Jack’s Bridge! thy road is rough,But thy wild–flowers are sweet!
Jack’s Bridge! thy road is rough,But thy wild–flowers are sweet!
Other fields gradually lead on towards Moston, several of them containing large “pits,” or ponds, where, in July the white water–lily may be seen in its lustrous bloom, and the Comarum, covered with its deep–red blossoms and ripening fruit; and from there the way is easily found into the clough, which is entered about the middle. On the left, from this point, there is an enticing field–path by the side of the stream to the Blackley road; on the right we mount into the sylvan part, and see for ourselves how well merited is the reputation of this once–affrighting haunt of the boggart. All the charms of a leafy and flowery solitude are there assembled. Not those of the old, old forest, perfect in forest–ways, these we must not look for; but of the gentle ravine, wherein we cannot be lost, and which often pleases so much the more because less grand, since in all things while it is the great and sublime that weadmire, that which weloveis the little and measurable. Beautiful trees are here, that among their boughs give ever–pleasing glimpses of soft scenery, and in its season, white patches of bridal May,
The milk–white thorn that scents the evening gale,
and that never hinder the sight of the azure overhead; and if while pushing our way through the brown remains of last year’s ferns, brambles with their long arms and claws always seeking to clutch at the traveller, insist on plucking off one’s cap just to show that the way is “on sufferance;” well, never mind, a lively little rill running in parts through beds of wild mint makes a pleasant noise, and wherever a sparkle is wanted to relieve thestill and motionless, a silver eye or a glittering rapid is not awanting. Of course we must take with us a disposition to enjoy. “A song,” says some author, “is thrown away that is not in the same key as the listener.”
The clough is not distinguished by anything special in the way of plants, though we have gathered there fine sprigs of the sweet woodruff. As a retreat, however, from the noise and bustle of the town, and the only place of the kind in that direction, it must always be precious to the lover of nature. Unfortunately, the path has of late years become very much disturbed through the falling away of the bank, the steepness of which, and the weight of the trees, unprovided with sufficient anchorage by reason of the lightness of the soil, causes continual landslips, so that now there are in many places rather dangerous declivities. Many of the trees that once stood erect upon the brows, now lie ingloriously with their heads in the brook beneath, and their roots in the air. The increase of buildings about Newton and Failsworth, and the consequent incessant raids of destroying boys, have also tended of late years to mar the place considerably; and now, in 1882, it has to be said with deep regret, that the regular Sunday resort to Boggart–hole of the lowest roughs of the neighbouring villages, leaves it for the week–day visitor tattered and torn and soiled beyond recovery. The signal, with every new season, for renewed mischief, is the opening of the golden sallow–bloom, now not a tenth in quantity of what it was even in 1850. These roughs are the thousand timesmore affrighting boggarts of to–day, masters, permittedly by the authorities, of a place once another Kelvin Grove,
Where the wild rose in its pridePaints the hollow dingle side,And the midnight fairies glide,Bonnie lassie, O!
Where the wild rose in its pridePaints the hollow dingle side,And the midnight fairies glide,Bonnie lassie, O!
We have spoken of Boggart–hole Clough in conformity with the generally current idea, namely, that in the olden time it was a haunt or habitation of “boggarts.” Boggart–holeis thought by some to be a mistaken and enlarged spelling of BoggartHall, the appellation of a house near the head of the clough, once and for a long while of evil repute as the home of an unclean spirit. Samuel Bamford seems to favour the popular conception, probably because unwilling to disturb it, though he himself never hints at the existence in this clough of any particular uncanny inmate. The boggart of the hall was no other, it is further contended, than the “brownie” found in some shape or other all the world over, superstitions of this character being co–extensive with human nature, sometimes vulgarized, sometimes exquisitely etherialised, and taking as many forms as there are powers of fancy in the human mind. The pixies of Devonshire and Titania’s “Sweet Puck” belong to the poetical line of thought; the ugly and mischievous “boggarts” to the rustic one. The entire subject has been dealt with by Harland and Wilkinson in theLancashire Folk–lore. The legend is also given in theTraditions of Lancashire, the compiler of which would seem to have adopted an earlier versionin theLiterary Gazettefor 1825. There is yet another surmise, that “boggart” in this particular instance is a mistake for “Bowker,” a family of which name is said to have once occupied the hall. Possibly. Admitting either explanation to be the true one and finally established, the received idea still goes abreast of that beautiful old tendency of the universal human heart to assign spiritual beings to every part of physical nature, the basis of all the primitive religions, and which will endure when etymology is dead. Mrs. Banks supplies yet another version, referring us to the time of Prince Charles Edward, the Pretender, one of whose unfortunate followers was constrained to hide himself in the clough, friends who were in the secret giving out, in order to hinder search by the enemy, that the place of refuge was the abode of demons.
The path through the fields referred to as the best for approaching the clough from Manchester, turns up when near Blackley through a little wood, and thence into meadows, which very agreeably abridge the distance homeward, especially if we go at that best season of all for visiting Boggart–hole, when the newly–cut hay is scenting the air, and tiny hands are trying to help the great rakes and forks of the farmer’s troop, and the beautiful crescent of the young moon hangs golden in the sky, and the bright reluctant twilight almost lasts to another day, lingering like a lover at the hand of his betrothed. The stream, it may be added, that winds its way along the bottom of the clough is a tributary ofthe Irk,—that unfortunate little river which, rising in or near tree–crested Tandle Hill, north–east of Middleton, seems to grow ashamed of its blackened waters as it creeps into the town by Collyhurst, and which, as it hastens to its oblivious refuge in the Irwell, is known to every one in its last leap,—the hideous fall underneath the Victoria Station, on the side next Millgate. “Manchester Rivers, their Sources and Courses,” would form a capital subject for a book. The Mersey, the Irwell, the Irk, the Tame, the Etherowe, the Bollin, the Goyt, and several others, are full of interesting associations; and if they be not of the clearest water in their lower portions, remember the work they do. A limpid stream among the hills is lovely and poetical; but the most pleasing of all rivers are those of which the banks are occupied by an industrious and intelligent population; and we must not cry out too vehemently about the soiling and spoiling, unless it be easily avoidable and a piece of downright and wilful damage, when their first and highest value is that of facilitating industrial efforts, and helping on the prosperity of a town and nation. The truly poetical man is never a sentimentalist; and though he may pity the destruction of beautiful objects, he is content to see them converted into sources of general welfare, and to look elsewhere for new materials of enjoyment.
Bamford Wood is a cluster of leafy dells or dingles, reached, in the first instance, by going to Heywood, the rather tedious and uninteresting streets of which have to be pursued till we come to “Simpson Clough.” Thedells are disposed in the form of a V, the upper extremities again forked, and feathering away until at last they merge into fields. Down every dell comes a stream, rushing over large stones, the various waters all meeting eventually in the angle of the V, and soon afterwards swelling the river Roche, which in turn flows into the Irwell not far from Radcliffe. The various portions have all their distinctive names, “Dobb–wood,” upon the left, holds “Cheeseden–brook.” Beyond this we have Windy–cliff–wood, Carr–wood and Jowkin–wood; while upon the right are Ashworth–wood and Bamford–wood, emphatically so called. The stream descending the latter is Norden–water. Exact routes through these pretty glades it is impossible to prescribe, so much must depend upon personal taste and leisure. The extent, the beauty, and the wildness, require in truth many visits to be appreciated. There is more than one round natural lawn in the curves of the stream, where the silence has often been broken by pic–nics and music. Most parts may be trodden dry–shod, but it is well always to reckon upon four or five miles and a few adventures. All ladies who go the entire circuit deserve to be commended as Bamford heroines.
Not to leave the way altogether undescribed, the best mode of procedure upon arrival at Simpson Clough is perhaps, soon after entering, to ascend the path among the trees upon the left, then into some fields and to the edge of a precipice, from which a view is obtained of a considerable portion of the wood, where an idea may beformed of the route it may be pleasantest now to follow. No part is uninteresting; the question is simply where to begin. Compared with the warm glades of Cheshire, Bamford Wood is upon the average quite a fortnight later in escaping from winter. Spring’s “curled darlings” have already stepped into the green parlours of the Bollin valley, while up here a leaf is scarcely open; even the palm–willow, elsewhere always ready for the earliest April bee, is cautious and dilatory. The most interesting plant of the wood is theRubus saxatilis, which, though found nowhere else in the neighbourhood of Manchester, is abundant near Coal–bank Bridge, but very seldom flowers. On some of the cliffs, at a tantalizing height, just out of reach of the longest arm, grows that beautiful sylvan shrub the Tutsan,Hypericum Androsæmum. The sides of the glen are in most parts lofty and steep, clothed with trees, and often decorated with little waterfalls, while the bed of the stream itself is so rugged that the wood after much rain is filled with the sound of its hindered efforts to escape. On emerging from the wood, at the upper extremity, or furthest from Simpson Clough, there is a fine walk over Ashworth Moor to Bury, from which place also it may be approached.
In 1839 there was no “Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway.” Now by its help we reach the beautiful sheet of water called, popularly, “HollingworthLake,” but which, like the water at Lymm, Rudyard, and Taxal, is really no more than a reservoir, constructed about seventy years ago to supply, in part, the Rochdale and ManchesterCanal. The circumference, which is very irregular, exceeds two miles. Rising high upon every side, the encircling hills have a wild and rugged grandeur that contrasts most agreeably with the smooth and tender beauty of the environments of the meres of Cheshire,—from their summits, upon a sunny afternoon, the effects are quite as pleasing as the average of those gathered above Ullswater. An obelisk upon the highest point marks Whiteley Dean, the view from which is wonderfully fine, reaching southwards to Manchester; while beyond Littleborough, amid great piles of hills, stands Brown Wardle, famous, like Bucton Castle, as an ancient signal station. Amid them is a mamelon quite equal in graceful outline to Shutlings Low, and decidedly taking precedence of the more familiar one called Rivington Pike, since the latter, when looked for at particular angles, disappears; whereas the Brown Wardle mound keeps fairly true to its outline from whatever point observed, at all events upon the southern side. The best view of it, so far as we know, is obtained from near “Middleton Junction.” As the word “mamelon” does not occur in English dictionaries, it may be well to say that it denotes a smooth, round, evenly–swelling eminence, thrown up from amid hills already high, a feature in mountain scenery greatly admired by the ancient Greeks, who gave it a name of precisely similar signification, as in the case of that classic one at Samos which Callimachus connects so elegantly with the name of the lady Parthenia.
Moving along the western borders of the lake, it is impossible for the eye not to catch sight of some curious projecting crags upon the topmost crest of the highest ground in front. These are the noted “Robin Hood Rocks” of the legend, the lofty hill upon which they are perched being Blackstone Edge itself, with, just below them, the remains of the still more famous Roman road. That Littleborough stands on the site of an ancient Roman station is well known. The road mounted the steep slope, crossed it, and then descended into Yorkshire, running as far as the city where Severus died. By reason, it would seem, of the extreme steepness, the construction is different from that of any other Roman road in the country, there being a deep groove along the middle of the accustomed pavement, designed apparently with the help of proper wheels to steady the movement of heavily laden trucks. In any case, there is not a more interesting scene near Manchester than is supplied upon the slopes of this grand range—Blackstone Edge—which if unpossessed of the drear wildness of mighty Kinder, is solaced by the placid bosom of distant Hollingworth. Two ways give access. We may ascend either from the margin of the water, proceeding through fields and the little glen called Clegg’s Wood; or from Littleborough by the turnpike–road, turning off when about half–way up to the right, and then mounting again. At the height of about a quarter of a mile the road will be discovered—a belt of massive pavement, about forty feet in width, quite smooth, and overgrown with whortle and crowberry,except in parts where these have been cleared away with a view to minute examination of the stone–work. So bright is the colour of this heathy covering, compared with that of the general vegetation of the hill, that when the atmosphere is clear, and the sunshine favourably subdued, the road may be plainly discerned from the opposite side of the valley, a regular and well–defined streak of green. Arrived at the summit, a few yards over the level brow, we find the boundary–stone between the two counties, and from this point may trace the road for some distance onwards.
Running on, past Rochdale and through the tunnel, again there is a quite new sphere of enjoyment in the country which lies on the northern side of the Todmorden valley, everywhere picturesque, and constantly branching into subordinate valleys with never–silent streams. The finest of them are the Burnley valley and the vast and romantic defile called, as a whole, Hardcastle Crags, though this name applies strictly to no more than the singular insulated masses of rock at the upper extremity or beyond the bridge. A more charming resort for two–thirds of a day the West Riding scarcely offers. The path is first through the so called “streets,” at an angle of forty–five degrees, that lead towards Heptonstall, then along the crest of the hill until the point is reached for descending through the wood, at the foot of which, if the water be low enough, the stream may be crossed by stepping–stones. Clinging to them will be found in plenty that curious aquatic moss theFontinalis antipyretica, sonamed by Linnæus in reference to the use which he says it was put to by the peasantry in Sweden. Possessed of properties so much the more singular from their occurrence in a water–plant, the country people, he tells us, were accustomed to use it to fill up the spaces between the chimneys and the walls of their houses, so as to exclude the air and serve as a protection against fire. The wood is in many parts quite a little natural fernery. We have on various occasions seen no fewer than five different species all growing so near together that they could be touched without moving a single step—the common shield–fern, the broad–leaved sylvan shield–fern, the hard–fern, the oak–fern, and the beech–fern. Oak–fern,Polypodium Dryopteris, is a frequent inhabitant of the dells hereabouts where moist, growing in patches more than a foot across.
W. Hull.Tho. Letherbrow.Halewood Church.Larger image(191 kB)
W. Hull.Tho. Letherbrow.Halewood Church.
Larger image(191 kB)
Like the rocks of Whaley Bridge, Kinder Scout, Greenfield, and Seal Bark, those of the Hebden valley consist of millstone–grit, alternating with shale, the latter cropping out chiefly along the course of the river. It was among these shales, though perhaps more particularly in portions laid bare during the construction of the line along the main or Todmorden valley, that Samuel Gibson, the once celebrated blacksmith–naturalist of Hebden Bridge, pursued his researches in connection with fossil shells, as described in the first volume of theTransactions of the Manchester Geological Society(1841). His work is said, in the volume in question, to have been carried on in “High Green Wood,” and as regards thecommon use of this name, correctly so, as it is applied very generally to the entire valley, or from the village up to the insulated rocks. Properly, however, it denotes only a small portion near the latter. Gibson, a man wholly self–taught, and who kept to his anvil till nearly the time of his death, in the spring of 1849, possessed a vast amount of knowledge of almost every department of natural history. A considerable portion of his collection, comprising a cabinet of seeds of British plants, ferns, lichens, Marchantias, shells, and insects, was purchased, after his decease, for the Peel Park Museum. Another portion went to the museum once existing in Peter–street. The herbarium of flowering plants, valued at £75, went into the hands of Mr. Mark Philips. Most men suffer from some kind of constitutional malady. Poor Gibson laboured under an infirmity of temper which constantly brought him into collision with his fellow–students. He always meant well, as proved in his last famous battle over theCarex paradoxa; and probably had his life been a less lonely one the roughness would have got smoothened, and he would have been as friendly with all other men as with the writer of this little notice, which is intended rather to preserve the memory of a singularly acute and industrious observer of nature, working single–handed, in the face of enormous difficulties, than to imply the least reflection on his tendency to warfare. The distance of Gibson’s home, twenty–four miles of coach–road, prevented his often coming to Manchester; but no man was ever more welcome. How differentsome of those he came among! As for old Crozier, whose name we have already mentioned two or three times, and whose work was so largely identified with White Moss, Boggart–hole Clough, and Bamford–wood, in temper and disposition he was Gibson’s completest antithesis. No man has ever done more, in his own circle, to foster and diffuse the love of nature and of natural science—accomplishing this, as Crozier did, not so much through the variety and exactitude of his knowledge, as through the urbanity of his manner. Few are now living who remember Crozier; it may be allowed, therefore, to repeat what we said of him in 1858, wishing only that space would allow of an ample biography, since, although not a life of stirring incident, it was one of generous and unsophisticated good example. When first acquainted with him, the year after the accession of Her Majesty, he was curator of the Museum of Natural History then possessed by the Mechanics’ Institution, and distinguished for his skill as a bird–stuffer, though his occupation by day, and up to six p.m., was that of a master saddler. The chief portion of that excellent collection, long since unhappily sold off, had been accumulated by the earliest of the Manchester Field Natural History Societies—a band of zealous, practical men who had associated themselves, in 1829, for the furtherance of botany, entomology, ornithology, and the allied sciences. The register of names includes those of the celebrated Edward Hobson, whose volumes of moss–books are contained in our Free Libraries, of Rowland Detrosier, of all,indeed, of the earnest scientific men of the time, Crozier of course in the front. They called themselves the “Banksians,” and had regular indoor meetings up to 1836, when, owing to the loss of many members, Edward Hobson, the president, in particular, who died that year, there came a lull, and eventually a break–up. But Crozier was alive: that was enough; no world is ever so drowned but some little Ark floats on the surface of the waters; younger men arrived on the scene, the Directors of the Institution gave them every encouragement in their power, and in less than eighteen months the celebrated old Cooper–street “Natural History Class” came into existence. At intervals there were delightful evening meetings of the character, though less pretentious, that now–a–days are calledsoirées,—more than once under the presidentship of the late Mr. James Aspinall Turner, always a warm and liberal patron of natural history; honoured also by the presence of visitors from Preston, Halifax, Warrington, and other towns from which the journey was then possible only by whip. After coffee had been served short essays were read, and from nine o’clock until half–past ten or so the company promenaded, examining the curiosities in the glass cases that covered the wall or those laid out upon the tables, and enjoying the social pleasure which grows so largely out of consociation based upon a definite and intelligent idea, and where there is plenty to feast the eye. No man entered more thoroughly into the spirit of these gatherings than George Crozier. They were his festivals and harvest–homes,prepared for long beforehand, and looked back upon as isles of light and verdure in his wake. His love of social gatherings, his skill as a practical naturalist, were equalled by his sagacity and shrewdness. “There,” said he once, on the conclusion of the reading of a paper, “that is what we want; that wasn’t learnt out of a book.” His courtesy and generosity rose to the same level. Every Tuesday evening, when the members of the class assembled to compare their notes and discoveries of the past week, there was old Crozier, busy as usual with his birds, and only too glad to chat with his young disciples, withholding nothing he could tell that would interest and amuse, and, what was far more valuable, inspiring them with his own enthusiasm. This kind, warm–hearted, cheerful old man it was who, taking the young naturalists by the hand, first showed many of them the way to Baguley and to Carrington, to Greenfield and to Rostherne, pointing out the rarities which his large experience knew so cleverly how to find, and communicating his various knowledge with the unselfishness of one in a thousand. Nothing seemed to come strange to him. Great as was his botanical information, he excelled in a still higher degree as an entomologist and ornithologist; he was acquainted with the shape and habits of every bird and every butterfly, every branch of his knowledge helping him to enlarged success in the prosecution of the others, botany aiding entomology, and entomology facilitating botany. It was his extensive and accurate knowledge of plants that rendered him soexpert in finding rare insects, being aware what species the latter feed upon, and familiar with their forms. He showed, in the highest degree, how happy a man can make himself by the study of natural history, however humble his station in life, and however confining his employment. For Crozier, like all the rest of the old Lancashire naturalists, got his living, as already indicated, by manual labour, exercised in a shop on Shudehill, the last place in the world one would look to for the abode of a naturalist, yet made by his intelligent pastimes one of the most contented in Manchester. Here we have looked over his dried plants, his choice exotics given him by friendly gardeners, examined his birds and shells, and listened while he told his adventures “by flood and field.” Of such he was always ready with large store, being, as an old Banksian associate reminds me, in a letter of pleasant anecdote and reminiscence, “one of those plain, plodding, practical naturalists, whose knowledge the field and forest, the uplands and the watery cloughs, had far more contributed to give than the lore of books.” * * * “The quiet, unromantic study of books,” he continues, “would never have made either him or them what they were. Active adventure, real life within the whole domain of nature, was their condition of enjoyment; and, consequently, the secluded footpaths, the fine old green and lonely lanes, the umbrageous bosky dell, with its clear babbling brook, and rich with plants, insects, and minerals, were their haunts.” In all his excursions he was joined by from three to a dozen of his companionsin the love of science and nature; it should rather be said, perhaps, that he was generally one of every party made up by the naturalists of the day for the purpose of visiting the country, as there was but a single purpose among the whole. One of his warmest friends was Thomas Townley, originally of Blackburn, where the two men became acquainted, subsequently of Liverpool, and eventually of our own city. The circumstance is worth mentioning on two accounts. Next to a man’s acts and principles, it is interesting to know who were his closest and oldest associates, since there is always a reciprocal though unconscious influence passing from one to the other, which explains a good deal of character; and in the second place, in addition to being an excellent botanist, Townley was a neat painter in water–colours, and claimed, with a justice that is most willingly acknowledged, the credit of drawing forth the youthful genius of his friend’s son, the Robert Crozier of to–day. It is pleasant to think that the beautiful pictures which now decorate so many walls had their impulse in the little palette of the old botanist. Townley and Crozier were the first to design a “Manchester Flora,” and but for Crozier’s infirm health during the latter years of his life, the crude catalogue of 1840 would have been followed by a complete work, in which his own long observations and those of the other leading botanists of the district would have been consolidated. Crozier died before he could do the part intended. Townley, however, never let go the idea, and two years after Crozier’s death hiszeal and willingness as wielder of the “pen of the ready writer,” and his wonderful memory for poetry, which here had congenial exercise, appeared in the work commonly known as “Buxton’s Guide.” So much poetry had Townley ready for introduction into it, that the useful and accurate little volume in question might easily have been swelled to double the size.[20]Townley could recite passages from any part of Pope’s Homer, and such was his admiration of that poem, that he repeatedly declared if he had his younger days before him he would learn Greek in order to peruse it in the original.
It may be added, in reference to Crozier, who was a well–built, portly man, quiet but merry, fond of a joke and a good story, mild and gentle, yet thoroughly independent, that his long and upright life, rejoiced by hearty and abiding love of nature, and the respect of every one who truly knew him, closed in 1847. He died in Peel–street, Hulme, on Friday, the 16th of April, and was interred at the Harpurhey Cemetery on the following Tuesday. Never was there a better example of the scientific man in humble life, or of the practical kind–heartedness and generosity that spring from simple,God–fearing virtue. His old friend, Townley, survived him ten years, coming to his own end September 9th, 1857.
The old Banksian minute–books and other records and illustrations of the work of fifty years ago have, very fortunately, been preserved, and are now in the safe keeping of their proper inheritor. No written memorials of the Natural History class are extant, but four or five of the original members still venerate the name of their ancient leader.
O ’tis a quiet spirit–healing nookWhich all, methinks, would love; but chiefly heThe humble man, who in his early yearsKnew just so much of folly as had madeHis riper manhood more securely wise.
O ’tis a quiet spirit–healing nookWhich all, methinks, would love; but chiefly heThe humble man, who in his early yearsKnew just so much of folly as had madeHis riper manhood more securely wise.
COLERIDGE.
MERE Clough! Where is that? Such will probably be the reception of our present title, at least in thought, by not a few of those whom we hope to be the means of introducing to this romantic little glen. For it is positively surprising how much of the rural beauty of our neighbourhood is unknown, even to those who delight in country scenes and the fresh air of the fields; and how often the very existence of it is unsuspected till some fortunate accident brings home the welcome truth. Nowhere within the same very short distance of Manchester is so much woodland beauty to be found as in Mere Clough and its immediate neighbourhood; nor is any place within four miles of the Cathedral the avenue to so many pleasant auxiliary walks. In botanical riches Mere Clough issecond nearly to Bowdon, over which place it has the advantage of its earliest plants being among the rare ones of the Manchester flora, while its latest are some of the most beautiful and attractive. The name of “clough,” though so familiar in Lancashire, is not known in the southern counties. Hence it may be useful to observe that “cloughs,” beyond the Mersey, are those fissures or “clefts” in the ground which give the first and simplest idea of a valley. Formed by the rise, in opposite directions, of two gentle acclivities, which run for a short distance in a more or less irregular and winding parallel, and at last widely diverge, or else undulate away into the plain, these “cloughs” have in every case a little stream along the bottom, while the slopes on either side are clothed with trees and natural shrubbery. Along the borders of the stream there is a slender rustic path, which often quits the water–side to mount high upon the slope, and thus give pretty little peeps of the shining current down below and of the distant leafy intricacies of the wood. Rarely is there so much water as to form a deep and steady brook; in summer–time we may be sure it will be shallow enough to “make music to the enamelled stones,” and beguile us onward with that beautiful magic which always accompanies the artless voices and tones of nature.[21]In the neighbourhood of Prestwich there areseveral such cloughs, the “Dells” below the church being the nearest and best known, and Mere Clough the longest and most romantic. The others are Hurst Clough, to the west of Stand, and Agecroft Clough, near the bridge of that name. All these cloughs bear more or less directly towards the Irwell, into which river their little streamlets convey themselves. The beauty of Prestwich Dells has long rendered the latter place a favourite resort. Easy, moreover, of access, and with the capital recommendation of a harbour of refuge close at hand, in the shape of the commodious and well provided Church Inn, no wonder that few except naturalists have cared to push on farther. It needs something more than invites people to a place like Prestwich Dells to take us to one still prettier, but where, as far as concerns supplies for the inner man, we are like sailors on the open sea—commanding only what we carry thither.
The conveyance to go by, should the walk be thought too long, is the Whitefield omnibus. About three–quarters of a mile beyond Prestwich, through which village the omnibus passes, there is an old–fashioned “magpie” upon the left. Leave the omnibus here, and, going through the farmyard, follow the path through the field, keeping to the right of the new asylum, and in a few minutes the entrance to the clough will come in view. At first, the path is near the summit of the slope; afterwards it crosses the stream, and continues the rest of the way at the bottom. If we please, when half–way through, we may re–ascend (this time to the top of the northern slope), bygoing through the field upon the right, to where the great arches support the roadway, and so find our way by the carriage–track which leads to “The Park,” the residence of Mr. R. N. Philips, and eventually through the private lodge–gate at the extremity, there emerging on to the public path by the reservoir, at nearly the same point that is reached by the lower one. The latter course has the advantage of preserving the feet dry, should the path by the stream be deceitful, as often happens after wet weather, and also of providing views of the surrounding country, but the lower path is considerably more romantic. The private grounds are exceedingly pretty and sylvan, and up to about half a century ago were used as pheasant–preserves. Like those at Norcliffe, they are not forbidden to legitimate and respectful request made a few days previously, with the understanding that there shall be no trowels carried.
As stated in our second chapter, Mere Clough is fertile in curious plants. In every part there is abundance in particular of that beautiful reminder of pre–adamite vegetation, the sylvan horsetail, in scientific languageEquisetum sylvaticum, in form resembling a tiny larch tree, the leaves, which are no longer or stouter than a violet stalk, curving outwards and downwards in the most graceful way imaginable, and forming a succession of little cupolas up the stem which they encircle. Varying from a few inches to nearly two feet in height when mature, and of a singularly delicate green, sometimes it tapers off to a point, sometimes is crowned with a kindof miniature fir–cone, which serves at once for flower and seed–pod, and will well repay minute examination. When ripe, an impalpable green powder dusts out of this little cone–like body, every particle a distinct and living seed, and originating a new plant, if not destroyed before it can germinate. Under the microscope, these particles perform most amusing evolutions. It is merely necessary that some one breathe upon them while we observe, to make every little atom twist and entangle its long arms as if it were an animated creature. A magnifying power of sixty is quite sufficient to show these curious movements, and the seeds, if preserved in a pill–box, will keep good for many years. All the neighbouring dells and groves likewise contain this charming plant, and growing, as it often does, in large patches, we seem to have woods within woods. Hurst Clough, best reached from Molyneux Brow, noted also for theRosa villosa, is one of the richest. Not that it is confined to them, being more or less diffused in most directions out of Manchester, but it is here that it grows most plentifully and luxuriantly. Contemporaneous with the sylvan horsetail, there comes a second kind of golden saxifrage. The common sort was mentioned when describing Ashley meadows. This one, scientifically called thealternifolium, is larger and handsomer, as well as rare, and is to be gathered on the left hand borders of the stream, just after passing the white cottage in the middle of the clough. Another plant of special interest, and blooming at the same time, is the mountain–currant,Ribes alpinum, which grows on thebank of the half–lane, half–watercourse, running from the lower side of the reservoir towards the river. It is a large, green, leafy bush, with glossy foliage, and appears to be the only one in the Prestwich neighbourhood. How it got there is a botanical problem, yet only one out of many of the same kind. Nature is for ever putting some droll spectacle before our eyes, and playing pantomimes for our amusement and curiosity, if we would but care for them as they deserve. As Pott Shrigley is the place above all others for bluebells, so is Mere Clough the place above all others for its colleague the wood–anemone. Tens of thousands of this lovely flower, the fairest companion of the opening buds, grow in the open spaces among the trees at the lower part, sheeting them with the purest white, tinged here and there with a faint blush, like sunbeams falling on snow. On a fine day at the end of April or beginning of May, there is not a more charming picture to be found. In the moister parts of the clough, especially near the reservoir, may also now be seen in perfection the deep yellow marsh–marigold. Like the anemone, it is a common plant, but none the less to be admired. The same as to that dainty little flower, the wood–sorrel, which begins to open freely about the time that the anemones depart. Easily discovered by means of its curious leaves, which are formed of three triangular pieces, placed on the summit of a little stalk, and rise about three inches above the ground, no one can fail to be charmed with its fairy form and the delicacy of the lilac pencillings on the inner surface of the petals,which are white as those of the anemone itself. Anemone, translated, signifies “wind–flower,” a name intended to denote fugacity of the petals, or fall at the first touch. But such is not the fate of the anemone–petals of to–day. The original application of the name would appear to have been to the cistus. It was into this last that the frail goddess transformed her love, her tears represented in the disappearance in a moment.
Emerging from the clough, the difficulty is not which way to get home again, but which pleasant way to give the preference to. We may go past the dyeworks, and through the park to Agecroft Bridge; or turn up the lane that curls back towards Prestwich; or, best of all, make our way under the magnificent viaduct of the East Lancashire Railway, and then across the river to Clifton Aqueduct. Arrived here, there is another ample choice; either to ride home from the adjacent station (Clifton Junction); to descend to the Irwell bank, and walk through the meadows bordering the river to Agecroft Bridge; or to take the fields and canal bank, the latter in some parts very pretty, and so to Pendleton, where Mr. Greenwood will be glad to see us, and the feeling probably be reciprocal. To invigorate ourselves, if purposing to walk, it is prudent, and not difficult, to procure tea at one of the cottages near the station. At one in particular, standing back a little from the road, upon the left, with—at the bottom of the garden—a nice, cool, face–refreshing well, that we have seen give challenge on fair cheeks to the morning dew upon therose, there is a free, plentiful, whole–hearted hospitality, that adds quite a charm to the associations already so pleasant, of summer afternoon in the sweet stillness of Mere Clough. The hostess is as large as her welcome; the bread and butter is incomparable.[22]Every one who has gone by train to Bolton or Bury, will remember this beautiful valley, sometimes called the Agecroft, sometimes after its river, the Irwell. On the left, as soon as Pendleton is passed, the high grounds of Pendlebury come into view, their brows covered with trees. On the right, first we have broad, sweet lawns of meadow and pasture, and in autumn yellow corn–fields; and, beyond these, rising in terraced slopes, with deep bays and rounded promontories, according as the hill recedes or swells, the woods overlooking Agecroft Park, presently succeeded by those of Prestwich. For fully two miles the eye rests upon rich masses of leaf, interrupted only by mounds of tender green, the crests of the Rainsall and Agecroft hills, and towards the close, the picturesque tower of Prestwich Church. The course of the river may be traced by the winding line of continuous foliage, but the water is too low down to be discerned until wecatch sight of the white cottage at the foot of Mere Clough, immediately after passing which, if upon the Bury line, we continue along the viaduct and therefrom get a full view, as well as of banks lined to the water’s edge with vegetation. Here the scenery changes entirely, though retained for a short distance on the Bolton line, and we quit the Agecroft valley. Not one of the other railway approaches to our town—ten minutes completing the journey—bears any comparison with this for beauty; indeed, it is quite a surprise to people entering Manchester for the first time by way of Bolton or Bury, to find so picturesque a country at the very edge.
The best way to the valley on foot is to go over Kersal Moor, descending on the further side, and so onward, past the print–works, to Agecroft Bridge, which we must cross, and turn to the right. If more convenient, there is a way by Pendleton and Charlestown, crossing the Bolton railway, then along the path by the river–side. But this, as to its earlier part, is a disagreeable means of access, and very little is really gained. Going by Kersal, on the other hand, we come at once into a green, sequestered walk, which accompanying the river for about a mile, then changes to the bank of the canal, and will take us, if we please, to the aqueduct, and thence round by the cottages to the station. The road straight away from the bridge leads to Pendlebury, to which village there is also a pleasant path across the fields, after ascending the river–side some little distance. Keeping to the Kersal side of the river there is a delightfulwalk through Agecroft Park, beneath the woods, to the foot of the dells; another, by diverging a little to the left when out of the park, through a farmyard, to the river and viaduct; and if, instead of going through the park, we turn up on the right among the cottages, it is not difficult to penetrate the woods themselves, and to find one or two paths over the hills, all tending to Prestwich as a common point. So numerous and varied are the paths which converge hitherwards and in the direction of Clifton Aqueduct, that it is impossible to go wrong. Were we to give a preference, it would be to the walk first described, or that along the river–side, commencing at Agecroft Bridge, and having the river upon the right. The meadows abound with floral treasures, the rosy bistort, the blue geranium, and the fragrant ciceley, in their several seasons, and on the banks, at the further part, near the canal, may be seen the broad–leaved wood–stitchwort,Stellaria memorum, and the yellow dead–nettle. Early in June is the pleasantest time to go. The grass is then uncut, the sycamores are hung with their honeyed bloom, the clover glows like rubies, the white pagodas of the butter–bur, now gone to seed, stand up like the banners of an army, and we find “thefirstrose of summer, sweet blooming alone,” amid thousands of juvenile green buds.
But the yellow dead–nettle is the most interesting; it gives so useful a lesson in practical botany. The stem is perfectly square; the leaves grow two together; the large golden–coloured blossoms are set in verandahsround the stalk, each particular flower shaped like the jaws of some terrible wild beast, wide–open and ready to bite, while the stamens are invariably four in number—a pair of long ones and a pair of short ones. The seeds, also, are exactly four. Whenever these peculiarities co–exist in a plant, we may be sure that there is nothing deleterious about it. More than fifty different plants formed on this plan grow wild in England, and considerably over two thousand in foreign countries, and not one of them is in the least degree noxious, either to quadruped or to man. Many are aromatic, and used with food, as thyme, sage, mint, basil, and penny–royal; while others are useful for medicinal tea, as balm and ground–ivy. Rosemary, lavender, and bergamot belong to the same fragrant family. The great object of botanical science is to determine such facts as these,i.e., to make out the relation between the form of a plant and its properties;—can a science of such useful, practical aim be justly deemed, as by some, mere “learned trifling?” Surely not. No slight advantage has that man over his fellows who, when he is walking through the meadows, or when he emigrates to a distant land, can discriminate between the poisonous plant and the wholesome, simply by examining the leaves and flowers. We do not mean to say that every individual plant in the world has its exact quality unmistakably configured upon it. The concurrence is between certain general properties and certain great types or plans of organisation, taking note of which latter we gain a good general idea of the former.Theparticularnature must be learned by special inquiry. Though the yellow dead–nettle, for example, is shown by its general structure to be devoid of anything bad, it cannot be told whether it is fit to eat until tasted and tried. To persons who have an idea of emigrating, or whose children are likely to go abroad, botany is of the very highest service, for in foreign countries men are thrown upon their own resources, and to be compelled by ignorance to look upon every leaf as a possible poison is helplessness of the most wretched kind.
The railway up the Agecroft valley is interesting as the first that was constructed after the Liverpool and Manchester, and perhaps the “Grand Junction.” People used to go to the Prestwich hills to watch the trains scudding along. The scenery here is certainly not spoiled by it. For our own part, we consider that scenery is scarcely ever spoiled by the presence of railways, and would contend rather that they are a capital addition; for those spectacles are always most salutary to the mind, and therefore most truly pleasing, where along with rural beauties are combined the grand circumstances of human life and human enterprise. Railways count with bridges, ships, gardens, the castles and abbeys of the past, and the mansions of the present. Nature is beautiful, even in its most retired and lonely solitudes, just in the proportion that we connect with it, though unconsciously, the interests, the feelings, the aspirations of humanity; the more of what is noble and comely in human life we are able to assimilate with the outer world,the more does that world minister to our happiness and our intelligence. In the case of the railways, we are recipients of an immense amount of good. There is not only the interest of what is witnessed on the instant, but the pleasant flow of remembrance of the various localities they lead to. As, looking at the sea, we are led in thought all round the world, so, looking at the winged train and its pearly clouds, we visit over again a thousand delicious spots, photographed on the mind, and endeared by association. Here, for instance, in the valley of the Irwell, we go on to the lakes of Cumberland, and its ancient and purple mountains, and anon to the flowered and roofless aisles of sacred Furness. Should these be places yet unknown, there are nearer ones where wehavebeen,—Rivington, Summerseat, Hoghton Tower, with its precipitous beechen–wood and lovely walk by the river underneath; or Southshore, where grow the blue eryngo and the grass of Parnassus, and where, on calm September evenings, the round, red setting sun pours a stream of crimson light across the sea, that reaches to the last ripple of the retiring water, like a path of velvet unrolled for the feet of a queen; or, if the wind blow high and fresh, the grand old deep–voiced waves, with their gray locks hanging dishevelled over their broad bosoms, roll gloriously over the rattling pebbles, change for a moment into arcades as white as snow, then dissolve into a wilderness of foam. Thus to make the common things of life so many centres of thought, from which we can travel away to whole worldsof pleasant remembrance, lying calm perhaps in the golden light of lang syne, is one of the profoundest secrets of happiness, and one of the most useful habits we can cultivate. Every one may acquire the art, and it strengthens every day and year that we live. Happiness is not a wonderful diamond, to be sought afar off, but, rightly understood, a thing to be reaped every day out of the ordinary facts of life, even out of the sight of a railway train steaming across the fields.
The plants of the woods and hills bordering the Agecroft valley are mostly the same that are found in Mere Clough. In addition to those above enumerated, may be mentioned the pretty round–leaved marsh–violet, the whortleberry, and the wild cherry, one of the gayest ornaments of the month of May. The whortleberry seldom ripens its fruit at Prestwich, or anywhere so near the town: it seems to require the bracing air of the moors and mountains. It is one of the shrubs which rival the trees in brilliancy of tint, assumed as in the sky, when the hour of departure is at hand. Along with the Canadian medlar, the bramble, and some kinds of azalea, the leaves change not infrequently to vivid crimson. People are apt to call these changes the “fading” of the leaf; it would be better to say thepainting. Primroses are exceedingly scarce, both on the Agecroft hills and in the Irwell valley, and their place is unoccupied by any other vernal flower as fair and popular. The wild pansy is there, on the higher and drier ground, and often with remarkably large and handsome flowers,but it makes no show; and though there are daffodils in a few places, they are not prominent to view. A field at the head of Prestwich Dells is for a little time plentifully strewed with their lively yellow. When September comes the want of the primrose is almost compensated by the cheerful autumn crocus, which lifts its purple abundantly among the grass, in the low meadows on the further side of Kersal Moor, near the rivulet; also in the fields below Prestwich Church, the same that in spring are dressed with the daffodil, and again in those between the asylum and the dells. The autumnal crocus, like the colchicum, is curious in seeming to produce its seeds before the flowers, the former being ripe in May and June, whereas the latter do not open till three months after. When the great Swedish botanist, Linnæus, was engaged in promulgating the great doctrine of the sexuality of plants, now about a century and a half ago, the circumstance in question was pointed to as upsetting it. But the young seed–pod lies low down in the bosom of the leaves, where it is fertilised, as in all other flowers, by the pollen from the stamens, and there it abides during the winter, elevating itself above the ground with the warmth of the ensuing summer, when it ripens and scatters its contents. The true time of the vital energy of the autumn crocus is thus, not from May to September, but from September until May. The history has always seemed to us a memorable instance of the quiet dignity with which truth and genuine science pursue their way, triumphing and silencing allthe little cavillers in the end, however plausible they may make their case at starting.
Before quitting this beautiful valley it will be salutary to pause for a moment upon its geological history, since, with the single exception of that part of the Mersey valley which lies between Didsbury and Cheadle, it is the newest part of our neighbourhood. The date, that is to say, is the nearest preceding that of the first occupation of the British Islands by mankind. The great ridges of Kinder Scout, Glossop, and Greenfield are immensely more ancient than any of the exposed or superficial parts of the country threaded by the Mersey at Cheadle, and by the Irwell below Prestwich. With the remainder of the chain of hills to which the Greenfield summits belong, those great ridges form the eastern margin of an enormous and very irregular stone basin, tilted up in such a way that the opposite or western edge is concealed far below the surface of the ground, nobody can tell exactly where, but in the direction of the Irish Sea, perhaps under it, far away beyond Southport and the sandhills. It is within or upon the inner surface of this great basin that all the other South Lancashire rocks and strata have their seat. In different portions of its huge lap are deposited the Coal strata (themselves often much elevated above the level on which the deposit took place, and this at various periods); then, in ascending order, there are deposits called “Permian”;[23]above these, inturn, come the Triassic rocks; and over all (except on the higher hill–ranges) there is sand or clay, or gravel, both stratified and unstratified. This last, in the aggregate, is technically termed “Drift.” The whole of this great surface was unquestionably once covered by salt water. At the latest period of that marvellous marine dominion, blocks of ice containing boulders floated in it; and wherever great heaps of sand now occur, we have the remains of ancient beaches or sand–banks, many of which were cut through by the water, while others are charged with pebbles that had been rounded by rolling over and over upon some primeval shore, rattling while on their journeys, just as at Walney Island we may hear the pebbles of to–day. The lofty eastern edges of this great stone basin are, as would be anticipated, quite free from deposits of drift. But everywhere else, westwards, drift covers up all the underlying rock, the latter showing itself only where rivers in cutting their channels have slowly worn it away.
The Agecroft valley participates with all the rest of the district in the possession of drift. Here, however, is well shown, in addition, how the first settlings of gravel and sand often themselves became covered at a later period with yet another new deposit—material brought down and diffused by shallow and tranquil streams, then of considerable breadth, but which in course of time shrank into relatively narrow ones, and continue as such to the present moment. That the lower Irwell, as we have it in the Agecroft valley, was once a broad flood of this descriptionis declared by the “river–terraces” discoverable at intervals all the way up, and which correspond with those that betoken the ancient presence of the waters of the Mersey at a much greater elevation than at present. Abney Hall is built upon one of these river–terraces. Cheadle village stands upon a yet higher and older one.
Peculiarly associated with the valley of the Irwell, and the adjacent cloughs and woods of Stand and Prestwich, is the memory of John Horsefield, one of the most celebrated of the old Lancashire operative botanists. It was Horsefield who first showed us the way through Mere Clough, and pointed out the spots occupied by its rare plants. For thirty–two years he was president and chief stay of the Prestwich Botanical Society, and from 1830, up to the time of his death, president also of the united societies of the whole district. He earned his livelihood as a hand–loom weaver, following that occupation in a cottage at Besses–o’–th’–Barn. Though the small wages his employment yielded him, and the trifling amount of leisure it permitted him to enjoy, naturally hindered pursuit of his darling science so fully as he desired, it is marvellous to see how much he accomplished. In theManchester Guardianof March 2nd, 1850, in the course of a long and very interesting autobiography, he gives some slight idea of his labours. “Since I first held office as president,” he tells us, “I have attended upwards of four hundred of these general meetings; thousands of specimens have passed through my hands, and all my reward or fee is the privilege of being scot–free.” Withthat autobiography easily accessible, it is unnecessary to do more here than to point to it, and to a continuation of the narrative in the papers of the April following, which include several pieces of original poetry. Perhaps nothing has ever appeared which shows more strikingly how an indomitable will and ardent thirst for knowledge, and a deep and faithful love of nature, will triumph over the obstacles of poor means and humble station in life, and lift a man into the high places of true science, and give him at once the power of usefulness to his fellow–creatures, and of realising the true rewards of existence. Horsefield was a member of the Banksian Society, but rarely came to the meetings of the Mechanics’ Institution class, reserving himself for those country musters where his knowledge and good nature had the full wide scope which they at once merited and deserved. In person he was thin and spare, presenting a great contrast to the tall and patriarchal figure of Crozier, partaking, however, so far as we had opportunities of judging, of all his amiable, unsophisticated qualities.