rushing water, the birds saturating every grove and little wood with their cheerful poor man’s music, the flowers no longer ambitious, for every bank and meadow is brimful and overflowing,—really it almost makes one fancy, when down in this beautiful valley, that we have got into those happy regions old Homer tells of, where the nepenthe grows, and the lotus,—that wonderful fruit which, when people had once tasted, they forgot their cares and troubles, and desired to remain there always, and ceased to remember even home. The difference is here, that after going thither, we love home all the better for our visit, since the heart, though it may be unconsciously, always grows into a resemblance of what it contemplates with interest and affection. No senseless fiction is it after all, about the lotus–fruit. Every man has his lotus–country somewhere; the poet has only turned into ingenious fable the experience of universal human nature.

The middle portion of the valley, or that which, ascending it, lies about half–way between Ashley and Wilmslow, is occupied by Cotterill Clough, a place of the highest celebrity with the old Lancashire botanists, being not only picturesque in every portion, but containing a great variety of curious and unusual wild–flowers. Many are found here that grow nowhere else in the neighbourhood, and the very commonest attain the highest state of perfection. Hobson, Crozier, Horsefield, and their companions above–named, used to come to Cotterill regularly, both in summer and winter, gathering flowers in the former season, mosses in the latter, and not more for the riches of the vegetation, than, as Crozier once told me, for the singing of the innumerable birds. The journey, both to and fro, was entirely upon foot, and the men were often here by breakfast time. Being a game preserve, there has always been some difficulty of access to the clough, and of late years this has been considerably increased. But gamekeepers, after all, are only men, and “a soft answer turneth away wrath,” so that none need despair if they will but act the part of wisdom.

The approach to this pretty valley is made in the first instance from Peel Causeway station, pursuing the lane for a little while, then electing whether to continue, past Bank Hall and its seventeen yew trees, or to strike through a field–path upon the left, thence along the crest of a gentle acclivity, from which is obtained the best view we are acquainted with, of Bowdon. Although requiring some watchfulness, so as not to go astray, the upper path is decidedly the best to take. One point alone needs specially careful observation, that is, after crossing the little ravine, and emerging into another lane, to turn down it to the right, and upon arriving at a cottage upon the left, to take the path immediately behind. This leads over the fields, Alderley Edge a few miles in front, and Cloud–end rising grandly upon the horizon, then down a steep rough lane into a dingle called Butts Clough, beyond which there is a green–floored lane, leading to Warburton’s farm, which being passed, we bear to the right, and in ten minutes more dip into the valley, and very soon tread the margin of the stream. About a mile and a half further up, we come to Castle Mill, an old–established and celebrated corn–grinding concern—and immediately opposite, the wooded slopes of Cotterill, entered by crossing a single field. The time to select for a first botanical visit to this charming spot should, if possible, be the end of April, or at least before the expiration of May. The chief rarities of the place belong to a somewhat later period, but there are several that grow here abundantly, and are in perfection at the time named, which, although less uncommon, it were a pity not to secure. Such are the goldilocks and the arum. The former, a very graceful kind of butter–cup, its name translated from the Latin one, auricomus, fringes the bank at the foot of the wood for a long distance with its light feathery herbage and shining yellow flowers; the other grows under the trees, and among the brushwood, and in the part of the clough through which the path leading to Ringway from Castle Mill makes its way, thus being reachable without more trespass than of twenty forgiven yards. Few persons fond of cultivating plants in their parlours are unacquainted with that truly splendid flower, the African lily, or Richardia Ethiopica, which, opening a great white vase on the summit of its stem, resembles an alabaster lamp with a pillar of flame burning in the centre; the leaves lifted on long stalks, and shaped like the head of an arrow. Keeping the figure of this noble plant before the mind’s eye, as the type for comparison, there is no difficulty in identifying the arum of Cotterill Wood. The latter is essentially the same in structure, but rises to the height of only some six or eight inches instead of thirty, with leaves proportionately smaller, and the flower, instead of white and vase–like, of a pale transparent green (though often mottled, like the leaves, with purple stains), and curving over the pillar in the centre like the cowl of a monk. The pillar is of a rich puce or claret colour, and occasionally of a delicate light amber. In the south of England, where the plant abounds, the dark ones are called “lords,” and the amber–coloured, “ladies.” Newbridge Hollow, the Ashley Woods, and several other places about Bowdon, share the possession of this remarkable plant, which is, without question, the most eccentrically formed of any that grow wild in the British Islands. It is found also near Pendlebury, at Barton, Reddish, and several other places, but very scantily, a circumstance worth notice, because illustrating so well what the learned call botanical topography. The floras of entire countries are often not more strongly marked by the presence or absence of certain species than the portions even of so limited an area as that of Manchester half–holiday excursions. Here, too, grows in profusion the sylvan forget–me–not, the flowers of an azure that seems sucked from heaven itself. People confound it sometimes with the germander–speedwell, another lovely flower of May and June. But the leaves of the speedwell are oval instead of long and narrow, like those of the forget–me–not; and the flowers are not only of quite a different shade of blue, but composed of four distinct pieces, the forget–me–not being five–lobed, and yellow in the centre. The consummate distinction of the forget–me–not is the mode in which the flowers expand, and which, along with its unique and celestial tint, is the true reason of its being used as the emblem of constancy. Possibly enough, the pathetic legend of the knight and the lady by the water–side may have had a fact for its basis, but the flower was representative of constancy long before the unlucky lover met his death. The world, truly seen and understood, is but another showing forth of human nature, an echo of its lord and master, reiterating in its various and beautiful structures, colours, and configurations, what in him are thoughts and passions, and in the forget–me–not we have one of the foremost witnesses. This is no loose and misty speculation; but to the earnest student of nature who looks below the surface of things, a determinate and palpable fact, the source of the most fascinating pleasures that connect themselves with the genuine knowledge of plants and flowers, and of the objects of nature universally. The peculiarity referred to consists principally in the curious spiral stalk, and the store of secret buds, a new flower opening fresh and fresh every day as the stalk uncoils. It may be added, as furnishing another example of the variety in the distribution of plants, that the forget–me–not, like the arum, is wanting on the Prestwich side of the town, while the sylvan horsetail, so abundant in Mere Clough, is comparatively a stranger to the valley of the Bollin. To young people who have the opportunity of exploring the respective places, independently of the large local knowledge they acquire, it is a most instructive employment to note these phenomena, for they are all more or less intimately connected with the grandest and widest laws of physical geography—the great, as we have shown before, represented in the little—and no science will be found in after life more thoroughly entertaining or more practically useful. Besides these more choice and remarkable flowers, there are in Cotterill Wood at this period anemones and bluebells without end; while in the upper part, accessible by the path before–mentioned, and which should on no account be left unvisited, the firs and larches are at the acme of their floral pride. The flowers of these trees, like those of the hazel and alder, are some of them only male, others only female. The female flowers in due time become the seed–cones, announcing them from afar; the male flowers likewise assume the cone form, but as soon as the purpose of their being is accomplished, they wither and drop off. In the larch, the females are of a delicate pink, contrasting exquisitely with the tender green of the young tufted leaves, and conspicuous from their large size, the males being comparatively small, though noticeable from their immense abundance. In the firs, on the other hand, we are attracted rather by the male flowers, which are of a beautiful reddish buff, and on the slightest blow being given to the branch, shed clouds of their fertilising dust.

The Cotterill portion of the Bollin valley, while the primroses are in bloom, has no parallel in our district. Certain distant places, no doubt, are equally rich in this general favourite—the Isle of Wight, for instance, and the same is said of the Isle of Man, but for Manchester lovers of primroses, Cotterill is a very paradise. All the woods and lanes are full, every bank and sheltered slope is yellow with them, everywhere primroses, primroses, primroses, great handfuls, and bunches, a score every time we pluck, till wonder is exhausted and out of breath, and primroses and nature seem to mean the same thing. Such was the spectacle on the 8th of May—when this was written—the glow of bloom, which lasts in the whole perhaps for a month, being then at its height. On one occasion it was as early as April 27th. We now come to 1882. So great has been the havoc made by collectors of roots for gardens, and for sale in the market–place, that except in forbidden parts, and somewhat higher up the valley, the primrose is now almost as scarce as at the time referred to it was plentiful. Great havoc has also been wrought during the last quarter of a century by the mattock of the farm–labourer, which has likewise diminished very considerably the ancient abundance of some of the less common plants, where exposed, such as the goldilocks and the forget–me–not, though higher up the valley, like the primroses, these are still to be found in fair quantity. Never mind: the anemones, the golden celandine, so glossy and so sensitive, the cuckoo–flowers, the marsh–marigold, and a score of others, are untouched, and will remain untouched. There is something a great deal better than simple possession of the rare and strange, and that is the happy faculty of appreciation of the lovely old and common,—a faculty that needs only culture to become an inexhaustible mine of enjoyment. Every man finds himself richer than he imagines when he puts the real value upon what Providence has given him.

For the return, we may either mount the hill, and get into the lanes which pass through Hale or Ringway, and so to Altrincham; or we may follow the downward course of the stream, by the path enjoyed in coming, as far as Warburton’s farm, already mentioned. Arrived here, for variety sake, the better course is not by the tempting green lane, but through the fields below and to the left, which are full of every kind of rural beauty, and here and there gemmed with cowslips. Different paths take us either past the river again, and so by way of Ashley to Bowdon, or into the road that leads to the Downs. The latter is the shortest, but the Ashley way is the pleasanter. The distance in the whole is a trifle over that by the road, or, omitting fractions, four miles. All the way along the birds are in full trill; with this great charm in the sound, that independently of the music, the songs of birds are always songs of pleasure. We sing in many moods, and for many purposes, but the birds only when they are happy. No notes of birds have an undertone of sadness in them. Beautiful, too, in the early summer, is it to mark here the glow of the red horizontal sunlight, as it lies softly amid the branches of the golden–budded oak, and the milk–white blossoms of the tall wild cherries. Oh! how thoughtless is it of people to let themselves be scared away from Botany by its evil but undeserved reputation for “hard names,” when, with a tenth of the effort given to the study of chess or whist, they might master everything needful, and enter intelligently into this sweet and sacred Temple of Nature.

The interest of the Bollin valley is quite as great to the entomologist as to the botanist. By the kindness of my friend, Mr. Edleston, I am enabled here to add the following list of the Lepidoptera, which will be read with pleasure by every one acquainted with the exquisite forms and patrician dresses of English butterflies.

“The meadows,” he tells me, “near the river Bollin, from Bank Hall to Castle Mill, produce more diurnal Lepidoptera than any other locality in the Manchester district, as the following select list (1858) will suffice to prove”:—

The past twenty–five years, it is to be feared, have told as heavily upon the Lepidoptera as upon the primroses and the cowslips, the latter also now far between. The birds, likewise, have greatly diminished in numbers, partly in consequence of the extreme severity of the trio of hard winters which commenced with that of 1878–9. We have also to lament the death of Mr. Edleston.

CHAPTER III.
ROSTHERNE MERE.

When the month of May
Is come, and I can hear the small birds sing,
And the fresh flourès have begun to spring,
Good bye, my book! devotion, too, good bye!

CHAUCER.

THE path to the Ashley meadows offers the best point of departure also for far–famed Rostherne, for although the distance is somewhat less from the “Ashley” station, the old route past Bowdon vicarage remains the most enjoyable. Going behind it, through a little plantation, we proceed, with many curves, yet without perplexity, into the lane which looks down upon the eastern extremity of the mere; then, crossing the fields, into the immediate presence, as rejoiced in at the margin of the graveyard of the church, which last is without question one of the most charmingly placed in England, and in its site excites no wonder that it was chosen for the ancient Saxon consecration, as declared in the primitive name, Rodestorne, “the lake (or tarn) of the Holy Cross.” The peculiar charm of Rostherne Mere, compared with most other Cheshire waters of similar character, comes of its lying so much in a hollow, after the manner of many of the most delicious lakes of Westmoreland, Cumberland, and the romantic parts of Scotland; the area of the surface being at the same time so considerable that there is no suggestion, as sometimes with smaller meres when lying in hollows, of the gradual gathering there of the produce of rain–torrents, or even of the outcome of natural springs. At Rostherne one learns not only what calmness means, and what a broken fringe of diverse trees can do for still water. Contemplating it from the graveyard, we seem to have a fragment of the scenery of our beautiful world as it showed,—begging pardon of the geologists and the evolutionists,—“When the morning–stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.” The depth of the water is remarkable. About a third of the distance across, from near the summer–house, it is over a hundred feet, thus as nearly as possible two–thirds of the depth of the English Channel at the Straits of Dover, where the lead sinks lowest; and a third of what it is anywhere between Dover and the Eddystone lighthouse, so that our lovely Rostherne Mere may well assert its claim to be of almost maritime profundity. The area of the surface is one hundred and fifteen statute acres. In the church there is a monument which it is worth all the journey to see,—Westmacott’s sculptured marble in memory of Miss Beatrix Egerton.

Rostherne, in turn, is the pleasantest way of pedestrian approach to Tatton Park, so liberally opened to visitors by Lord Egerton, on compliance with certain rules. Visitors bent on seeing Tatton only, should go part way from Bowdon by vehicle; for here, as at Cotterill, we want, as in a picture–gallery, every minute, and to let too much time be consumed in mere travel is a mistake. To make a too hasty and thoughtless use of our opportunities of pleasure is in any case to throw away the half of them; the pleasure of the country beyond all others requires a calm and unhurried step, a free and unwistful mind and eye, such as cannot possibly be if, by waste or extravagance, we are “tied to time,”—only when, by a wise economy of our resources in this respect, we liberate ourselves from care about trains and timebills, do we catch nature’s sweetest smiles. The boundary measurement of this beautiful park is upwards of ten miles, and of its two thousand one hundred and thirty–five acres no fewer than four hundred are occupied by woods and plantations, with seventy–nine acres of water. Here we may stroll beneath green vaults of foliage, and be reminded of the aisles of cathedrals. Here we may contemplate the viridis senectus of glorious old oaks that have watched the flow of generations. Here, in autumn, we learn, from a thousand old foresters—from beech, and chestnut, and elm—that brave men, though overtaken by inclemencies there is no withstanding, still put a good face upon their fallen fortunes, and, like Cæsar, who drew his purple around him, die royally; and at Christmas, when the wind seems to mourn amid the denuded boughs, here again we feel how grand is the contrasted life of the great, green, shining, scarlet–beaded hollies that in summer we took no note of. The gardens, including conservatories and fernery, access to all of which is likewise liberally permitted, are crowded with objects of interest—one hardly knows whether inside their gates, or outside, is the more delectable. The park was up till quite recently, the play–ground of nearly a thousand deer, and still (1882) contains many hundreds. The sight of them is one of the pleasures of the return walk to Knutsford, to which place Tatton Park more especially pertains.

Knutsford, an admirable centre, is reached immediately, by train. But it must not be overlooked that there is a very pleasant field–way thereto from Mobberley, and that the path to Mobberley itself, one of the most ancient of the Cheshire villages, is always interesting,—starting, that is to say, from Ashley station. Every portion of it is quiet and enjoyable, and those who love seclusion would scarcely find another so exactly suited to their taste. Soon after entering the fields, the path dives through a little dell threaded by the Birkin (an affluent of the Bollin), then goes on through lanes which in May are decked plenteously with primroses. The way, perhaps, is rather intricate,—so much the better for the exercise of our sagacity. Let not the “day of small things” be despised. The Birkin is one of the little streams that in the great concourse called the Mersey does honour at last to the British Tyre. Drayton notices it in the Poly–olbion (1622) —

From hence he getteth Goyte down from her Peakish spring,
And Bollen, that along doth nimbler Birkin bring.[7]

The church, as would be anticipated, presents much that is interesting to the ecclesiologist. Near the chancel stands the accustomed and here undilapidated old village graveyard yew, emblem of immortality, life triumphing over death, therefore so suitable,—this particular one at Mobberley the largest and most symmetrical within a circuit of many miles. Across the road, hard by, an ash–tree presents a singularly fine example of the habit of growth called “weeping,”—not the ordinary tent–form seen upon lawns, but lofty, and composed chiefly of graceful self–woven ringlets, a cupola of green tresses, beautiful at all seasons, and supplying, before the leaves are out, a capital hint to every one desirous of learning trees—as they deserve to be learned. For to this end trees must be contemplated almost every month in the year, when leafless as well as leafy. A grand tree is like a great poem—not a thing to be glanced at with a thoughtless “I have read it,” but to be studied, and with remembrance of what once happened on the summit of mount Ida.

On the Cotterill side of Mobberley, or Alderley way, the country resembles that in the vicinity of Castle Mill, consisting of gentle slopes and promontories, often wooded, and at every turn presenting some new and agreeable feature. The little dells and cloughs, each with its stream of clear water scampering away to the Bollin, are delicious. The botany of Cotterill is also recapitulated in its best features; mosses of the choicest kinds grow in profusion on every bank,—Hypna, with large green feathery branches, like ferns in miniature; Jungermannias also; and the noblest plants of the hart’s–tongue fern that occur in the district. One of the dells positively overflows with it, excepting, that is, where the ground is not pre–occupied by the prickly shield–fern. Burleyhurst Wood, close by, contains abundance of the pretty green–flowered true–love, Paris quadrifolia, more properly trulove, the name referring not to the sentiment itself, but to the famous old four–fold symbol of engagement which in heraldry reappears in “quartering.” All the spring flowers open here with the first steps of the renewed season; and most inspiring is it, at a time when on the north side of the town there is nothing to be seen but an early coltsfoot, to find one’s self greeted in these sweet and perennially green woods, by the primrose, the anemone, the butter–bur, and the golden saxifrage,—and not as single couriers, but plentiful as the delight they give, mingling with the great ferns bequeathed by the autumn, as travellers tell us palms and fir–trees intermix on tropical mountains, while the Marchantia adds another charm in its curious cones, and the smooth round cups of the Peziza glow like so many vases of deepest carnelian. In the aspect of vegetation in early spring, as it discloses itself at Mobberley and at equal distance north of the town, there is the difference of a full month. Such at least was the case in 1858, the year in which these lines were written. There is no occasion to return to Ashley by the same path. Mobberley station is scarcely more than a mile from the village, and of course would be preferred when the object is to reach the latter promptly.

Knutsford, celebrated as the scene of Mrs. Gaskell’s “Cranford,” commands many pleasant walks, and is the threshold not only to Tatton, but to several other parks and estates of great celebrity. Booth Hall, with its noble avenue of lindens, the winding sylvan wilderness called Spring Wood, and its ample sheet of ornamental water, decked with lilies, and in parts filled with that most curious aquatic, the Stratiotes, is of considerable historic interest;—Toft, a mile to the south, with its stately avenue, now of elms, in triple rows;—and Tabley, about a mile to the west, the park once again with a spacious mere, also have high claims upon the attention of every one who has the opportunity of entering. Tabley is peculiarly interesting in its ancient hall, which stands upon an island in the upper portion of the mere, and dates from the time of Edward III. Only a remnant now exists, but being covered with ivy, it presents a most picturesque appearance. When will people see in that peerless evergreen not a foe, but an inestimable friend, such as it is when knives and shears, and the touch of the barbarian are forbidden? It is the ivy that has preserved for the archæologist many of the most precious architectural relics our country possesses. Where ivy defends the surface, nothing corrodes or breaks away.

Toft Park gives very agreeable access to Peover,—a place which may also be reached pleasantly from Plumbley, the station next succeeding Knutsford. Not “rich” botanically, the field–path is still one of the most inviting in the district. The views on either side, cheerful at all seasons, are peculiarly so in spring, when the trees are pouring their new green leaves into the sunshine, and the rising grass and mingled wild–flowers flood the ground with living brightness. In parts, towards the end of May, there is hereabouts an unwonted profusion of Shakspeare’s “Lady–smock.” We admit, admiringly, that it “paints the meadows with delight:”—to the first impression, when gathered and in the hand, it scarcely seems “silver–white.” A single spray in the hand is unquestionably lilac, faint and translucent, but still lilac, exquisitely veined. Beware. Shakspeare, when he talks of flowers may always be trusted. At all events his only error is that curious one in Cymbeline.[8] Viewed from a little distance, and obliquely, the effect of a plentiful carpet of this lovely wild–flower is distinctly and decidedly “silver–white.” In all things a good deal depends upon the angle at which we look, and never is the rule more needed than when the subject is one of delicate tint. They were keen observers, depend upon it, who in the Middle Ages gave name and fame at the same moment to the pretty flowers that still preserve the ancient association with “Our Lady,” the Virgin Mary. Lower Peover church is one of the few examples extant of the old–fashioned timber structure, the greater portion of the interior being constructed of oak, while externally, excepting the stone Elizabethan tower, it is “magpie,” or black and white, like so many of the old Cheshire halls and ancient manor–houses. An epitaph in the graveyard is not without suggestiveness:—

Peaceable Mary Fairbrother,
1766. Aged 90.

For the return walk there is a cheerful route through fields and lanes to Knutsford, entering the town behind the prison; or, for variety, there is Lostock Gralam station.

Pushing a few miles further, we find ourselves at Northwich, a place at which there is little occasion to delay, unless it be wished to inspect one of the salt mines, permission to do so being asked previously of the proprietors. At Whitsuntide the public are in a certain sense invited, and truly, a more interesting and wonderful spectacle than is furnished by the Marston mine it would be hard to provide for holiday pleasure. But at present we are seeking enjoyment upon the surface, and to this end the journey should now be continued to Hartford, the station for Vale Royal. “Vale Royal” is essentially the name of the immense expanse of beautiful, though nearly level, country over which the eye ranges when we stand amid the ruins of Beeston Castle. It is still worthy of the praise lavished on it in 1656. “The ayre of Vale Royall,” says the old historian of that date, “is verie wholesome, insomuch that the people of the country are seldom infected with Disease or Sicknesse, neither do they use the help of Physicians, nothing so much, as in other countries. For when any of them are sick, they make him a posset, and tye a kerchief on his head; and if that will not amend him, then God be mercifull to him! The people there live to be very old: some are Grandfathers, their fathers yet living, and some are Grandfathers before they be married.... They be very gentle and courteous, ready to help and further one another; in Religion very zealous, howbeit somewhat addicted to Superstition: otherwise stout, bold, and hardy: withal impatient of wrong, and ready to resist the Enemy or Stranger that shall invade their country.... Likewise be the women very friendly and loving, in all kind of Housewifery expert, fruitful in bearing Children after they be married, and sometimes before.... I know divers men which are but farmers that may compare therein with a Lord or Baron in some Countreys beyond the Seas.”—A considerable portion of this great expanse is represented in the still current appellation of Delamere Forest,—a term not to be understood as meaning that it was at any time covered by timber–trees, either indigenous or planted, but that it was “outside,” ad foras, a wild, uncultivated and comparatively barren tract as opposed to districts that were well farmed and sprinkled plentifully with habitations. Trees there were, doubtless, and in abundance, but the bonâ fide woods occupied only a part of the “forest” in the aggregate. An idea of such a forest as Delamere was in the olden time is very easily formed. We need do no more than think of that imperishable one, “exempt from public haunt,” where Rosalind found her verses, with its stream–side where the

Poor sequester’d stag,
That from the hunter’s aim had ta’en a hurt
Did come to languish.

The “forest,” so late as two centuries ago, comprised no fewer than eleven thousand acres of wood and wilderness. Much has now been brought under cultivation, so that only about eight thousand acres remain untilled, and of these about one–half have been planted with Scotch fir, whence the peculiar and solemn aspect which masses of conifers alone can bestow.

Entering this part of the “Vale,” we are at once attracted to the beautiful park, woods, and waters, distinguished particularly as “Vale Royal,” or in full, Vale Royal Abbey, the mansion,—the ancient country seat of the Cholmondeley family—being nearly upon the site of the famous monastic home founded in 1277 by Edward I. Lord Delamere liberally permits access to the grounds, the approaches to which are eminently sweet and pleasant. The railway should be quitted at Hartford, quiet lanes from which place lead into the valley of the Weaver.[9] Thence we move to the margin of Vale Royal Mere, with choice, upon arrival, of one of the most charming sylvan walks in Cheshire, obtained by going through the wood, or a more open path along the opposite shore. To take one path going, the other returning, and thus to secure the double harvest, of course is best. So, for the final homeward journey, which should not be by way of Hartford, but viâ Cuddington. A drive through the glorious fir–plantations which abut upon Vale Royal carries the privileged to another most beautiful scene,—Oulton Park, the country seat of the Grey–Egertons. Here again is a sheet of lilied water; here, too, are some of the noblest trees in Cheshire, including one of the most remarkable lindens the world contains.

For the visitor to Delamere Forest there is after all no scene more inspiring than is furnished by Eddisbury. Cuddington station will do for this, but the walk is rather too long; it is best to go direct to “Delamere,” thence along the road a short distance, and so to the foot of the hill. In the time of the Heptarchy, it was an important stronghold. Rising to the height of five hundred and eighty–four feet above the sea, when in A.D. 914 that admirable lady, Ethelfleda, daughter of Alfred, and widow of Ethelred, king of Mercia, sought to establish herself in positions of great strength, her feminine sagacity at once pointed to Eddisbury as impregnable. Ethelfleda, says the old chronicler, was “the wisest lady in England, an heroic princess; she might have been called a king rather than a lady or a queen. King Edward, her brother, governed his life, in his best actions, by her counsels.” We have admirable women of our own living among us—women in every sense queenly by nature:—let us never forget, in our gratitude to God for the gift of them, that in the past there were prototypes of the best. Continued in her rule, by acclamation, after the death of her husband, Ethelfleda, “the lady of the Mercians,” reigned for eight years. Rather more than eleven acres of the green mound we are now speaking of were defensively enclosed by her, partly with palings, partly with earthworks, traces of which remain to this day. Frail and perishable in its materials, the “city of Eddisbury,” as historians call this once glorious though simple settlement, in the very nature of things could not last. A good river, essential to the prosperity of an inland town, it did not possess. After the death, moreover, of Ethelfleda, who went to her rest in 920, the subsidence of the Danish invasions reduced the importance of such fortresses, and so, by slow degrees, the famous old “city” disappeared. The name of Eddisbury occurs, it is true, in Domesday Book, but apparently as a name and nothing besides. Places like Eddisbury are to England what the sites of Nineveh and Palmyra are to the world. Standing upon their greensward, the memory of great things and greater people passes before the mind in long and animating procession. The once so great and powerful “Queen of the East,” proud, chaste, literary Zenobia, was not nobler in her way than Saxon Ethelfleda. Thinking of her, pleasant it is to note how the little wild–flowers, the milk–wort and the eyebright, the unchanged heritors of the ground, are virtually just as she left them. Upon these, in such a spot, Time lays no “effacing finger.” “States fall, arts fade, but Nature doth not die.” Not without interest, either, is the fact that from the name of the people or kingdom she ruled so well, comes that of our chief local river. The Mersey was the dividing line between Mercia and Northumbria, and of the former it preserves memorable tradition. All the way up the stream till we get to the hill country, the topographical names further illustrate the ancient Saxon presence. The view from storied Eddisbury is of course very extensive and delightful, including, to–day, the venerable Cathedral of Chester, Halton Castle, and the broad bosom of the river, not to mention the boundless champaign to the south and east, and afar off, in the quiet west, grey mountains that seem to lean against the sky.

The “Delamere Hotel,” to which all visitors to these regions very naturally bend their steps, is the place to enquire at for the exact way to the borders of Oakmere; most pleasing, after Rostherne, of the Cheshire waters. For here, in the autumnal sunshine, the soft wind is prone so to waft over the dimpling surface that it becomes covered with lucid ripples, while at the margin, if the “crimson weeds” of the mermaids’ country are not present, there are pretty green ones that “lie like pictures on the sands below,”

With all those bright–hued pebbles that the sun
Through the small waves so softly shines upon.

The borders of Oakmere abound with curious plants. One of the rarest of British grasses, the Calamagrostis stricta, grows here. The locality is also a noted one for the Utricularia minor, though we do not find that interesting fern of the Vale Royal wood, the Lastrea Thelypteris.

Contemplating this lovely mere, whether from Eddisbury, or its own borders, and remembering the many similar waters close by,[10] a group, after that one to which Windermere leads the way, without parallel in our island, it is impossible not to feel curious as to their history. The simple fact appears to be that all, or nearly all the Vale Royal meres are referable to the existence, underneath, of great salt crystal beds which give occupation to the people of Northwich. The surface–soil of the Cheshire salt district consists of a few feet of drift–sand or clay. Below this there is a considerable depth of “New red marl,” and below this there is good reason to believe there is a nearly continuous bed or deposit of the crystal. The “new red sandstone” rock in which these deposits are embedded, is very porous and much jointed. Water is constantly filtering into them from above; the salt crystal, exposed to its action, slowly dissolves into brine, which, as the height is at least a hundred feet above the sea–level, slowly drains away. Then the overlying strata gradually sink; depressions are caused, of less or greater magnitude, and in course of time these become basins of water. Mr. Edw. Hull, the distinguished geologist, considers that should the process go on, the whole of the valley of the Weaver will some day be submerged. Most of the salt sent from Cheshire is prepared from this natural brine. To extract the crystal is not so cheap as to let the water do the mining, then to pump up the solution, and evaporate it.

CHAPTER IV.
CARRINGTON MOSS.

“Will you walk into my parlour?” said the spider to the fly:
“’Tis the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy.”

OLD SONG.

SHOULD any of our unknown companions in these rambles be vegetarians, they will please here take notice that Carrington Moss is in the summer–time a scene of ravenous slaughter such as cannot but be exceedingly painful and shocking to them. It will appear the more repulsive from the high character for innocence ordinarily borne by the destroyers, who are the last beings in the world we should expect to find indulging in personal cruelty, much less acting the part of perfidious sirens. Having given this warning, our friends will of course have only themselves to blame should they persist in following us to the spectacle we are about to describe; and now it only remains to say that the perpetrators of the deeds alluded to are plants! People are apt to look upon plants simply as things that just grow up quietly and inoffensively, open their flowers, love the rain, in due time ripen their seeds, then wither and depart, leaving no more to be recorded of their life and actions than comes of the brief span of the little babe that melts unweaned from its mother’s arms. This is quite to mistake their nature. So far from being uniform, and unmarked by anything active, the lives of plants are full from beginning to end of the most curious and diversified phenomena. Not that they act knowingly, exercising consciousness and volition,—this has been the dream only of a few enthusiasts,—but taking one plant with another, the history of vegetable life is quite a romance, and scarcely inferior in wonderful circumstance to that of animals. So close is the general resemblance of plants to animals, as regards the vital processes and phenomena, that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to point out a single fact in connection with the one that has not a counterpart, more or less exact, among the other. The animal world is a repetition in finer workmanship of the vegetable. As for harmlessness and inoffensiveness in plants, these are the very last qualities to be ascribed to them. Pleasant are fragrant flowers, and sweet fruits, and wholesome herbs, but these tell only half the tale. No wild beast of the forest rends with sharper teeth than grow on thorn–trees of different kinds; if the wasp darts its poisoned sting into our flesh, so does the nettle; if snakes’ bites be mortal, so is the venomous juice of the deadly nightshade. Not in the least surprising is it, then, that we should find certain plants indicating a propensity to prey. Animals of lower degree as regards every other disposition of life, why should they not participate in this one? That they do so is plain. Though as a rule, plants feed upon watery and gaseous matters, supplied by the earth and atmosphere, the members of at least two curious tribes, the Sarracenias, and the Droseraceæ or “Sundews,” depend not alone on solutions of manure, or other long–since–decayed organic substances, prepared by chemical action, but collect fresh animal food on their own behalf. The latter include the plants that may be seen engaged in their predatory work upon Carrington Moss.

Before entering upon the consideration of them, we may take the opportunity, furnished by this long word Droseraceæ, of saying a little about the “hard names” so often charged upon botanical science. It is continually asked what need is there to call flowers by those excruciating Latin titles. Why cannot they have plain English names? Why must all our names be

Like the verbum Græcum,
Spermagoraiolekitholakapolides,
Words that should only be said upon holidays,
When one has nothing else to do?

Many make it a ground of abstaining from the study of botany altogether, that the names are so hard to learn, as if every other science and species of knowledge, including history and geography, were not equally full of hard words. But look now at the simple truth of the matter. Very many of the common or “English” names of flowers are in reality their botanical or Latin ones, as fuchsia, laburnum, camellia, geranium, iris, verbena, rhododendron, so that it is not a question of language after all. To be consistent, these names should be left to the professional man, and “English” ones be manufactured in their place; it is clear, however, that they can quite easily be learned and spoken, Latin though they are, and if some can be mastered and found simple enough, of course others can. Besides, what would it advantage us to substitute really English names for them? Nothing would be gained except a synonym, by saying, as we might, “crimson–drop” instead of fuchsia, or “golden–rain” instead of laburnum; while very much would be lost in precision by using a name of obscure and uncertain origin, and upon which even one’s own neighbours might not be agreed, instead of a term fixed by the great leaders in the science of botany, whose judgment all respect, and which is accepted by every nation of the civilised world. It is quite as necessary to call plants by determinate scientific names as to call a certain constellation Orion, and a certain island Spitzbergen. Botanists do not call plants by Latin names simply out of pedantry, or to make their science difficult, but for the sake of clearness and uniformity. None of the botanical names are so hard as it is fancied; the Lancashire botanists in humble life have no trouble with them; the real difficulty is in not caring anything about the objects they are applied to. We do not find those who make so much outcry about the Latin names particularly anxious to learn the English ones either. The English names are not thrown overboard by their Latin companions. All true botanists, so far from rejecting or despising English names, love them and continually use them, substituting the Latin synonyms only when scientific accuracy requires.

Let us now proceed to the sundews, first describing the way to their habitation. All the mosses about Manchester possess these curious plants, but Carrington Moss is the most readily accessible, lying only a little distance south–west of Sale. From the station we go for about a mile in the direction of Ashton–upon–Mersey, then turn up one of the lanes upon the left, and look out for a grove of dark fir–trees, which, being close upon the borders of the moss, is an excellent guide. The edge of the moss is being drained and brought under cultivation; all this part, along with the ditches, must be crossed, and the higher, undisturbed portion ascended, and as soon as we are up here we find the objects of our search. Among the heather are numberless little marshes, filled with pea–green Sphagnum, and containing often a score or two of the sundews, some of them with round leaves, about a third of an inch across, and growing in flat rosettes of half–a–dozen; others, with long and slender leaves that grow erect. Every leaf is set round with bright red hairs, which spread from it like eyelashes, while similar but shorter hairs cover the surface. When the plant is full–grown and healthy, these hairs exude from their points little drops of sticky and limpid fluid, which, glittering like the diamonds of Aurora, show the reason of the poetical English name, sundew. Directly that any little fly or midge comes in contact with the sticky drops, the unfortunate creature is taken captive, just as birds are caught with bird–lime. Held fast in its jewelled trap, the poor prisoner soon expires; and then, either its juices or the gaseous products of the decomposition, appear to be absorbed by the plant, and thus to constitute a portion of its diet. This is rendered the more probable by the experiments of the late Mr. Joseph Knight, of Chelsea, who fed the large American flycatcher, the Dionæa, with fibres of raw beef, and found the plant all the better for its good dinners. Certainly it cannot be asserted positively that the Drosera is nourished by its animal prey, but it is difficult to imagine that so extraordinary and successful an apparatus is given to these plants for the mere purpose of destroying midges, and that the higher purpose of food is not the primary one. On the larger leaves may generally be seen relics of the repast, shrivelled bodies, wings, and legs, reminding one of the picked bones that strew the entrance to the giant’s cavern in the fairy tale. Sundew plants may be kept in a parlour, by planting them in a dishful of green moss, which must be constantly flooded with water, and covering the whole with a glass shade. Exposed to the sunshine, their glittering drops come out abundantly, but the redness of the hairs diminishes sensibly, owing, perhaps, to their being denied their natural prey. The flowers of these singular plants are white, and borne on slender stalks that rise to the height of three or four inches. The roots survive the winter.

Carrington Moss is further remarkable for the profuse growth of that beautiful flower, the Lancashire asphodel, which, at the end of July and the beginning of August, lights it up with flambeaux of bright yellow. Here also grow the Rhyncospora alba, the cranberry, the Andromeda, and the cotton–sedge, all in great abundance; and on the margin, among the ditches, luxuriant grasses peculiar to moorland, and the finest specimens of the purple heather that are anywhere to be seen so near Manchester. The rich sunset–like lustre of this sturdy but graceful plant renders it one of the loveliest ornaments of our country when summer begins to wane into autumn. Branches, gathered when in full bloom, and laid to dry in the shade, retain their freshness of form and pretty colour for many months, and serve very pleasingly to mix with honesty and everlastings for the winter decoration of the chimneypiece. Intermixed with the heather grows the Erica tetralix, or blushing–maiden heath, an exceedingly elegant species, with light pink flowers, collected in dense clusters at the very summit of the stalk. The immediate borders of the moss, and the lanes approaching it, are prolific in curious plants. To go no further, indeed, quite repays a visit. July is the best time. Then the foxgloves lift their magnificent crimson spires, and the purple–tufted vetch trails its light foliage and delicate clusters beneath the woodbines; and the tall bright lotus in coronets of gold, and the meadow–sweet, smelling like hawthorn, make the lady–fern look its greenest, while in the fields alongside stands, in all its pride of yellow and violet, the great parti–coloured dead–nettle, which here grows in luxuriant perfection. Up to the very end of autumn this district is quite a garden to the practical botanist. Where cultivated and uncultivated land adjoin, just as where land and sea come in contact, there is always found the largest variety and plenty, alike of vegetable and of animal life; and nowhere is this more marked than on the borders of Carrington Moss. The cottages near the moss are but few. Tea may be procured nevertheless, if we are content to run the risk of there being no milk, which, like fish by the sea–side, is often a scarce thing even in the heart of the country; but on a pleasant summer evening, when everything else is fair and contenting, he must be a grumbler indeed who would let this spoil his enjoyment. Half a loaf enjoyed with one’s friends, far away in the sweet silence of nature, and a happy walk home afterwards, with loving faces right and left, is better, ten times over, than a luxurious meal got by coming away prematurely. All this part of the country is remarkable also for the luxuriance of its culinary vegetables. The rhubarb is some of the finest grown near Manchester, and it is quite a treat to look at the beans.

Another way to the moss, available for residents at Bowdon, is through Oldfield, and by Seaman’s Moss Bridge, where we cross the Warrington railway, to Sinderland, looking out when thus far for a lane upon the right, bordered first by birch–trees and afterwards by oaks. All these lanes, like those on the Ashton side of the moss, are remarkably rich in wild–flowers and ferns, the latter including the royal fern, or Osmunda, and in early summer show great plenty of the white lychnis, called, from not opening its petals till evening, the vespertina. The pink–flowered lychnis, the “brid–e’en” or “bird’s eye” of the country people, is, like the telegraph office, “open always.” Here we may perceive the use of Latin or botanical names; for “bird’s eye” is applied to many different plants in different parts of England, so that a botanist at a distance who might chance to read these lines could not possibly tell what flower was meant, whereas, in “Lychnis vespertina” there is certainty for all. Whoever is fond of blackberries and wild raspberries would do well to make acquaintance with these pretty lanes; whoever, too, is fond of solitude—a state not fit for all, nor for any man too prolongedly, but a true friend to those who can use it. If we would thoroughly enjoy life, we should never overlook the value of occasional solitude. It is one of the four things which we should get a little of, if possible, every day of our lives, namely, reading, good music, sport with little children, and utter seclusion from the busy world.

The number of mosses and moors in the neighbourhood of Manchester makes it interesting—as in the case of the Cheshire meres, to know something of their origin. The wonderful discoveries of geology, with regard to the crust of the earth, and the successive deposition of the strata of which it is composed, claim our attention scarcely more than the history of the surface, which has undergone changes quite as momentous to the welfare of man, and no part of that history is more curious, perhaps, than that of the mosses. Wherever a moss now extends in wet and dreary waste, it would seem that there was once a plain or expanse of tolerably dry land, more or less plentifully covered with trees and underwood, but subject, by reason of the depressed level, to frequent inundation, just as we see the fields at Sale and Stretford flooded every now and then at the present day. The falling of the older and weaker trees, in consequence of the long–continued wetness, and the want of a steady and complete outlet for the accumulated waters, would soon cause the place to assume the character of a marsh,—neither land nor lake,—and now semi–amphibious plants would not be slow to spring up, for wherever such conditions of surface are exchanged for dry ones, plants of that nature appear as if by magic. The morass thus formed and occupied, would in a single season become knee–deep in the very same kind of mixture as that which now forms the outer skin of Carrington Moss, viz., heather of different kinds, cotton–sedges, and bog–moss. Every successive year the original mass of roots and stems would be left deeper and deeper beneath by the new and upward growth of the vegetation above; till at last, saturated with wet, and pressed by the weight of the superincumbent matter, it would acquire the compact form which is now called “peat.” The original moisture of the place, instead of diminishing, would be incessantly reinforced from the clouds, and the lapse of a few centuries would pile up on the surface of the once dry ground, a heap many yards in vertical thickness of half–decayed, half–living heath and moss, with sundews, cotton–sedges, and asphodels on the top. The branches of the trees drowned and entombed at the beginning, would remain where they fell, slowly decaying, but retaining their character well enough to be recognised, and hence wherever a moss is now drained, and portions of the original deposit are dug out, there are generally found mixed with it branches and fragments that in a measure may be likened to fossils. Carrington Moss, in parts where drained, is strewed with such bits of the silver birch, declared by the shining whiteness of the bark. The trees that these bits belonged to no doubt grew tall and leafy on the spot that is now their sepulchre and memorial. Flowers and seeds of bog plants are also found low down in the moss, almost as fresh as if newly fallen. In the middle, these vast vegetable tumuli are often twenty or thirty feet deep. In any part a walking–stick may be plunged in for its full length, and though by stepping and standing on the denser tufts of heather, it is quite easy to walk about dry–shod, it is quite as easy by uncarefulness, especially after wet weather, to be in a pool of water up to the ankle in a few minutes. There is no danger in walking upon the mosses, merely this little risk of getting wet–footed, which is more than compensated by the curious objects that may be found upon them. In winter and dull weather they are desolate enough, but on a summer afternoon full of reward. Owing to their immense capacity for absorption, many mosses swell into mounds higher than the surrounding country, as happens at Carrington; and after heavy rains this enlargement is so much increased that distant objects are concealed from view until evaporation and drainage have caused subsidence to the ordinary level. Before Ashton Moss (between Droylsden and Ashton–under–Lyne) was drained, trees and houses were often lost to view for many days, by persons residing on the opposite side.

That this is the true origin of the mosses is rendered fairly certain by the circumstance of works of human art having often been found at the bottom. When Ashton Moss was drained, there were found under the peat a Celtic axe and some Roman coins;[11] and in another part, at the foot of one of the old stumps of trees, a quantity of charred wood, betokening that a fire had once been lighted there. The coins would naturally suggest that some old Roman soldier had had a hand in the kindling, and the well–known fact of the extensive felling of trees by the Romans, both in road–making, and to aid them in the subjugation of the country, has led to the belief with some, that to these people may partially be attributed the origination of the mosses. The trees and scattered branches encumbering the ground, are supposed to have checked the free passage of floods and other water, which, becoming stagnated, gradually destroyed the growing timber, and eventually led to the results described above. Baines (History of Lancashire, iii. 131) says of Chat Moss, that it was originally the site of an immense forest, but was reduced to a bog by the Roman invaders, at a period coeval with the first promulgation of the Christian religion. It would probably be no error to assert with Whitaker, that the whole of the country round Manchester, and not merely the site of Chat Moss, was, at the time of the Romans, covered with trees. One thing is quite certain, namely, that the formation of the mosses is comparatively recent, and probably much within one thousand eight hundred years. They appear to rest universally on a clayey substratum, and it is very interesting to observe that where the peat is wholly removed, for the purpose of fuel, as upon Holford Moss, near Toft and Peover, the clay surface being then laid bare, birch–trees spring up unsown. The seeds of these trees must have been lying there since they ripened, unable to vegetate previously for want of air and the solar warmth. It is quite a familiar phenomenon for plants to spring up in this way from seeds that have been buried for ages, especially on earth laid bare by cuttings for railways and similar works; so in truth it is no more than would be expected in connection with the clearing away of peat, and the restoration of the under–surface. The tree next in frequency to the birch, as a denizen of the old silva, appears to have been the oak.

“Moors” are a more consolidated form of mosses. Seated, most usually, on higher and more easily drained ground than the mosses, they have in some cases preserved a drier nature from the first; in others, they have become drier in the course of time, through the escape of their moisture by runnels to lower levels; and in others again, they have allowed of easy artificial draining, and conversion to purposes of pasturage and tillage, or at least over a considerable portion of their surface, and have thus disappeared into farm–land. The most extensive and celebrated mosses about Manchester, still undrained, are Chat Moss, Carrington Moss, and Clifton Moss, near the Clifton railway station, on the left hand of the Bolton–road. Fifteen years ago (i.e. in 1843), White Moss and Ashton Moss might have been included in the list, but both of these are now largely brought under cultivation. The most celebrated moors are now nearly all under the power of the plough, as Baguley Moor and Sale Moor, while Newton Heath is covered with houses.

The above chapter was written in 1858. The story of the sundews has now become an old familiar one, having been placed prominently before the world by Dr. Hooker during the 1874 meeting of the British Association, when the novelty of the theme attracted universal attention to it. It has been dealt with also by Mr. Darwin and many of his disciples. The facts described have all been verified, though there is still considerable difference of opinion in regard to the digestive process. This question is one we cannot pretend to go further into at present; it remains for the rising generation of Manchester, and other local physiologists, to recognise the value of the opportunities they possess in having the plants themselves so close at hand. Upon Carrington, however, the Droseras seem to be less plentiful than they were forty years ago. The draining at the margins appears to have favoured the growth of the heather, as well as to have rendered the moss less swampy. If deficient here, there are plenty elsewhere, the sundews being to peat–bogs what daisies are to the meadows. Since 1858 the approaches to the moss from the Manchester side have also been a good deal altered, and enquiry must now be made of residents in the neighbourhood when seeking the most convenient means of access.

Extending so far in the direction of Dunham, the wooded slopes of which latter are plainly visible from all parts, wet Carrington,—

Water, water, everywhere,
And not a drop to drink,—

excites new relish for the shades of its beautiful park. Few are the inhabitants of our town to whom Dunham is unknown, and who fail upon every new visit to find in it a poem and a jubilee. The greater number of the trees were planted by George, second Earl of Warrington. He was born in 1675, and died in 1758, so that his exemplary work may be considered to date from the time, as to its beginning, of Queen Anne, and the oldest of the trees to have been growing for nearly two centuries, since, of course, it would not be acorns that were placed in the soil, but saplings, already stout and hearty. Wandering amid the rich glooms they now afford, occasional breaks and interspaces disclosing green hollows filled with sunlight, or crested knolls that seem like sanctuaries; delicate pencillings of lighter foliage throwing into grand relief the darker and heavier masses, in this sweet land there is never any sense of sameness,—we are awakened rather to the power there is in perfect sylvan scenery, as well as in that of the mountains, and the sea–margin, to elevate and refresh one’s entire spiritual nature. Very pleasant is it when we can simultaneously thank God for creating noble trees, and let the mind rest upon a fellow–creature as the immediate donor. Many of the old Dunham oaks date considerably further back than the time indicated. England is dotted all over with individual trees, the age of which is rightfully estimated by centuries, and Dunham Park is not without its reverend share.

Emerging from the park, past the old mill—beloved of sketching artists—there are pleasant footways across the meadows that conduct eventually to Lymm. To trace them was, in the bygones, a never–failing enjoyment. Now we go to Lymm direct by train, finding there, as of old, one of the most beautiful of the Cheshire waters; in this case, however, of origin very different from the Vale Royal meres. The water at Lymm, romantic and picturesque as are its surroundings, is simply a vast reservoir, brought into existence by the construction of the viaduct at the foot. The site now occupied by the water was originally a little vale, down which flowed a streamlet called the Dane. Becoming very narrow where the roadway now is, to throw a barricade across was easy. The construction of this gave distinctiveness also to the “dell,” the pretty hollow, full of trees, into which, when the water is high, the overplus, creeping under the road by a concealed channel, springs so cheerily. Ordinarily, it must be confessed, there is little more than a thin trickle, but after a day or two’s heavy rain, down it comes, with a joyous double leap, in great sheaves and waving veils, the more delectable since the cascade in question is the only one in this part of Cheshire, or anywhere upon the Cheshire side of the town.

The pleasantest time to visit this beautiful neighbourhood is the very end of July. The wild cherries are then ripe, and glisten like coral amid the green leaves; and in the water there is a rosy archipelago of persicaria blossom. Beyond the plantation, at the upper extremity, the surface is often so still and placid that every flower and leaf upon the banks finds its image beneath, the inverted foxgloves changing, as the calm gives way to ripples, into softly twining spirals of crimson light. When the shores are laid unusually bare through drought, they furnish abundance of the beautiful shells of the fresh–water mussel, Anodonta cygnea, often four inches in length, externally olive–green, and possessed inside of the pearly iridescence so much admired in sea–shells. Many, however, are broken, the swans being fond of the contents. To see the water to its full extent, visitors should continue along the hill–side, opposite the church, and as far as the grove of trees. With permission of the proprietor, it is a great gain, on arrival there, to cross by the rustic bridge, and, turning to the left, ascend the little valley called “Ridding’s Brook.” The botany of this part is truly rich,—in March the slopes are yellow with the wild daffodil, and in late summer the bank is gay with purple lythrum. The special interest of the valley lies, after all, in its curious dropping and petrifying spring. At the further extremity, upon the right, the steep clay bank, instead of receding, is hollowed underneath for the length of a hundred yards or so, the upper edge projecting to a considerable distance beyond the base, so as to overhang the stream, and form a sloping roof to it. The surface is completely covered with luxuriant moss, and from the land overhead comes an incessant filter of water, which at once nourishing the moss and entangled in it, causes it to hang down in long vegetable ringlets. At a distance they seem soft, but examination shows that every drop has brought along with it a particle of earth, which being deposited in the very substance of the moss, is gradually converting it into stone. Every cluster, externally so green and living, is in its heart a petrifaction.

Tho. Letherbrow.
Oldfield, Dunham.

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Very pleasant walks, of entirely different character, are to be found also, when at Lymm, along the great alluvial flat bordered by the river, and which reaches to Thelwall. Thelwall was once a port for ships! When founded by Edward the elder, about the year 923, the stream was so much wider and deeper that, according to tradition, the Danish invaders came this way in vessels, landed, and established a camp or fortress at Mickley Hill, the mound, now covered with fir–trees, which marks the point where the Bollin enters. Up to about 1855, or before the water was so defiled, the Mersey at this part, and more particularly near Statham, was to the sportsman supremely attractive. It was visited in the winter by many curious birds, including the sheldrake, the widgeon, the teal, and occasionally the wild swan. Lymm village contains several objects of archæological interest. Near the centre are the remains of an ancient cross, the lower steps of which are cut out of the solid rock; and close by, upon an eminence, is Lymm Hall, an ancient building, once, like most others of its kind, protected by a moat. Lymm church tower is as high above the sea–level at the base as Bowdon old tower is at the top. The shrubs in the gardens, owing to the altitude, are often reached, in tempestuous weather, by the salt of the Irish Sea. Near Lymm there are many other very interesting places. Oughtrington Hall and Agden Hall, in the Dunham direction; High Legh, with its ancient and beautiful little church, covered with ivy; and Warburton, again noted for its church, are all, in their respective ways, full of attraction. Warburton church is one of the three in Cheshire which, as at Peover, were built in the quaint old “black and white” or “magpie” style. Only a portion, however, of the original remains at Warburton, new structures, very odd in complexion, having been added at various times. The stone part is dated 1645,—the tower, about a century old, and fortunately now ivy–mantled, is of brick! The yews are no doubt contemporaneous with the foundation, say about seven hundred years of age.

Latchford, the station next beyond Thelwall, is a good point of departure for Hill Cliff, the lofty and beautiful eminence upon which Warrington so prides itself. The view from the summit is considered by many the most varied and extensive in Cheshire—justly so, perhaps, since upon the east it extends to Alderley, and upon the west to Moel Famma. Another route to Hill Cliff is by the original line to Warrington, through Eccles, from Victoria station, the same which leads on to Norton for Norton Priory, Norton Park, and Halton Castle; to Frodsham, for its glorious hills, and to Chester. The views from the Frodsham hills cover, like those from Hill Cliff, a most charming variety of scene,—Halton Castle, Weston Point, Rock Savage, the Aston Woods, and the winding Weaver, with its many craft, being all embraced at once. The best way of procedure, in order to enjoy the hills thoroughly, is to take the Helsby portion first, beginning at the station of that name, then to cross the valley and ascend the Overton part. If considered too much for a single day, there is amply enough for a couple of separate visits. Norton Park, made up of undulating and flowery glades, with the Priory in the centre, is little less enjoyable than Tatton, though the spectacle of the dire mischief wrought by the fumes from the adjacent alkali–works, apparently irreparable, is very sad; Halton Castle has its chief attraction in the record, for the precincts, of well–known historical events; the interest of the river consists in its identification with one of the most important branches of the local commerce. Before going so far in search of enjoyment, it is wise to remember that long before reaching even Lymm, the line viâ Broadheath gives access to quiet fields that in summer evenings are rich in pleasant influence, those in particular which lie west of Dunham Massey. A very delightful rural neighbourhood, almost contiguous, has also now been opened up by the “Cheshire Midland.” Urmston, Flixton, and Glazebrook are centres from which it is difficult to move unprofitably. Very much of course depends upon the amount of disposition to be pleased that we carry with us, and upon one’s progress in the culture of that finest of the fine arts—the art of seeing.

CHAPTER V.
GATLEY CARRS.

We live by admiration, hope, and love,
And even as these are well and wisely fixed,
In dignity of being we ascend.

WORDSWORTH.

THERE is not a more delightful ride out of town, at any season of the year, than through Rusholme and Didsbury to Cheadle. The country is on either hand fertile and pleasantly wooded, and in many places embellished with handsome grounds, while gardens and shrubberies succeed one another so fast that the road seems completely edged with them. The variety of trees presented to view is greater than upon any other road out of Manchester. In the five miles between Ducie–street and Abney Hall, we have counted upwards of forty different species, some of them by no means frequent in these parts, while others are uncommonly fine examples of their kind. The finest sycamore, and, after the great horse–chestnut between Singleton and Besses–o’–th’–Barn, perhaps the finest tree of any sort near Manchester, as regards either symmetry or altitude, stands upon the lawn of Mr. T. H. Nevill’s house at Didsbury, the second on the Manchester side of the College. Oak, willow, elm, poplar in three different kinds, lime, ash, and beech, both green and purple, are also represented very fairly. There are examples, too, of walnut, of negundo, and of tulip trees. A noble specimen of the last–named stood not far from the Didsbury sycamore until about 1855, and was covered with flowers every season; but, like the cedar in the grounds adjoining Mr. Callender’s late residence at Rusholme, which was another of the finest trees on the road, fell a victim about that time to the axe of “improvement.” Each was a cruel case of what Miss Mitford well calls “tree murder.” Such trees cannot be replaced in less than three generations; the sycamore at Mr. Nevill’s is already over a hundred years old; so near to Manchester, it will probably be impossible ever to see the like of them again; let us hope, then, that what remain will be cherished. Cut them down when they become ruinous, if you will,—though nothing makes a more beautiful ornament of true pleasure–grounds than the torso of an ancient tree from which the living glory has departed,—but spare them as long as vigorous life endures. So numerous are the lilacs, laburnums, chestnuts, thorns, both white and red, and other gay–blossomed contributors to this charming arboretum, that from the end of May till the middle of June the road is one long flower–show. Before these commence their gala, there are the apple and pear trees; earlier yet the silver birches, covered with their pendent catkins; and in the autumn we seem to have flowers over again in the scarlet berries of the holly and mountain ash.

Not only is the road beautiful in itself, but to residents upon the Greenheys and Chorlton side of the town, the opportunities which it provides of access to scenes of rural beauty are peculiarly advantageous. Stretford way, there is nothing worth mention till we reach Dunham. There are plenty of quiet lanes, it is true, and the farm–land is well cultivated; but in landscape, the whole of the great plain intersected by the Bowdon Railway is totally and admittedly deficient. With Didsbury, on the other hand, we enter a country fit for a Linnell. We may turn down by the church to the river–side, and follow the stream through pleasant fields to Northen; or we may push forward another mile, cross the Mersey at Cheadle Bridge, and strike into a scene of such singular and romantic beauty, and so thoroughly unique in its composition, that we know of nothing in the neighbourhood to liken it to. This is the place called “Gatley Carrs.” It is easily found. Immediately the bridge is crossed, take the broad path through the meadow on the right, and look out for the chimney of Mr. Jowett’s corn–mill. Go through the mill–yard, and over the brook, then through another field or two into a lane red with refuse from a tile–croft, and in a little while there will be seen, again upon the right, a cluster of cottages and barns. These surround a bit of sward called “Gatley Green,” which must be traversed, and after a hundred yards further walk by a runnel of water, we have the Carrs straight before us. The term “Carr” is of Gothic derivation, and denotes an expanse of level land, near a river, covered with alders or other water–loving trees. Such is the character of the scene here. An extensive and verdant plain, smooth and level as a bowling–green, stretches from our feet away to some undiscoverable boundary, its further portion covered with tall poplars, entirely bare of branches for half their height, and leafy only towards their summit, the trunks standing just near enough together to form a grove of pillared foliage, and just far enough apart for every tree to be seen in its integrity, and for the sunshine to penetrate and illuminate every nook. They are not the kind of poplar commonly understood by the name—the slender, spire–like tree, which is quite exceptional even among poplars—but one of the species with ample and spreading crowns. The number of trees is immense—at a rough guess, perhaps a thousand. They were planted by the late Mr. Worthington, of Sharston Hall; the timber, though almost useless to the joiner, being well adapted for cutting into the thin, narrow strips called “swords,” upon which it is customary to fold silks. The path commanding this beautiful view runs along the upper margin of the plain. It is somewhat elevated above the grass, and keeps company with a stream, the opposite bank of which rises still higher, and is covered with oaks and ferns. The superiority of position thus afforded, though trifling, gives to the plain the aspect of a vast amphitheatre, and so calm and delicious is the whole scene, so tranquil and consecrated the look of the untrodden wood, that it seems surely one of the sacred groves of the Druids, and one can hardly think but that presently we shall see the priests enter in grand procession, in their white robes and ancient beards, and carrying the golden knife that is to sever the misletoe bough. In the evening there come effects of yet rarer charm, for then the declining sun casts long interlineations of shadow across the level, and lights up every leaf from underneath.

The botany of the Carrs corresponds in extent with that of Mobberley, though in many respects quite different. The greatest curiosity, perhaps, is the toothwort, or Lathræa, that singular plant which, disliking the solar ray, lives recluse in woods and groves, often half–concealed in dead tree–leaves, and scarcely lifting its cadaverous bloom above the surface. Here also grows the Poa nemoralis. The meads yield occasional specimens of a pretty rose–coloured variety of the creeping bugle, and are so rich in wild–flowers in general as to form, along with the woods beside the stream, quite a natural botanic garden. The further part of the wood, towards Sharston, is, no doubt, the abode of many plants of interest, and only wants searching out. The reputation of a given locality for rare plants comes not infrequently of some one of ardour having gone to work upon it; innumerable places, were they thoroughly explored, would rise from unimportance into fame. Happily, as regards Gatley Carrs, Mr. Edward Stone, son of the able and well–known chemist, whose collection, both of indigenous and exotic plants, in his garden at Cheadle, has done so much good service to the cause of botany, is devoting himself to the task.

The stream above–mentioned curves, after a little while, to the right, and the path changes to the opposite side. It is at this point that the extent of the wood is developed, and that we turn to go homewards. If time permit, it is well to continue awhile along the middle path in front, and visit first the Upper Carrs, which, as seen from the terrace that runs all the way from Cheadle to Baguley, are remarkably beautiful. The wood, as here disclosed, is full of invitation, and where the branches stand asunder, we see great prairies, the green grass all a–glow with red sorrel blossom, and dotted with islands of radiant white, where that giant of field flowers, the great moon–daisy, shows its pride. This noble ornament of our meadow–land, called on the other side of the Tweed the “horse–gowan,” is one of the class of flowers called “compound,” being made up of some hundreds of “florets” or miniature flowers, enclosed in a kind of basket. An average specimen has been found to contain five hundred and sixty, and a fine one no fewer than eight hundred. The florets are disposed in exquisite curving lines, exactly resembling the back of an engine–turned watch. What has the ingenuity of man ever devised that has not its prototype somewhere in nature? The chalice holding this remarkable flower is of the most elegant construction, and in form like an acorn–cup. Moving on by the brookside, after crossing it at the bridge, we soon enter a spacious meadow upon the left, and find ourselves again in sight of the Mersey. On the bank of the stream, just before quitting it, may be seen the wild red–currant, making, with its neighbours, the wild raspberry and the wood strawberry, a show of native fruits without parallel in this neighbourhood. The meadow is of exuberant fertility, owing to the annual flood from the river. Leaving it, we come next to a rising ground, planted with white willows, and from this emerge into a lane, and so over the brow of the hill to Northen churchyard. Northen, of course, becomes a resting–place, and a very pleasant one it is. Both church and churchyard deserve examination. The former contains a neat monument to the memory of Mr. Worthington, the planter of the poplars in the Carrs, and another with an epitaph attributed to the pen of Alexander Pope.[12] Several pretty memorials of the dead occur likewise among the tombstones outside. On one fragment there is seemingly written with green moss, the graving in the stone being entirely filled up with the plant—

ANNE – DOVG
HTAR – OF –
HVMFREY – SA
VAGE – DYED

On another are the following pretty lines:—

The cup of life just with her lips she pressed,
Found the taste bitter, and declined the rest;
Averse then turning from the face of day,
She softly sighed her little soul away.

From Northen to Manchester the ways are many. One is to walk two miles and a half along the lanes to Sale Moor station; a second, to follow the southern bank of the river to Jackson’s boat; a third, is to cross the fields into the Cheadle road, and catch the townwards omnibus, a distance of less than a mile; and the last, to our own mind much the pleasantest—first along the northern bank for about a mile, and then across the fields towards Platt and Rusholme. The commencement of the last–named is exceedingly delightful, the water flowing on the left, woods and pastures upon the right, in the evening sweetly enlivened by the cuckoo. Nothing in the year’s round of pleasure is more heart–soothing than an hour in these quiet fields immediately after sunset, while it is too light for the stars, but the planets peer forth in their beautiful lustre, and the darkness quickens our ears to the slightest sound. The nightingale alone is wanting to complete the effect, but we have no nightingales near Manchester. There is nothing for them to eat, and they stay away. The bird sometimes mistaken for the nightingale, from its singing at the same hours, and running through a variety of notes, is the sedge–warbler.

Enjoying this sweet neighbourhood in early summer, and while it is yet broad day, one can hardly fail to notice the tribe of grasses, at least up to the time of haymaking. No fewer than sixty–three different kinds may be collected about Manchester, and fully a third of these in the meadows. The remainder are inhabitants of the woods and ponds, while a few grow exclusively upon the moors. Attaining their perfection in May and June, easily collected, and not withering on the way home, the grasses are the very best plants to begin with in forming a collection of dried flowers. We have spoken before of the pleasure that attends this pursuit: the utility, to any one who takes the slightest interest in nature, is quite upon a par. How pleasant at Christmas to turn over the pages of one’s Hortus Siccus, freshening our remembrance alike of the beautiful and diversified shapes of the plants, and of the days and scenes where they were gathered! A more interesting or instructive pursuit for a young person, of either sex, than to set about collecting specimens of the grasses, ferns, and wild–flowers in general, that they meet with in their country walks, is in truth scarcely to be found. The attraction it gives to the country is prodigious, and surely it is more sensible when out in the fields thus to employ one’s self than to wander along listlessly for want of an object, and perhaps get into mischief. The method to pursue is exceedingly simple. First get together a quantity of old newspapers, and fold them to about eighteen inches square. Then buy a few quires of Bentall’s botanical drying paper, and procure also three or four pieces of stout millboard. Such is the apparatus; nothing more is wanted; and next we must gather our specimens, selecting, to begin with, such as are of slender make and comparatively juiceless texture. Pieces of about a foot long are large enough, but if the plant be less than ten or twelve inches in height, it should be taken root and all. Having the boards and papers in readiness, lay one of the former as a foundation, and to serve as a tray; upon this place a folded newspaper, and upon this a sheet of Bentall, and then the specimen intended to be dried. Over the specimen should come a second sheet of Bentall, then another newspaper, and so on till the whole collecting is deposited. All being in order, it remains only to place a heavy weight upon the top of the pile, so as to press the plants flat, and prevent the air entering to shrivel them. The easiest weights to use are common red bricks, but, as bricks look untidy in a parlour, and are unpleasant to handle in their naked state, they should be tied up neatly and separately in smooth brown paper, and then not the most fastidious or weak–fingered can object to them. In this condition the pile should be left till the next day, when it should be turned over, layer by layer, and the specimens transferred into dry Bentall. The newspapers need not be changed unless the plants are succulent ones, and their moisture has penetrated. The weight should then be replaced, and the pile again be left to itself for three or four days, when the specimens will be found perfectly dry, their forms scarcely altered, and their colours, except in special cases, almost as bright as when growing. For very delicate plants, instead of Bentall, it is best to use sheets of clean white cotton–wadding, with tissue paper, to prevent the specimens clinging to the cotton when of adhesive nature. When quite deprived of their juices, the specimens should be transferred into sheets of white paper, and neatly fastened down, not with gum arabic, which is apt to smear and look untidy, but with a solution of caoutchouc in naphtha, sold in the shops under the name of “indiarubber cement.” The great advantage of this is that if any should exude from below the specimen, it may, when dry, be rubbed off like a pencil mark. The name of the plant, and the date and place where gathered, should be written underneath. Giving a summer to the work, it is surprising how soon a large and beautiful collection of plants will accumulate, and how rapidly we feel ourselves progressing in botanical knowledge. Taking ordinary care, there is no reason why plants should not look nearly as green and pretty when dried as when living. If an herbarium be only a heap of Latin hay, as sometimes happens, it is not that the art of preserving plants is deceptive, but that the collector has been clumsy or neglectful. Nor are dried plants, as some esteem them, mere vegetable mummies, wretched corpses devoid of all instructiveness or value, for they are far more lively than drawings, and answer all our questions with readiness. Many good botanists, it is true, have done without such collections, showing that they are by no means indispensable to the study of botany. But none who have taken the trouble to form them ever regret it, while all confess their inestimable service. Even if the herbarium served no scientific purpose whatever, there is always the pleasure of finding in it a garden all the year round.

Here spring perpetual leads the laughing hours,
And winter wears a wreath of summer flowers.

Viâ Northen is the pleasantest route to the beautiful district of which the centre is Wythenshawe Hall, a remarkably fine building of the time of James the First, and at present the seat of Mr. Thomas Wm. Tatton. It is approached through a piece of ground called the “Saxfield,” upon which tradition says there was once a terrible fight between Saxons and Danes; old maps mark the place with crossed swords. We have not much of historical interest pertaining to the neighbourhood of Manchester, but what there is seems to concentrate about Northen. The Pretender, Prince Charles Edward, crossed the river in 1745, at a place not very far below Cheadle Bridge, and it is curious that the Prince Consort’s visit, in 1857, when he came to open the Art–Treasures Exhibition at Old Trafford, should have been made by way of the very bridge alluded to. In 1644 Wythenshawe was besieged by a party of Cromwell’s soldiers, who planted a battery on the side overlooking Northen, and threw many cannon–shots against the house. During some alterations in the garden a few years since, and the conversion of a pond–bottom into flower–beds, several of the balls were found; and another, which entered by the drawing–room window, and smashed the wood–carving on the opposite wall, is shown to visitors privileged to view this beautiful hall. The carving was not replaced, so that the blank space preserves a distinct memorial of the attack. The siege was conducted by the celebrated Colonel Robert Dukenfield, the most conspicuous soldier, after Sir William Brereton, in the Cheshire history of the Civil War. It occupied some time, and was only brought to a close by getting two pieces of ordnance from Manchester, the same probably from which the balls above alluded to were discharged. During its progress, one of the maid–servants inside, for her amusement, took aim with a musket at an officer of the Parliamentary forces, who was carelessly lounging about, and managed to kill him. He is supposed to have been the “Captayne Adams,” stated in the Stockport register of burials to have been “slayne at Withenshawe, on Sunday, the 25th.” In the course of alterations in the grounds during the last century, six skeletons were discovered. They were lying close together, and are reasonably supposed to have been those of soldiers who perished during the siege. Cromwell afterwards stayed at the hall, and slept in a room still called, from his occupation of it, “Oliver Cromwell’s room.” The bed, which is dated 1619, is of elegantly carved wood, the furniture and mirrors matching it, and of the same age. The wood–carving at Lyme Hall is usually considered to show the best local work of the period, but that at Wythenshawe, in the opinion of many, is still finer. The gardens surrounding the hall are full of curious trees, many of them remarkably good and shapely specimens, especially an Arbor vitæ, consisting of a tall green pyramid, surrounded by minarets, like a spire with pinnacles round the base, and exquisitely beautiful when swayed slopingly by the wind. In 1858 there sprang up in a piece of newly–turned land at the back of the hall, many hundreds of the Rumex sanguineus, its large oval light–green leaves traced and pencilled in every direction with the richest crimson. The ordinary green–juiced form of the plant is common enough, but the crimson–juiced is one of the rarities of our Flora.

Further again, for those who care for rural pleasures and the legacies of the past, there is the interesting district of Baguley and its old hall. Only one large apartment of the latter remains, the greater portion of the structure having, at some remote period, been destroyed by fire; the buildings which surround and prop up the ancient piece are comparatively new. Baguley Old Hall is well worth a visit, and may be reached, if more convenient to excursionists, by way of Sale Moor station, and a walk of two or three miles along the lanes. In the interior, it will be observed that the doorways are formed of oaken boughs that were curved at one extremity, so that when sliced and reared on end, with the curved portions directed one towards the other, they would form arches. These arches are exceedingly curious, and, along with the numerous armorial bearings, form quite a noticeable feature of the place. A walk across a few fields leads to Baguley Mill. The lanes are full of fragrant roses; the high hedges shelter innumerable veronicas; and by the sides of the little water–courses, close to the mill, grows abundance of the hart’s–tongue fern. To attempt the whole in the space of a single afternoon, of course is not practicable, especially if one is verging towards that inexorable period of life when gravitation begins to get the better of a man sooner than he has been accustomed to; nor is it intended to recommend so much. Gatley Carrs suffice for one walk; the immediate neighbourhood of Northen and the river–banks provide another; and Baguley viâ Sale will pleasantly supply objects for a third. There is a fourth, moreover, well commenced at Didsbury, but keeping in the direction of Chorlton–cum–Hardy, so as eventually to reach Barlow Hall, the local residence of Mr. William Cunliffe Brooks. The archæological interest of Barlow Hall we have not room here to enlarge upon. It must suffice to invite attention to Mr. Letherbrow’s beautiful etching of the best fragment in preservation, the period of which is believed to be that of the reign of Henry VIII., when the hall was occupied by the very ancient and historical family of de Barlow, allied by marriage to the still more celebrated Stanleys, as shown by the heraldry of the window.

Tho. Letherbrow.
Barlow Hall.

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No chapter of the original little volume of 1858 calls for so many obituary notices, now in 1882, as this one descriptive of Gatley Carrs. The magnificent, not to say unique, Didsbury sycamore was cut down a year or two after the publication. The great horse–chestnut, near Singleton has disappeared.[13] Mr. Callender died in 1872. Mr. Stone, sen., is also “with the majority,” and the Carrs themselves no longer deserve the ancient appellation, having been crossed by a railway embankment. A good deal remains no doubt that is pretty and pleasing, but the picture drawn above exists no longer. That a locality once so beautiful should have been thus rudely dealt with is unfortunate, few will deny. But nothing that contributes to the prosperity of a great nation, or to the public welfare, is at any time to be deplored. Such changes simply illustrate anew the primæval law that great purposes shall always demand some kind of sacrifice.

CHAPTER VI.
BY THE NORTH–WESTERN LINE THROUGH STOCKPORT.

Oh, my lord, lie not idle:
The chiefest action for a man of great spirit
Is never to be out of action. We should think
The soul was never put into the body,
Which has so many rare and curious pieces
Of mathematical motion, to stand still.

WEBSTER.

BEFORE the opening of the “Manchester and Birmingham”—a title now forgotten, the line having been absorbed into the London and North–Western—the road through Rusholme, Didsbury, and Cheadle was the accustomed highway to Congleton, viâ Wilmslow, to which latter place the hand still points at certain corners within a mile or two of All Saints’ Church. The Cheadle people occasionally made use of it for pic–nic carriage parties to a fir–crowned steep just beyond Chorley, a wilderness scarcely inhabited, and, save for its checking the speed of travellers from Knutsford to Macclesfield, scarcely recognized in the local geography. How vast the revolution promoted in 1842! The wilderness soon became decked with mansions and gardens; it blossomed as the rose; and “Alderley Edge” is now little less than a suburb of Manchester.

The old carriage–way being superseded by the rail, and much that is delightful being reached by train long before getting to Alderley, we will now accordingly make new departure for fair Cheshire by way of Stockport. Arrived at Wilmslow the old–fashioned, the Bollin reappears, this particular point being in truth the head of the valley through which the stream, as before–mentioned, pursues its sinuous and rapid course to Ashley. The country upon the right is full of quiet lanes and pretty meadows, none of which are more pleasing than those containing the path to the margin of Norcliffe. If permission can be obtained to visit the glen ipsissima, they are like the vestibule of a temple. Norcliffe was laid out in 1830 by the late Mr. R. H. Greg. Selecting everything that he planted with consummate taste and judgment, the slopes are rich with trees which in point of value and variety have no equal in this part of England. Beautiful from the first, the scene at the present moment is more charming than ever before; for tree–planting is one of those essentially noble and generous works the glory of which a man can rarely expect to see unfolded in his own life–time:—like a great poem, it reaches afar, and covers the generations that succeed. The very striking feature of Norcliffe, the main and characteristic one, consists in the profusion of the Conifers. The pine, the fir, the cedar, in their many and always princely forms, are represented in this delicious spot by upwards of forty species and varieties, many of them having very numerous examples, all presenting, in the best manner, the symmetrical outlines so remarkable in coniferous trees, and holding positions with regard to their immediate neighbours such as awaken the most agreeable ideas of harmony. There is no taller Deodara in the neighbourhood than one of the specimens near the lawn, nor is there anywhere in this neighbourhood a more comely Norway spruce, the top already seventy feet above the turf, and covered annually with cones, which the squirrels are glad of, the spring never finding one that the little creatures have overlooked.

Norcliffe is equally remarkable in respect of its rhododendrons, the purple splendour, early in June, tossed up like a floral surf. These last, being like the conifers, evergreens, Norcliffe, if nothing else, is a place of perennial verdure. Almost, as on the banks of old Clitumnus—

Hic ver assiduum, atque alienis mensibus æstas!

The walk through the sylvan part of the glen, tortuous, and rarely on level ground, brings many beautiful wild–flowers into view. Here, in the month of May, is the wood–millet—lightest and daintiest, after the Briza, of our native grasses—and yet more plentifully the sweet woodruff, holding up in every corner its little handfuls of snow–white crosses. Access to Norcliffe,—the grounds being strictly and in every portion private,—is, of course, only by favour. But the honoured name of Greg has always been a synonym for liberality, and leave to enter when properly sought is not likely to be refused. The same may be said of the picturesque and delightful grounds, a mile further down the valley, which appertain to Oversley Lodge, the residence of Mr. Arthur Greg. The treat here is the wilderness–walk, a portion of which was cut only in 1881, along the side of the principal cliff. During the progress of the clearing a new locality was found for the true–love.[14] So certain is the reward, not only in important shape, but in little and unexpected ways, of every man who first makes a path through the forest, whether with the axe or with the more subtle tools that are not wrought upon human forges. Spring is the time, above all others, if it can be managed, for these beautiful Oversley woods; for then we have the opening green leaves in a thousand artistic forms, and in endless shades; the violets also, and the satin–flower; and, full of promise, the so–comfortably–wrapped–up ferns that in September will show how nature revels in transformations. The Oversley woods abut very closely upon Cotterill, approaching which place there is scenery not inferior in its modest and singular sweetness to that of the vicinity of Castle Mill. The public approach is from Wilmslow, treading first the western margin of Lindow Common, then going through various lanes, and in front of “Dooley’s farm.” The greensward portion of the country now soon entered is generally distinguished by the name of the Morley Meadows, and the sylvan part by the somewhat odd title of “Hanging–banks Wood.” The phrase is designed, it would seem, to convey an idea analogous to that involved in the name of the famous “Hanging–gardens” of ancient Babylon, signifying terraces of wood and blossom disposed in parallel order upon some gentle slope. This is the part of the Bollin valley referred to in an early chapter [(p. 27)] as the asylum, it is to be hoped indefinitely, of the primrose. Here, too, Ophelia’s “long–purples” live again, while under the shadow of the trees we descry her “nettles,” those beautiful golden yellow ones that do not sting, and which blend so perfectly with the orchis and the crow–flower. One fears almost to descend to the edge of the stream, for willows are there that grow “aslant,” and that have “envious slivers” as of old. Once in these lovely meadows it is easy to find the way into the lower Bollin valley, and thence to Ashley and Bowdon. But the double walk is rather long, and prudence says return to Wilmslow. Norcliffe and Oversley, it should be added, are reached as regards carriage–way, by a nearly straight road from Handforth.

Lindow Common, famed from time immemorial for its bracing air, extends from Wilmslow to Brook Lane. There is nothing particular to be seen upon it, except by the naturalist, who, in one part or another, finds abundance to give him pleasure. The locality is remarkable alike for its sundews and the profusion of wild bees; it is one of the best known to entomologists for the class Andrenidæ.

Women, it has been remarked, need no eulogy, since they speak for themselves. Something similar, descriptively, might be said of Alderley Edge. Whatever smoke–engendered thoughts may occupy the mind for twenty minutes after contemplating Stockport, they are effectually dispelled by the sight of the piny hill, a medley of nature and art, that shows so proudly in front as soon as the train crosses the Bollin. A grand undulating mass of sandstone, rising boldly out of the plain, of considerable elevation,—the highest point being six hundred and fifty feet above the sea,—and, reckoning to the out–of–sight portion which overlooks Bollington, quite two miles in length, must needs be impressive. Alderley gathers charm also from its great smooth slants of green, rough and projecting rocks, and trees innumerable, three or four aged and wind–beaten firs upon the tip–top, giving admirable accentuation. Every portion in view from the railway is accessible by paths, usually easy, these introducing us to many a deep and sequestered glade that in autumn is crowded with ferns, or leading to the crest of the hill, the views from which compensate all possible fatigue of climbing. The simplest route to follow is that by the old road running to Macclesfield. From the lower part of this we may take one of the bye–roads that lie to the left, and thus get eventually to the somewhat rough and scrambling, but still quite practicable and pleasant, track which leads along the face of the great westward incline. This huge slope, called the “Hough,” may be ascended also from beneath, keeping along the foot for about a mile, then turning up through a field. Green shades and leafy labyrinths here tempt to a never–slackening onward movement, especially in that part where a great curve in the mountain–mass gives rise to a kind of bay, grassy always, and that in spring teems with anemones. The prospect from the Hough is everywhere magnificent, extending to Delamere Forest and the Overton hills, which, like Coniston “alt maen,” have a profile never doubtful. The intermediate broad, flat space is the now familiar North Cheshire plain. Should a canopy of smoke be distinguishable, it will indicate Manchester. To enjoy this wonderful prospect perfectly, it is best to adventure to the edge of “Stormy Point,” or the Holywell Rock—that noted crag which, in case of need, would serve well for a new Tarpeian. Another quite different way to the top of the Edge is to proceed a short distance along the Congleton road, or that which leads, in the first instance, towards old Alderley village; then to turn up a lane upon the left, which, passing through a grove of fir–trees, terminates in the Macclesfield road, near the “Wizard.” It is behind this noted hostelry, commemorative in its name of the local legend, that the sylvan loveliness of Alderley Edge is felt most exquisitely, nature seeming here to have been left more to her own sweet wantonness; while the views, extending now over a totally different country, hills instead of a plain, add to our previous enjoyments the always welcome one of surprise. Curling round this glorious promontory, we gradually progress towards the “Beacon,” the highest point, and in a few minutes, descending thence, are once again in the public thoroughfare.

Alderley Park, the seat of Lord Stanley, lies near the village, upon the left of the turnpike road. Strangers very rarely enter the gates. The wonder to those who do is that so little should have been made of natural advantages scarcely excelled anywhere in Cheshire. The best features are the magnificent beech–trees and the sheet of ornamental water, called Radnor Mere, upon the margins of which grow two of the most interesting of the British sedges, the Carex ampullacea and the Carex vesicaria. The gardens have long been noted for their mulberry trees.

Beyond this again is Birtles, the neighbourhood of which supplies a very pleasant walk. Mounting the hill on the southern side, or where the latter gently melts away into the level, the road in question leads eventually to the “Wizard,” at which point, if more convenient, the walk may be commenced. If begun at the base, we turn up by the four–armed guide–post, a little beyond Alderley church. The walk is somewhat long, therefore better deferred till winter, selecting a day when the frost is keen and the atmosphere bracing. A winter forenoon, when the atmosphere is motionless, and icicles hang from the little arches that bridge the water–courses, is every bit as enjoyable as the most brilliant of summer evenings, let only the heart be alive and the eyes trained to seeing. Over and above the rich healthfulness of this Birtles walk, all the way up to the crown of the Edge, and round about amid the trees in winter, for the artist of pre–Raphael vision, there is bijouterie;—the chaste and tender arabesque given to rock and aged bough by green moss and grey and golden lichen, gems of nature that when the trees are leafy are apt to be skipped, but when all else is cold and bare, like faithful affection, “make glad the solitary place.”

Between Alderley and Chelford, pushing still further along the Congleton road, we find yet another of the Cheshire meres, this one, in itself in the time of water–lilies, worth all the travel. Reeds Mere, famous in local fairy tale, is to the painter and the poet, when the lilies are out, a floral Venice. Virtually, it is in Capesthorne Park, the seat of one of the younger branches of the very ancient Davenport family. To get to the water’s edge, if time be short, the nearest point to start from is Chelford, but the road above indicated is so charmingly wooded, that not to go that way is distinctly a loss. Chelford village may be reached by a field walk, commenced first below Alderley church, crossing the meadow slantwise and leftwards, and so past Heywood Hall, going presently through a plantation of Scotch firs. Hard by there is another charming seat, with spacious park, rare trees, and ornamental water—Astle Hall, the residence of Captain Dixon. In the grounds we are reminded of Norcliffe, for here, too, is shown the love of Conifers which always indicates good taste.

CHAPTER VII.
BEESTON CASTLE.

This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air
Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself
Unto our gentle senses.
This guest of summer,
The temple–haunting martlet, doth approve
By his lov’d mansionry, that the heavens’ breath
Smells wooingly here.

SHAKSPEARE.

WHEN for our country pleasure an entire day can be commanded, Crewe, ten or twelve miles from Chelford, and thirty–one from Manchester, marks the way to Combermere Abbey and Beeston Castle—places alike of singular interest, though of totally different character. To reach Combermere, it is needful to continue a little distance along the line which diverges from Crewe for Shrewsbury, booking to and alighting at Wrenbury. Two or three different routes may be taken thence, in any case by pleasant fields and lanes not difficult to discover. The shortest way is to go first across Mr. Wilson’s broad acres of model farm–land, cereals right and left; then along a lane with a mill–pond upon the left; then through a corridor of trees upon the right, the floor, green as their boughs, bordered like a missal, shortly after issuing from which we arrive at the beautiful water referred to in the Abbey name. More than a mile in length, covering one hundred and thirty–two acres, and much too irregular in outline to be seen at once in its full extent, Combermere, with its adjacent woods, yields as a picture only to Rostherne. The paths in every direction are full of landscape. Though the country is flat, we do not perceive it to be so, and what may be wanting in grandeur, is found in tranquillity and repose. The mansion, of which there is an admirable view across the mere, occupies the site of the ancient monastery—a Benedictine, founded in 1133. Strictly modern, plain and substantial, there is nothing about the exterior to preserve the memory of monastic times; inside, however, old and new are let shake hands, the library being an adaptation of the ancient refectory. The walls, the galleries, and the principal apartments contain great store of Indian trophies and curiosities, brought home by the renowned Sir Stapleton–Cotton, whose bravery in the Peninsular War, and afterwards at the siege and capture of Bhurtpore, gained for him the title first of Baron, and then of Viscount, now held by the Lord Combermere, his son.

A similar short ride from Crewe, now by the line which continues to Chester, conveys us to Beeston, the walk from which station to the castle, occupying less than half an hour, is again by lanes and fields. Lancaster Castle, excepting its incomparable gateway–tower, and a small portion inside, has been so much altered in order to adapt it for modern uses, that the past is lost in the present. Clitheroe Castle is all gone, excepting the keep. Beeston, happily, though itself only a relic, has suffered nothing at the hands of the modern architect. Even time seems to look on it leniently. As a memorial of the feudal ages, it is in our own part of England supreme and uncontested, and in any case one of the most charming resorts within the distance for all in Manchester who care for the majestic, the antique, and the picturesque. This famous and far–seen ruin is seated upon the brow of a mighty rock, which, rising out of the meadows on the eastern side by a regular and at first easy, but afterwards somewhat steep incline, terminates, on the western side, in an abrupt and absolutely vertical precipice, the brink of which is three hundred and sixty–six feet above the level of the base, or of almost precisely the elevation of the High Tor at Matlock, and of the loftier parts of St. Vincent’s. Hence, in the distance, viewed sideways, as for example, from Alderley Edge, the outline is exactly that of a cone–shaped mountain toppled over and lying prostrate. The broad green slope, dry and velvety, furnishes an unsurpassed natural lawn for rest and pic–nic. Mounting it to the summit, the ruins, which now consist chiefly of ivied bastions, tower above our heads with an inexpressible and mournful grandeur that recalls the story of Caractacus in the streets of ancient Rome. The mind runs back to the time when the walls were alive with armed men, and shouts rose from the turrets, now discrowned. Not that the castle was ever actually assaulted, for a glance at the entrance is enough to convince any one that as a military post in the feudal times it was impregnable. Of military incidents connected with Beeston, there is indeed no record whatever. All that history has to tell is of one or two changes in the holding, brought about by treachery or want of vigilance. But from the time of the building, in 1220, by Randulph de Blondeville, sixth Earl of Chester, on his return from Palestine, there can be no doubt that for four centuries the old castle was the scene of much that was imposing.

Everything has vanished now, and for ever. Up on that wonderful crag to–day, where the scene is so still, and the “heavens’ breath smells wooingly,” we feel far more profoundly than in streets and cities, how grateful is the dominion of peace compared with the turbulence of war. For, looking over the westward parapet, at our feet is Vale Royal, a warm and smiling plain that stretches, literally, to the rim of the landscape. Randulph looked upon those far away Welsh mountains, the Frodsham hills, the estuaries of the Dee and the Mersey, all so beautiful as ingredients in the magnificent prospect. To–day we have that which he did not see, and probably never imagined. Scattered over this glorious map are villages, homesteads, orchards, gardens innumerable; the vast breadth of bright emerald and sunny pasture laced with hedgerows that in spring are blossom–dappled, and streams, of which, although so distant, we get twinkling glimpses among the leafage. If it be autumn, the scene is chequered with the hues of harvest, every field plainly distinguishable, for one of the peculiar charms of the view from Beeston Castle rock, granting a favourable day, with lucid atmosphere, is that while the country is brimful, every element is well–defined. Later still, we may watch October winding its tinted way through the green summer of the reluctant trees;—this, no doubt, it did just in the same sweet old amber–sandalled fashion five centuries ago, but the trees did not then, as now, cast their shadows upon liberty and civilisation. Two periods there are when Beeston calls upon us to remember, with a sigh, that there are forms of beauty in the world in which we may not hope to revel many times, perhaps, in their perfection, not more than once or twice. One is mid–winter, when in the great hush of the virgin snow the landscape becomes a world carved in spotless marble; the other, when the corn is waiting the sickle, and the vast plain is steeped in sunset such as August only witnesses. Watched from this tall rock, the wind–sculptured clouds that an hour before were glistening pearl slowly change to purple mountains, while the molten gold boils up above their brows; these go, and by and by there are left only bars of delicate rose, and veils of fading asphodel, and at last we are with old Homer and the camp before Troy, “when the stars are seen round the bright moon, and the air is breathless, and all beacons, and lofty summits, and forests appear, and the shepherd is delighted in his mind.”[15] So that, adding all together, the value of the grand old stronghold has in no wise died out, but only taken another shape. Instead of inspiring awe and terror, it supplies the heart with noble enjoyments, and with new and animating incentives to seek the rewards that attend love of the pure and beautiful.

When at Beeston, on descending from the castle, we visit, as a matter of course, Peckforton, a mile beyond, the residence of Lord Tollemache.

This splendid edifice restores, in the finest possible manner, the irregular Norman style of architecture prevalent in the reign of Edward I. Occupying a space of not less than nine thousand square yards, and not more remarkable for the superb proportions than for the perfect finish of every part, in Cheshire it has no equal. Peckforton has peculiar interest also in the circumstance of the walls being entirely devoid of paint and paper, thus presenting a contrast to the dressed surfaces favoured in modern times that for the moment is overwhelming. The hill upon which it stands is covered with natural wood, and in the remote parts gives way to heathery wilderness. To pursue this for any considerable distance, when half the day has already been given to Beeston, of course is not possible. Begun early enough, we find it almost continuous with the heights reached by way of Broxton.

After the bastions and the gateway of Beeston Castle, the curiosity of the place is the ancient well, sunk through the rock to Beeston Brook, a depth of three hundred and seventy feet, but now quite dry. A trayful of lighted candles is let down by a windlass for the entertainment of visitors who care to see the light diminish to a speck. On the way to Peckforton, it must not be overlooked, either, that in a pretty garden upon the right will be found Horsley Bath, limpid water perpetually running out of the rock, and in restorative powers, if the legends be true, a genuine “fountain of rejuvenescence.”

CHAPTER VIII.
THE REDDISH VALLEY AND ARDEN (OR HARDEN) HALL.

What exhibitions various hath the world
Witness’d of mutability in all
That we account most durable below!
Change is the diet on which all subsist,
Created changeable, and change at last
Destroys them.

COWPER.

IT speaks not a little for the vigorous and buoyant life of the immediate neighbourhood of our town that so few examples are to be met with of decay and ruin. Turn whichever way we will, we find new houses, new factories, new enterprises, but scarcely an instance of wasting away and dilapidation. The nearest important relic of the feudal times is Beeston Castle, just described; and the nearest memorial and sepulchre of those brave, good men who, while the rulers of our country were fighting and oppressing, conserved within the convent walls learning, religion, charity, and a hundred other things that kept the national civilisation moving until the aurora of the Reformation, is Whalley Abbey, also more than thirty miles away. Excepting a few old houses of little significance, everything about us is intact, occupied usefully, and a fine testimony to the intelligence and the energy of the province. Let a stranger visit any part of the country within the radius indicated, and he will feel that he is in a place where life is concentrated: everything bespeaks nerve; whatever has died seems to have been succeeded on the instant by a more powerful thing. Like a laurel–tree, we are dressed in this district in the foliage of perennial and vehement vitality; while there is plenty of solid stem to mark honourable antiquity, the leaves that have gone have but made way for new and larger ones.

These reflections have been suggested by a visit to Arden Hall, the solitary exception to the strong, unyielding life of the vicinity. Upon this account alone it is a place of interest. The situation, also, is one of the most delightful ever selected for a country residence. The locality may be described, in general terms, as on the Cheshire bank of the river Tame, about half–way between Stockport and Hyde. The Tame separates Lancashire from that odd bit of Cheshire which, running up in a kind of peninsula at its north–east corner, terminates with Mossley and Tintwistle, the Etherowe forming its boundary on the opposite side, and dividing it from Derbyshire. Few would suppose it possible, but the county of Cheshire is at this point scarcely more than two miles across! The ruin itself is easily found, the way to it being by Levenshulme and Reddish,[16] inquiring there for the Reddish paper–mills, which lie in the valley on the Lancashire side of the river, and are approached by a steep descent, with beautiful views of the surrounding country in front and upon the left. Crossing the river by the mills, mounting the hill, going through a few fields and a grove of trees, right before us, sooner than expected, stands the hall, a large, tall square building of grey stone. At first sight, it appears to be in tolerable preservation. The remains of the old sun–dial are still visible, the diamonded casements of some of the windows are perfect, and the exterior generally is undefaced. But the illusion soon passes away. Penetrating to the inside, the great hall—a noble apartment, some eleven yards by eight—is found heaped with rubbish and fallen beams; the ceiling, once ornamented with pendent points, is all gone, except a small portion in one corner; it seems a wonder that the roof still cares to stay. A slender turret, rising above the rest of the fabric, includes a circular staircase, leading to the gallery of the upper floor. Here the diamonded casements reappear, looking full into the western sky, and over the trees and river winding at the foot of the steep; and here we discover the loveliness of the site. Abundantly wooded, strewn with fertile meads, and opening out in every direction pretty views of distant hills, with yet more distant ones peeping over their shoulders, there is not a more picturesque valley east of Manchester, that is to say, not until we are fairly into Derbyshire, than is spread before the windows of forsaken Arden. There is not a spot upon its slopes where we may not pause and admire, and wish for our friends. As at Beeston, the mind quickly travels back to the lang syne. Out of those windows, through the open casements, how often have the eyes of fair girls gazed, in sweet summer evenings, long and peacefully, upon the woods and winding water, and painted sunset, one generation after another, all gone now, their ancient home crumbling to dust—but the woods and winding water and sunset the same. The poets talk of nature’s sympathy with man; there is nothing so marked as her lofty indifference to him.

Archæologically, Arden is interesting as a fine specimen of the domestic architecture of the sixteenth century, and is remarkable for its unusually large bay windows. The waterspouts are inscribed 1597. The history of the estate and its proprietors dates, however, as far back as the time of King John, and though no direct evidence is within reach, there is reason to believe that an earlier building once stood near, and that the present ruin is the second hall. John o’ Gaunt is said to have been an inmate of the original. The family history may be seen at length in Ormerod’s “Cheshire,” in the third volume of which work, p. 399, is a drawing of the hall as it appeared before relinquished to decay. Visitors to the Art–Treasures Exhibition of 1857 will recollect Mr. C. H. Mitchell’s pretty water–colour view of the same place, and there are few, perhaps, of our local artists who have not sketched it. It would appear from the date of Ormerod’s work (1819), where the hall is described as containing furniture and paintings, that it has been deserted only since the death of George III. Until recently one of its curiosities was a stone pulpit, in which it is said Oliver Cromwell once preached. The rustic legend of the place is that, once upon a time, long before powder and shot were invented, there lived hereabouts a doughty baron. On the opposite side of the valley was a similar castle, held by a rival baron, who returned his neighbour’s jealousy with interest. These two worthies used to spend their time in shooting at one another with bows and arrows, till at last, tired of long range, and such desultory warfare, the Baron of Arden collected his dependents, dived down into the valley, scaled the opposite heights, slaughtered his enemy, and so utterly demolished his castle, that now not a vestige of it is discoverable.

There is generally some good foundation for such legends. Upon the eastern side of the hall, some distance from the moat, traces of ancient earthworks are discoverable, extending towards the present “Castle–hill,” and which probably protected some simple fortification. Flint arrow–heads and other relics of primitive weapons found in the soil of the adjacent fields sustain the conjecture, and in truth a better seat for a manorial stronghold it would not be easy to select. The appellation of the ancient fortress when superseded by a building of more peaceful character, would naturally be transferred to the latter, and after the lapse of a little time, nothing more than the name would survive to tell the story. Originally it was Arderne, as in the reference by Webb, in 1622, to another seat of the family, “A fine house belonging to Henry Arderne, Esq.” In any case, the prefix of an H appears to be erroneous, if nothing worse. The last of this name was the Richard Pepper Arderne, born at the old hall, and educated at the Manchester Grammar School, who in 1801, three years before his death, was raised to the peerage, with the title of Baron Alvanley. Arden Hall is not only remarkable in being built wholly of stone, when so many other mansions of the period were timber, but in the high–pitched roof of the tower—a feature rarely observable in such edifices.

Leaving the hall, the road descends rapidly towards the river, here crossed by a stone bridge, shortly before reaching which there are some cottages upon the left. At one of these, with the name “Thomas Ingham” over the door, a nice tea may be obtained. It is not a very attractive place to look at, but the parlour (at the back) is as comfortable as any lady could desire; the provision is excellent, the attendance prompt and respectful, and the charge so moderate that it seems wonderful how it can pay. Forget not that in visiting such places the obligation is mutual. Excursionists have no sort of claim upon private houses, and should be glad to recompense with liberality the kindly willingness to accommodate, save for which they might have to plod for miles hungry and tired. Tea disposed of, we have a walk homewards even more pleasing than the first, by taking, that is, the contrary or Lancashire side of the river, and thus passing through the very woods admired an hour previously from the hall and the crest of the hill. The way is first over the stone bridge, then for a little distance up the hill, descending thence into the field–path, found by means of a large circular brick structure in one of the meadows, seemingly the ventilation mouth of a coal–mine. There is a path quite close to the river, if preferred, entered almost immediately after crossing the bridge, but the water after wet weather is apt to be disagreeable, and in autumn there is a thick and laborious jungle of butter–bur leaves. The hill–side at this point is decidedly the best place for viewing the hall, which crowns the tall cliff immediately in front of it. It is hard to think, as we contemplate its lovely adjuncts, how so romantic a site could have been deserted. The woods hanging the hill–sides with their beautiful tapestry, the river creeping quietly in the bottom, but seen only in shining lakelets where the branches of the trees disentangle themselves, and make a green lacework of light twig and leaf, just dense enough to serve as a thin veil, and just open enough to let the eye pierce it and be delighted; the perfect calm of the whole scene, and the sweet allurement of the path with every additional step, how came they to be ignored? Approaching Reddish the woods are unfenced, and the path lies almost beneath the trees. At the end of May these woods are suffused with the brightest blue in every direction,—the bloom of the innumerable wild hyacinth, which clusters here in great banks and masses, so close that the green of the foliage is concealed. The ground being a slope, and viewed from below, the effect is most singular and striking. Shakspeare speaks of “making the green one red;” here we have literally the green made blue. In the same woods grows the forget–me–not, in abundance only exceeded in the Morley meadows. One might almost fancy that the nymphs of ancient poetry had been transmigrated into these sweet turquoise–coloured flowers. Among the specialities of the Reddish valley, mentioned before as eminently rich in plants of interest, are the bird–cherry, Prunus Padus, and that curious fern the Lunaria. The first is quite a different thing from the ordinary wild cherry of Mobberley, Peover, Lymm, and the Bollin valley, having long, pendulous clusters of white flowers, like those of the laburnum, and with a smell of honey. It is seen not only as a tree, but sometimes forms part of the hedges. The lunaria grows in the meadows, and is in perfection about the end of May. In August and September the river–banks here are gay also with the fine crimson of the willow–herb, the young shoots of which, along with the flowers, drawn through the half–closed hand, leave behind them a grateful smell of baked apples and cream.

The upper portion of the valley, nearer Hyde, was very diligently and successfully explored in 1840–42 by Mr. Joseph Sidebotham, then resident at Apethorne,—a townsman whom we have not more reason to be proud of as a naturalist of the most varied and accurate information, and as one of the most scientific and successful prosecutors of microscopical research, than as a singularly skilful artist in photography, and this without letting the colours grow dry upon the palette from which he has been accustomed to transfer them to coveted drawings. It was Mr. Sidebotham who first drew the attention of Manchester naturalists to the fresh–water algæ of our district, and who principally determined their forms and numbers. He also it was who collected the principal portion known up to 1858 of the local Diatomaceæ. During the five or six years he devoted to the botany of Bredbury, Reddish, and the banks of the Tame generally, he added no fewer than twenty–five species to the Manchester Flora, many of them belonging to the difficult genera Rubus and Carex. His walks were not often solitary. What a broiling day was that on which we first gathered in the Reddish valley the great white cardamine!—what a sweet forenoon that vernal one when we stood contemplating the thousand anemones! Nature seems to delight again in upsetting everything human! One cannot even bestow a name, but she tries to undermine it. No epithet is more appropriate, as a rule, to this most modest of the anemone race, the wild English one, than its specific name, nemorosa, “inhabiting the groves;”—every reader of classical verse recalls, as the eye glides over the word, the nemus which grew greener wherever Phyllis set her foot in it. Giving her the least chance, see, nevertheless, how the wayward lady to whom we owe everything, laughs alike at ourselves and our nomenclature. We call the flower nemorosa, conclude that all is settled, and straightway, as in that sweet and still forenoon in the Reddish valley (1840), she flings it by handfuls over the sward, and leaves the grove as she then left the Arden woods, without a blossom and without a leaf. Similar curious departure from the accustomed habitat of the wood–anemone has since been observed at Cheadle and at Alderley.

No slight pleasure is it in connection with botany that plants and events thus link themselves together, recalling whole days of tranquil happiness spent with valued friends in the green fields. Associations with trees and flowers seem almost inevitably pleasant and graceful ones; at all events, we never hear of the reverse. When orators and poets want objects for elegant simile and comparison, they find trees and flowers supply them most readily; and, on the other hand, how rarely are these beautiful productions of nature used for the illustration of what is vicious and degrading, or in any way mixed up with what is vile and disgraceful. Trees and flowers lead us, by virtue of their kindly influences on the heart and the imagination, to a disrelish and forgetfulness of the uncomely, and to think better of everything around us; so that a walk in the fields, over and above its invigorating and refreshing value, acts as a kindly little preacher, and shows us that we may at all events read, if not

Honi soit qui mal y pense, write,
In emerald tufts, flowers purple, blue, and white.

The lapse of twenty–four years has not tended to improve the aspect of the Reddish valley. The main features are the same, but the brightness is sadly dimmed. Everything now, in 1882, illustrates the operation of town smoke and hurtful vapours, not to mention the devastating influences which come of human travel. The wild–flowers have shared the fate of those in other suburban localities; the old hall has sunk further towards decay; the Inghams, happily, are extant. Mr. Sidebotham, for his own part, practices, amid the refinements of his Bowdon home, all that he cultivated originally upon the banks of the little river, and with the added success that arises upon unbroken assiduity. He tells me now of his researches into the entomology of Dunham Park, where not long ago, for one or two successive seasons, in July, a curious beetle occurred in plenty, a fact immensely remarkable, since only one other of its kind has ever been noticed elsewhere in England, this upon an oak in Windsor Forest as far back as 1829! The insect was first detected by Mr. Joseph Chappell, a working mechanic at Sir Joseph Whitworth’s, and one of the most careful observers of nature now in our midst.

The first photographs ever shown in Manchester were laid before a meeting of the Literary and Philosophical Society by the late Mr. J. E. Bowman, in November, 1838. I remember the occasion well, and the interest taken in them by Dr. Dalton.

CHAPTER IX.
ALONG THE MACCLESFIELD LINE.

It is fine
To stand upon some lofty mountain–thought,
And feel the spirit stretch into a view:
To joy in what might be if will and power
For good would work together but one hour.
Yet millions never think a noble thought,
But with brute hate of brightness bay a mind
Which drives the darkness out of them, like hounds.

J. P. BAILEY.

STOCKPORT, the uninviting, in whatever direction we look to escape from it, is a point of rare value for departure for scenes of interest—this mainly because of its standing on the threshold of the hills which a little further on become members of the English Apennine,—the grand range stretching from Derbyshire to the Cheviots. Soon after passing Edgley, while the original line pursues its course to Wilmslow and Alderley, great branches strike out upon the left, one primarily for Macclesfield, the other for Disley and Buxton. Each in its turn leads to scenes of delightful beauty, and that before the time of railways were scarcely known. Alighting at Bramhall, we secure the added pleasure of a visit to the very celebrated old hall of that name—the most admirable example in our district of the “magpie” style of architecture, and not more charming in its external features than rich in interest within. The oldest portions date from soon after the middle of the fourteenth century, and are thus as nearly as possible contemporaneous as to period of building with the choir of York Minster. These very aged portions are found chiefly in connection with the entrance to the chapel. Massive beams and supports, hard as iron, refusing the least dint of the knife, and presenting the peculiar surface characteristic of the work of their time, attest very plainly the profound significance of “heart of oak.” Everything, moreover, in this grand old place is so solidly laid together, so compactly and impregnably knit, that it seems as if it would serve pretty nearly for the base of another Eddystone or Cleopatra’s needle. In the most tempestuous of winter nights, Bramhall has never been known to flinch a hair’s breadth—so, at least, the late Colonel Davenport used to assure his friends, the writer of these lines included. No portions of the building appear to be of later date than the time of Elizabeth, the domestic architecture of whose reign is nowhere in England better interpreted. The situation of Bramhall is on a par with its artistic qualities. No dull soul was it who more than five hundred years ago selected for his abode the crest of that gentle declivity, trees far and near, a stream gliding below, and views from the upper windows that reach for many miles across the undulating and sweetly variegated greensward. The romantic bit at present is the ravine hard by, saturated in spring with tender wild–flowers, the wood–sorrel in myriads.

Prestbury, a few miles beyond, also has great attractions for the antiquary, the chancel and south aisle of the church being of about A.D. 1130, while the school–house in the graveyard is entered by a doorway with apparently Norman mouldings. The tower is about A.D. 1460. If in search more particularly of rural pastime, we take the contrary side of the line, and so through the lanes and fields to the delicious Kerridge hills. Remarkable for their very sudden rise out of the plain, these green and airy hills command views, like those obtained at Alderley, of truly charming extent and variety. Tegsnose, at the southern extremity, is thirteen hundred feet above the sea–level—the little building just above Bollington, called “White Nancy,” plainly visible from the line near Wilmslow when the sunlight falls on it, is nine hundred and thirty feet;—no wonder that from this last, since there is nothing to intercept, the prospect in favourable weather reaches to Liverpool, and even to the sweet wavy lavender upon the horizon that indicates North Wales.

Bollington is now reached also by a line (part of the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire system,) which diverges for Macclesfield at Woodley Junction. This perhaps gives nearer approach to the Kerridge hills; in any case, it is the best to take for the extremely beautiful adjacent neighbourhood, which for its little metropolis has the village of Pott Shrigley. Before the opening of the line in question, the station for this part was Adlington, on the London and North–Western. Grand as the prospects have already been, above Pott Shrigley, excepting only the “castled crag” at Beeston, all are surpassed. No lover of the illimitable need go to Cumberland or Carnarvonshire for a sight more glorious. Alderley Edge, rising out of the plain below, seems only a mound. The plain itself stretches away far more remotely than the eye can cover, no eminence of magnitude occurring nearer than the Overton hills. The towers and spires of Bowdon and Dunham are plainly distinguishable; and close by, in comparison, is the fine western extremity of the Kerridge range, with “White Nancy,”—the hill itself on which we stand, or rather seat ourselves, remembering the picture in Milton,

See how the bee,
Sitting assiduous on the honeyed bloom,
Sucks liquid sweet,

just such a one as suggested that other immortal portrait,

Green, and of mild declivity, the last,
As ’twere the cape of a long ridge of such,
Save that there is no sea to lave its base,
But a most living landscape.

The time to go to this glad pinnacle is at the end of May or the beginning of June, mounting the hill in the first instance, by the immediate route from the station. When the time arrives to descend, dip westwards, curve round by the water, and through the fields which lead into the Disley road, thence into Pott Shrigley village. No description can convey a perfect idea of the loveliness of this part of the walk at the season indicated. The long–extended survey of hill and dale, the innumerable trees, clothing the slopes at agreeable distances with the most picturesque of little woodlands, bright and cheerful in their unsullied raiment of leaves that are only yet learning the sweetness of sunshine; the rise and fall of the ground; the incessant turns and sinuosities of the pathway, every separate item is a treat, and yet the ravishing spectacle of all, at the season referred to, has still to be named. This consists in the inexpressible, the infinite multitude of the bluebells, which far surpasses that of the old Reddish valley. They saturate every slope and recess that is in any degree shady, and diffuse themselves even upon the otherwise bare hill–sides, not in a thin and niggardly way, but with the semblance of an azure mist. In many parts, at the edges of the little groves, where the ground is steep, they seem to be flowing in streams into the meadows beneath, and where there are breaks among the nearer trees they actually illuminate the opening. When the spectacle of the bluebells comes to an end, the walk continues along a beautiful green arcade, straight, level, and uninterrupted into the village.

By whichever of the two routes we prefer to go to Macclesfield, that ancient and celebrated town becomes in itself a new and excellent starting point. If desiring to go beyond, the London and North–Western should be chosen. The massive heights on the way to Buxton, including the well–known and far–conspicuous mamelon called Shutlings Low, are accessible only by carriage or on foot. North Rode, on the other hand, is but a few minutes’ continued railway journey, and for this, if we come at all, the longest day is all too short. Just in front rises Cloud–end, the mighty promontory seen from the fields near Butts Clough [(p. 23)], covered with trees, the Vitis Idæa filling the open spaces, and plenty of nuts in the neighbouring hedgerows. Keeping the mountain to the left, descending the green lane, and passing, “on sufferance,” through North Rode Park, agreeable scenery on each side all the way, the end is that beau–ideal of a rural retreat, pretty Gawsworth. The ancient trees, the venerable church, the dignified old residences, all speak at once of a long–standing and undisturbed respectability such as few villages can now assert. In the graveyard stand patriarchal yews, one of them, reduced to a torso, encased in ivy, and protected on the weaker side by a little wall of steps, intended seemingly to make it useful as a tree–pulpit. Six great walnut–trees form part of the riches of the Hall, another pleasing old “magpie;” water also is near at hand, thronged with fishes that sport near the surface, and gliding through the sunbeams gleam like silver. To return to Macclesfield there is no need to retrace one’s steps to North Rode, the walk being short and pleasant, and rendered peculiarly interesting by its beech–trees, a long and noble avenue, if contemplated through an opera–glass never to be forgotten, for then the half–mile of leafy colonnade is brought close to the eye, a green and moving stereoscopic picture.

When at Gawsworth it is a pity to let slip the opportunity of visiting Marton, for the sake alike of its fine old hall, ancient church, and renowned oak. The hall, like so many others in this part of the country, is a black and white of the time of Elizabeth, supplying, in the material, yet another illustration of the ancient plenty in Cheshire of magnificent trees; Lancashire, though it contains many old halls and manor–houses of the same character, presenting a far more considerable proportion of stone ones. In the old “magpies,” very generally, so vast is the quantity of wood that one is disposed to exclaim—Surely when this house was raised a forest must have been felled. Inside there are many very interesting relics, as one would expect in a primitive seat of the old owners of Bramhall. The church, built in 1343, is in the style of Peover and the oldest portion of Warburton, the aisles being separated from the nave by oaken pillars. As for the “Marton oak,” it needs only to say that in dimensions it is an acknowledged rival of the Cowthorpe, the circumference at a yard from the ground being fifty feet, and at the height of a man more than forty feet. It can hardly be called a “trunk,” if by that word we are to understand a solid mass of timber, the inner portion having long since decayed, leaving only a shell, though the branches above are still vigorous and clothed every season with unabating foliage.

Three or four miles beyond North Rode ancient Congleton comes in view, opening the way, if we care to enter Staffordshire, to Biddulph Grange, renowned for its gardens. Mow Cop, just on the frontiers, awaits those who love mountain air. Trentham Park, fifteen miles further, or about forty–three from Manchester, is the seat, as well–known, of the Duke of Sutherland; and not far, again, from this is the Earl of Shrewsbury’s—Alton Towers. To reach the latter, we diverge from North Rode along the Churnet Valley line, the same which leads, in the first instance, to the beautiful neighbourhood of Rushton, famed for its ancient church, the untouched beams of the same date as Beeston Castle; then past Rudyard Lake and the delicious woods appertaining to Cliffe Hall. The view from Rushton churchyard is one for painters. The valley, receding southwards, encloses the smooth expanse of Rudyard, which, though no more than a reservoir, has all the winning ways of a Coniston or a Windermere, seeking to elude one’s view by reliance on friendly trees. In the north and east the hills rise terrace–wise, range beyond range, each remoter one of different hue, Shutlings Low, that beautiful mamelon, towering above all, and more effectively than as contemplated from any other point we know of. After this comes the lovely walk through the woods themselves, the water visible, intermittently, all the way, with at last pause for rest, in Rudyard village. It is not a little singular that Rudyard, like the reservoir at Lymm, should have for its parent a river Dane, though here the stream does not vanish, the Rudyard Dane being the boundary of the two counties, Cheshire and Staffordshire.

Alton Towers, a trifle further, illustrate in the finest manner what can be achieved by the skill of the landscape gardener. At the time of Waterloo the grounds were simple rabbit–warren, and the site of the present mansion was occupied by only a cottage. Worthily is it inscribed, just within the garden gate, “He made the desert smile,” the he being Charles, the sixteenth earl, under whose directions the work was executed. The framework consists of two deep and winding valleys, which lose themselves in a third of similar character. Over their slopes have been diffused terraces, arbours, ivied grottoes, trees and shrubs innumerable, green cypresses that rise like spires among the round sycamores, and rhododendrons that in May, looked at across the chasm, seem changed to purple sea–foam. Wherever practicable, there have been added waterfalls and aspiring fountains, and threading in every direction there are moss–grown and apparently interminable sylvan paths. From many points of view, the scene is one no doubt that would have captivated Claude or Salvator Rosa. Still, it must be confessed that the impression, after survey, which lingers longest in the mind is of something not simply lavish, but inordinate. Very beautiful, without question, as an essay in constructive art, therefore invaluable educationally, one falls back, nevertheless, when departing, on the thought of tranquil Norcliffe, that never tires. The earl, it may be interesting to add, to whom the Alton grounds owe their existence, represented by lineal descent the famous Talbot of the Maid of Orleans’ story. When we part with him, we may run on, if we please, to Rocester Junction, and thence to Ashbourne, the threshold of Dovedale, there to chat with immortal Izaak Walton.

Shutlings Low, the old familiar and far–seen mamelon above–mentioned, the only one we know of in Cheshire, is considered also to be the highest ground in the county, the summit reaching an elevation of over seventeen hundred feet. The view which rewards the rather stiff climb is like that from the crest of Mow Cop, not only vast in compass, but very agreeably new, from commanding as much as the eye can embrace of Staffordshire. The ascent is best made from Wild Boar Clough, itself the most picturesque of the many wild ravines which betoken the near neighbourhood of Derbyshire. For pedestrians the walk from Macclesfield to Buxton is also a glorious one, Axe Edge intervening, with at about a hundred feet below its topmost point the celebrated hostelry, reputed to exceed in elevation even the “Travellers’ Rest” in Kirkstone Pass, and which in name commemorates faithful Caton, Caton fidèle.

CHAPTER X.
DISLEY AND MARPLE WAY.

So shalt thou keep thy memory green,
And redolent as balmy noon
With happiness, for love makes glad;
Child–natures never lose their June.

S. E. TONKIN.

WHEN the L. and N. W. opened its branch from Stockport to Buxton, June 15th, 1863, every one loving the country had visions of immense delight among the sweet and then scarcely known hills of Disley and Marple. Previously, they were no more than an element of the scenery observed from the Buxton coach. Since then we have better understood the meaning of those grateful lines,

You gave me such sweet breath as made
The things more rich.

For if the fronts of these beautiful hills be sometimes rugged, there are none that the western breezes better love to caress, nor are there any that welcome the sunshine with a more strenuous hospitality. Disley and Marple count not with the places which the sunshine only flatters; they are always cheerful and pretty, whether it be the hottest day of July, or winter, or spring. Even after a storm, be it ever so vehement, they recover themselves as rapidly as a child’s cheek after the tears. How great and affable, too, their landscapes!—how bright their lawn–like pastures, where tricolour daisies bloom all the year round: there are woods moreover, in the recesses, where we may bathe our eyes in the sweet calm that comes only of green shade, and that like the airy summits up above, give at the same moment both animation and repose.

Disley is known to most of us as the first station after Hazel–grove, and the point from which departure is taken for Lyme Park. Intermediately there is a delightful walk, reaching the greater part of the distance, upon the right–hand side of the line, through the sylvan covert called Middlewood. The wood is not “preserved.” It is semi–private, nevertheless, so that permission to pass through ought to be asked; it is rare, even then, to hear any voices except our own and those of the birds. Either to ascend, or to proceed by train direct to Disley, and enter the wood at the head, is, in its way advantageous. The latter is, perhaps, the better course, since we then accompany the stream,—one of the very few so near Manchester still unpolluted. The water is the same as that which flows past Bramhall, running thence to Cheadle, where its bubbles swim into the Mersey. Middlewood, unfortunately for its primitive charm, has recently shared the fate of Gatley Carrs, so that the path is now very inconveniently obstructed, and the Bramhall part of this pretty brook, instead of being the inferior, is to–day, perhaps, after all, the most pleasing. Comparisons may be spared. The meadows it traverses were never wanting in any substantial element of pastoral charm, and if a thing be good absolutely, what need to ask for more? The way to them is viâ Cheadle Hulme, then to Lady Bridge, as far as Bramhall–green, there crossing the road, and stepping anew upon the grass, where the path returns to the water–side. Hence, we go on to Mill–bank farm, told at once by its three great yews, and for the return may take Hazel–grove.

The broad green slopes and expanses of Lyme Park, though they partake of the loneliness of the neighbouring moors, are, as indicated above, pleasant at every season of the year. Nature, in truth, is always good, no matter what the season is, if the people are so who seek it. As we traverse them, in the south–west the eye rests upon the great plain that stretches to Bowdon; upon the left, on a swelling height, is the far–seen square grey tower called Lyme Cage, clearly intended, when built, for a huntsman’s refuge; and passing this it is not far to the hall, upon which, being in a hollow, one comes so suddenly as to be reminded of the adventures of the knights–errant in tales of chivalry. A very fine quadrangular gritstone building, partly Corinthian, partly Ionic, some portion is nevertheless of the time of Elizabeth. The interior is also very various, in many portions stately and richly ornamented, and literally crowded almost everywhere with works of art, including a rude picture of the original hall in the time of King John, with portraits, heraldry, tapestry, stained glass, and wood–carving enough to satisfy the most ravenous. The rare mosaic of fact and fiction currently accepted as the family history of the Leghs is well sustained by the armour and other antiquities, not the least interesting of which is the font in the chapel, in which for ages the youthful scions of the house have been baptized. There is very little timber in the park, though on the borders not wanting. The most remarkable feature, as regards trees, is an avenue of over seventy lindens.

Tho. Letherbrow.
Lyme Hall.

[Larger image] (194 kB)

The supreme part of Disley is that which lies on the contrary side of the station, consisting in the green and lofty crest called Jackson Edge. This is reached by going a short distance along the Buxton road, then mounting a steep ascent upon the left, cottages on either side, and eventually through a lane upon the right. Due west from the summit, like a garden viewed from a balcony, the plain seen from Lyme Park is displayed even more variously. When satisfied, we may curl round by the stone–quarries, then through the fir–wood, and so back into Disley village,—a little tour just enough for those who not being very strong of limb, still go shares with the strongest in zest for mountain breath and extended prospects; or we may leave Disley again behind, and, crossing a few meadows, mount glorious Marple Ridge.[17] Here the prospect becomes wider and more varied still: filling one also with astonishment that so much can be commanded at the cost of so little labour. The fact is that the railway does half the climbing for us, the line from Hazel Grove to Disley being almost a slope. Standing with our backs to Disley village, on the right towers the great green pyramid called Cobden Edge; then come the hills that rise above Whaley Bridge and Taxal, Kinder Scout resting upon their shoulders. In front are hills again, Werneth Low, always identified by the sky–line fringe of trees; Stirrup–benches and Charlesworth Coombs, and the three–hill–churches always remembered by their corresponding initial, Marple, Mellor, and Mottram, with Chadkirk and Compstall in the valley. Southwards, Lyme Cage and Lyme Hall, the latter half–hidden among its trees, are discoverable; and due west is the great plain now familiar,—that one which includes Vale Royal, and reaches to Chester. Let all who make a pilgrimage hither remember, as when they visit Gawsworth, to bring their opera–glasses, which however useful when there is curiosity as to a cantatrice, have nowhere a more excellent use than on the mountain–side. Cobden Edge, from its greatly superior altitude, overlooks even Marple Ridge! To reach it, after leaving Disley station, cross the wood a little beyond the hotel, and go down a steep lane, arriving presently at a slit in the wall upon the right, through which it is necessary to sidle as best one may. The canal has then to be crossed, and the river Goyt, after which there is a little glen leading the way to the path up the hill. On the top, all the grandeurs of Marple Ridge are renewed five–fold. Alderley has nearly subsided into the plain. Beeston Castle is conspicuous. Some say they can descry the great Ormes–head. Pursuing the road along the crest of the hill, we soon arrive at Marple village; or descending from it, upon the right, get almost as soon into the beautiful valley of the Goyt. Both, however, since 1867, have been rendered so much more easily accessible by means of the Midland railway, that they may be left for another chapter, the more particularly since a few miles’ continued ride from Disley brings us to another charming neighbourhood—that one which comprises the above–mentioned Whaley Bridge and Taxal.

The most manageable of the many pleasant walks within reach of the latter, is that one which leads to Taxal church, following the high road till a white gate upon the right opens into meadows descending into a dell, where the swift and limpid waters, if they do not exactly make “shallow falls,” at all events invite the birds to sing their madrigals. Quitting the dell, the path is once again upwards, soon reaching the church, and after leaving this, through the grove of trees and along the foot of the reservoir, the overflow from which often seems a rushing snowdrift. This fine sheet of water is one of several similar storages prepared for the Peak Forest Canal, and supplies an admirable illustration of the service rendered to scenery by business enterprise, which if it sometimes destroys or mutilates, as in the case of Gatley Carrs, compensates in the gift of broad and shining lakes. An excellent characteristic of the great Lancashire and Cheshire reservoirs is that ordinarily, when in the country, like this one at Taxal, they resemble, as nearly as possible, natural meres. Established, as at Lymm, by damming up the narrow outlet of some little valley through which a stream descends, the water, as it accumulates, is allowed, as far as practicable, to determine its own boundaries; hence, excepting the one inevitable straight line required for the dam, though this can sometimes be dispensed with, the margin winds, the banks become shore–like, and the landscape is exquisitely enriched. No landscape is perfectly beautiful without water, and nowhere has so much been done undesignedly for scenic beauty than in our two adjacent counties. The same is true of the addition given by noble railway–arches to hollows filled with trees. Scenery impregnated with the outcome of human intelligence and human skill must needs, in the long run, always take deepest hold of our admiration, for the simple reason that human nature is there; just as the most precious and delightful part of home is that which is superadded by human affection. From the high grounds above the water the outlook is wonderfully romantic; when upon the crest of the hill there is an inviting walk also under the trees. For the vigorous, the best part of Taxal is after all upon the Derbyshire instead of the Cheshire side of the river, mounting continuously for two or three miles, and so eventually reaching Eccles Pike—a grand, green, round hill in the middle of a huge green basin. Beyond Whaley Bridge come in turn Doveholes and Buxton.

At Buxton, once the El Dorado of local naturalists, the visitor finds picturesque beauty and historical associations, even if he be not in search of the recruited health which this celebrated old town is supposed to be always so willing to supply. Plenty of exhilarating rambles may be found within the compass of an afternoon, the hills being lofty, while for those who cannot climb there is the romantic valley of the Wye, called Ashwood Dale.

CHAPTER XI.
BY THE MIDLAND LINE.

But the dell,
Bathed in the mist, is fresh and delicate
As vernal corn–field, or the unripe flax,
When through its half–transparent stalks at eve
The level sunshine glimmers with green light.

S. T. COLERIDGE.

THE opening of the Midland line through Marple, like that of the L. & N. W. through Disley, was hailed with immense delight by all lovers of country rambles. Access thereto previously was possible only on foot, or by canal, and in either case the journey was rather long. Chadkirk, soon reached, is a celebrated old village thought by some to preserve the name of the once greatly–honoured patron–saint commemorated also in Chadderton, Chaddock, Chatburn, and Chat Moss; by others, to refer to one “Earl Cedda.” Be that as it may, the tradition of the old missionary’s once abiding here still clings to Chadkirk, and a clear spring by the roadside, upon the left, going up the hill near the church, and now lined with mosses, is to this day “St. Chad’s well.” The earliest ecclesiastical notice of the place does not occur till temp. Henry VIII. The hill itself, Werneth Low, is one of the highest in Cheshire, and the first of several such in that odd piece of the county which runs away to the north–east, stretched forth, as an old topographer says, “like the wing of an eagle.” Like all the other eminences hereabouts, it commands very noble and extensive views. So complete, in truth, is the look–out in all directions from the summit, that to walk from end to end, is like pacing a watch–tower. The plains of Cheshire and South Lancashire lie to the west; Lyme, Marple, and Disley are seen to the south; and eastwards there are inviting bits of Derbyshire, here separated from Cheshire by the Etherowe, the opposite side charmingly clothed by the Ernocroft woods, while in the distance rise the vast moorlands of Charlesworth and Glossop. If bound for Werneth Low it is best, perhaps, after all, to quit the train at Woodley, or to make our way to that place from Parkwood. In any case, until Werneth Low has been ascended, knowledge of our local scenery is decidedly immature.

The long and beautifully wooded glen extending from Romiley to Marple is Chadkirk Vale, and the stream, not as some suppose, the Mersey, but the above–named Goyt. That it is marked as the Mersey in Speed, and again in the Ordnance map, no doubt is true. White also calls it the Mersey,—all who do this considering that the Mersey begins with the confluence of the Etherowe with the Goyt, about half–a–mile below Compstall bridge. But the real point of commencing is where the Goyt is joined by the Tame, that is to say, a little below Portwood bridge, in the north–western suburb of Stockport. The ramble up the vale is in every portion delightful, closing in a deep ravine or clough called Marple Dell, the upper extremity spanned by the three great arches of “Marple Aqueduct.” The height of this celebrated work from the bed of the river is nearly a hundred feet; yet, to–day it is overtopped by the Midland viaduct, from which, as we glide past, the dell is seen half as much again below. Aqueducts are common enough, and so are viaducts, but it is seldom that we have the opportunity of contemplating at the same moment a twofold series of arches of equal grandeur, the viaduct consisting of no fewer than thirteen. Everywhere right and left of the Goyt, hereabouts, there are unforbidden and usually quiet and shady paths, some of them possibly entered more readily by the ancient foot–roads from near Bredbury and Hazel–grove, but all converging towards Marple village. Three or four of the most interesting little cloughs or dells within the same distance of Manchester are here associated, the prettiest, perhaps, being those called Dan–bank wood and Marple wood. Lovely strolls are at command also by aiming for Otterspool Bridge, these chiefly through meadows and by the rapid river, which, when not perplexed by shifting islands and peninsulas, decked with willow–herb and butter–bur, glides with a stilly smoothness quite remarkable for one so shallow. At Otterspool the rush of water is sometimes very strong. In the olden times it was similar at Stockport, though now subdued by the constant casting in of dirt, if there be truth, that is, in the record that in 1745, when the Stockport bridge was blown up in order to check the retreat of the Pretender, it ran beneath the arches “with great fury.” Upon the western banks of the Goyt, not very far from Chadkirk, perched upon a romantic natural terrace, there is another very interesting and celebrated Elizabethan mansion, Marple Old Hall, the more pleasing since, though subjected in 1659 to rather considerable alterations, it appears to retain all the best of the original characteristics. It is now draped also, in part, with luxuriant ivy. The historical incidents connected with Marple Hall are well known,—those, at least, which gather round the name of Cromwell. To our own mind there is something better yet,—the spectacle in the earliest months of spring of the innumerable snowdrops, these dressing the woods and slopes with their immaculate purity, almost to the water’s edge.

Proceeding direct to Marple by the Midland, the choicest of the many walks now at command begins with descent of the hill upon the left, then, as soon as the river is reached,—keeping as near it as may be practicable,—through the lanes and meadows as far as “Arkwright’s Mill.” No Ancoats mill is this one. Originally called “Bottoms Mill,” it was erected in 1790 by the celebrated Mr. Samuel Oldknow, of whom so many memorials exist in the neighbourhood, including a lettered tablet in Marple church, and who would seem to have been associated with Arkwright in many of his most important undertakings. The mill in question was built, as Mr. Joel Wainwright correctly states,[18] upon the lines of the famous one at Cromford. Embosomed in a romantic valley, and surrounded by fine trees, among which are walnuts—for in tree–planting, as in other things, Mr. Oldknow displayed exceptional good taste—it gives the idea less of a cotton–mill than of some great institute or retreat, and proves that in the country, at least, scenes of manufacturing need not by any means be, as usual, depôts of ugliness. Soon after passing the mill, the path continues by the river–side, through pleasant meads and under the shadow of the trees to the point where the stream is crossed by Windybottom Bridge, where the hill has now to be ascended, either leftwards for Marple Ridge and Disley, or turning to the right for Marple village. Either way, the walk is delightful, and always at an end too soon. Another charming way from Arkwright’s mill to the bridge is along the slope on the Derbyshire side of the water, called Strawberry Hill, but this is only for the privileged. Down in this sequestered valley, if we love the sight of wild–flowers, there is always great store; in May the fragrant wild–anise, and in autumn the campanula.

A third excellent Marple walk is to go up the hill from the station, turn instantly to the right just above the line, and alongside of it, and at the distance of a hundred yards or so find our way to the bank of the canal, crossing this and entering the fields through a stile. The path then goes past Lea Hey farm, and after awhile past Nab Top farm, beautiful prospects all the way. On the right, far below, we now soon have the river, eventually treading the meadows called Marple Dale, through which it meanders, and at the end of which the path mounts through the wood and enters Marple Park, the way back to the village now self–declared.