Scenery more diversified than that of Lancashire, taking the Duddon as
its northern boundary, does not exist in any English county. For the
present we shall keep to the portion south of the Lune, deferring the
Lake District to the next chapter, to which may also be left the
little that has to be said concerning the shore south of that river.
The eastern parts have attractions quite as decided as those of the
north, though of a character totally different. Every acknowledged
element of the picturesque may be discovered there, sometimes in
abundance. The only portion of the county entirely devoid of landscape
beauty is that which is traversed by the Liverpool and Southport
Railway, not unjustly regarded as the dullest in the kingdom. The best
that can be said of this dreary district is, that at intervals it is
relieved by the cheerful hues of cultivation.
[Illustration: BLACKSTONE EDGE]
From Liverpool northwards to the banks of the Ribble, excepting at
some distance from the sea, and eastwards to Manchester, the ground is
nearly level. Nothing must be expected where it borders upon the
Mersey above the estuary. To quote the precise terms employed by
Pennant, "The Mersey is by no means a pleasing water." The country
bordering upon it, he might have added, appeals very slenderly to the
imagination; and most assuredly, since the old topographer passed
along, Nature has made no change for the better as regards the river,
while man has done his best to efface any pretty features it may once
have owned. But we have not to go far from the modern Tyre in order to
find hills and the picturesque. Newborough and the vicinity present a
remarkable contrast to the plains beneath. Here the country begins to
grow really beautiful, and thenceforward it constantly improves. Some
of the slopes are treeless, and smooth as a lawn; others are broken by
deep and wooded glades, with streamlets bound for the Douglas (an
affluent of the Ribble), one of the loveliest dells of the kind in
South Lancashire occurring near Gathurst. On the summits, at Ashurst
particularly, a sweet and pleasant air never fails to "invite our
gentle senses." Here too we get our first lesson in what may be truly
said, once for all, of Lancashire--that wherever the ground is
sufficiently bold and elevated we are sure not only of fine air and an
extensive prospect, but a glorious one. At Ashurst, while Liverpool is
not too far for the clear discerning of its towers and spires, in the
south are plainly distinguished the innumerable Delamere pines, rising
in dark masses like islands out of the sea; and far away, beyond the
Dee, the soft swell of the hills of North Wales, Moel Vamma never
wanting. This celebrated eminence, almost as well known in South
Lancashire as in Denbighshire, may be descried even at Eccles, four or
five miles from the Manchester Exchange.
Eastwards of the great arterial line of railway which, running from
Manchester to Lancaster through Bolton and Preston, almost exactly
bisects the county, the scenery is rich in the eloquent features which
come of wild and interminable surges of broad and massive hill, often
rocky, with heights of fantastic form, the irregularities giving
token, in their turn, of deep chasms and clefts, that subdivide into
pretty lateral glens and moist hollows crowded with ferns. The larger
glens constitute the "cloughs" so famous in local legend, and the
names of which recur so frequently in Lancashire literature. As
Yorkshire is approached, the long succession of uplands increases in
volume, rising at last in parts to a maximum altitude of nearly 1900
feet. Were a survey possible from overhead, the scene would be that of
a tempest-ruffled ocean, the waves suddenly made solid.
[Illustration: THE LAKE AT LITTLEBOROUGH]
Very much of this vast hill-surface consists of desolate, heathery,
unsheltered moorland. The amount of unreclaimed land still existing in
Lancashire, and which must needs remain for ever as it is, constitutes
in truth one of the striking characteristics of the county. Not merely
in the portion now specially under notice are there cold and savage
wastes such as laugh the plough to scorn. The "fells" of the more
northern districts present enormous breadths of similar character,
incapable of supporting more than the poorest aboriginal vegetation,
affording only the scantiest pasturage for a few scattered
mountain-sheep, thus leaving the farmer without a chance. In itself
the fact of course is in no degree remarkable, since there are plenty
of hopeless acres elsewhere. The singular circumstance is the
association of so much barrenness with the stupendous industries of
the busiest people in the world. It is but in keeping after all with
the general idea of old England,--
"This precious gem, set in the silver sea,"--
the pride of which consists in the constant blending of the most
diverse elements. If we have grim and hungry solitudes, rugged and
gloomy wildernesses, not very far off, be sure there is counterpoise
in placid and fruitful vale and mead. Lancashire may not supply the
cornfield: the soil and climate, though good for potatoes, are
unfriendly to the cerealia; there is no need either to be too
exacting; if the sickle has no work, there is plenty for the scythe
and the spade.
[Illustration: WATERFALL IN CLIVIGER]
A few miles beyond Bolton the hills begin to rise with dignity. Here
we find far-famed and far-seen Rivington Pike, conspicuous, like
Ashurst, through ascending almost immediately out of the plain. "Pike"
is in Lancashire, and in parts of the country closely adjacent, the
equivalent of "peak," the highest point of a hilly neighbourhood,
though by no means implying an exactly conical or pyramidal figure,
and very generally no more than considerable elevation, as in the case
of the "Peak of Derbyshire." Rivington well deserves its name,
presenting from many points of view one of those beautiful, evenly
swelling, and gently rounded eminences which the ancient Greeks were
accustomed to call [Greek: titthoi] and [Greek: mastoi], as in the
case of the classic mound at Samos which Callimachus connects so
elegantly with the name of the lady Parthenia. There are spots,
however, where the mamelon disappears. From all parts of the summit
the prospect is delightful. Under our feet, unrolled like a carpet, is
a verdant flat which stretches unbrokenly to the sea-margin, twenty
miles distant, declared, nevertheless, by a soft, sweet gleam of
silver or molten gold, according to the position of the sun in the
heavens. The estuary of the Ribble, if the tide be in, renews that
lovely shining; and beyond, in the remote distance, if the atmosphere
be fairly clear, say fifty or sixty miles away, may be discerned the
grand mountains that cast their shadows into Coniston. Working
Lancashire, though it has lakes of its own, has made others! From the
summit of Rivington we now look down upon half a dozen immense
reservoirs, so located that to believe them the work of man is
scarcely possible. Fed by the inflow of several little streams, and no
pains taken to enforce straight margins, except when necessary, these
ample waters exemplify in the best manner how art and science are able
at times to recompense Nature--
"Leaving that beautiful which always was,
And making that which was not."
After heavy and continuous rain, the overflow gives rise to musical
waterfalls. Up in the glen called Deanwood there is also a natural
and nearly permanent cascade.[35]
[35] These vast reservoirs belong to the Liverpool Waterworks,
which first used them in January 1857. The surface, when they
are full, is 500 acres. Another great sheet of water, a mile in
length, for local service, occurs at Entwistle, near Turton.
The eastern slopes of the Rivington range descend into the spacious
valley which, beginning just outside Manchester, extends nearly to
Agricola's Ribchester, and in the Roman times was a soldiers'
thoroughfare. In this valley lie Turton, Darwen, and Blackburn. The
hills, both right and left, again supply prospects of great extent,
and are especially attractive through containing many fine recesses,
sometimes as round as amphitheatres. Features of much the same kind
pertain to the nearly parallel valley in which Summerseat nestles,
with the pleasurable additions that come of care to preserve and to
compensate in case of injury. By this route we may proceed, for
variety, to Whalley, the Mecca of the local archæologist; thence on to
Clitheroe, and to the foot of famous Pendle. At Whalley we find "Nab's
Hill," to ascend which is pastime enough for a summer's evening.
Inconsiderable in comparison with some of its neighbours, this
favoured eminence gives testimony once again to the advantages
conferred by situation and surroundings, when the rival claims
consist in mere bulk and altitude. Lord Byron might have intended it
in the immortal lines:
"Green and of mild declivity, the last,
As 'twere the cape of a long ridge of such,
Save that there was no sea to lave its base,
But a most living landscape."
Westwards, from the summit the eye ranges, as at Rivington, over a
broad champaign, the fairest in the district, the turrets of princely
Stonyhurst rising amid a green throng of oaks and beeches. In the
north it rests upon the flanks of airy Longridge, the immediate scene
accentuated by the ruined keep of the ancient castle of the De Lacys.
On the right towers Pendle itself, most massive of English mountains,
its "broad bare back" literally "upheaved into the sky"; and
completing the harmonious picture,--since no landscape is perfect
without water,--below runs the babbling Calder. Whalley Nab has been
planted very liberally with trees. How easy it is for good taste to
confer embellishment!
Pendle, the most distinguished and prominent feature in the physical
geography of Mid-Lancashire, is not, like mountains in general, broken
by vast defiles, but fashioned after the manner of the Dundry range in
Somersetshire, presenting itself as a huge and almost uniform green
mound, several miles in length, and with a nearly level sky-line.
Dundry, however, is much less steep. The highest point is at the upper
or north-east extremity, stated by the Ordnance Survey to be 1850 feet
above the sea. The superficial extent is estimated at 15,000 statute
acres, or about 25 square miles, including the great gorge upon
the southern side called Ogden Clough--a broad, deep, and
mysterious-looking hollow, which contributes not a little to the fine
effect of this gigantic hill as seen from the Yorkshire side.
The slope which looks upon Yorkshire marks the boundary of the famous
"forest of Pendle," a territory of nearly 25,000 acres--not to be
understood as now or at any former period covered with great and aged
trees, but simply as a tract which, when the property was first
apportioned, lay _ad foras_, or outside the lands deemed valuable for
domestic purposes, and which was left undisputed to the wild animals
of the country. Immense breadths of land of this description existed
in England in early times, and in no part was the proportion larger
than in Lancashire, where many of the ancient "forests" still retain
their primitive appellation, and are peculiarly interesting in the
marked survival among the inhabitants of the language, manners, and
customs of their ancestors. Generally speaking, these ancient
"forests" are distinguished also by dearth of primitive architecture
and of rude primeval fences, the forest laws having forbidden all
artificial hindrances to the chase, which in the refuges thus afforded
to "deer," both large and small, had its most ample and enjoyable
scope.
From the summit of Pendle, all that is seen from Whalley Nab, now
diminutive, is renewed on a scale quite proportionate to its own
nobleness. The glistening waters of the Irish Sea in the far west; in
the north the mountains of Westmoreland; proximately the smiling
valleys of the Ribble, the Hodder, and the Calder; and, turning to the
east, the land as far towards the German Ocean as the power of the eye
can reach. When the atmosphere is in its highest state of transparency
even the towers of York Minster become visible. Well might the old
historian of Whalley commend the prospect from mighty Pendle as one
upon which "the eye, the memory, and the imagination rest with equal
delight." To the same author we owe the showing that the common
Lancashire term Pendle-_hill_ is incorrect, seeing that the sense of
"hill" is already conveyed, as in Penmanmawr and Penyghent. "Nab's
Hill" would seem to involve a corresponding repetition, "nab" being a
form of the Scandinavian _nebbé_ or _nibba_, a promontory--as in
Nab-scar, near Rydal, and Nab-crag, in Patterdale.
All these grand peaks belong essentially to the range reached another
time by going from Manchester to Littleborough, ascending from which
place we find ourselves upon Blackstone Edge, so lofty (1553 feet),
and, when climbed, so impressive in all its circumstances, that we
seem to be pacing the walls of an empire. All the topmost part is
moorland; below, or upon the sides, there is abundance of the
picturesque; precipitous crags and rocky knolls, receding dells and
ravines, occurring frequently. Many of the dells in summer bear
witness to the descent in winter of furious torrents; the broad bed of
the now tiny streamlets that fall from ledge to ledge being strewed
with stones and boulders, evidently washed down from the higher
channel by the vehement water, heedlessly tossed about and then
abandoned. The desolate complexion of these winter-torrent gullies (in
Lancashire phrase "water-gaits") in its way is unique, though often
mitigated by the innumerable green fern-plumes upon the borders. The
naturalist's enjoyment is further quickened by the occurrence, not
infrequently, of fragments of calamites and other fossils. The
ascent to the crest is by no means arduous. Attaining it, provided
the atmosphere is free from mist, the prospect--now an old story--is
once again magnificent, and, as at Rivington, made perfect by water.
Nowhere perhaps in England has so much landscape beauty been provided
artificially and undesignedly by the construction of great reservoirs
as in the country of twenty miles radius around Manchester. The waters
at Lymm and Taxal belong respectively to Cheshire and Derbyshire.
Independently of those at Rivington, Lancashire excels both of them in
the romantic lake below Blackstone Edge, well known to every
pleasure-seeker as "Hollingworth." The measurement round the margin is
quite two miles; hills almost completely encircle it, and, as seen
from the edge, near Robin Hood's crags, so utterly is it detached from
all that pertains to towns and cities as to recall the remotest wilds
beyond the Tweed. Hollingworth Lake was constructed about ninety years
ago with a view to steady maintenance of the Rochdale Canal. Among the
hills upon the opposite or north-western side of the valley, Brown
Wardle, often named in story, is conspicuous; and adorning the lofty
general outline may be seen--best, perhaps, from near "Middleton
Junction"--another mamelon--this one believed in local story to be a
haunt of the maidens of the _Midsummer Night's Dream_.
[Illustration: IN THE BURNLEY VALLEY]
Looking westward from the Robin Hood pinnacles, the prospect includes
the valleys of the Roch and the Spodden--the last-named stream in
parts wild and wilful. At Healey its walls of rock appear to have been
riven at different times. Here, struggling through a lengthened and
tortuous cleft, and forming more than one lively cascade before losing
itself in the dingle below, so plainly does the water seem to have
forced a passage, asserting mastery over all impediments, that in the
vernacular this spot is called the "Thrutch." The first phrase heard
in a Lancashire crowd is, "Where are you thrutching?" The perennial
attrition of the broken and impending rocks causes many of them to
terminate in sharp ridges, and in one part has given birth to the
"Fairies' Chapel." The streams spoken of have their beginning in the
lofty grounds which intervene between Rochdale and Cliviger, and
include aspiring Thieveley Pike. Thieveley in the bygones served the
important use of a station for beacon-fires, signalling on the one
hand to Pendle, on the other to Buckton Castle. The prospect from the
top, 1474 feet above the sea, comprehends, to the north, almost the
whole of Craven, with Ingleborough, and the wilds of Trawden Forest.
The nearer portions of the Lake District mountains, now familiar, are
discernible; and on sunny evenings, when the river is full, once more
the bright-faced estuary of the Ribble. The view reaches also to North
Wales and Derbyshire, the extremities of this great map being quite
sixty miles asunder.
Cliviger, after all, is the locality which most astonishes and
delights the visitor to this part of Lancashire. Soon after quitting
Rochdale, the railway passes through the great "Summit Tunnel," and so
into the Todmorden Valley, there very soon passing the frontier formed
by the Calder,[36] and entering Yorkshire. The valley is noted for its
scenery, new combinations of the most varied elements, rude but not
inhospitable, rising right and left in quick succession. Turning up
the Burnley Valley, we enter Cliviger proper: a district having a
circuit of nearly twenty miles, and presenting an endless variety of
the most romantic features possible to mingled rock and pastured
slope, constantly lifted to mountain-height, the charm of the huge
gray bluffs of projecting gritstone augmented in many parts by
abundance of trees, the predominant forms the graceful ones of larch,
birch, and mountain-ash. The trees are now very nearly a century old,
having been planted during the fifteen years ending with 1799, yet, to
appearance, still in the prime of their calm existence. A striking
characteristic of this admired valley is the frequent apparent
closing-in of the passage by protruding crags, which nevertheless soon
give way to verdant curves. Cliviger in every part is more or less
marked by crags and curves, so that we incessantly come upon vast
green bowls or hemispherical cavities, the bases of which change at
times into circular plateaux, at midsummer overlaid with carpets of
the prettiest botanical offspring of the province,--
"In emerald tufts, flowers purple, blue, and white,
Like sapphire, pearl, and rich embroidery."
[36] This, of course, is not the Calder seen at Whalley, there
being three rivers in Lancashire of the name--the West Calder,
the East Calder, and a little stream which enters the Wyre near
Garstang. The West Calder enters the Ribble half way between
Whalley and Stonyhurst; the eastern, after a course of forty
miles, joins the Aire in the neighbourhood of Wakefield.
For introduction to these choice bits it is needful, of course, to
leave the main thoroughfares and take one of the innumerable by-paths
which lead away to the lonely and impressive silence of the moors,
which, though desolate and sometimes bleak, have a profoundly
delightful influence upon the mind. Their interest is heightened by
the portions which are vividly green with bog-moss, being the
birthplace of important streams. No slight matter is it to stand at
any time where rivers are cradled. Here the flow of water is at once
both east and westwards--a phenomenon witnessed several times in the
English Apennine, and always bidding the traveller pause awhile. The
Ribble and the Wharf begin this way; so do the Lune and the Swale:
playmates in childhood, then parting for ever. Similarly, in Cliviger
Dean the two Calders issue from the same fragment of watery waste,
destined immediately for opposite courses. Hard by, in a stream called
Erewell, at the foot of Derply Hill, on the verge of Rossendale, may
be seen the birthplace of the Manchester Irwell.
The promise given at Newborough in regard to the scenery of East
Lancashire is thus perfectly fulfilled. It does not terminate either
with Cliviger, being renewed, after passing Pendle, all the way to the
borders of Westmoreland. Ward-stone, eight or nine miles south-east of
Lancaster, part of the Littledale Fells, has an altitude exceeding
even that of Pendle.
Asking for the best portions of the Lancashire river scenery,
they are soon found, pertaining to streams not really its own--the
Lune, approaching from Westmoreland by way of Kirby Lonsdale,
to which place it gives name; and the Ribble, descending from
the high moorlands of Craven, first passing Ingleborough, then
Settle, and Bolton Abbey. The only two important streams which
actually rise within the confines of the county are the Wyre
and the much-enduring Irwell. Lancashire is rich in home-born
_minor_ streams, a circumstance said to be recognised in the ancient
British name of the district,--literally, according to Whitaker, the
"well-watered,"[37]--and many of these, the affluents in particular,
do, no doubt, lend themselves freely to the production of the
picturesque, as in the case of the Darwen,[38] which glides almost
without a sound beneath Hoghton Tower, joining the Ribble at Walton;
and the Wenning, which, after bathing the feet of a thousand
water-flags and forget-me-nots, strengthens the well-pleased Lune.
Tributaries,--the little primitive streamlets which swell the
affluents,--since they begin almost always among the mountains, are at
all times, all over the world, wherever they run, in their youth pure
and companionable. One joyous consideration there is open to us
always, namely, that if we go to the beginning of things we are fairly
well assured of purity; whatever may be the later history, the
fountain is usually a synonym for the undefiled, as very pleasantly
certified by the Erewell Springs; the beginnings of the unhappy Irwell
itself are clear and limpid. Still, as regards claims to high
distinction, the river scenery of Lancashire is that, as we have said,
which pertains to its welcome guests, the Ribble and the Lune. When
proud and wealthy Ribchester was in existence fifteen centuries ago,
there is reason to believe that the Ribble, for many miles above
Preston, was considerably broader and deeper than at present, or at
all events that the tide came very much farther up than it does
to-day. It did so as late as the time of Leland. The change, as
regards the bed of the river, would thus be exactly the reverse of the
helpful one to which modern Liverpool owes its harbour. England
nowhere contains scenery of its kind more suave than that of the
Ribble, from Ribchester upwards. In parts the current is impetuous.
Whether rapid or calm, it is the life of a peaceful dale, from which
the hills retire in the gentlest way imaginable, presenting as they
go, green, smooth faces fit for pasture; then, through the unexpected
changefulness which is always so much more congenial to the fancy than
repetition, even of the most excellent things, wooded banks and shaded
recesses, followed by more green lawns and woods again, the last
seeming to lean against the sky. When the outline drops sufficiently,
in the distance, according to the point of observation, rises proud
old Pendle, or Penyghent, or Wharnside. Near Mitton, where Yorkshire
darts so curiously into Lancashire, the channel is somewhat shallow.
Here, after a busy and romantic course of its own, the Hodder
surrenders its waters, thus in good time to take part in the wonderful
whirl, or "wheel," at Salesbury, a little lower down, an eddy of
nearly twenty yards in depth, and locally known as "Sale-wheel." If a
haven ever existed at the mouth of the Ribble, it has now disappeared.
The sands at the bar continually shift with high tides, so that
navigation is hazardous, and vessels of light draught can alone
attempt the passage.
[37] It may not be amiss here to mention the names, in exact
order, of the Lancashire rivers, giving first those which enter
the sea, the affluents and their tributaries coming afterwards:
(1) The Mersey, formed of the union of the non-Lancashire Tame,
Etherowe, and Goyt. Affluents and tributaries--the Irwell, the
Roche, the Spodden, the Medlock, the Irk. (2) The Alt. (3) The
Ribble. Affluents and tributaries--the Douglas, the Golforden,
the Darwen, the West Calder, the Lostock, the Yarrow, the Brun.
(4) The Wyre, which receives the third of the Calders, the
Brock, and several others. (5) The Lune, or Loyne. Affluents and
tributaries--the Wenning, the Conder, the Greta, the Leck, the
Hindburn. Then, north of Lancaster, the Keer, the Bela, the
Kent, the Winster, the Leven (from Windermere), the Crake (from
Coniston Water), and the Duddon.
[38] The river immortalised by Milton, alluding to the conflict
of 17th August 1648:
"And Darwen stream with blood of Scots imbrued."
[Illustration: THE RIBBLE AT CLITHEROE]
The very interesting portion of the scenery on the banks of the Lune,
so far as concerns Lancashire, lies just above Lancaster itself.
Nearly all the elements of perfect landscape intermingle in this part
of the valley. If either side of the stream possesses an advantage,
perhaps it will belong to the road along the southern border, or that
which proceeds by way of Melon and Caton to Hornby, distant from
Lancaster about nine miles. The river winds so waywardly that in many
parts it seems a string of lakelets. Masses of woodland creep down to
the edge, and whichever way the eye is turned, green hills form
pictures that leave nothing to be desired.
_The Roman Road._--The portion of Roman Road referred to at the outset
as crossing Blackstone Edge presents, like all similar remains in our
island, one of the most conclusive as well as interesting memorials we
possess of the thorough conquest of the country by the Cæsars. Labour
and skill, such as were so plainly devoted to the construction of
these wonderful roads, would be expended only by conquerors determined
on full and permanent possession, such as the Romans maintained for
three hundred and seventy years:--the Blackstone Edge road has in
addition the special interest which attaches to features not found
anywhere else, at all events nowhere else in England. The roads in
question were designed not more to facilitate the movements of the
troops than for the easier transport of merchandise and provisions, a
purpose which this one on Blackstone Edge seems to indicate perfectly.
In the district we to-day call "Lancashire" there were several roads
of the principal class, these serving to connect Warrington,
Manchester, Ribchester, and Lancaster, from which last place there was
continuation to Carlisle, and furnishing ready access to modern
"Yorkshire," thus to Ilkley--the Olicana of Ptolemy--and York, the
famous city which saw the death of Severus and the birth of
Constantine. Manchester and Ribchester were the two most important
strongholds in Western Brigantia, standing on the direct great western
line from the south to the north. There were also many branch or
vicinal roads leading to minor stations; those, for instance,
represented to-day by Wigan, Colne, Burnley, Kirkham, Urswick,
Walton-le-Dale, and Overborough. The lines of most of these roads have
been accurately determined, the chief of them having been usually
straight as an arrow, carried forward with undeviating precision,
regardless of all obstacles. They were formed generally in Lancashire
of huge boulder stones, probably got from neighbouring watercourses,
or of fragments of rock embedded in gravel, and varied in width from
four yards to perhaps fourteen. The stones have in most places
disappeared--made use of, no doubt, by after-comers for building
purposes; as exemplified on Blackstone Edge itself, where the
materials of which the wall near the road has been constructed point
only too plainly to their source. Complete remains continuous for any
considerable distance are found only upon elevated and unfrequented
moorlands; where also the substance of the road appears to have been
more rigid. The Blackstone Edge road, one of this kind, ascends the
hill at a point about two miles beyond Littleborough--an ancient Roman
station, here consisting of a strip of pavement exactly sixteen feet
wide. It is composed of square blocks of millstone-grit, obtained upon
the spot, laid with consummate care, and presenting, wherever the
dense growth of whortleberry and other coarse herbage has been cleared
away, a surface so fresh and even, that for seventeen centuries to
have elapsed since its construction seems incredible. The unique
feature of the road consists in the middle being formed of blocks
considerably larger than those used at the sides, harder, and
altogether of better quality, laid end to end, and having a continuous
longitudinal groove, obviously the work of the chisel. This groove, or
"trough," evidently extended down the entire roadway where steep,
beginning at the top of the hill. Nothing like it, as said above, is
found anywhere else in England, for the simple reason, it would
appear, that no other British Roman road descends by so steep an
incline. For it can hardly be doubted that Dr. March is correct in his
conjecture, that it was intended to steady the passage of wagons or
other vehicles when heavily laden; brakes adjusted to the wheels
retarding their progress as indicated by marks still distinguishable.
In some parts there are indications also of lateral trenches cut for
the downflow of water, the road itself being kept dry by a slight
convexity of surface. Over the crest of the hill the descent is easy,
and here the paving seems to have been discontinued. The Robin Hood
rocks close by present remarkably fine examples of typical
millstone-grit. Rising to the height of fifty feet and fantastically
"weathered," on the summits there are basin-like cavities, popularly
attributed, like so many other things they had no hand in, to the
Druids; but palpably referable to a far less mythical agency--the
quiet action, during thousands of years, of the rain and the
atmosphere.