England, Picturesque and Descriptive Part 2

[Ill.u.s.tration: BARMOUTH ESTUARY.]

Let us penetrate into the interior by going up the romantic valley of the Mawddach and viewing the frowning sides of the chief Merioneth mountain, Cader Idris, which towers on the right hand to the height of 3100 feet. It is a long ridge rather than a peak, and steep precipices guard the upper portion. Two little lakes near the summit, enclosed by cliffs, afford magnificent scenery. Here is "Idris's Chair," where the grim magician, who used to make the mountain his home, sat to perform his incantations, whilst in a hollow at the summit he had his couch.

According to Welsh tradition, whoever pa.s.sed the night there would emerge in the morning either mad or a poet. This mountain, like Snowdon, is said to have been formerly a volcano, and legends tell of the fiery outbursts that came from its craters, now occupied by the two little lakes. But the truth of these legends, though interwoven into Welsh poetry, is denied by prosaic geologists. A rough and steep track, known as the "Fox's Path," leads to the summit, and there is a fine view northward across the valleys to the distant summits of Snowdon and its attendant peaks, while spread at our feet to the westward is the broad expanse of Cardigan Bay. Lakes abound in the lowlands, and, pursuing the road up the Mawddach we pa.s.s the "Pool of the Three Pebbles." Once upon a time three stones got into the shoe of the giant Idris as he was walking about his domain, and he stopped here and threw them out. Here they still remain--three ponderous boulders--in the lake.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CADER IDRIS, ON THE TALY-SLYN ASCENT.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: RHAYADR-Y-MAWDDACH.]

We leave the Mawddach and follow its tributary, the little river Wnion, as it ripples along over its pebbly bed guarded by strips of meadow.

Soon we come to the lovely "Village of the Hazels," Dolgelly, standing in the narrow valley, and probably the prettiest spot in Wales. Steep hills rise on either hand, with bare craggy summits and the lower slopes richly wooded. Deep dells running into the hills vary the scenery, and thus the town is set in an amphitheatre of hills, up whose flanks the houses seem to climb. There is a little old church, and in a back court the ruins of the "Parliament House," where Owen Glendower a.s.sembled the Welsh Parliament in 1404. The Torrent Walk, where the stream from the mountain is spanned by picturesque bridges, is a favorite resort of the artist, and also one of the most charming bits of scenery in the neighborhood of this beautiful town. Pursuing the valley farther up and crossing the watershed, we come to the largest inland water of Wales, the beautiful Bala Lake, heretofore referred to in describing the river Dee, which drains it. It is at an elevation of six hundred feet, surrounded by mountain-peaks, and the possibility of making it available as a water-supply for London has been considered.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DOLGELLY.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: OWEN GLENDOWER'S PARLIAMENT HOUSE.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE LOWER BRIDGE, TORRENT WALK, DOLGELLY.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: BALA LAKE.]

There is an attractive place on the Merioneth coast to the southward of Barmouth, at the mouth of the Rheidol, and near the estuary of the river Dovey. A ruined tower on a low eminence guards the harbor, where now is a fas.h.i.+onable watering-place, and is almost all that remains of the once powerful Aberystwith Castle, another stronghold of King Edward I.

Portions of the entrance-gate and barbican can be traced, while the modern houses of the town are spread to the northward along the semicircular bay. The University College of Wales is located here, and the town is popularly known as the "Welsh Brighton," while among its antiquities in the suburbs is the ruined castellated mansion of Plas Crug, said to have been Glendower's home. On the northern part of the Merioneth coast is the entrance to the pleasant vale of Pfestiniog, another attractive spot to tourists. Tan-y-bwlch and Maentwrog are romantic villages adjoining each other in this pretty valley full of waterfalls, among these being the renowned Black Cataract and the Raven Fall.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ABERYSTWITH.]

About twelve miles north of Barmouth the picturesque Harlech Castle stands on a promontory guarding the entrance to the Traeth. The cliff is precipitous, with just enough level surface on the top to accommodate the castle. The place is a quadrangle, with ma.s.sive round towers at the corners connected by lofty curtain-walls. Circular towers, protected by a barbican, guard the entrance on the land side. Deep ditches cut in the rock surround the castle where that defence is necessary. From this fortress on the Rock of Harlech the view is magnificent. This crag is said to have supported a castle as early as the third century, when Lady Bronwen built it, and, being of most sensitive honor, died afterwards of grief because her husband had struck her. Unhappily, she was in advance of her age in her demonstration of woman's rights. Another castle replaced the first one in the sixth century, and some of its ruins were worked into the present castle, which is another achievement of the great Welsh fortress-builder, Edward I. It has stood several sieges.

Owen Glendower held it five years against the English. When Edward IV.

became king, Harlech still held out for the Lancastrian party, the redoubtable Welshman, David ap Ifon, being the governor. Summoned to surrender, the brave David replied, "I held a town in France till all the old women in Wales heard of it, and now I will hold a castle in Wales till all the old women in France hear of it." But David was starved into surrender, and then Edward IV. tried to break the terms of capitulation made by Sir Richard Pembroke, the besieger. Sir Richard, more generous, told the king, "Then, by Heaven, I will let David and his garrison into Harlech again, and Your Highness may fetch him out by any who can, and if you demand my life for his, take it." The song of "The March of the Men of Harlech" is a memorial of this siege. Harlech was the last Welsh fortress during the Civil Wars that held out for Charles I., and since then it has been gradually falling to decay.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HARLECH CASTLE.]

We have now conducted the tourist to the chief objects in North Wales.

The railway runs on to Holyhead, built on the extreme point of Holy Island on the western verge of Anglesea, where there is a fine harbor of refuge, lighthouses, and an excellent port. Here comes the "Wild Irishman," as the fast train is called that runs between London and Ireland, and its pa.s.sengers are quickly transferred to the swift steamers that cross the Channel to Dublin harbor. Lighthouses dot the cliffs on the coast, and at this romantic outpost we will close the survey of North Wales.

"There ever-dimpling Ocean's cheek Reflects the tints of many a peak, Caught by the laughing tides that lave Those Edens of the Western wave."

II.

LIVERPOOL, NORTHWARD TO THE SCOTTISH BORDER.

Lancas.h.i.+re--Warrington--Manchester--Furness Abbey--The Ribble--Stonyhurst--Lancaster Castle--Isle of Man--Castletown--Rushen Castle--Peele Castle--The Lake Country--Windermere--Lodore Fall--Derwent.w.a.ter--Keswick--Greta Hall--Southey, Wordsworth and Coleridge--Skiddaw--The Border Castles--Kendal Castle--Brougham Hall--The Solway--Carlisle Castle--Scaleby Castle--Naworth--Lord William Howard.

LANCAs.h.i.+RE.

[Ill.u.s.tration: OLD MARKET, WARRINGTON.]

The great manufacturing county of England for cotton and woollen spinning and weaving is Lancas.h.i.+re. Liverpool is the seaport for the vast aggregation of manufacturers who own the huge mills of Manchester, Salford, Warrington, Wigan, Oldham, Rochdale, Bolton, Blackburn, Preston, and a score of other towns, whose operatives work into yarns and fabrics the millions of bales of cotton and wool that come into the Mersey. The warehouse and factory, with the spinners' cottages and the manufacturers' villas, make up these towns, almost all of modern growth, and the busy machinery and smoking chimneys leave little chance for romance in Southern Lancas.h.i.+re. It was in this section that trade first compelled the use of modern improvements: here were used the earliest steam-engines; here labored Arkwright to perfect the spinning machinery, and Stephenson to build railways. To meet the necessities of communication between Liverpool and Manchester, the first ca.n.a.l was dug in England, and this was followed afterwards by the first experimental railway; the ca.n.a.l was constructed by Brindley, and was called the "Grand Trunk Ca.n.a.l," being twenty-eight miles long from Manchester to the Mersey River, at Runcorn above Liverpool, and was opened in 1767.

The railway was opened in 1830; the odd little engine, the "Rocket,"

then drew an excursion-train over it, and the opening was marred by an accident which killed Joseph Huskisson, one of the members of Parliament for Liverpool. Let us follow this railway, which now carries an enormous traffic out of Liverpool, eastward along the valley of the Mersey past Warrington, with its quaint old timbered market-house, and then up its tributary, the Irwell, thirty-one miles to Manchester.

MANCHESTER.

The chief manufacturing city of England has not a striking effect upon the visitor as he approaches it. It is scattered over a broad surface upon a gently undulating plain, and its suburbs straggle out into the country villages, which it is steadily absorbing in its rapid growth; the Irwell pa.s.ses in a winding course through the city, receiving a couple of tributaries; this river divides Manchester from Salford, but a dozen bridges unite them. No city in England has had such rapid growth as Manchester in this century; it has increased from about seventy thousand people at the beginning of the century to over half a million now; and this is all the effect of the development of manufacturing industry. Yet Manchester is one of the oldest towns in England, for there was a Roman camp at Mancunium, as the Caesars called it, in the first century of the Christian era; and we are also told that in the days when giants lived in England it was the scene of a terrific combat between Sir Launcelot of the Lake and the giant Tarquin. A ballad tells the story, but it is easier read in prose: Sir Launcelot was travelling near Manchester when he heard that this giant held in durance vile a number of knights--"threescore and four" in all; a damsel conducts him to the giant's castle-gate, "near Manchester, fair town," where a copper basin hung to do duty as a bell; he strikes it so hard as to break it, when out comes the giant ready for the fray; a terrific combat ensues, and the giant, finding that he has met his match, offers to release the captives, provided his adversary is not a certain knight that slew his brother. Unfortunately, it happens that Sir Launcelot is the very same, and the combat is renewed with such vigor that the giant is slain, "to the great contentment of many persons."

The ancient Mancunium was a little camp and city of about twelve acres, partly bounded by a tributary of the Irwell known as the Medlock. A ditch on the land-side was still visible in the last century, and considerable portions of the old Roman walls also remained within two hundred years. Many Roman relics have been discovered in the city, and at Knott Mill, the site of the giant Tarquin's castle, a fragment of the Roman wall is said to be still visible. The town in the early Tudor days had a college, and then a cathedral, and it was besieged in the Civil Wars, though it steadily grew, and in Charles II.'s time it was described as a busy and opulent place; but it had barely six thousand people. Cotton-spinning had then begun, the cotton coming from Cyprus and Smyrna. In 1700 life in Manchester, as described in a local guide-book, was noted by close application to business; the manufacturers were in their warehouses by six in the morning, breakfasted at seven on bowls of porridge and milk, into which masters and apprentices dipped their spoons indiscriminately, and dined at twelve; the ladies went out visiting at two in the afternoon, and attended church at four. Manchester was conservative in the Jacobite rebellion, and raised a regiment for the Pretender, but the royalist forces defeated it, captured the officers, and beheaded them. Manchester politics then were just the opposite of its present Liberal tendencies, and it was Byrom, a Manchester man, who wrote the quaint epigram regarding the Pretender and his friends which has been so often quoted:

"G.o.d bless the King--I mean our faith's defender!

G.o.d bless (no harm in blessing) the Pretender!

But who Pretender is, or who is King-- G.o.d bless us all!--that's quite another thing."

[Ill.u.s.tration: MANCHESTER CATHEDRAL. FROM THE SOUTH-EAST.]

It was the rapid growth of manufacturing industry in Manchester that changed its politics, and it was here that was first conspicuously advocated the free-trade agitation in England which triumphed in the repeal of the Corn Laws, so as to admit food free of duty for the operatives, and in the Reform bill that changed the representation in Parliament. That fine building, the "Free-Trade Hall," is a monument of this agitation in which Manchester took such prominent part. As the city has grown in wealth, so has its architectural appearance improved; its school-and college-buildings are very fine, particularly Owens College, munificently endowed by a leading merchant. The Manchester Cathedral is an ancient building overlooking the Irwell which has had to be renewed in so many parts that it has a comparatively modern aspect.

Other English cathedrals are more imposing, but this, "the ould paroch church" spoken of by the ancient chroniclers, is highly prized by the townsfolk; the architecture is Perpendicular and of many dates. Until recently this was the only parish church in Manchester, and consequently all the marriages for the city had to be celebrated there; the number was at times very large, especially at Easter, and not a few tales are told of how, in the confusion, the wrong pairs were joined together, and when the mistake was discovered respliced with little ceremony. It was in this Manchester Cathedral that one rector is said to have generally begun the marriage service by instructing the awaiting crowd to "sort yourselves in the vestry."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE a.s.sIZE COURTS, MANCHESTER.]

Some of the public buildings in Manchester are most sumptuous. The a.s.size Courts are constructed in rich style, with lofty Pointed roofs and a tall tower, and make one of the finest modern buildings in England. The great hall is a grand apartment, and behind the courts is the prison, near which the Fenians in 1867 made the celebrated rescue of the prisoners from the van for which some of the a.s.sailants were hanged and others transported. The Royal Exchange is a ma.s.sive structure in the Italian style, with a fine portico, dome, and towers; the hall within is said to be probably the largest room in England, having a width of ceiling, without supports, of one hundred and twenty feet. Here on cotton-market days a.s.semble the buyers and sellers from all the towns in Lancas.h.i.+re, and they do an enormous traffic. The new Town-Hall is also a fine building, where the departments of the city government are accommodated, and where they have an apartment dear to every Englishman's heart--"a kitchen capable of preparing a banquet for eight hundred persons." The warehouses of Manchester are famous for their size and solidity, and could Arkwright come back and see what his cotton-spinning machinery has produced, he would be amazed. It was in Manchester that the famous Dr. Dalton, the founder of the atomic theory in chemistry, lived; he was a devout Quaker, like so many of the townspeople, but unfortunately was color-blind; he appeared on one occasion in a scarlet waistcoat, and when taken to task declared it seemed to him a very quiet, un.o.btrusive color, just like his own coat.

Several fine parks grace the suburbs of Manchester, and King Cotton has made this thriving community the second city in England, while for miles along the beautifully shaded roads that lead into the suburbs the opulent merchants and manufacturers have built their ornamental villas.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE ROYAL EXCHANGE, MANCHESTER.]

FURNESS AND STONYHURST

[Ill.u.s.tration: FURNESS ABBEY.]

The irregularly-shaped district of Lancas.h.i.+re partly cut off from the remainder of the county by an arm of the Irish Sea is known as Furness.

It is a wild and rugged region, best known from the famous Furness Abbey and its port of Barrow-in-Furness, one of the most remarkable examples in England of quick city growth. Forty years ago this was an insignificant fis.h.i.+ng village; now Barrow has magnificent docks and a fine harbor protected by the natural breakwater of Walney Island, great iron-foundries and the largest jute-manufactory in the world; while it has recently also became a favorite port for iron s.h.i.+pbuilding. About two miles distant, and in a romantic glen called the Valley of Deadly Nightshade, not far from the sea, is one of the finest examples of mediaeval church-architecture in England, the ruins of Furness Abbey, founded in the twelfth century by King Stephen and Maud, his queen. It was a splendid abbey, standing high in rank and power, its income in the reign of Edward I. being $90,000 a year, an enormous sum for that early day. The ruins are in fine preservation, and effigies of Stephen and Maud are on each side of the great east window. For twelve reigns the charters of sovereigns and bulls of popes confirmed the abbots of Furness in their extraordinary powers, which extended over the district of Furness, while the situation of the abbey made them military chieftains, and they erected a watch-tower on a high hill, from which signals alarmed the coast on the approach of an enemy. The church is three hundred and four feet long, and from the centre rose a tower, three of the ma.s.sive supporting pillars of which remain, but the tower has fallen and lies a ma.s.s of rubbish; the stained gla.s.s from the great east window having been removed to Bowness Church, in Westmorelands.h.i.+re.

The abbey enclosure, covering eighty-five acres, was surrounded by a wall, the ruins of which are now covered with thick foliage. This renowned abbey was surrendered and dismantled in Henry VIII.'s reign; the present hotel near the ruins was formerly the abbot's residence.

The river Ribble, which flows into the Irish Sea through a wide estuary, drains the western slopes of the Pennine Hills, which divide Lancas.h.i.+re from Yorks.h.i.+re. Up in the north-western portion of Lancas.h.i.+re, near the bases of these hills, is a moist region known as the parish of Mitton, where, as the poet tells us,

"The Hodder, the Calder, Ribble, and rain All meet together in Mitton domain."

In Mitton parish, amid the woods along the Hodder and on the north side of the valley of the Ribble, stands the splendid domed towers of the baronial edifice of Stonyhurst, now the famous Jesuit College of England, where the sons of the Catholic n.o.bility and gentry are educated. The present building is about three hundred years old, and quaint gardens adjoin it, while quite an extensive park surrounds the college. Not far away are Clytheroe Castle and the beautiful ruins of Whalley Abbey. The Stonyhurst gardens are said to remain substantially as their designer, Sir Nicholas Sherburne, left them. A capacious water-basin is located in the centre, with the leaden statue of Regulus in chains standing in the midst of the water. Summer-houses with tall pointed roofs are at each lower extremity of the garden, while an observatory is upon a commanding elevation. Tall screens of clipped yews, cut square ten feet high and five feet thick, divide the beds upon one side of the gardens, so that as you walk among them you are enveloped in a green yet pleasant solitude. Arched doorways are cut through the yews, and in one place, descending by broad and easy steps, there is a solemn, cool, and twilight walk formed by the overarching yews, the very place for religious meditation. Then, reascending, this sombre walk opens into air and suns.h.i.+ne amid delicious flower-gardens.

On the opposite side of the gardens are walls hung with fruit, and plantations of kitchen vegetables. This charming place was fixed upon by the Jesuits for their college in 1794, when driven from Liege by the proscriptions of the French Revolution. The old building and the additions then erected enclose a large quadrangular court. In the front of the college, at the southern angle, is a fine little Gothic church, built fifty years ago. The college refectory is a splendid baronial hall. In the Mitton village-church near by are the tombs of the Sherburne family, the most singular monument being that to Sir Richard and his lady, which the villagers point out as "old Fiddle o' G.o.d and his wife"--Fiddle o' G.o.d being his customary exclamation when angry, which tradition says was not seldom. The figures are kneeling--he in ruff and jerkin, she in black gown and hood, with tan-leather gloves extending up her arms. These figures, being highly colored, as was the fas.h.i.+on in the olden time, have a ludicrous appearance. We are told that when these monuments came from London they were the talk of the whole country round. A stonemason bragged that he could cut out as good a figure in common stone. Taken at his word, he was put to the test, and carved the effigy of a knight in freestone which so pleased the Sherburne family that they gave him one hundred dollars for it, and it is now set in the wall outside the church, near the monuments.

LANCASTER CASTLE.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CASTLE SQUARE, LANCASTER.]

John of Gaunt, "time-honored Lancaster," was granted the Duchy of Lancaster by his father, King Edward III., but the place which stands upon the river Lune is of much greater antiquity. It was a Roman camp, and hence its name. The Picts destroyed it when the Romans left; the Saxons afterwards restored it, and ultimately it gave the name to the county. King John gave the town a charter, and John of Gaunt rebuilt the fortress, which became indissolubly connected with the fortunes of the House of Lancaster. Though sometimes besieged, it was maintained more for purposes of state than of war, and two centuries ago it still existed in all its ancient splendor, commanding the city and the sea.