twentieth legion, we directed our course northward through the
Chersonese, between the mouths of the Dee and the Mersey; a flat,
sandy, clayey country, not much unlike the best part of the
Lincolnshire levels. To the east of the old church of Bevington is
added a spacious choir, and side-ailes. We ferried over the great bay
to Leverpool. In the visto upward, the huge mountain whereon stands
Beeston castle is very entertaining: it appears, though at the distance
of above twenty miles, as a great rock emerging from the water. The
novelty of Leverpool forbad us to hope for antiquities: it is a
large, populous, busy town, placed upon the edge of the water, in a
sandy soil, and open country, arisen from the commodiousness of its
situation, with a spacious harbour. Quarry hill, a delf of stone of
the red sort, and sandy, but not a brown red; so that in building it
has a pleasant colour; and that fetched deep is lasting, and a good
sort of stone: the new church is built of it; a neat building, by a
good architect. I observed in this quarry, that the workmen make for
themselves artificial springs at pleasure; for, though the _strata_
here are very close together, and of a considerable breadth, yet there
is a small dripping between some of them, especially those not far from
the ground: here they cut a little bason, which is never empty. This
confirms my former sentiments about springs.
Near the new church is a most magnificent charity-school. Here was a
great castle, or tower, which they are pulling down; and a new church
is building upon its ruins. The wet dock is a most capacious bason,
with a broad street round it: the custom-house, a very neat building,
fronts the dock. This town seems to be as big as Manchester; and they
are building new streets every where. The process of the delf ware made
here is very curious. There is a scarcity of good water here. From this
place I first beheld the Irish sea.
We paid a visit to lord Derby at his seat at Knowsley, who may be
truly said to be a person _antiquæ fidei_, grown old in wisdom: he has
left the vanities of courts and cities for a retirement, which his
lordship diversifies and makes still more agreeable with the greatest
judgement. This is one of his seats: it stands on very high ground
with a delicate prospect, and abounds with canals and fish-ponds: it
has a park ten miles in circumference. The whole is newly refitted and
adorned by my lord, and rendered very delightful. There is a great
range of new building, with fine apartments full of admirable pictures,
of antique marbles, and good furniture. The pictures are by the most
celebrated masters, as M. Angelo, Caravagio, Veronese, Luca Jordano;
a fine stag-hunting by Snyders, engraved by Sympson; sea-pieces by
Vandeveld: many of Vandyke, Rubens, (one painted on paper, as Dr.
Mead’s) and the story of Ulysses and Achilles; the Triumph of Industry,
the original sketch of which I have: many of Salvator Rosa, and two
great drawings of his upon boards; Titian, Carlo Maratti, and an
infinity more. The bustoes are, young Geta; a coloss one of Faustina;
a lesser one of the same, with one breast naked, very beautiful;
Caligula; Gallienus; Alba Terentia, Otho’s mother; one that seems to
be Pompey when young, or one of his sons: a brass head, said to be
Michael Angelo; a lesser bust of Flora; a fine bust of Homer in Parian
marble, of curious Greek work; another, a philosopher, of like work
and materials; with several more. A statue of Hercules, two foot and a
half high; two fine statues of Venus rising from the sea, somewhat less
than life; a little statue of a Faunus; one of Bacchus; a lesser one of
Ceres; another Venus with a dolphin, and a Mercury, both less than life.
Among the portraits, that of the famous countess of Richmond and
Derby, foundress of St. John’s and Christ’s colleges in Cambridge; a
full-length picture of a man born near here, called the Child of Hale,
11 foot high.
My lord has in his library a great collection of drawings, particularly
the whole collection of the late Cheron, after Raphael; one of Hans
Holbein, Henry VII. Henry VIII. &c. the original of the painting at
Whitehall.
Near Knowsley are coal-pits. From the summer-house on the top of the
hill in the park may be seen six counties in England, three in Wales;
the Wrekin. The tower at Liverpool, by the water-side, was built by Sir
John Stanley, ancestor to my lord.
West-Derby, near here, is the place whence the title of the earldom.
The trees here universally bend very much to the east, owing to the
continual breezes from the Irish sea. This country is observed to have
much rain all the year round, owing to the same cause; and were it not
so, it would be very barren, as confiding wholly of sand upon solid
rock, as all this western country is.
Ormskirk is said to be named from a church built by one Orme in
former times: one of his name, still left, is wrote upon the font as
churchwarden. This belongs to lord Derby; and here is the burial-place
of the family, a deep vault filled up to the very church-floor with
coffins: some old fragments of alabaster monuments of the family
of Stanley; others of the Scaresbricks. The church consists of two
buildings at different times; and two steeples, one a spire, the other
a large square tower; and both are crowded together in an unseemly
manner.
From thence we travelled toward Preston, over a boggy, flat and black
level, called a Moss. On the right, at a distance, we saw Houghton
castle upon a high hill; before us, the vast Lancashire mountains, on
the tops of which the clouds hung like fleeces; till we forded the
famous _Belisama_, now the Ribel; I suppose, _Rhe bel_, the river Bel.
Vide Selden _de diis Syris_.
RIBLECHESTER.
I went to view this old station: it is prettily seated on a rising
knoll upon the river; at some distance all round inclosed with higher
ground, well clothed with wood and hedge-rows: beyond which the barren
mountains, or Fells, as they generally call them here, from the Cimbric
_fala_. The soil hereabouts is gravel with clay and sand by spots. The
river Rible is very broad at this place, rapid and sonorous, running
over the pebbles, and, what is much to be lamented, over innumerable
Roman antiquities; for in this long tract of time it has eaten away a
third part of the city. I traced out the old ground-plot, and where
the wall and ditch went round it: it lay in length east and west along
the north side of the river, upon its brink, 800 foot long, 500 broad:
originally, I apprehend, two streets ran along its length, and three
crossed them on its breadth. This place has been long famous for old
monuments found therein; and some fragments still remaining I had a
sight of. At the door of the Red-lion ale-house I saw the base of a
pillar, and a most noble shaft, seven foot long, handsomely turned;
which was fished out of the river: it is undoubtedly Roman originally,
though the base has, I guess, been used as the stump of a later cross,
in which this country abounds: there is a _scotia_ and two torus’s at
the bottom, though not very elegantly formed; perhaps it was never
finished: the whole piece is 2½ foot high, 22 inches in diameter: the
_frustum_ of the column lay in the ale-house yard, where the weather,
and other accidents, have obliterated an inscription consisting of
three or four lines, towards the top: it is 17 inches diameter at top.
One corner of this house is a Roman partition-wall, built of pebbles
and hard mortar, as usual. This house now is by the brink of the river,
leaving only a scanty road between; but within memory a great many
houses opposite, and among them the chief inn of the town, were washed
away. Farther on, down the river, a great part of an orchard fell down
last year; and the apple-trees still grow in their own soil at bottom.
Viewing the breach of the bank exposed thereby, I saw the joists and
boards of a floor of oak, four foot under the present surface, with
many bits of Roman bricks, potsherds, and the like; and such floors
are to be seen along the whole bank, whence most antiquities are found
in the river. The late minister of this place, Mr. Ogden, collected
all the coins, intaglia’s, and other antiquities, found here in great
quantities; but his widow, as far as I could learn, disposed of them
to Mr. Prescot of Chester: I was shown the top of a great two-handled
_amphora_, or wine-jar, taken out of the river, of whitish clay: I saw
another like fragment; and among antiquities he took up a very large
piece of _corallium tubulatum_, bigger than a man’s head; an admirable
curiosity of nature. By symmetry I find the whole channel of the river,
at present, lies within the precincts of the old city: the original
channel on the other side being filled up with the city-walls, and
rubbish; for it bends with a great elbow toward the city. The eastern
limit of the city, or that upward of the river, lies against a brook
there falling in; and the two streams playing against that angle,
have carried it away, and still threaten them. At the western end of
the city, or down the stream, a whole road, and some houses too, by a
barn, are absorbed; and great quantity of ashler, the remains of the
wall, has been carried off for building: much remains in the ground,
and on the edge of the stream. Farther up the land, and all along the
west side of the church-wall, the ditch is perfect, and the rampire
where the wall stood pretty high, and the foundation of the wall a
little apparent. They tell me the ashler stone still lies its whole
length. They call this Anchor hill; and, when digging by the house
that stands upon part of it, they found anchors, and great quantities
of iron pins, of all sizes, for ships or barges; for they say this
river was navigable so high formerly, at least for smaller vessels.
The north-west angle of the city is manifest, and where the northern
wall turned round the north side of the church: a little way down a
lane at that angle, a great bank runs westward, made of stone, like a
Roman road. There is a lane goes down, north of the city, to the brook,
called the Strand; which confirms their having some sort of navigation
here. At the end of this lane is the street which is the Roman road,
running directly northward up the fell, called Green gate: it passes
over Langridge, a great mountain so named from it, so through Bowland
forest: it appears green to the eye. In this street, over-against the
Strand, is an old white house, where they say Oliver Cromwell lay,
when going to Preston in pursuit of the Scots, after the battle of
Marston-moor. The eastern wall over the brook stood likewise on a sort
of precipice. I saw a large coin of Domitian, of yellow brass, very
fair, found in the river, _Imp. cæs. domit. aug. germ. cos._ xvi.
_cens. per pp._ reverse, Jupiter sitting in a curule chair, the _hasta
pura_ in his left, an eagle on his right hand, _Jovi victori_; exergue
S. C. another pedestal of a pillar found in the river. Just under the
Red-lion a subterraneous canal comes into the river, so high that one
may walk upright in it, paved at the bottom. Many urns have been found
hereabouts, but all lost and disregarded since Mr. Ogden died, who
collected such things. They know the track of the Roman road all the
way over the hills. In a garden by the Unicorn’s head a gold finger was
found, and another brass finger as large as a man’s; two intaglia’s of
Mercury with wings on his feet, the _caduceus_, &c. found near Anchor
hill: much ashes and bones found about the city. Up the river, eight
miles off, is Pendle hill, a vast black mountain, which is the morning
weather-glass of the country people: upon it grows the cloud-berry
plant. Digging in the church-yard, silver coins have been frequently
turned up. The river hither is open and deep; but at Salesbury, a
mile higher, rocks begin: therefore it is likely this place was
chosen by the Romans because at the extent of navigation. Half of one
longitudinal street, and of two latitudinals, are consumed. Horses and
carriages frequently fall down the steep from the street, because it is
narrow, and but factitious ground.
Panstones, up the hill, by the Green-moor lane, or Roman road, is a
place much talked of; but they know not for what. I suppose it is
either some Roman building, or a road eastward, or some _terminus_.
They told me of an altar thereabouts with an inscription, axes, and the
like, carved on it: it is on Duttonley, by Panstones. Haughton tower is
within view; a great castle upon a precipicious hill.
Many are the inscriptions found here from time to time: Dr. Leigh has
seen them all. Now they are removed, lost, or spoiled: one great altar
they told me was carried to Dunkin hall, the seat of lady Petre, with
an inscription, a ram, and a knife; many taken away by the family of
Warrens, living lately at Salesbury hall. I saw the fragment of a
stone, in the corner of a house by the mill, cut with very fair large
letters: under the next house is the _frustum_ of a pillar, 20 inches
diameter, made into a horse-block: I saw another flat stone at the
town’s end, laid over a gutter, with a monumental moulding upon it.
Above the town half a mile is a noble bridge of four very large arches,
built lately by the country: over this I went to Salesbury; but all the
inscriptions are carried away, probably to Mr. Warren’s other seat,
near Stockport in Cheshire. I found a large stone in the corner of
the house, which has been a Roman monumental stone, foolishly placed
there for the sake of the carving: there are three large figures upon
it, sweetly performed, and good drapery, though half worn way by time;
a man and woman holding hands, both half naked; somewhat roundish in
the woman’s hand: at the end is Apollo resting on his harp, his head
leaning on his hand, as melancholy for the loss of a votary; for such
we may guess the deceased, either a poet, physician, or musician:
probably there was more carving on those sides within the wall. This
has been a very large seat, with a park. They told me there were some
carved stones at Dinkley, another seat of Mr. Warren’s, a mile farther;
but I found they were all carried elsewhere, save two altars, both
obliterated, but well cut: one stood in a grass-plot in the garden,
covered over with moss and weeds; another used in the house as a
cheese-press. This is a romantic place, hanging over the river purling
across the rocky falls, and covered with wood. The late Mr. Warren was
very careful of these learned remnants. They told me that Ribchester
was destroyed by the Scots. These are all the memoirs I could pick
up in about five hours I staid there, _& antiquum tenuerunt flumina
nomen_. Ovid. Met.
Dr. Leigh, in _Lancaster_, says a Roman way goes from Manchester to
Ribchester by strange ways towards Bury: he gives a cut of a ruby found
here; on it a soldier with spear and shield. I take the two altars I
saw at Salesbury to be those described in Dr. Leigh’s _Lancaster_.
At Langho, Ardulf king of Northumberland gained a victory, anno 798.
LANCASTER.
Between Preston and this place we had the vast hills that part
Yorkshire and Lancashire, all the way on our right. This is all sandy
country to within three miles of Lancaster; then rock begins: the other
has rock under it, but red and sandy; this is white. Where the castle
and church stand is a high and steep hill, length east and west: this
was the Roman _castrum_. I found a great piece of the wall at the
north-east, in the garden of Clement Townsend; and so to Mr. Harrison’s
summer-house, which stands upon it: it is made of the white stone of
the country, and very hard mortar, and still very thick, though the
facing on both sides is peeled off for the sake of the squared stone,
which they used in building. A year or two ago a great parcel of it was
destroyed with much labour. This reached quite to the bridge-lane, and
hung over the street at the head of the precipice in a dreadful manner:
from the summer-house it went round the verge of the close north of
the church, and took in the whole circuit of the hill. The ditch on
the outside of it is now to be seen. I suppose it originally inclosed
the whole top of the hill where the church and castle stand, which is
steep on all sides, and half inclosed by the river Lune; so that it was
an excellent guard to this part of the sea-coast, and commands a very
great prospect both by sea and land. Here was this great convenience
too in the situation, that on the south side of the castle walls, under
the tower, is a spring. All the space of ground north of the church
is full of foundations of stone buildings, Roman, I believe; and much
stone has been taken up there. To the west of the church is part of
a partition wall left, of that time. This is a navigable river. The
castle built since on this spot has been very strong; it suffered in
the civil wars. The prospect hence takes in all the western sea, and
sometimes reaches the isle of Man. The Cumberland and Westmorland hills
are of such a nature as I never saw before: I took them for clouds at
first, not only from their height, but figure; consisting not of long
ridges, but pens, or sugar-loaves, suddenly breaking off. Eastward is
Ingleborough, a very strange hill, having a flat place at top, like a
table: they say there are some works upon it, and some stones placed
like a bower: Camden takes notice of it as rising gradually eastward.
Upon some of these hills it was that George Fox ascended to converse
with the Holy Ghost, as he pretended; which he revealed to Nailor, and
so began the sect of the Quakers, about sixty years ago.
There is a friery in the town, and the church of it was standing within
memory. When they pulled down the Roman wall, they found many great
toads alive in the thickness of it, and where in all appearance there
could be no passage for them from without. The town of Lancaster lies
upon the eastern declivity, before the castle.
CONCANGIOS. +Water-crook.+
Through a very hard road, but not an unpleasant country, we entered
Westmorland. The river Can is very rapid, and full of cataracts, as
running chiefly over the rock, and having a great descent. It is
strange that the salmon coming up these rivers from the sea to lay
their spawn, when obstructed by these places, leap over them with a
surprizing force; and there they lie in wait to catch them with nets
laid on the upper edge. A mile below Kendal this river takes a circling
course, and makes a sort of peninsula, called Water-crook, where I
found the old city: its name signifies the valley upon the water Can.
It is a fine large valley, and very pleasant. Either with a cut, or
by nature, the river ran quite round the city. Mr. Tho. Guy is the
possessor of it. As soon as I came into the yard, I saw a large altar
placed by some steps: I believe it dedicate to Bacchus, because of
grapes and festoons on it: it is above three foot high: the festoons
are on three sides; the back is plain. All the house and out-houses
are built of Roman stone, dug up in the old city. The top of an altar
is put into a corner of that stable where the altar stands. At the end
of the house is a large statue or bas relief of Cupid: the gavel end
fell down some time ago, and knocked off his head and arms; but it is
well cut. In the garden, at the end of an out-house, is a very long
inscription on a stone. He showed me a little portable altar, but 7¼
Roman inches high: the dedicatory inscription is obliterated by using
it as a whet-stone; but it is prettily adorned, has two scrolls and the
_discus_ at top. Innumerable antiquities have been found here; great
arches and ruins of buildings: they never plough but somewhat is found.
The father of Mr. Guy saved many, which are since lost: this gentleman
found many brass, silver, and gold coins here; but all are dispersed,
except a large brass Faustina: he showed me an intaglia of Mercury set
in gold for a ring: another with three faces to a head; the foremost,
Mars with a helmet on; a woman’s face on each side: a paste of a light
onyx colour, with a head: a sepulchral lamp. He told me of a large
brass urn with bones in it found here: it had two ears to it, and was
used forty years ago, in the family, as a kettle, and is now at his
sister’s, Mrs. Herring, at Wall near Hexam.
The town of Kendal is very large, lying under a great hill to the
west; the river to the east. Upon the rise of the hill is a place
called Castle-low hill, which has been a castle raised in Saxon
times, fortified with a ditch where not naturally steep, and a keep
or artificial mount; a sorry way of encampment: the keep is narrow at
top, and cannot contain above forty people: they are much too high to
offend an enemy, and have no ground to defend. Above this are great
scars, or mountains, of a hard kind of stone like porphyry, that will
yield to no tool: they break it up in small shivers, for building, by
the force of a heavy gaveloc and sledge-hammer. I saw several pretty
springs running out of little hollows of the rock, especially toward
the upper part; and most of the _strata_ thereabouts drip continually:
the workmen told me, that those cracks where the springs are go a great
length into the mountain; and that the _strata_ all round the hill lie
declining with the side of the hill; that some _strata_ are soft and
porous, which lets the water strain through them; whilst others by
their hardness stop it, and turn it all into the cracks and fissures;
that these springs run very sparingly in dry weather: this shows that
they are made only of the rain and dews falling upon the hill, and
collected into these channels, which being generally perpetual, and
in sufficient quantity one time with another, render the springs so.
There is a spring on the top of Penigent hill, the highest in these
parts. In this country vast stones like the grey weathers in Wiltshire,
lie upon the surface, and by the sides of the hills, which are no
part of the quarry, being of a different stone. On the other side
of the town eastward, and over the river, is Kendal castle; a large
stone building on a solitary _apex_, but not extraordinary high: it is
fenced with a wall and ditch: they report that queen Catharine Parr
was born here. This town has been built mostly with pent-houses and
galleries over them all along the streets, somewhat like Chester. The
carts or carriages of this country are small machines, with two wheels
each, made of three pieces of timber, fastened to a cross axle-tree,
which turns with the wheels: the cart is laid upon these wheels _pro
tempore_, kept from slipping off the axle-tree by two pins underneath:
they are drawn by one horse.[1] They say these carriages, of a light
burthen and with one horse, answer better in this stony country than
heavier, which are shook to pieces presently: hence Nature makes the
horses of this country small in bulk. Here is an anchorite’s house
with a very fine spring: near was a chapel of St. Mary, Abbot’s hall,
and some other ruins of religious places. The church is a handsome and
very large structure, consisting of five ailes: a good organ: several
ancient chapels in it, with the tombs of the founders; one of Roos. The
parishes of this country are generally of great extent, having several
chapels of ease. This was, I believe, the county-town before Appleby,
as rising immediately after the destruction of the Roman city. In the
church is a monument of a judge, who died at the Assizes here in queen
Elizabeth’s time.