ON THE GRETA AT ROKEBY.ON THE GRETA AT ROKEBY.
ON THE GRETA AT ROKEBY.
About two miles from Egliston, still on the Yorkshire side, is the fine domain of Rokeby Park, along one side of which the Greta flows to the Tees. Greta Bridge is known to all lovers of literature through the mention of it which is made by Dickens. It was there that Nicholas Nickleby descended from the coach which had brought him thus far on his way towards Dotheboys Hall. “About six o’clock that night he and Mr. Squeers and the little boys and their united luggage, were all put down together at the George and New Inn, Greta Bridge.” Dickens insists that whilst he was not exaggerating the cruelties practised on boys at schools resembling Dotheboys Hall, Mr. Squeers was the representative of a class and not of an individual. This is a view of the facts that the people around Greta Bridge cannot be induced to accept, and there is no doubt that the novelist really did—without intending it, probably—very serious injury to one who is held by those who knew him to have been a very estimable man.
JUNCTION OF THE GRETA AND THE TEES.JUNCTION OF THE GRETA AND THE TEES.
JUNCTION OF THE GRETA AND THE TEES.
There is now no one living to whom a relation of the facts can give pain, and so they shall be stated briefly here. The school which has been generally accepted as the subject of the great novelist’s savage exposure was situated at Bowes, four miles from Greta Bridge. Bowes is no more than one straggling street, stretching away towards the desolation of Stanmore, and the school which was identified with Dotheboys Hall is the last house in the village, which lies along the Roman road of the Watling Street. The place was kept by a Mr. Shaw, who is said to have died of a broken heart. He had “only one eye,” as Dickensremarked of his grim tyrant; he had also a wife and a daughter who assisted him in the management of the school. So far he “realises the poster,” as an actor would say. There is no doubt, either, that his school was visited, and that he was seen by Dickens and by Hablot Browne. The one eye was in itself, unfortunately, a sufficient means of identification, there being no other one-eyed schoolmaster within any known distance of Greta Bridge. Dickens may have meant no more than to make use of this personal characteristic, combined with characteristics derived from other sources, as in the almost equally unlucky Miss Moucher case; but he had so associated a one-eyed schoolmaster with a place not far from Greta Bridge that no amount of explanation could remove the impression that Mr. Squeers was intended for Mr. Shaw, or could repair what was unquestionably an injury to one who stood high in the good opinion of his neighbours. All the members of the Squeers group of characters, indeed, were identified with persons then living in or around Bowes. John Browdie, for instance, is said to have been a farmer named Brown, and of the Browns there are still several families among the substantial farmers of the district. Of the good-feeling of which Mr. Shaw was the subject there are evidences still remaining in the resentment which is felt by the older inhabitants of Bowes when any inquiry is made as to Dotheboys Hall. “You’d better gan and inquire somewheere else,” one of these remarked when questioned on the subject. “Yow folks come here asking all manner of questions, and then you gan and write bowks about us.” The name of Dickens is absolutely detested by some of those who know the circumstances. As to the lady who was identified with Fanny Squeers, and who died but recently, she is declared to have been distinguished by great kindness of heart, “the sort of woman a dog or a child leapsto instinctively.” In fact, however true it may have been that “Mr. Squeers and his school are faint and feeble pictures of an existing reality,” it seems to be placed beyond question by common testimony that this reality did not exist at the village of Bowes, though nothing whatever can now remove the impression that Dickens intended to represent the school of Mr. Shaw.
WYCLIFFE.WYCLIFFE.
WYCLIFFE.
Besides the “George,” mentioned by the novelist, there is at Greta Bridge another well-known place of entertainment, the “Morritt Arms.” The village is scarcely of consequence, except as the site of a Roman station, of which the remaining indications are now “a grassy trench, a broken stone.” The Greta is between here and the Tees so beautiful a river that Scott exhausted upon it all his powers of description, both in verse and prose. Having skirted Rokeby Park, it sweeps over a shelf of rock under a moss-covered bridge half-hidden in trees, and there meets with the obstacle of gigantic rocks, which seem as if they had been carried down in some tremendous flood and piled together in the central bed of the stream. Round these the Greta swirls to the Tees in two long rushing curves when the river is high, but in quiet, dry seasons it has one channel only, down which it rushes impetuously out of the leafy shade into the open sunlight.
Two miles above Rokeby are those Brignal banks of which the poet sings—
“O, Brignal banks are wild and fair,And Greta woods are green,And you may gather garlands thereWould grace a summer queen.”
“O, Brignal banks are wild and fair,And Greta woods are green,And you may gather garlands thereWould grace a summer queen.”
“O, Brignal banks are wild and fair,
And Greta woods are green,
And you may gather garlands there
Would grace a summer queen.”
The present mansion of Rokeby is modern, and occupies the site of a manor house which was burned down by the Scots after the battle of Bannockburn. The Rokebys were a powerful family in these parts up to the occurrence of the civil wars. It was a Rokeby who, according to Holinshed, defeated the insurrection of the Earl of Northumberland, in the time of Henry IV., and slew the earl. Scott gives the whole of the family pedigree in the notes to his poem, showing how the Rokebys were High Sheriffs of Yorkshire through many generations, as well as justiciaries, Secretaries of State, and members of Council. They were destroyed by their loyalty and the bad faith of the Stuarts, as was the case with so many other ancient families, and their estates, after passing through the hands of the Robinsons, have been in the possession of the Morritts through several generations.
There is a remarkable peel tower, with singularly light and graceful battlements, broken into varying heights, on the ridge of a hill just beyond the junction of the Greta with the Tees. It is now surrounded by farm buildings, but is much visited on account of the spectre called the Dobie of Mortham, a murdered lady whose blood the eye of strong faith may still see on the steps of the tower.
High above the Tees on the Durham side, when Mortham has been passed, may be seen the pretty village of Whorlton, the first red-tiled village that we have so far encountered on Tees-side. It is approached by an iron suspension bridge, which crosses the river at a point where its broad bed of solid rock is curiously brokeninto long uneven steps, giving it the appearance of having been quarried at some remote time, and making a series of falls that, instead of crossing the river, as ordinarily occurs, shelve along one side of it, and continue for long distances, turning the current in an almost indescribable way.
GAINFORD.GAINFORD.
GAINFORD.
These singular breaks in the river bed mark the course of the Tees until the Yorkshire village of Wycliffe is reached, something over a mile from Mortham Tower. Except for the fact that the great Reformer was born here, the place is as unimportant as a newly-planted city in the American wilds; it consists, indeed, of no more than four or five scattered cottages, a parsonage, a church, and Wycliffe Hall. The parsonage is very large, and the church is very diminutive, seeming to be only an ornament of the parsonage grounds. But around this little church many of the Wycliffes lie buried, and among the monumental brasses there is one recording the death and the burial of the last of the name. Even yet, however, the Wycliffe blood is not extinct, for it flows in the veins of Sir Talbot Clifford Constable, the owner and tenant of Wycliffe Hall. If the “Morning Star of the Reformation” did not receive his first teaching at Egliston Abbey, as Dr. Vaughan has surmised, he must have ascended the hill from Wycliffe to where now stands the pretty village of Ovington, for here was formerly a priory of Gilbertine canons, though no traces of it now remain. Ovington stands higher than any other village on Tees-side, and from the level of its green the woods through which the river surges are far down below, so that even their highest tops do not reach to the crown of the ridge. Ovington is a right sweet and pleasant and prosperous village, much beloved of anglers, there being abundant fish. Nowhere is the Tees more shaded and beautiful, with its stream broken up into many currents by a series of wooded islands, on which the easy-going inadventurous fisher may lie under the leafy branches through torrid summer days.
CROFT. / BLACKWELL BRIDGE.CROFT. / BLACKWELL BRIDGE.
CROFT. / BLACKWELL BRIDGE.
Ovington is a village with a maypole in the middle of its green—a maypole with tattered garlands still clinging to its iron crown. The neat cottages all have their little gardens in front, and are roofed with rich brown tiles. There is a hostelry with the curious sign of “The Four Alls,” where one may find such entertainment as few villages in England can provide, and sit in rooms over the decoration of which an obviously æsthetic taste has presided. The sign of “The Four Alls” is weather-stained unduly, but one may still discern pictures of a crowned king, with the motto, “I govern all;” of a soldier, with the motto, “I fight for all;” of a bishop, with the motto, “I pray for all;” and of a husbandman, with his motto of “I pay for all.” This is possibly a product of the nativeYorkshire wit, of the same variety as that which has designed the Yorkshire coat of arms, “A flea, a fly, a flitch of bacon, and a magpie.”
YARM.YARM.
YARM.
The Tees has much loveliness but little variety between Ovington and Yarm; it has lost most of its wilder features, and—through many a winding curve, for it is an erratic river, bending and turning with a strange wilfulness—its deep woods
“in seeming silence makeA soft eye-music of slow waving boughs,Powerful almost as vocal harmony.”
“in seeming silence makeA soft eye-music of slow waving boughs,Powerful almost as vocal harmony.”
“in seeming silence make
A soft eye-music of slow waving boughs,
Powerful almost as vocal harmony.”
At Gainford, which clusters round a large village green, there is an air of rustic fashion and luxury, for here reside many prosperous persons who have places of business in Darlington, which is seven miles away. Gainford boasts of a medicinal spring, or spa. It is a pretty strong fountain of water, situated about half a mile from the village, and close to the banks of the Tees, which at this place has a pathway through the woods. It is affirmed of the Gainford spa that whilst the water has the usual “smell of rotten eggs” it is innocent of unpleasant taste, an asseveration which, having tested it, I cannot conscientiously confirm. The church of Gainford, it is stated in all the guide-books, is of great antiquity, having been built by Egred, Bishop of Lindisfarne, between the years 998 and 1018; but asa matter of fact scarcely anything of this old church remains, except a few sculptured stones and fragments of crosses which have been built, in an exceedinglyolla podridamanner, into the porch of the present building, where I found displayed a carefully detailed statement of the week’s revenue, amounting to the sum of fifteen shillings and eightpence-halfpenny. On the Yorkshire bank, opposite to Gainford, there is the end of an ancient earthwork, which runs across country from the Swale to the Tees, and which is surmised to be older than the Roman conquest of Britain. At Gainford, Samuel Garth, the poet of the “Dispensary,” was born.
Two miles from this village, and by so much nearer to the wealthy “Quaker town” of Darlington, a noble stone bridge crosses the Tees, connecting the Yorkshire bank with the site of the ancient Roman station of Magis. Pierce Bridge carries the old Roman road—the Leeming Lane—from Durham to Yorkshire. Careless antiquaries call it the Watling Street, which, however, we left behind us at Greta Bridge. For twenty miles or so, or for an equal space on either side of the Tees, the Leeming Lane, which has various local designations, is probably the straightest road in all England. One may see it rising and falling for miles in front, always keeping the direct course, whatever may be the depressions in the land. At Pierce Bridge, which is famous for its fishing, and where the trout may be seen lightly disporting themselves, the forces under the Earl of Newcastle had a skirmish with those of Lord Fairfax in 1642, at the hottest period of the civil war. A mile further down the river is High Coniscliffe, which is quaintly situated above a sudden cliff, so that it seems as if the first buildings erected here must have been intended for defence. It is but a very little cluster of buildings, this High Coniscliffe, taking its name, perhaps, from the fact that the river banks hereabouts are much frequented by rabbits, as, indeed, is the case with the banks of the Tees from Rokeby downwards. The one prominent building is the church, which has the peculiarity of being seven times as long as it is broad. The other singularity is that the pillars supporting the arches of the nave are no more than six feet in height. Low Coniscliffe, two miles away, is a more humble place, with no appearance of a cliff to account for its designation, and with an aspect of old-world poverty such as is presented by no other place with which we have, so far, met. At this point the interest of the river is, for the present, exhausted, and its beauty is gone, for just beyond Low Coniscliffe there is a quarter of a mile or so of waterworks, stretching on either side of the main road to Darlington, the three towns of Stockton, Darlington, and Middlesbrough, here pumping their water from the Tees. Darlington itself we leave to our left, but pass the mansions of some of its wealthy men—the Peases, the Backhouses, the Frys—who, however much they may retain of the old Quaker simplicity, certainly make no striking exhibition of it in the character of their dwellings.
Three miles from “the Quaker town,” and a much greater distance from High Coniscliffe, as the river winds, is the ancient village of Croft, occupying both banks of the Tees. On the Yorkshire side is the famous spa, to which invalidsresort to drink the waters and to take the baths, and where marvellous cures are said to have been effected in times past. There are four sulphureous springs, of a much more decided character than the one already visited at Gainford, and owing, it may be, some part of their attractiveness to the sweetness of their situation. Croft is very commonplace on the Durham and very lovely on the Yorkshire side. The stone bridge which connects the two portions of the village, built in 1676, is the finest which crosses the Tees at any part of its course. It is on the site of an older structure, which was deemed greatly important by Henry VIII., as “the most directe and sure way and passage for the king our Sovereign Lord’s army,” when it was necessary to march against the Scots. The present bridge has a series of seven ribbed arches of fair width, and is so substantial that it is likely to endure until it can boast a more than respectable antiquity.
Croft Church is a half-brown, half-grey old building of mixed materials and of most evident age. It has an appearance more worn and dilapidated even than its years warrant, though it was built at least as early as the fifteenth century, seeing that it contains a tomb of one Richard Clervaux, who died in 1492. The interior of the church has great architectural interest, and the exterior is, in its quaint way, one of those “things of beauty” which deserve to remain “joys for ever.” In this church Bishop Burnet may have listened to his first sermon, for it was at Croft that he was born.
The Lord of the Manor of Croft, by the way, formerly held his lands on the peculiar condition that he should meet every newly-appointed Bishop of Durham on Croft Bridge, and, presenting him with a rusty old sword, declare—“My lord, this is the sword which slew the worm-dragon, which spared neither man nor woman nor child.” Traditions of these worm-dragons are plentiful in the north of England. There was, for example, “the Lambton worm,” slain by an ancestor of the present Earl of Durham, which used to devour a maiden at a meal; and there was “the loathly worm of Spindleston Haugh,” with a similarly voracious appetite. The lands of Croft had evidently been given to some supposed dragon-slayer, and were continued to his descendants by the yielding up and the immediate return of the famous sword.
We are now more than ever reminded that the Tees is the dividing line of two counties. Though the river has constantly increased in width, all the towns from Croft downwards are situated more or less on each side of the stream. The first of these is the quiet and sleepy town of Yarm, with a single broad street on one side of the river, and a few scattered houses and windmills on the other. Up to Yarm the tide reaches, and here also the net-fishing for salmon begins, small cobles, with salmon-nets on board, being plentiful in the neighbourhood of Yarm Bridge. What else the people of Yarm do for a living in these days is not readily discernible. In former times they were shipbuilders on a limited scale, though they must have been exceedingly small vessels which could be launched in such a situation. Yet there must have been some period of great prosperity in the previous history of the place, as will be guessed from the fact that the houses are almost all of great width and height, and—as is evident from a peculiarity of style not seen elsewhere—were built with some thought of show. The one street of the place is of the width of three or four streets in the more crowded quarters of the larger towns lower down the Tees, and has in its centre an odd sort of Town Hall, like a large sentry-box on arches. At Yarm we set our faces towards the great, growing Tees-side towns, passing the pretty bridge at Blackwell, where Sir Henry Havelock-Allan has a beautiful seat. Already the smoke of great industries is darkening the atmosphere, and when the wind is still and the clouds are low, a black, unpleasant haze creeps over the face of the country and spreads itself far inland.
STOCKTON.STOCKTON.
STOCKTON.
By the time it reaches Stockton Bridge the Tees has been transformed from one of the most wild and lovely to one of the most tame and repellent of existing rivers. Its soiled waters henceforth flow between banks of blast-furnace slag; unpleasant odours float about its shores; it is ploughed by great steamships; all around there is the smoke of furnaces, the noise of hammers, the ugliness of trade. Stockton is a town of ancient foundation, which, after sleeping beside the Tees for ages, suddenly woke up to find itself in the nineteenth century, and, full of the nineteenth century desire to “get on,” shook off its old apathy, measured itself against the age, deepened its river, built ships, smelted ironstone, cast and forged and manufactured, until it found itself accepted as one of the most spirited and enterprising of English towns. In the process of growth everything thatmay have been beautiful in its surroundings has been destroyed, and now, glorying in its ugliness, it flaunts its frightful aspect as one of its claims to consideration.
HIGH STREET, STOCKTON.HIGH STREET, STOCKTON.
HIGH STREET, STOCKTON.
Stockton Manor was granted to the see of Durham after the Conquest. A fortress was built, as was so necessary in those days, and the place was visited in 1214 by King John. In the sixteenth century Stockton was a town to which a Bishop of Durham might retreat from the Plague. The castle was taken by the Parliamentarians in 1644, and destroyed, the only stone houses in Stockton a few years ago being such as were built from the castle walls. There is one fine street and a Borough Hall, but every other part of Stockton bears witness to the fact that a town which is engaged in growing and prospering has neither time nor inclination to attend to its looks. As to the growth of the last half century, there is only one town—the neighbouring Middlesbrough—by which it has been excelled.
At the beginning of the century Stockton had already a shipping trade, but one that could seem important only in the eyes of its 11,000 inhabitants. At that time the river kept a tortuous, shallow course until it arrived at the wide, sandy flats which stretched far eastward to the sea. The first improvement was a straightening of its course, which dates back to the year 1810. The effect was a heightening of the tide from eight to ten feet at Stockton Quay, and little short of a doubling of the shipping trade. The construction of the first public railway came just in time to encourage the town in its efforts at development. A Tees Conservancy was formed, with the consequence that the river was so dredged, banked up, and reformed generally, that Stockton is now not only a considerable port and an important manufacturing town, but a centre of shipbuilding, the vessels built here being as large as many of those which are constructed on the Tyne. Wealth and population have increased enormously, and there seems no necessary limit to further industrial development.
Any accurate description of Stockton is in many respects applicable to Middlesbrough, a still more wonderful town, which has, within living memory, sprung up close to the estuary of the Tees. Fifty years ago there was only a single farmstead where the great town of Middlesbrough now stands. The United States have few examples of such marvellous growth. At the census of 1831 there were 154 persons in Middlesbrough, and at the census of 1881 the population was 55,281. It was in 1830 that the present town was founded, on 500 acres of marshy land. It has been assisted both by enterprise and good fortune. Originally it was intended as a port for the shipping of coals; but iron was discovered in the Cleveland hills, and blast furnaces were built where it was supposed that only coal-staithes would be seen. The first ton of Cleveland ironstone was mined in 1850, and in sixteen years the output was no less than two and three quarter millions of tons. When the iron trade was declining, a decade since, Middlesbrough men set themselves to devise new methods of manufacturing steel, with the result that Middlesbrough steel is now in demand all over the world. Talent, enterprise, the bounty of Nature, have all combined to make of Middlesbrough one of our large centres of population and industry, and to bring about a growth so rapid as has not previously been witnessed in the history of our country.
The brief voyage down the Tees from Stockton to below Middlesbrough should be made in the night time, when clouds of smoke are shot through by columns of flame; when the furnace fires are blazing out into the darkness; when seething bars of iron, crushing and straining through the rolling-mills, make the forges look like some huge Vulcan’s smithy; when the steel converters are sending out a fiery rain; and when the Tees is reflecting all manner of strange lights and weird coruscations—an appalling sight to one not accustomed to such spectacles, but grand and deeply impressive and wonderfully characteristic of the age in which we live.
Middlesbrough has its fine docks, crowded with shipping. Where, a few years ago, the Tees spread itself over a broad estuary, the channel of the river has been divided from the wide stretch of mud and sand and creeping waves by a curving groin of slag; lines of light stretch downward as far as the eye can follow,guiding ships to the desired haven. Henceforth the Tees—
“Not hurled precipitous from steep to steep;Lingering no more ’mid flower-enamelled landsAnd blooming thickets; nor by rocky bandsHeld; but in radiant progress towards the deep”—
“Not hurled precipitous from steep to steep;Lingering no more ’mid flower-enamelled landsAnd blooming thickets; nor by rocky bandsHeld; but in radiant progress towards the deep”—
“Not hurled precipitous from steep to steep;
Lingering no more ’mid flower-enamelled lands
And blooming thickets; nor by rocky bands
Held; but in radiant progress towards the deep”—
flows broadly onward to the Northern Sea.
FERRYBOAT LANDING, MIDDLESBROUGH.FERRYBOAT LANDING, MIDDLESBROUGH.
FERRYBOAT LANDING, MIDDLESBROUGH.
During the last quarter of a century the river below Stockton has been constantly undergoing a process of enlargement and improvement, necessarily accompanied by a destruction of its former picturesque beauty. The work done is in the highest sense creditable to northern enterprise. The foundation stones of two great breakwaters were laid in 1863, these defences against the incoming waves being appropriately built of slag from the furnaces of Middlesbrough and Stockton. The large quantity of 443,000 tons of this material was deposited in a single year, and by 1874, when close upon £100,000 had been spent, it was possible to report that a shifting bed of sand had been replaced by a solid and immovable wall. The breakwaters have cost close upon a quarter of a million sterling at the present date, a sum well expended, for a fine harbour has now been constructed only less important than that of the Tyne. On good authority it has been declared that the recent improvements on the Tees are to be ranked amongst the most successful engineering works of the century.
Messrs. Besant and Rice have made the marvellous development of Middlesbrough the leading motive of one of their most striking novels. The mere history of the place is in itself a romance. So recently as in 1831 the place had only 154 inhabitants, and it has now, it is believed, considerably more than 60,000. Until iron was discovered in the Cleveland Hills the smelting works of the North of England were situated almost solely on the Tyne and the Wear. The finding of Cleveland iron made a vast change in thelocaleof a great industry, and covered the low-lying and desolate lands near the estuary of the Tees with mighty forges, and blast furnaces, and iron shipbuilding yards and crowded streets. Where, sixty years ago, a shallow stream wound down to the sea, with only an occasional house discernible along its banks, there is now one of the finest outlets of our commerce and manufactures, and a deep river flowing through thickly populated towns. And as regards development the end is not yet. It has seemed more than once that Middlesbrough would collapse almost as rapidly as it hasgrown up, but it has risen stronger from every depression, and some new invention or discovery has at each crisis brought its assurance of continued life and growth.
However, it is an unlovely Tees that the eye alights upon since the smoke of the blast furnaces came in sight. It would scarcely be possible for a river so beautiful in its upper reaches to undergo a more surprising and spirit-depressing change. Yet standing on the lofty quays at Middlesbrough and looking seaward, one is conscious of a throb of exhilaration, such as the hero of “Locksley Hall” must have felt when, imagining the future, he—
“Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales.”
“Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales.”
“Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,
Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales.”
In the perpetual coming and going of great steamers, bringing in cargoes of “wheat and wine and oil,” and carrying out to all lands the produce of English industry and skill, there is a spectacle which very well atones for the destruction of some little picturesqueness here and there. What was bright and pleasant only is often enough in these cases replaced by what, when properly considered, is sublime.
Aaron Watson.
BLAST FURNACES, FROM THE RIVER, MIDDLESBROUGH.BLAST FURNACES, FROM THE RIVER, MIDDLESBROUGH.
BLAST FURNACES, FROM THE RIVER, MIDDLESBROUGH.
IN THE POTTERIES.IN THE POTTERIES.
IN THE POTTERIES.
The Course of the Trent—A Lowland Stream—Etymological—A Fish-Stream—The Source—The Potteries—Burslem, Etruria, and Josiah Wedgwood—Stoke-upon-Trent—Trentham Hall—Stone—Sandon—Chartley Castle—Ingestre and its Owners—The Sow—Tixall—Essex Bridge—Shugborough—Cannock Chase—Rugeley—Beaudesert—Armitage—The Blyth—Alrewas—The Tame—Burton-upon-Trent—Newton Solney.
S
Someof our chief English rivers seek out paths for their waters, the motive of which is by no means easy to explain. Father Thames, indeed, goes about this work in a fairly businesslike way. Born on the eastern slopes of the Cotswolds he makes his way to the sea by a tolerably direct course. Not so Trent. Rising on the western slopes of the backbone of England, one would have expected that, like the Weaver on the one side of it, and the Dane on the other, it would have made its way towards the estuaries of the Dee or the Mersey; but it flows first of all nearly south, parallel with the trend of the great hill district of Derbyshire and North Staffordshire, and then after this has sunk down to the lowlands of the latter county, Trent bends towards the east, until the hills are left behind, when it sweeps round to the north, and so makes its way towards the Ouse and the Humber. Thus its course, like that of Dee, still more of Severn, may be roughly likened to a fish-hook. But, unlike these rivers, and like Thames, Trent, throughout its whole course, is a lowland rather than an upland stream. The hill region already mentioned is, indeed, drained by some of its tributaries, and its western slopes give birth to the little stream which first bears the name of Trent, and for a timetraverses the North Staffordshire coalfield, but the river soon enters the district composed of sandstones, gravels, and marls (referred by geologists to the Trias), and as these are but rarely either hard or durable, the scenery is neither bold nor conspicuously varied. Such change as it exhibits is due rather to difference of productiveness than to diversity of physical features. In regard to the latter the extremes are only from level plain to undulating hills of moderate elevation, but the former affords every variety between barren moorland and densely wooded or richly cultivated ground.
Michael Drayton thus explains the etymology of Trent, and assigns to it a mystic significance when he tells the tale of
... A long-told prophecy, which ranOf Moreland, that she might live prosperously to seeA river born of her, who well might reckoned beThe third of this large isle: which saw did first ariseFrom Arden, in those days delivering prophecies.To satisfy her will, the wizard answers, Trent.For, as a skilful seer, the aged forest wist,A more than usual power did in that name consist,Which thirty doth import; by which she thus divined,There should be found in her of fishes thirty kind;And thirty abbeys great, in places fat and rank,Should in succeeding time have builded on her bank;And thirty several streams from many a sundry wayUnto her greatness should their watery tribute pay.
... A long-told prophecy, which ranOf Moreland, that she might live prosperously to seeA river born of her, who well might reckoned beThe third of this large isle: which saw did first ariseFrom Arden, in those days delivering prophecies.To satisfy her will, the wizard answers, Trent.For, as a skilful seer, the aged forest wist,A more than usual power did in that name consist,Which thirty doth import; by which she thus divined,There should be found in her of fishes thirty kind;And thirty abbeys great, in places fat and rank,Should in succeeding time have builded on her bank;And thirty several streams from many a sundry wayUnto her greatness should their watery tribute pay.
... A long-told prophecy, which ranOf Moreland, that she might live prosperously to seeA river born of her, who well might reckoned beThe third of this large isle: which saw did first ariseFrom Arden, in those days delivering prophecies.
... A long-told prophecy, which ran
Of Moreland, that she might live prosperously to see
A river born of her, who well might reckoned be
The third of this large isle: which saw did first arise
From Arden, in those days delivering prophecies.
To satisfy her will, the wizard answers, Trent.For, as a skilful seer, the aged forest wist,A more than usual power did in that name consist,Which thirty doth import; by which she thus divined,There should be found in her of fishes thirty kind;And thirty abbeys great, in places fat and rank,Should in succeeding time have builded on her bank;And thirty several streams from many a sundry wayUnto her greatness should their watery tribute pay.
To satisfy her will, the wizard answers, Trent.
For, as a skilful seer, the aged forest wist,
A more than usual power did in that name consist,
Which thirty doth import; by which she thus divined,
There should be found in her of fishes thirty kind;
And thirty abbeys great, in places fat and rank,
Should in succeeding time have builded on her bank;
And thirty several streams from many a sundry way
Unto her greatness should their watery tribute pay.
On the same side may be quoted Camden and Spenser and Milton, yet philology is too strong for poetry, and modern scholars declare that the name Trent has nothing to do with the Latin word for thirty or any of its modifications in the Romance languages, but is of Celtic origin, is only a contracted form of Derwent, and means river-water. The first of the two words which compose the dissyllable Derwent, and enter into the monosyllabic Trent, is that which appears in the Doire, Dora, Douro, Durance, and other European rivers; the second is indicated by the Latin Venta, a name borne by more than one riverside town in Roman Britain.
The Trent and its tributaries were noted of old as fish-streams, and even now, after years of neglect and poaching, it would not be difficult to make up the “thirty kinds of fish” which were once said to people its waters. Isaak Walton has made the upper reaches of the Dove classic ground; and there, as in the Blyth, and in gravelly parts of the main river, one may yet see “here and there a lusty trout and here and there a grayling.” Eels were and still are numerous in the more muddy parts of its bed; pike are also common, though the giants of olden days are vanished like the Rephaim; for in the last century, a county historian tells us, fish weighing more than twenty pounds were not seldom caught, and one monster of thirty-six pounds is said to have been found dead. The barbel also is a Trent fish, and the stream may claim the salmon. One was caught many years agoso far away from the sea as Rugeley, but it was white and out of season. Swans in several districts add to the beauty of its waters, and build their nests by its side among the willow-beds and reeds.
The river is navigable only as far as Burton, for above that town it is interrupted by weirs and by shallows; but canals follow the valley, and in the year 1849 the railroad uniting Rugby with Stafford passed along it for a few miles, and directed through a district, hitherto secluded, the traffic between London and Holyhead or the great towns of western Lancashire. This railway quitted the Trent near its junction with the Sow, but a few years later the towns higher up the river, forming the important district of the Staffordshire Potteries, were reached by a line which branches off from the main system of the London and North-Western Company at Colwich.
THE TRENT, FROM THE SOURCE TO NEWTON SOLNEY.THE TRENT, FROM THE SOURCE TO NEWTON SOLNEY.
THE TRENT, FROM THE SOURCE TO NEWTON SOLNEY.
The birthplace of Trent, like that of many persons afterwards famous, is inconspicuous. The river, according to Erdeswick, “hath its first spring in the moorlands between Bidulph and Norton, and divideth the shire almost into two equal parts, north and south.” There is little to note in its earlier course. One or two of the adjacent villages possess some link with our older history, notably “Stanleghe,” of which the author just quoted says, “of this small village do all the great houses of Stanley take their name.” But before long a district is entered, unpleasing indeed to the artist, but welcome to the man of commerce—a land of chimneys and smoke, of kilns and furnaces, not only for earth but also for metal. This is the district popularly called the Potteries, a group of towns often so nearly confluent as to defy distinction by all but residents. Tunstall and Burslem, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Hanley and Stoke-upon-Trent: these, with such suburbs as Etruria, occupy a strip of country some ten miles long, drained by the youthful Trent and its tributaries, a composite or confluent hive of human bees. We will venture but on one positive statement, that Stoke-upon-Trent is the last of these towns, and below it the river emerges into more attractive scenery. In this district the smelting furnaces and ironworks are industries comparatively modern, but for centuries it has been noted for its earthenware. Burslem, one of the towns more distant from the Trent, appears to be the oldest, for under the name of Bulwardsleme it is mentioned in Domesday Book, and its “butter-pots” were noted in the days of the Stuarts. When Dr. Plot wrote his History of Staffordshire—that is, during the short reign of James II.—it was the chief place for the potter’s industry, and hetells us that “for making several sorts of pots they have as many different sorts of clay, which they dig round about the town, all within half a mile’s distance, the best being found near the coal.” This earthenware was all coloured, for the white clay from Cornwall had not yet been imported into the district. The most marked advance was due to one man—Josiah Wedgwood, who was born to the trade in 1730. The effect of an illness in youth led him to turn his thoughts to the more delicate work, and he soon exhibited great skill in manufacturing ornamental pottery. When nearly thirty years old he established himself in business at Burslem, and produced such results as the white-stone ware, green glazed earthenware,cream-coloured Queen’s ware, and the unglazed black porcelain. The works, however, at Burslem soon proved too small for his needs, and in 1766 he purchased an estate, built a large establishment on the bank of the Grand Trunk Canal, between Hanley and Newcastle, calling it Etruria, in remembrance of the so-called “Etruscan vases,” which were among his favourite models. Aided in business by his partner, Bentley, in art by the talent of Flaxman, Wedgwood prospered, and Etruria under his management surpassed the fame of Worcester, and rivalled that of Sèvres or Dresden. Wedgwood, in fact, by the graceful form and harmonious decoration of his wares, did not a little to educate the national taste and raise it from the easy contentment with opulent ugliness which is the general characteristic of the “Hanoverian period” of British Art. Since his days the village has become a town; the ironworks of Shelton have helped in blackening the precincts of Etruria Hall, which Wedgwood built, and in the cellars of which he made his experiments; Spode and Minton and Copeland have added to the fame of the Potteries; villages and towns have grown beyond recognition, and houses have hid what once were fields; but though these and other makers have produced, or still produce, many admirable and characteristic works, “old Wedgwood ware” maintains a unique position among the masterpieces of ceramic art.
ETRURIA. / JOSIAH WEDGWOOD.ETRURIA. / JOSIAH WEDGWOOD.
ETRURIA. / JOSIAH WEDGWOOD.
We must not linger over the Grand Trunk Canal, nor the fame of Brindley, the engineer, a native of this part of Staffordshire, nor shall we be much tempted to tarry in Stoke-upon-Trent—at any rate, for æsthetic reasons—unless we confine ourselves to the interior of its show rooms, though there is many a worse place to live in. It is mightily changed since the days when Erdeswick wrote of it, “Of Stoke I can report no more but that the parson of the parish is the best man in the town, being lord thereof, and it being one of the best parsonages in the county.” The parson now is a bishop and a baronet, but the town is yet more important.
It contains many buildings which larger towns could not despise: a handsome modern church, a fine town-hall, and a school of science and art, which is a memorial to the late Mr. Minton. Statues, or monuments of some kind, to severalmembers of the great potter families—Wedgwood, Spode, Minton, and others—will be found here, and the town itself is regarded as the centre and show place of the district.
Below Stoke, and almost within sight of its chimneys by the side of Trent, stands one of the “stately homes” of England—Trentham Hall, a seat of the Duke of Sutherland. The mansion lies low on the flat bed of the valley; the park mounts the slopes on the right hand, thus affording great variety of scenery, from richly-wooded meadows to rather open moorland. There is nothing to suggest a settlement of great antiquity, yet a monastery was founded here in the days of Alfred. Enlarged by Ranulf Earl of Chester, it passed, after the Dissolution, into the hands of the Levesons, ancestors of the present duke. One of them built on its site a fine Jacobean house, of which Plot gives a plate together with the following quaint note: “The stone-rail upon the wall built about the green-court before Trentham House is a pretty piece of work, it being supported with Roman capital letters instead of ballisters, containing an inscription not only setting forth the name of the ancient Proprietor and builder of this Seat, but the time when it was done, the Numeral Letters put together making up the year of our Lord, when it was finish’t, viz., 1633.”
TRENTHAM.TRENTHAM.
TRENTHAM.
This house was pulled down early in the last century, when the nucleus of the present mansion was erected, which, however, was greatly enlarged and altered by Sir Charles Barry in the time of the late duke. The church, which adjoins the house, contains remnants of very early work and some interesting monuments. There is a large sheet of water in the gardens, which are famed for many a mile round for their beauty, and surpass any that will be found elsewhere near the margin of the Trent.
After passing Trentham the river gradually loses the traces of the grime of the potteries and coalfields, and glides along through pleasant pastoral scenery till it reaches Stone. This, for long a sleepy little country town, has been awakened by the railway and other causes, and seems now to be a fairly busy and thriving place, devoted chiefly to malting, brewing, and shoemaking. There is little to indicate antiquity, except a few fragments of an old nunnery, for the church dates from the last century, when that which had once served the religious house tumbled down.
Stone, nevertheless, begins its history more than twelve centuries ago. There lived then a certain Wulfere, king of Mercia, who had a residence somewhere near Stone: tradition asserts at Bury Bank, rather higher up the Trent, where an earthwork still exists. Wulfere was a heathen and a persecutor, but a holy hermit, named Ceadda, better known as St. Chad, who died bishop of Lichfield, was dwelling hidden in the neighbouring forest. The king’s two sons were hunting one day, and were led by the chase to the saint’s abode. The young men felt the charm of his words, repeated their visit, and became converts. Of course this was soon made known to their father; the parent was forgotten in the persecutor, and the youngmen were put to death. But time brought its revenges, though in this case merciful. Before many years were over Wulfere himself became a Christian, and then, as a monument of sorrow and penitence, he founded a monastery at Stone, where also a nunnery was established by his queen.
The last statement, as to the date of the foundation, is probably true, but all the rest of the story, like many another concerning Chad, is only legend. Since then Stone, as is the case with many other country towns, has shared in the beatitude of having no history. The suppression of its convents, the ruin of its church, and a connection with the Rebellion of 1745—the latter events happening in the same decade—appear to have been the chief incidents that have ruffled its even existence. The last-named incident might have given it a place in national history, had things taken another course. The young Pretender Charles Edward, after his triumph in Scotland, had crossed the Solway, and begun his invasion of England. He was expected to advance upon London along the line of the main road from Manchester, so the Duke of Cumberland encamped in the neighbourhood of Stone to dispute his passage. Charles, however, as is well known, struck eastward, and on arriving at Derby, was a long day’s march nearer London than the duke’s army. The inherent weakness of his forces averted the danger, and the Hanoverian troops had only to pursue the retreating enemy till he made his last hopeless stand on the moor of Culloden.
Below Stone the river passes Sandon, an old village. There are not many prettier places in all the valley of the Trent than the park of the Harrowbys with its slopes of grove and sward, the higher parts of which command views of unusual extent, not only over the rich river valley of the Trent, but also as far as the Wrekin and Caradoc hills. On elevated ground, at the edge of the park, is the parish church, containing several interesting remains of olden time, the most conspicuous, though by no means the most ancient, being the monument to Sampson Erdeswick, the historian of Staffordshire, and former owner of the estate, who died in the year 1603. The property ultimately passed into the hands of the Duke of Hamilton, and a law-suit in regard to it is reported to have occasioned the quarrel between the duke and Lord Mohun which, as is well known, had so tragic an ending. Erdeswick’s house, of which the site is still marked, was a fine old brick and timber edifice, surrounded by a moat; but in the last century a new and uninteresting mansion was erected by Lord Archibald Hamilton, which was burned down in 1848, and replaced by a more handsome building in the Tudor style. From him the property was purchased by an ancestor of the present owner, the Earl of Harrowby.
Rather below Sandon, near the little village of Shirleywich, brine is obtained. Fortunately, however, for the beauty of the scenery, there has been no temptation to establish extensive salt works. The quiet little villages on the lowlands, near the river, offer nothing to delay the traveller; but the grey ruins, high on the left bank, mark a place of some note. Those two broken towers, those fragments of curtain-wall, are remnants of Chartley Castle; the moorland, which extendsback from the park, is one of the few spots in England where the descendants ofbos primigeniusstill linger on in a semi-wild condition. The castle, though it carries back its history to early in the thirteenth century, makes little figure in history. The present house is on lower ground, and parts of it are older than the reign of Elizabeth, who not only visited it herself, but made it one of the prisons of Mary Queen of Scots. The estate formerly was included among those of the great Earls of Chester, but has for long been part of the family property of the present owner, Earl Ferrers. There is a tragic tale about a former earl, who was a man of ungovernable temper—probably insane, and shot his own steward. Feudal times were then too far away, and his coronet could not save him from the halter.