THE ESTUARY.
Drainage and Navigation--Dimensions of the Humber--The
Ferribys--Barton-upon-Humber--Hull--Paull--Sunk Island--Spurn
Point--Great Grimsby--Places of Call.
A glance at that part of the map where Yorkshire is separated from
Lincolnshire reveals the full extent of the Humber, but while it shows
a wide estuary, it conveys a poor idea of the national importance of
this arm of the sea. Nor is the value of the estuary in this respect
much increased by the mere statement that the Humber is formed by
the confluence of the Trent and the Ouse. These two rivers have to
be considered in connection with their tributary streams before a
fair idea is formed, not only of what the Humber is as a channel of
trade, but of the wide extent of the water-shed of which it is the
basin. The Ouse brings to the Humber nearly all the running water of
Yorkshire, the collection having been made over an area exceeding
4,000 square miles; while the supplies from the Trent, though less in
quantity because of the lower altitudes of their origin, drain about
4,500 square miles. This makes the Humber the largest river-basin in
England, the Severn coming next with a total drainage of 8,580 square
miles, as compared with 9,770 in the case of the Humber, made up as
follows:--Ouse, 4,100; Trent, 4,500; Humber proper, 1,170.
[Illustration:
_Walker & Boutall sc._
THE COURSE OF THE HUMBER.]
So far as navigation is concerned, the Humber is an open way, by means
of river and connecting artificial links, with the Mersey, the Thames,
and the Severn, and practically, therefore, its waters are in touch
with the whole country. The Humber figures also in all our histories.
From the earliest period the invader found passage along it to Mercia,
on the one hand, and to Northumbria on the other; and along the valleys
through which its tributaries run it is not a difficult task to trace,
in place-names and surnames, the settlements that took place in this
part of England in the long ago as a result of the encroachments of
Angle, Dane, and Norse. From the date of the withdrawal of the Romans
it was always to the Humber that the Vikings steered their course, and
hither they kept coming until the Norman conquest was complete, and
England out of many elements became compact and strong.
At the confluence of the Ouse and Trent the Humber has a width of about
a mile. From here to Paull, on the north bank--a point south-east of
Hull--the width varies from a mile-and-a-quarter to two miles. From
Paull south-east to Grimsby the width gradually increases to about four
miles, and where the bank on the Yorkshire side curves inward like a
sickle the width exceeds seven miles. Spurn Head, forming the point
of the sickle, lies almost direct east from Grimsby, and here, at the
mouth of the Humber, the width is about five miles. From the head of
the estuary to Paull--a tolerably straight line east--the distance is
18½ miles. From Paull to Spurn the stretch is about a mile less than
this, thus giving 36 miles as the full length of the Humber.
The towns on each side have from a remote period had ferry
communication with each other. It is said that the Romans crossed from
the Lincolnshire coast in the neighbourhood of Whitton to Brough on
the north bank, and the latter town is spoken of as the Petuaria of
Ptolemy. Just below Whitton, on the Lincolnshire side, is Winteringham,
close to a Roman station on the route from Lincoln to York. It was
to Winteringham Ethelreda came in that flight across the Humber from
Egfrid, king of Northumbria. West Halton--anciently Alfham--where she
obtained succour, is close by, and the church of this village still
bears her name. The next place of interest on the Lincolnshire side of
the Humber is South Ferriby, where there is a curious old church--at
one time a much larger structure--dedicated to St. Nicholas, of whom
there is an effigy over the porch. Immediately opposite, on the
Yorkshire side of the Humber, is North Ferriby. Hessle, which lies
some three miles further east on the north bank, is noted for its
flint deposits; hence its name (from the German _kiesel_). Barton, the
Lincolnshire town opposite Hessle, is a place of great antiquity. This
is obvious from the tower of the old church, St. Peter's. Usually the
Norman evidences in an ecclesiastical building are in the basement,
but in the case of this tower they form the superstructure. The lower
part is Saxon. It is short and massive, rising seventy feet, and is
in three stages. There are some curious features in the church, and
amongst the monumental work are effigies of the time of Edward II.
St. Mary's Church, close by, is also interesting. It was originally a
chapel-of-ease to St. Peter's, and is Norman and Early English. Barton
figures in Domesday as Brereton. It was held by the De Gants through
Gilbert, son of Baldwin de Gant, a nephew of the Conqueror, who took
part in the Norman invasion, and had the land here made over to him.
The town carries on a brisk trade, and is noteworthy historically for
the fact that it furnished eight vessels fully manned to assist Edward
III. in the invasion of Brittany.
Hull boasts not only of being the chief port on the Humber, but
claims to be the third port in the kingdom, giving precedence only to
London and Liverpool. There was a time when it was a mere hamlet; but
it has not only outgrown the towns near it that once did a greater
business--such as Hedon and Beverley--but has seen what was a much
larger commercial centre than either of these places literally pass
from the map. What anciently was the chief port on the Humber lay,
snugly enough to all seeming, just within the bend at Spurn Head.
It was known as Ravenser. It had much shipping, and in the time of
Edward I. sent members to Parliament. Henry IV. landed here in 1399.
Unfortunately Ravenser, with neighbouring towns, was built on unstable
ground. A process of denudation is continually going on at this the
extreme point of Yorkshire, and from this cause the sea had left only a
fragment of Ravenser in Bolingbroke's day. In no long time after this
the town was wholly absorbed by the encroaching waters. Hull began to
flourish as Ravenser began to decay. Another circumstance that led
to the development of this great Humber port was the difficulty the
Beverley merchants had in getting their supplies by river. Hull was
originally one of many wykes (the Norse name for a small creek or bay).
It got the name of the river (the Hull) on which it stands in the time
of Richard I., and by this name it is known everywhere, its corporate
title of Kingston-upon-Hull seldom being given to it in print, and
still more seldom being applied to it in speech. The royal title was
conferred by Edward I., who is said to have noticed the value of the
site for commercial purposes while hunting here in 1256.
The parish church (Holy Trinity) is a magnificent Decorated and
Perpendicular structure, cruciform in plan, with a tower rising to
a height of 150 feet. It is one of the largest parish churches in
England, its length from east to west being 272 feet, and its width
96 feet; and it is claimed for it that in its chancel and transepts
it possesses the earliest examples of brick masonry since the Roman
epoch. Holy Trinity was founded in 1285. St. Mary, in Lowgate, also
a cruciform structure, with central tower, dates from the early part
of the fourteenth century. The Dock Office is a fine structure of the
Venetian type; the Trinity House is Tuscan; the Town Hall is Italian;
and the High Street shows a picturesque blending of Domestic styles,
dating from the thirteenth or fourteenth century onwards to work of the
present time. In the Market Place is a statue to William III., "our
great deliverer," as he was called here. The statue has the peculiarity
of being gilt, probably as a further tribute from the Hull burgesses
to the worth of the Prince of Orange. In the Town Hall are statues of
Edward I., the founder of the town; of Sir Michael de la Pole, the
first Mayor of the borough (1376); of Andrew Marvell, poet, wit, and
statesman, a native of the place. A statue of another noted statesman,
also a native of Hull, William Wilberforce, the anti-slavery advocate,
surmounts a Doric pillar (72 feet) close to the old Docks. The river
Hull, which rises in the wolds, and has a course of about thirty miles,
flows through the older parts of the town. It is the passage way to
several of the Docks, and is itself thronged with shipping on each
side, and bordered by warehouses.
Paull, or Paghill (anciently Pagula), is about five miles south-east
from Hull, and is noteworthy as the spot near which Charles I. in 1642
reviewed his forces. The shore continues in a sharp south-east dip from
here to what is known as Sunk Island--a double name, which is now a
misnomer, the land being well exposed and no longer an island. It is
the peculiarity of this Yorkshire peninsula that while it continually
suffers from denudation, it is also being recompensed by the same
agency. Sunk Island has been reclaimed from the Humber, and is an
interesting example on a small scale of land nationalisation. The
soil is exceedingly fertile, and is let out by the Crown, to whom the
cottages and other buildings on the estate belong. About 7,000 acres
are at present under cultivation, and there is every prospect that
the area will go on increasing. From the end of Sunk Island to Spurn
Point the Humber takes a wide bay-like sweep inward and southward, the
peninsula narrowing considerably as Spurn Point is reached. The Spurn
Point of six centuries ago, with the lost town of Ravenspur, lay a
little to the west of the present promontory, which has been almost
wholly built up afresh by natural causes since that time. There are two
lighthouse towers on the Point, the larger of the two being Smeaton's
work.
[Illustration: QUEENS DOCK, HULL.]
It is almost a direct line west across the Humber mouth from Spurn
to Grimsby--Great Grimsby as it is called, to distinguish it from
the smaller Grimsby, near Louth, in the same county. Here on the
Lincolnshire coast the country, viewed from the sea, is flat and
Dutch-like, but close at hand it is decidedly English in its bustle
and trade and signs of manufacturing progress. There is fine anchorage
eastward, to which Spurn Point forms a natural breakwater. Dock
extension has done much for Grimsby as for Hull. Considerable trade
is carried on here with the Continent, and immense quantities of fish
are consigned direct from the North Sea through Grimsby to our leading
markets. Some fine buildings surround the harbour. The principal street
runs north and south, and is of great length, leading in a straight
line to Cleethorpes, a neighbouring watering place. A Danish origin
is assigned to Grimsby. Tradition speaks of it as Grim's town. Grim,
we are told, was a fisherman who rescued a Danish infant from a boat
adrift at sea. This infant was appropriately christened Havloch, or sea
waif. He was adopted by Grim, grew up a fine boy, and was afterwards
found to be a son of a Danish King. What followed may be readily
surmised. Havloch was restored to his own country, and when he came
to his own he did not forget his foster-father, on whom he bestowed
riches, rights, and privileges, enabling him to become the founder of
what is now called Grimsby. The tradition is perpetuated in the ancient
common seal of the borough, which in Saxon lettering has the names
Gryme and Habloc, and a design typifying the foundation of the town.
British and Saxon remains in the neighbourhood show, however, that
there were builders here before the somewhat mythical Grim.
While the vessels sailing from the Humber do business with every
country, they have almost a monopoly of the North Sea trade. And as in
the ancient era, so at the present time, this open channel into the
heart of England continues to receive at its ports great numbers of
Northern and Germanic peoples. The invasions of to-day are, however,
chiefly of a temporary character. Hull and Grimsby are places of call
for the emigrants from the Continent, who land here to find their way
to Liverpool by rail, and from thence to the New World on the Atlantic
Liners, or who re-ship into other vessels in the Humber and take the
Channel route to New York.
W. S. CAMERON.
[Illustration: DISTANT VIEW OF GREAT GRIMSBY.]
[Illustration: A BIT OF FEN.]
THE RIVERS OF THE WASH.
THE WITHAM: Grantham--Lincoln--Boston.
THE NEN: Naseby--Northampton--Earls
Barton--Castle Ashby--Wellingborough--Higham
Ferrers--Thrapston--Oundle--Castor--Peterborough. THE WELLAND:
Market Harborough--Rockingham--Stamford. THE OUSE: Bedford--St.
Neots--Huntingdon--St. Ives. THE CAM: Cambridge--"Five Miles from
Anywhere"--Ely. FENS AND FENLAND TOWNS: Wisbeach--Spalding--King's
Lynn--Crowland.
[Illustration: ON THE FENS IN WINTER.]
If ever a river could be reproached with not knowing its own mind
it would be the WITHAM. Rising in the extreme south of Lincolnshire,
it wanders northward along the western side of the county, and at
one place seems almost minded to fall into the Trent, from which it
is separated only by a belt of land slightly higher than the bed of
either river. So slight, indeed, is the division between the present
valleys of the Witham and the Trent that it has been urged by a very
competent authority that the great gap traversed by the former river
at Lincoln really represents the ancient channel of the Trent, which
has only adopted the present course towards the Humber at a very late
epoch in its geological history.[5] But the Witham at last, after
submitting for a time to the influence of a limestone plateau, which
rises to a considerable height on its eastern bank, suddenly alters
its course, though low and level ground still continues along the
same line, and cuts its way through the upland, which is severed by a
fairly wide and rather deep-sided valley. Thus it gains access to the
broad lowland tract between these hills and the wolds, which is here in
immediate communication with the fenland, and along this it pursues a
south-easterly course until it reaches the Wash.
The streams which presently unite to form the Witham traverse more
than ordinarily pretty pastoral scenery--a region now shelving, now
almost hilly, of meadow and pasture, cornfield and copse, where is many
a mansion pleasantly situated in its wooded park, and many a comely
village clustered round a church, which is often both interesting and
beautiful--till we arrive at Grantham, once a quiet market town, now
rapidly developing into a very important manufacturing centre. The
situation of the town on gently undulating ground sloping down to the
Witham is rather pretty, though its rapid increase during the last
quarter of a century has not made it more acceptable to the artist. The
steeple of its church is beautiful, even for a county unusually rich
in fine churches. Tower and spire are almost the same height, together
giving to the capstone an elevation of 273 feet. The lower part is in
the Early English style, the remainder and the body of the church,
which is not unworthy of the steeple, belong to the Decorated and the
Perpendicular styles, but a considerable part of the spire was rebuilt,
without, however, any change being made in the design, in the year
1661. The Angel Hotel is "one of the three mediæval inns remaining in
England," and within its walls Richard III. signed the death-warrant
of the Duke of Buckingham. Grantham once had a castle, but this has
disappeared, and so has a Queen Eleanor Cross, but some traces of its
religious houses yet remain.
[Illustration:
_Walker & Boutall sc._
MAP OF THE RIVERS OF THE WASH.]
Quietly and lazily, after leaving Grantham, the Witham works its
way along a broader valley, cut down into the blue clays of the lias
formation, and bounded on its eastern side by the low upland plateau
formed by the harder limestone beds of the lower part of the oolite,
which farther to the south are noted for their stone quarries. Little,
however, calls for special notice till a triple group of towers looms
up against the sky, and tells of our approach to the turning point
in the river course, where for many a century the cathedral and the
fortress of Lincoln have kept watch and ward over the gap in the hills,
through which, as already stated, the Witham finds an outlet towards
the fenland and the sea.
Durham Cathedral only, of all those in England, excels that of Lincoln
in the beauty of its situation, for even Ely on its island hill,
overlooking the wide Cambridgeshire fens, must be content to take a
lower place. Like Durham, Lincoln occupies a site which seems to be
indicated by Nature for a place of defence and offence in war, for a
centre of commerce and industry in peace. Thus full eighteen centuries
since it was crowned by a fortified camp, and eight centuries since
it was chosen as the more fitting site of the bishop's stool, in a
diocese which at that time was the largest in England. Told as briefly
as possible and to the barest outline, this is the history of Lincoln.
On the south-western angle of the limestone plateau, guarded on the one
side by the steep slope which falls down to a level plain--that which
prolongs in a northerly direction the valley of the Witham--on the
other by the yet steeper slope which descends to the marshes fringing
its actual course through the upland, the Romans established a great
fortified camp. Of this, portions of the defences both in earth and
masonry remain to the present day. It has been argued with probability
that in the name, given by these invaders, _Lindum Colonia_, from which
the present one has descended, there is evidence that the site was
already in British occupation, the first word being compounded from
_Llyn_ a pool, and _dun_ a hill fortress; thus signifying the hill by
the pool in the marshy expanse of the Witham. Fragments of wall and a
gate, the basements of pillars, probably belonging to a great basilica,
a sewer, a tesselated pavement, and sundry other relics, remain to this
day as memorials of the Roman occupation. From Lincoln also radiate the
lines of five main roads, constructed, where they cross the marshes,
on solid causeways. Of these the most important are the Fossway and
the Ermine Street, which unite just south of Lincoln, then scale the
steep slope below the ancient south gate, along the line of the present
High Street, and pass out northward beneath the ancient archway, which
still, such is the irony of time, retains its ancient name of Newport.
[Illustration: LINCOLN, FROM CANWICK.]
After the Romans departed, the history of Lincoln for a time is
a blank. Doubtless the English invaders plundered, and burnt, and
slaughtered, as was their wont, but we hear little more till after
the missionaries of Augustine had begun to preach the Gospel to the
heathen conquerors of the land. In Lincoln there is a little modern
church, a short distance south of the Newport arch, and very near
the remnants of the Roman basilica. This marks the site of the first
Christian church in Lincoln, the first sign of its second and peaceful
conquest by the followers of the Crucified. It was founded by Paulinus,
Bishop of York, and his newly-made convert Blæcca, the Governor of
Lincoln. Within its walls, as Canon Venables tells us, Honorius, fourth
Archbishop of Canterbury after Augustine, was consecrated by Paulinus.
Doubtless the church of Paulinus--now St. Paul's--like that of St.
Martin at Canterbury, was constructed of Roman materials--perhaps
was a restoration of an earlier building, but of this unhappily no
trace remains. The Danish invaders sorely harried Lincoln and all the
region round. Indeed, in 876 the invaders parcelled out the county
among themselves. "Lindsey became largely a Danish land, and Lincoln
became pre-eminently a Danish city." Then for a time followed more
peaceful days, till William the Norman became master of England. His
eye was attracted by the natural advantages of Lincoln, so on the
highest point of the plateau, at the south-western angle of the Roman
_castrum_, he built a strong castle, remnants of which can still be
discerned in the existing walls of that building. To secure space
for its outworks he cleared away 166 houses, and in connection with
this we have the first distinct notice of the lower town, which at
the present day, commercially speaking, is the most important part of
Lincoln. It is, however, probable that a suburb had already sprung
up at the spot where the Roman road crossed the nearest channel of
the Witham--obtaining from its situation the name of Wickerford or
Wigford--to which the families dislodged from the upper town no doubt
transferred themselves. For them--on land granted by the Conqueror--one
Colswegen built some houses, and at the same time founded the churches
of St. Mary-le-Wigford and St. Peter-at-Gowts. The towers, and in
case of the latter some other portions, of both these churches still
remain, and though built somewhere between the years 1068 and 1086 are
so completely survivals of the rude style which prevailed in England
before the Normans came that they are often quoted as examples of
"Saxon" churches.
About the same time Remigius, a Norman monk, was consecrated to the
See of Lincoln. At that time Dorchester, in Oxfordshire, was the site
of the bishop's stool, but then, as now, it was a place of little
importance, and inconveniently situated for the management of so vast
a diocese; so he commenced the building of a cathedral at Lincoln, of
which a part of the western front still remains incorporated into the
grand façade of the present cathedral. The severe simplicity of this
early Norman fabric was relieved by the more ornate work of a later
bishop in the middle part of the twelfth century, which may still
be seen in the entrance doors of the western façade and the lower
parts of the two western towers. Then by degrees the remainder of the
fabric was rebuilt. Most of the work from the eastern transept to
the western façade dates from between the end of the twelfth and the
middle of the thirteenth century, commencing with that of Bishop Hugh,
afterwards St. Hugh, and ending with that of the illustrious Englishman
Robert Grostête, who may be numbered with the "Reformers before the
Reformation." To receive the relics of the former the famous Angel
choir, or Presbytery, was built about the year 1280. The cloisters and
upper part of the central tower were added some twenty years later, and
certain alterations subsequently made, the most important being the
upper stages of the western towers, which are assigned to the middle
of the fifteenth century. Thus, while Lincoln Cathedral presents us
with examples of English architecture from the very earliest Norman to
the close of the so-called Gothic, and even, in its rebuilt northern
cloister, of the classic Renaissance, it is in the main a specimen of
the First Pointed or Early English style, from its beginning till it
merged almost insensibly in the Middle Pointed or Decorated. Over its
details and its history, its damage from earthquake and spoiler, the
labours of St. Hugh of Avalon, and the tragedy of the little St. Hugh
of Lincoln, its sieges and its narrow escape from destruction in the
days of Cromwell, it is impossible to linger. Suffice it to say that
the building is as beautiful as the site is commanding, and that the
minster garth is girdled by ancient houses full of interest, although
Lincoln was never, as the popular name would suggest, the centre of a
great monastery.
[Illustration: LINCOLN CATHEDRAL, FROM THE SOUTH-WEST.]
[Illustration: BOSTON CHURCH: THE TOWER.]
We must endeavour to summarise the chief attractions of the town and
the leading features of the scenery. Of the former it may be said that
few towns in England are more full of relics of olden time or more
fruitful in pleasant impressions. We never know what the next turn in
the most unpromising street may disclose. The Roman relics have been
already mentioned, but these and the cathedral do not nearly exhaust
the list of its antiquities. Would you look at a wealthy burgess'
residence in the earlier part of the twelfth century? You may find it
in the Jews' House of the upper town, or "John of Gaunt's" stables in
the lower. Would you seek for domestic architecture belonging to the
later periods of Pointed work? The gate-houses of the close belong to
the earlier part of the fourteenth century; "the chequer or exchequer
gate with its shops in the side passage, and the Pottergate remain;
several residentiary houses were erected at the same period, and are
partly remaining, though much altered and disfigured." At every turn
in the older parts of the town the eye falls upon some remnant of
ancient days, doorway or gatehouse, window or corner of a wall; it may
be merely a fragment, a little block, of mouldering masonry, or it may
be an almost perfect example of mediæval architecture. But Lincoln is
not only interesting in detail; the town, as a whole, when seen from
the flat land by the Witham, is exceptionally attractive. True, it
has lost much in recent days. It has become a manufacturing town of
some importance; large foundries and other works have sprung up on
the meadows by the Witham. The lowland begins to bristle up with tall
chimneys, which discharge their clouds of dusky smoke. New and old are
in sharp contrast. The tower of St. Mary-le-Wigford looks down on a
railway, the quaint little conduit on its churchyard wall is close to a
signal-box. Still, ugly as the foreground in many places has become, it
cannot spoil the beauty of the town itself, as its houses and gardens
climb the steep hillside to the summit of the plateau, where above all
peer up the grey remnants of the ancient castle, and the vast mass of
the cathedral with its lofty towers rises high above the picturesque
buildings of the close and the green trees upon the slope beneath.
From the walls of Lincoln the Witham can be watched as it passes
onwards to enter the fenland, into which the level valley opens out
as the plateau shelves down towards the east. This part of its course
is naturally monotonous, so we shall not attempt to describe it in
detail, and shall pause only at the old town which forms its port.
Boston, anciently Botolph's Town, is a thriving market town, which,
as every lover of architecture knows, possesses one of the finest
churches in the county, or indeed in the whole country. It stands in an
ample churchyard close to the left bank of the Witham; the magnificent
tower, crowned by an octagonal lantern, which is supported by flying
buttresses, is about 300 feet high, a beacon for many a league of fen
and sea. The church itself is not unworthy of the tower, and is one of
the largest in England, perhaps the largest of those built on a similar
plan. The style is Late Decorated and Perpendicular, though doubtless
there was an earlier structure on the same site. The tradition runs
that "the first stone was laid in the year 1309 by Dame Margery Tilney,
and that she put five pounds upon it, as did Sir John Twesdale the
vicar, and Richard Stevenson, a like sum; and that these were the
greatest sums at that time given." Progress, however, must at first
have been slow, for most of the building is of rather later date. The
interior, though rather plain, is very fine, producing an impression
which may be summed up in the word "spaciousness." Lofty aisles are
connected with the nave by corresponding arches; the clerestory is
comparatively small. The chancel is large, and open to the body of the
church, so that there is little interruption in any direction to the
view. Formerly Boston Church was exceptionally rich in brasses, but
most of these have perished; two, however, one of a merchant named
Peascod, whose dress is appropriately ornamented with pea-pods, and
another of a priest vested in a richly-ornamented cope, still remain
at the east end. Among the many minor objects of interest to be found
in this grand church, which was carefully restored about thirty years
since, may be mentioned the stone roof of the tower, the lower storey
of which is open to the church, the chancel-stalls, and the curious
Elizabethan pulpit.
[Illustration: NORTHAMPTON.]
Above the church is a great sluice, below it a bridge, which may be
reckoned as the head of the port of Boston. Here sea-going vessels may
be seen afloat at high tide, or stranded on the mud bank at low water.
The sea itself is about four miles away, and the dead level of the
fens extends all around the town. Except the church there is little of
interest in Boston, but probably its tower is surpassed by none in the
kingdom, in either its fine design or its extensive prospects.
[Illustration: PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL.]
From the table-land about Naseby, much of which lies at an elevation
of some six hundred feet above the sea, flow two of the rivers which
ultimately pass through the fenland into the Wash. These are a source
of the Nen and the Welland. Near the springs of these rivers, on the
undulating upland not far from Naseby, was the last great struggle in
the field between Royalist and Roundhead; Charles and Rupert on one
side, Cromwell and Fairfax on the other, "looked one another in the
face." Both sides were brave enough; but on the one were rashness and
incapacity, on the other discipline and skill; so that before four
hours had passed the king's army was shattered before the "new model,"
and he became "like a hunted partridge flitting from one castle to
another."
Thus the NEN has its sources quite on the western side of the
county--thence each feeder flows through a pleasant rolling region,
where pastures alternate with cornfields, and both with copses,
broadening its valley, as it proceeds, until they join and reach the
chief town of the county, by which time the water meadows bordering
its banks are of considerable extent. Northampton is a town which has
increased rapidly in size, and in consequence diminished rapidly in
attractiveness. While it possesses some very interesting remains of
ancient days, its older buildings for the most part are those of a
midland market town of the last century, and these have been seldom
replaced with the more imposing structures erected at the present
day; thus, if we except the new Town Hall, the chief additions to
Northampton are blocks of factories, and rows of small houses,
monotonous wildernesses of red bricks and purple slates. The place is
very old, but the politics that prevail are very modern; for some years
one of its parliamentary representatives was the late Mr. Bradlaugh.
[Illustration: ROCKINGHAM VILLAGE AND CASTLE.]
[Illustration: GATEWAY OF THE CASTLE.]
This slope above the Nen, where its course begins to bend towards the
north, was a town full a thousand years ago, when it bore the shorter
name of "Hamtune." For a considerable time it was in the hands of the
Danes; it was burned by them in 1010, and harried by the forces of
Morkere a year before the Norman Conquest. The successors of William
often kept court here, for the Forest of Rockingham--which then spread
over a large part of the county--was a favourite hunting ground, and
many councils and parliaments were held in the castle. In its hall
Becket confronted Henry II., and at a later date, the constitutions
of Clarendon were ratified. Its annals have not always been peaceful.
De Montford struggled for it with Prince Edward, and the Duke of York
with Henry VI. Once Northampton seemed in the way to become a seat of
learning, for owing to the state of feeling between "town and gown" in
the year 1260 the students abandoned Oxford and settled there; their
stay, however, was not long, the "town" found that a proud stomach
would soon be an empty one, and made interest with the king to recall
the "gown," so the Nen did not replace the Isis.
The ruins of the castle are inconspicuous, but Northampton possesses
two churches of great interest, one, St. Peter's--a fine, and in
some respects remarkable, example of a rather late Norman parish
church--which, notwithstanding some alterations, retains in the
main its original character, and is an unusually ornate example
of that style--and St. Sepulchre's, one of the four churches in
England which commemorate in their plan the ancient church of the
Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. This church has been much altered and
added to, but the rotunda, or rather octagon, is still in fair
preservation, and indicates a date rather later than that of its
three companions. The Queen's Cross, on the higher ground about a
mile south of Northampton, is one of the three which remain to mark
the resting-places of Queen Eleanor's body and the affection of her
husband. Though somewhat injured, it is still in fair preservation.
[Illustration: STAMFORD.]
The valley of the Nen below Northampton affords scenery which, if a
little monotonous, is generally pretty. There are flat water meadows
by the winding stream, forming a plain a mile or so wide, bounded
by slopes, rising sometimes gently, sometimes more rapidly, to a
low plateau on either side, and pleasantly diversified with copses
and hedgerow timber. The district is an excellent example of the
ordinary Midland scenery, quiet, peaceful, seemingly fairly opulent,
notwithstanding agricultural depression, but offering few subjects, so
far as the scenery is concerned, for pen or pencil, though occasionally
an ancient bridge and frequently an old farmhouse of grey stone will
attract the artist. As we pass along we note high on the left bank the
church of Earls Barton, of which the solid and curiously ornamented
tower was built before the Norman Conquest, and the body retains
remnants of almost every succeeding period of architecture. Indeed,
all this part of the valley of the Nen, which is followed for the most
part by the railway to Peterborough, if comparatively uninteresting in
its scenery, is exceptionally rich in its churches. In the words of the
late Canon James: "The Saxon tower of Earls Barton; the complete Early
English Church of Warmington, with its wooden vaulting and exquisite
capitals; the unique octagon of Stanwick; the lanterns of Lowick,
Irthlingborough, and Fotheringay; the spires of Raunds, Rushden, and
Irchester; Finedon, perfect in the best style; Strixton, the model
of an earlier one; the fine steeple of Oundle--are but selections
cut of a line of churches, some but little inferior, terminating
in the grand west front and more solemn interior of Peterborough
Cathedral." Besides this, opposite to Earls Barton lies Castle Ashby,
the home of the Marquis of Northampton, overlooking from its terrace
a great extent of the valley of the Nen, and the wooded hills on its
other bank. The house, which is built round a quadrangle, replaces
a castle which had disappeared by Leland's time. Three sides were
built in the reign of Elizabeth, the fourth was added by Inigo Jones.
A lettered balustrade, a rather favourite device in Elizabethan and
Jacobean work, is to be seen here. The house contains some interesting
pictures and some memorials--according to the author of the account in
Murray's Guide-book--of the famous spendthrift election, when my Lord
Northampton, my Lord Halifax, and my Lord Spencer all ran candidates
for the borough of Northampton, and the race cost the winner a hundred
thousand pounds, and each of the losers a hundred and fifty thousand
pounds! Yardley Chase, a fragment of one of the old Northamptonshire
forests, adjoins the park.
[Illustration: BEDFORD BRIDGE.]
The Nen winds on to Wellingborough, with its chalybeate spring, a
town which began to prosper when the iron ore of Northamptonshire
found favour in the market. The ore, which is the oxide of iron,
popularly known as "rust," occurs in a group of sands of no great
thickness at the base of the lower oolites, and overlying the stiff
blue lias clay. According to Horace Walpole, quoted in the Guide-book,
Wellingborough was not well provided with hotels in 1763. "We lay at
Wellingborough--pray never lie there--the beastliest inn upon earth
is there! We were carried into a vast bed-room, which I suppose is
the club-room, for it stunk of tobacco like a justice of the peace! I
desired some boiling water for tea; they brought me in a sugar-dish
of hot water in a pewter plate." The church is a fine one, and
interesting in more respects than space allows us to enumerate. For
the same reason we must pass rapidly by Higham Ferrers, with its old
bridge (the best of two or three over this section of the river), and
the buildings founded by Archbishop Chichele as a mark of affection
for his birthplace. The grand church dates from various periods,
commencing with the Early English, and ending with the first half of
the seventeenth century, when the steeple was rebuilt, but on the
old pattern. The church was made collegiate by Chichele in 1415, to
which date belongs the woodwork of the chancel. A brass indicates the
burial-place of his parents, and there are several other monuments of
great interest. The school-house on the north side of the churchyard,
quite close to the steeple, and the bede-house on the south, are also
Chichele's work, together with the college, which stood in the main
street, but is now in ruins. Probably no townlet in England possesses
such a remarkable group of ecclesiastical buildings. The shafts also
of two crosses remain. The castle, however, which once belonged to the
Earls Ferrers, has now disappeared.
Hence the Nen flows on by bridge or mill to the little town of
Thrapston, noted for its grain market. "There is a very pretty view
from the bridge which crosses the Nen between Thrapston and Islip. The
river sweeps round between green meadows, overhung in the foreground
by masses of fine trees. Loosestrife, arrowhead, the flowering rush,
and many of the rarer water plants, abound, and the tall rushes which
border the stream are used here for plaiting the outer portion of horse
collars and mats, and for the seats of chairs." Then comes Thorpe with
its fragment of a castle and the old bridge over a tributary of the
Nen, which near here for a while parts into two channels. The scenery
generally in this part of the valley is attractive, especially near
Lilford, where the old mansion stands on rising ground surrounded by
fine trees; and near to the river are the churches and the ruined
Castle of Barnwell. Then, hurrying on, Oundle is reached, with its
lofty steeple and fine church, its ancient bridge over the river, and
its quaint old houses. Oundle has been inhabited since the days of
the Romans, and is justly noted as "one of the pleasantest towns in
Northamptonshire." Cotterstock with its memories of Dryden, Tansor with
its curious church, come next, then Fotheringay with its "fair builded
paroche church" and its ruined castle, in the hall of which stern
justice was done to Mary Stuart, overlooks the valley of the Nen. At
Wansford the river sweeps round to the east, and glides slowly through
a less interesting district down to Peterborough, passing on its way
Castor with its interesting church and relics of a Roman station. This,
Durobrivæ by name, appears to have occupied both sides of the river,
and was evidently a wealthy and important settlement. It was famed also
for its pottery; "kilns and great works extended round Castor and its
neighbourhood for about twenty miles up and down the Nen valley. Roman
potters' kilns have been found nowhere else in England so perfect or in
so great numbers."
Far above the lowland, far above the fens upon which the river is now
entering, rises the huge mass of the Cathedral of Peterborough. The
town, once a mere appendage to the great monastery, is now an important
centre of railways and of works connected therewith. Within the last
forty years the population has trebled; acres and acres of land have
been covered with rather commonplace dwellings; but the nucleus of the
town, the houses by the Nen bridge, the picturesque market-place, the
old residences of the close, and above all the Cathedral, are little
changed. A few years ago it was found necessary to rebuild completely
the central tower of the Cathedral, for it was on the point of falling;
much underpinning and other structural work has had to be done in the
choir, during which some very remarkable remnants of the older fabric
have been found; and it will probably be some years before the work of
restoration is completed, for the expense is great, and neither the
chapter nor the diocese is rich.
At Peterborough we stand on the brink of the lowland. It is not yet
actual fen; the Cathedral, the town, stand on a thin bed of rock, which
overlies clay and provides a foundation. Here, about the year 655, the
place being then called Medeshamstede, a monastery was founded. For
more than two centuries it flourished; then the Dane swooped down on
the fenland abbey, and for nearly a hundred years it was desolate. It
was rebuilt about 966, and in less than a century had become so wealthy
that in the days of Abbot Leofric, a great benefactor, it was called
the golden burgh of Peter. The splendour for a time was dimmed when
the monastery was burnt, and the church sacked, by Hereward the Wake
as an English welcome to the first Norman Abbot. All of this church
that was above ground has long disappeared, but considerable portions
of the foundation have been discovered during the recent alterations,
and will not be again buried. The grand Norman structure which still
remains--one of the most complete in the kingdom--was begun about 1118,
and completed, except the west front, about 1190. That--a structure
perfectly unique, a gigantic portico, in the form of three huge pointed
arches--is assigned to the first quarter of the thirteenth century.
For boldness of design and perfection of execution it is unsurpassed
by anything of this period in the kingdom. The small spires, the
pinnacles, and the porch, unfortunately stuffed between the piers of
the central arch, are of later date. The "new building" or lady chapel
at the east end is a fine piece of Tudor work, but it has not improved
the lower part of the Norman church. The Perpendicular architects have
inserted poor tracery in many of the windows, and have made other
alterations, seldom for the better, but less mischief has been done at
Peterborough by these meddlesome blunderers than in most other Norman
cathedrals.
[Illustration: HUNTINGDON BRIDGE.]
* * * * *
The WELLAND rises, as has been said, on the high ground near Naseby,
but runs parallel with the outcrop of the rocks, while the stream
going to the Nen descends with their slope. Thus the valley of the
former widens rapidly, and before reaching Market Harborough is already
trench-like in outline. This, for long a sleepy little town, seems
to have been stimulated into some life by the meeting of railways.
Still it possesses one or two old houses, a chapel and a church of
some interest; and from it Charles led his army to the fatal field
of Naseby. Below Harborough the valley of the Welland continues to
broaden and flatten its bed, the slopes often rising steeply on both
northern and southern sides. Though sometimes pleasantly wooded around
the site of some old family mansion, they are commonly rather bare,
and the scenery is on the whole less attractive than is usual in this
region of England. Such churches also as are near the river are not
remarkable, and it is not till we come to Rockingham that we care to
pause. Here, however, high on the right bank, backed by shady woods,
are the terraces, gables, and the remaining bulwarks of Rockingham
Castle. The road climbs through the picturesque village to the grey
old gateway, which, with other portions, dates from the thirteenth
century, but the part more conspicuous from the valley is mainly of the
reign of Elizabeth. "Anywhere the high site of Rockingham, backed with
its avenues of limes and groups of forest trees, would be a fine one,
but in Northamptonshire the wild and broken ground of the park, and
the abrupt slopes and earthworks on which the castle stands, make it
signally unique." The earlier kings of England not seldom used this for
a hunting seat in the days when Rockingham Forest was a reality instead
of a name.
The river winds on with little change in the general character of the
scenery; the tower of Gretton looks down from the high scarp of the
right bank, the little spire of Seaton rises among trees hardly less
high on the left, the small village of Harringworth, with its grey
stone houses, its interesting church, and its old cross still standing
in the market-place, lies by the river side, near to which a branch
of the Midland Railway crosses river and valley on a mighty viaduct
of brick arches. Then Collyweston crowns the slope on the right. Here
are the quarries of so-called slate, which in former days roofed all
the churches and most of the mansions for miles round--a material
in its slight irregularity of form and colour far more pleasing to
the eye than the formal smoothness and dull tints of the slates of
Wales or Westmorland, which now find favour with builders. Then near
the river are more grey houses, always worth a passing glance, for
they are often at least a couple of centuries old, and as stone was
plentiful and good, men in those times forbore to do their work "on the
cheap." But here is something more, for above them rises the steeple
of Ketton church, perhaps the most graceful to be found in any village
in England. High on the hills behind are the famous quarries, which
for long took the place of those of Barnack, but are now in their turn
becoming exhausted.
[Illustration: OLD BRIDGE, ST. IVES.]
Then above the willow trees by the water, grey houses, towers, and
spires, rise from the bed of the valley, climb the slope on the left,
and that on the right also, till the suburb is arrested by densely
massed woods. These hide from view the palatial mansion of Burghley;
this is "Stamford town," once a noted halting-place on the great North
Road. There is, perhaps, no town in England of the same size which
is more picturesque or more interesting. Grey stone houses, often of
excellent design, overhang the river, and border the streets; the
steeple of St. Mary's is very similar, and hardly inferior, to that
of Ketton; that of All Saints is also fine. In St. Martin's, near the
gate, Burghley, the great Lord Treasurer, the founder of the houses of
Exeter and Salisbury, lies buried; the Burghley Bede House, Browne's
Hospital, and the ruined priory of St. Leonard's, are full of interest,
and the town boasts that to it, as to Northampton, there was once a
migration from Oxford.
At Stamford itself one would hardly suppose that the fens were near.
The ground on either side is fairly high, the valley not notably broad,
but the river, like the Witham at Lincoln, after cutting through
the great limestone escarpment, passes out into the vast expanse of
marsh-land that borders the Wash.
* * * * *
The OUSE rises in Buckinghamshire not far from Banbury, noted among
children for its cross and cakes, and wanders leisurely on by the
quiet county town of Buckingham, by Newport Pagnell, and Olney,
known to admirers of Cowper, its scenery for the most part opulent,
but rather monotonous, till it approaches Bedford--once a town
wholly agricultural, now the site of important works of agricultural
implements, and evidently prospering. Sleepily the Ouse glides along
by its reedy banks through the wide lowland, silently it slides by the
waterside houses, the pretty gardens, and the modern bridge which has
replaced an earlier and more picturesque structure. Among the fields
towards the south, the massive tower of Elstow church rises above the
trees, indicating the birthplace of John Bunyan, who "lighted on a
den" in Bedford gaol, and there "dreamed the dream" of the "Pilgrim's
Progress." Bedford Castle has disappeared, the churches are of little
interest, the houses commonplace. Except for a few memorials of Bunyan,
Bedford does not offer much to detain the traveller, unless he would
examine its excellent schools or search for the remains of palæolithic
man in the neighbouring gravels.
Below Bedford the Ouse passes on through wide meadows, near the
pine-clad hills of Sandy, and the market gardens, fertile from the
happy mixture of the light sand of the slopes with the mud of the
river; by the old town of St. Neots, with its fine church tower; by
Huntingdon with its picturesque bridge and its memories of Cromwell,
where the old mansion of the Earls of Sandwich looks from its terrace
over the wide and often flooded river plain; and beneath the ancient
bridge of St. Ives. The valley becomes less and less definite, the
scenery flat, flatter, flattest, till somewhere or other in the fens
the Ouse receives the Cam, and somewhere or other at last reaches the
sea. This enigmatical sentence will be presently explained; let us now
turn back to notice briefly the course of the last-named river.
* * * * *
The CAM is shorter than any which have been noticed, yet a stream which
passes through Cambridge, and may claim to glide by Ely, may well
demand a longer notice than any of them. This, however, the limitations
of space forbid, so we shall pass over, as generally known, the history
of Cambridge and of its University. We will merely glance at the site
of the Roman camp on the low plateau and the old "Saxon" tower of St.
Benet's on the plain across the Cam, indicating, as at Lincoln, an
early separation of the military and the civil element. We will only
mention the Round church, another memorial of the Holy Sepulchre. We
will not discuss the rise and progress of the University, whether or
no its founder was Sigibert, king of the East Angles, nor speak of
the work of many a pious benefactor, royal, noble, and lowly born, or
of its illustrious sons, its treasures of literature, its museums and
colleges. We will merely trace the course of the Cam through the town,
because there is no mile of river scenery in all England, or, so far as
we know, in all Europe, which can be exactly compared with it.
The Cam at Cambridge results from the union of two or three streams
which have stolen sluggishly down, from sources a few miles distant
among the chalk hills or the yet lower undulations of the clay
district, to form a river rather wider and deeper, but hardly more
rapid than an ordinary canal. Meadows and osier beds end at a mill,
up to which barges can come, and below the pool, at the first bridge
leading into the town, the characteristic scenery may be said to
begin. Close to this the buildings of Queen's College overhang the
water, linked to the garden on the left bank by a picturesque wooden
bridge. With tall trees to the left, with another garden on the right,
we then glide beneath a single-arch bridge into the precincts of
King's College. On the left bank are meadows bordered by tall trees;
on the right, from smooth-shaven lawns, rise the master's lodge, the
massive Fellows' Buildings, and the stately chapel, the pride of
King's College. Overlooking the lawns, but parted by a garden from the
river, is the single court of Clare College, an excellent example of
seventeenth century domestic architecture, behind which is the group of
buildings belonging to the University Library, the older part of which
was erected for the students of King's College. A handsome three-arched
bridge links Clare to its beautiful gardens on the opposite bank of
the Cam, and almost closes the view along the stream, though beneath
its arches glimpses are obtained of more gardens and yet more bridges.
Rowing on, with some care for our oars, we pass beneath an arch, and
glide by the gardens of Clare College and beneath the terraced wall
which hides that of Trinity Hall, but not its stately chestnut trees.
Then, through a single arch of iron, which carries one of the roads
leading into the town, we enter the grounds of Trinity College, the
largest, richest, and most aristocratic of the educational foundations
of Cambridge. Before us is its bridge, interrupting the noble avenue
of limes, which on the one side separates its tree-fringed meadows,
on the other leads up to the gateway tower in the façade of the "New
Court." There are now neither shrubs nor flowers by the river, but here
and there a weeping willow overhangs the water. As we pass beneath one
of the arches we obtain on the one side a clearer view of the Trinity
meadows; on the other, of Wren's stately but rather ugly library
adjoining the "New Court," and in front, across more meadows, and yet
more aged trees, we see the grand mass of the "New Court" of St. John's
College.
[Illustration: JUNCTION OF THE CAM AND THE OUSE.]
On approaching these the river bends to the right. Old elms border the
meadows of St. John's, an ivy-clad wall bounds an old garden belonging
to Trinity, and then, beyond another three-arched bridge, the Cam
passes between the buildings of St. John's. They rise directly from
the water, like the palaces of Venice; on the right, a picturesque
group of red brick and old grey stone, dating from the seventeenth
century, linked by a covered bridge of stone--a Gothicised Rialto--to
the loftier mass of the New Court on the left. Bridge and buildings
were erected rather more than half a century since; the material is
a cream-coloured limestone; the style is late Perpendicular. Passing
between these and by the gable of the college library, a view is
obtained of the Master's lodge and of the west front of the chapel with
its heavy inappropriate tower. Both are the work of Gilbert Scott, and
the latter is by no means one of his successes. These left behind,
some rather poor but not unpicturesque houses border the Cam, till it
is crossed by an iron bridge, supporting the main street of the town.
Then we glide past the buildings of Magdalene College, which of late
years have been opened to the river. Soon after this we emerge from the
town, to see, below a lock and weir, the boat-houses of the college
rowing-clubs bordering the left bank of the Cam, and the grassy expanse
of "Midsummer Common" on the opposite side. For the next three or four
miles the margin of the Cam, uninteresting as its scenery may be, is
often lively enough, for skiffs, pairs, four-oars, eight-oars, dart
up and down, propelled by the strong arms of sturdy rowers. Dingeys
or "tubs" progress more leisurely, while now and again a long string
of barges is towed or punted onwards, and almost blocks the waterway.
As a result of this, the representatives of learning and of commerce
exchange compliments, when the language is vernacular rather than
classic. Brightest of all is the scene on occasions of the college
races. Carriages and spectators crowd the right bank, on the left runs
a yelling crowd, which, as it follows the boats, resembles in its
motley mixture of uniforms a huge party-coloured water-snake. Age and
youth, don and undergraduate, mingle in one confused mass, like a pack
of hounds in full cry. Oh, the music of that shout! Oh, the memories of
those days when friends were many and cares were few--when many a face
was bright which has now faded away into the shadow-land, many a heart
was warm which is now mouldering in the dust!
[Illustration: QUEEN'S BRIDGE, CAMBRIDGE.]
Before long the Cam fairly enters the fenland, and creeps along by
willows and reeds, by wide tracts of black earth, once marshy and
malarious, now rich plains of corn land. Here and there a cluster of
trees, a tower or a spire, marks the spot where some insular bank
afforded in olden times a site for a village among the wild waste
of flooded fen. When the winter frost has gone, when the spring
north-easter is still, when the summer sun is high, it is indeed a
sleepy land. The spirit of the scenery may be not inappropriately
summed up in the words written over the door of a waterside inn,
half-way between Cambridge and Ely: "Five miles from anywhere; no
hurry!" One object only breaks the monotony of the horizon; this is
the vast mass of Ely Cathedral towering up from its island hill, and
overlooking the fens of the Cam and of the Ouse.
This isle of Ely, a large but low plateau surrounded by meres and
marshes, was of old a place of note. It was the dower of Etheldreda,
daughter of Anna, king of the East Anglians, and she, soon after
the year 673, founded a monastery near to the site of the present
cathedral. Of this she became abbess, and here she died and was
ultimately enshrined. To her memorial festival pilgrims crowded from
all quarters, and the trifles sold at "St. Awdry's" fair have left
their mark upon our language. The Danes came and the monastery was
devastated, but it was founded anew about a century before the Norman
Conquest. At that epoch it became a "Camp of Refuge" for the patriots
who refused submission to the invaders. The deeds of Hereward the
Wake are too well known to need recounting; suffice it to say that
the resistance was long and stubborn, and that the Normans were more
than once beaten off from the isle with heavy loss. The scene of their
gravest defeat is still marked by an old causeway which crosses both
the fens and a channel of the Ouse to a spot near Haddenham, about four
miles distant from Ely.[6] Along this William advanced from Cambridge
to the attack. By the river brink there was a desperate struggle, but
at last the dry reeds above the causeway on the Norman side were fired
by the English; the flame fanned by the evening breeze came roaring
down on the invader's column; then was a wild rush for dear life, but
between fire and morass many a Norman never got back again to his camp.
The monastery which sheltered Hereward's men, the church where they
worshipped, have now disappeared. The foundations of the present
cathedral were laid by Simeon, the first Norman abbot, who was
appointed in 1082. Most of it belongs to a yet later date. The oldest
work is found in the transepts; the upper parts of these, with the
nave, are Late Norman, the west tower and remaining part of the façade
not being completed till near the end of the twelfth century. The
singularly beautiful choir is partly Early English, partly Decorated;
the eastern bays dating from about 1240, the western nearly a century
later. In the year 1322 the Norman central tower fell in with a mighty
crash, and was replaced by the octagon and lantern, which form the
unique glory of Ely. About the same time the great Lady-chapel at the
east angle of the northern transept was added. The beautiful western
Galilee porch was built in advance of the western façade, perhaps a
quarter of a century after the completion of the latter, which has
lost, at what date it is uncertain, its northern wing or transept.
[Illustration: ELY CATHEDRAL, FROM THE RIVER.]
Of the additions and alterations made by the architects of the
Perpendicular period--rarely improvements--it is needless to speak, and
through want of space we must pass over the beautiful monuments, the
stall work ancient and modern, the decoration of the roof, and the many
enrichments which the cathedral has received during the latter part of
the present century. Nor can we do more than mention the interesting
remains of the annexed monastery--the ruins of the infirmary, the
ancient gateway, the deanery and other old houses, or the Bishop's
Palace, which stands a little apart from these to the south-west of the
cathedral. In this respect its precincts are not less interesting than
those of Lincoln and Peterborough.
* * * * *
We have not attempted to follow either Nen, Welland, or Ouse, to
the sea, because their courses through the fenlands are now to a
considerable extent artificial, forming part of a connected system of
drainage; and because the whole district is an almost unbroken plain. A
description written for one part will apply to any other; a few trees,
more or less, grouped a little differently by the dykes or on the low
shoals which rise a few feet above the plain; a little more or less of
marsh or peat still left among the enclosures: that is all; the only
differences are in the sluices, pumping-stations, windmills, houses,
churches--in short, in the artificial, not in the natural features of
the scenery.
The history of the drainage of the fens and the rectification of its
river courses is a long and complicated one.[7] Restricting ourselves
to the vast plain west and south-west of the Wash, the silted-up
estuary, rather than the river delta of the Welland, Nen, and Ouse, it
may suffice to say that, while works were executed so far back as Roman
times, the first great effort for the reclamation of the land dates
from the seventeenth century. Formerly these rivers branched in the
fenland. The Welland divided at Crowland, one arm passing by Spalding,
the other inosculating with an arm of the Nen, which was thrown
off near Peterborough; of this river the other arm passed through
Whittlesea Mere to Wisbeach, and so to the sea. The Ouse also divided
at Erith, one arm passing northward to join part of the Nen, the other,
that mentioned above, flowing south of the Isle of Ely and uniting with
the Cam. The part of the fens which lay north of the Nen was partially
reclaimed in the reign of James I. The drainage was completed by
Rennie in the beginning of the present century, but some sixty years
afterwards powerful pumps had to be added to his work to discharge the
drainage into the sea. The reclamation of the district south of the Nen
was undertaken by Vermuyden with the help of the Earl of Bedford. His
scheme was elaborate and open to criticism, its history complicated
and unsatisfactory. It may suffice to say that the work, begun under
Charles, was completed under Cromwell; that the rivers were conducted
along channels, mainly artificial, enclosed by banks, and that before
long, owing to the drying of the peat, the consequent reduction of
the slope of the ground, and the silting-up of the outfalls, it was
found necessary to introduce windmills for pumping. Since then many
improvements and alterations have been made. Whittlesea Mere, for
example, a sheet of water from 1,000 to 1,600 acres in extent, has been
drained, new sluices have been added, steam pumping engines erected,
and the drainage of the fens may now be regarded as complete. The wild
marsh-land, once a steaming swamp in summer, a vast sheet of water in
winter, is now a plain of dry black earth, "green in springtime with
the sprouting blade, golden in autumn with the dense ears of grain. It
is a strange, solemn land, silent even yet, with houses few and far
between, except where they have clustered for centuries on some bank of
Jurassic clay, which rises like a shoal not many feet above the plain;
with water yet dank and dark, but brightened in summer with arrowhead
and flowering rush and the great white cups of water-lilies. Strange
kinds of hawks yet circle in the air, the swallowtail butterfly yet
dances above the sedges, though the great-copper no longer spreads its
burnished wings to the sunshine. Few trees, except grey willows or
rows of rustling poplars, break the dead level which stretches away to
the horizon, like a sea, beneath a vast dome of sky kindled often at
sunrise and at sunset into a rare glory of many colours."[8]
[Illustration: AMONG THE FENS.]
With the progress of cultivation the peculiar flora and fauna are
gradually disappearing. The bittern, the spoonbill, the crane, and the
wild swan, are becoming rare visitants, the ruffs and reeves, once so
common, are now scarce; the decoys are falling into disuse, and the
strange unearthly cry of the wild fowl less often breaks the frozen
silence of the winter night; but if this is a loss to the naturalist
and the sportsman, there is a gain to the labourer and the farmer. Ague
and marsh fever have all but disappeared. Though the fenland is less
wild and strange than in days of yore, he who has gazed in the early
autumn from one of the high church towers over the vast expanse has
seen a sight which he will never forget, for all around the endless
fields of grain
"Are like a golden ocean,
Becalmed upon the plain."
A word must be said of the fenland towns. Wisbeach claims to be the
metropolis. Built upon the Nen, which is navigable up to it for
vessels of moderate tonnage, and a prosperous town, it has little of
special interest besides its principal church, for its castle has
practically disappeared. Spalding, also a bright and thriving place,
among shady trees; and King's Lynn, at the mouth of the Ouse, with a
fine church, an old Guildhall, and the curious pilgrimage chapel of the
Red Mount--claim more than mention. Nor must we forget the once mighty
Abbey of Crowland, that grey broken ruin which towers still so grandly
over the fens, or its singular triangular bridge, or the memories of
St. Guthlac and of Waltheof.
T. G. BONNEY.
[Illustration: A NORFOLK BROAD.]
THE RIVERS OF EAST ANGLIA.
THE CROUCH: Foulness--Little Barsted and
Langdon--Canewdon--Rayleigh--Hockley Spa. THE
BLACKWATER: Saffron Walden--Radwinter--Cadham Hall
and Butler--Booking--Braintree--Felix Hall--Braxted
Lodge--Tiptree-Maldon. THE CHELMER: Thaxted--The Dunmows--Great
Waltham--Springfield--Chelmsford--Mersea Island. THE COLNE:
Great Yeldham--Castle Hedingham--Halstead--Colchester.
THE STOUR: Kedington--Sudbury--Flatford and John
Constable--Harwich. THE ORWELL: Stowmarket--Barham--Ipswich.
THE DEBEN: Debenham--Woodbridge--Felixstowe. THE
ALDE: Aldborough--Southwold--Halesworth. THE WAVENEY:
Diss--Bungay--Mettingham--Beccles--Breydon Water--Horsey Mere. THE
BURE: Hickling Broads--St. Benet's Abbey--Salhouse and Wroxham
Broads--Hoverton Great Broad--Horning Ferry--Fishing in the Broads.
THE YARE: Norwich--Yarmouth.
[Illustration]
After the Medway and the Thames have delivered their great
contributions to the sea, the peculiar Essex coast country--flat,
marshy, and often very uninteresting--is sufficiently served by a
number of small streams of little note in literature, and generally
as commonplace in appearance as in the duties they perform. There
are exceptions, which will be duly indicated, but with regard to the
majority of the streams of East Anglia, poet has not sung nor painter
wrought his magic art. If not remote, unfriended, or melancholy, they
are, it cannot be denied, slow. During the hot summer-time, when the
level fields through which they meander are quivering with heat-haze,
and the pastures and hedgerows are ablaze with the wild flowers which
love fat pastures and flourish upon them, the upper waters are choked
with luxuriant tangles of aquatic vegetation, and the current is barely
sufficient, without the frequent application of scythe and water-rake
to the thickets below water, to turn the rustic mills planted upon
their banks. The dainty trout loves not the muddy beds and lazy flow
of these rivers, which will be found to be much more numerous than is
commonly supposed; but the waters are the natural home of the eel,
pike, roach, bream, and other specimens of the so-called coarse fishes,
or summer spawners, of Great Britain. A purely pastoral country is
that watered by these narrow reed-margined rivers, famous for grain,
roots, and grassy acres, with good soil where the solid earth lies so
low that the hand of man must perforce sometimes exert itself to save
it from the inroads of the salt sea. Let us follow the coast-line from
the north shore of the Thames, abounding in marshes that have been so
well described by Dickens in "Great Expectations," and by the author of
"Mehalah" in his novels.
* * * * *
The first river is the CROUCH, whose estuary is still the groundwork of
a remunerative oyster fishery. Anything more dreary than the shores of
this long and gaping river-mouth can scarcely be imagined. The beacons
out at sea tell the tale of danger, and point to the dread Maplin
sands, and the treacherous shoals that culminate in the fatal Goodwins.
True, upon Foulness the tenants of Lord Winchilsea most successfully
reclaimed a space of forbidding foreshore from the sea, but as a rule
these expanses yield little better than coarse marsh grass, wild fowl,
and everlasting salt; and the island of Foulness, which is formed by
the curvature of one of the smaller channels, half river and half
creek, that abound in these parts, is the oasis of this marshy desert.
Yet the church on the island, which was built less than forty years
ago, occupies the site of one which was founded in the twelfth century,
and the Danes, as every schoolboy is taught, built themselves forts
hard-by, and made camps that have left their landmarks to this day. At
high water the Crouch estuary is a pleasant enough arm of the sea, and
as the river is navigable for brigs of respectable tonnage at Burnham,
and for smaller craft to Fambridge Ferry, the ruddy and white-sailed
boats impart a refreshing liveliness to the scene. Especially is this
the case when the little fleet of oyster boats are on active service.
The Crouch rises from a couple of springs in Little Bursted and
Langdon, the district lying between the high and picturesque uplands of
these parts, Billericay (where the Romans had a station) and Langdon
Hill. A small stream for a while, the Crouch passes several villages,
the branches joining forces at Ramsden Crays; it becomes navigable
for barges at Battle Bridge, and for sea-going brigs and schooners at
Hull Bridge, near which place the scenery is pretty and undulating.
From North Fambridge, however, the normal marsh-land of the estuary
begins to assert itself, and Burnham is to all intents and purposes
the seaport of this portion of the Hundreds--a local term applying
to the aguish levels between the Crouch and the Colne, which latter
stream will presently engage our attention. Before leaving the Crouch,
however, the village of Canewdon should be mentioned, as being well
situated above the flats, and as being in the neighbourhood of a
battlefield upon which Canute defeated Edmund Ironside. The discovery
of relics from time to time shows that the Romans as well as the Danes
were located on the shores of the Crouch, and the ancient village of
Rayleigh is claimed to have been the home of the Saxon. The mineral
waters of Hockley Spa are credited with peculiar virtues, and the place
is in consequence growing in importance.
* * * * *
[Illustration: CADHAM HALL: PORTRAIT OF SAMUEL BUTLER.]
The BLACKWATER, sometimes called the Pant, which is the next river
as we proceed northwards, waters a pleasant, flourishing, and
populous part of the county of Essex. It is the kind of landscape
that delights the agriculturist, and that gives to rural England its
distinctive charm, its combination of pasture and arable land, wood
and water, village and town. The Blackwater rises near the borders of
Cambridge, not far from Saffron Walden, the wooded slope of the Saxon,
the strategic position upon which the Britons had formed an ancient
encampment, and Geoffrey de Mandeville built his castle in the early
days of the Norman Conquest; the place where in more recent times the
cultivation of the saffron suggested a suitable prefix to "Weald den."
The tower and spire of Radwinter Church forms a conspicuous object from
the surrounding country, but the church has been restored and enlarged
in our own times. Here, towards the close of the sixteenth century,
Robert Harrison, the author of the "Decay of the English Long Bow," and
an historical description of the "Land of Britaine," was rector. Lower
down the river, in the village church of Hempstead, a monument stands
to the memory of William Harvey, the discoverer of the circulation of
the blood, but the hall where Harvey's brother Eliab resided no longer
exists. Butler is said to have written the greater part of "Hudibras"
at Cadham Hall, below Shalford; and at Finchingfield, on a hilly site
near a tributary of the main stream, Spains Hall, an Early Tudoresque
mansion in a fine park, represents the free hand of the Conqueror, who
gave the estate to one of his Normans.
[Illustration: MALDON.]
Bocking Church, as we descend the river, now running almost due south,
stands high, and is of some note as a building of the time of Edward
III., in which ministered the Dr. Gauden who, in the opinion of some
of the authorities, was the author of _Eikon Basilike_. Bocking is
virtually an outlying suburb of the neat market town of Braintree,
where a colony of Flemings, settling in the time of Elizabeth, founded
the weaving establishments which, with ironworks, corn mills, and
malting-houses, maintain the present population in general prosperity.
The vale and park of Stisted succeed, and by-and-bye the old-fashioned
little town of Coggeshall, partly covering the rising ground of one of
the river banks. Weaving is still carried on, though not to the extent
of former days, when the town was a valuable centre of the woollen
manufacture; and of the Cistercian Abbey founded by Stephen and Maud
nothing remains but an antiquated barn appropriating portions of the
ruins. John Owen, chaplain to Oliver Cromwell, was born at Coggeshall;
and Bishop Bonner probably resided at Feering Bury Manor House, by the
village of Feering, nearer Kelvedon, where the Blackwater is crossed
by a strong, handsome bridge. Felix Hall is the show-place of the
neighbourhood, and its noble park and the works of art contained in the
mansion attract numerous visitors. Another beautiful specimen of "the
stately homes of England" is Braxted Lodge, perched upon an eminence,
with commanding views of one of the most richly cultivated prospects to
be found in all Essex, and including, amongst the landscape features
of the lovely demesne, a lake some twenty acres in extent. Tiptree,
once a notable waste, boasting of nothing but heath, within the memory
of living man became even more notable as Tiptree Hall Farm, which was
created out of most unpromising materials into a model homestead by the
late Mr. Alderman Mechi, a scientific agriculturist who expended large
sums of money in machinery for the treatment of sewage and irrigation.
The town of Witham, on the further side, stands on the tributary Brain.
[Illustration:
_Walker & Boutall sc._
MAP OF THE EAST ANGLIAN RIVERS.]
The borough and seaport of Maldon, marking the junction of the Chelmer
with the Blackwater, stands at the head of a long, uninteresting,
marshy estuary of the same pattern as that of the Crouch, and extending
a dozen miles before the open sea is reached. Camden infers that
Camalodunum was on the site of Maldon, and another historical tradition
is that Edward the Elder encamped here to oppose the invasion of the
Danes. Local antiquarians point to remnants of the ancient encampment,
and assert that though at first the Danes were beaten back, Unlaf in
993 sailed hither and successfully led his Vikings to the rout of
the Saxons and capture of the station. Landseer, the painter, lived
at Maldon in the early part of his artistic career, and many of his
drawings have been preserved in the town and neighbourhood. The Royal
Academician Herbert was a native of the town.
* * * * *
The river CHELMER has been referred to as a tributary of the
Blackwater, but it is a navigable river on its own account, and
brings the county town, by means of an improved canal system, into
communication with Maldon and the sea. Though in the meadows above
Chelmsford it, from a not excessive distance, looks but a silver thread
trailed across the grass, it has a distinct value in the commerce
of the county. Thaxted, near which it takes its rise, is a typical
specimen of the decayed country town that, once of some importance, has
been left to sleepiness by the march of progress, which somehow passed
it by. Its fourteenth century church, with massive tower and lofty
octagonal spire, is amongst the finest in a country where good churches
are plentiful. Horham Hall was a residence of Queen Elizabeth before
she came to the throne; and the pleasantly situated village of Tilty,
in the valley of the Chelmer, environed by hills and graced by a wood
along the banks, boasts the remains of a Cistercian Abbey dating from
the middle of the twelfth century. Easton Park is in the valley; its
fine old Elizabethan mansion is in good preservation, and the church
contains many interesting memorials of the Maynards, who have long been
in possession of the estate. Great Dunmow is the next place touched
in our downward course, a comfortable town set upon a hill, with a
charming suburb thrown out to the river bank. In the neighbourhood,
but on the other side of the stream, is Little Dunmow, associated
with the memories of the Fitzwalters, one of whom is credited with
the famous bequest of a flitch of bacon to any married couple who
could prove that for twelve months and a day they had lived in perfect
harmony. The custom of awarding the flitch has been almost forgotten,
though Ainsworth made a gallant attempt to revive it, and the prize
was claimed as recently as 1876. It was first offered by Robert de
Fitzwalter in 1244, the actual conditions being "That whatever married
couple will go to the Priory, and kneeling on two sharp-pointed
stones will swear that they have not quarrelled nor repented of their
marriage within a year and a day after its celebration, shall receive
a flitch of bacon." Whether the people of the generations past felt
the conditions impossible, or treated the affair as a farce, no one
may decide, but it is remarkable that the first prize was not claimed
until two hundred years after it was established. Up to 1751 only
five flitches had been won, and there have been two since. The parish
church of Little Dunmow owes its fine columns, richly carved capitals,
and windows, to what is left of the Priory Church of the Augustinian
establishment founded in 1104.
Onwards through farms and parks, with many a hamlet and village rich
in relics of the Middle Ages, the Chelmer flows, laving no land more
fair in its disposition of deer parks, woods, lawns, and mansions,
than that around the village of Great Waltham. An excellent view of
the valley, the river, and a widespread scene which includes the town
of Chelmsford, is obtained from Springfield Hall. The village of
Springfield is one of many in England which are said to have given
Goldsmith the theme of his
"Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the plain,
Where health and plenty cheered the labouring swain,
Where smiling Spring its earliest visit paid,
And parting Summer's lingering blooms delayed."
Had the poet been standing on any of the eminences from which on every
side the wayfarer seems to descend upon Chelmsford, he might have noted
all the points which are so sweetly made in "The Deserted Village;" but
the same remark would apply to many a spot in many an English county.
Yet the following lines do chance to answer with happy accuracy to the
Springfield outlook:--
"How often have I paused on every charm--
The sheltered cot, the cultivated farm,
The never-failing brook, the busy mill,
The decent church that topped the neighbouring hill,
The hawthorn bush with seats beneath the shade,
For talking age and whispering lovers made."
But Springfield is in these days a portion of Chelmsford, from which
it is separated by the Chelmer and the smaller Cann, both crossed
by bridges. Chelmsford is one of the characteristic county towns of
the smaller type (its population is about 12,000), which thrive in
a centre of agricultural activity. The attempts made to restore to
the town the privileges of a borough were at last successful, as it
was strange they were not before, for though it sent four members
to the Council at Westminster in the time of Edward III., it was at
last the only county town in England, except the little capital of
Rutlandshire, that was not a borough. With its markets and fairs as
important periodical events, the Corn Exchange may be regarded as in
some respects the principal building, though a more imposing edifice is
the older Shire Hall, in which the assizes are held, and in which, so
recently as 1879, a precious discovery of ancient documents was made in
one of the upper rooms. The papers related to matters of the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries, and comprised records of the persecutions
of Episcopalians, Catholics, and Nonconformists, and of punishments,
in which the community enjoyed some notoriety, for witchcraft. Chief
Justice Tindal was one of the worthies of Chelmsford, and his name is
inscribed upon the elegant conduit in the market-place. The Chelmer,
as already stated, becomes an established navigation from the county
town, and continues its course to the east. The most noticeable feature
of the north side of the vale is Boreham House, with its park, avenues
of trees, water, and tastefully laid-out gardens. In the parish is New
Hall, an educational establishment, on the site of Henry VIII.'s palace
of Beaulieu, and used subsequently as a residence by Monk, when Duke of
Albemarle. The modern visitor is shown the sculptured initials, with
love-knots, of bluff King Hal and Anne Boleyn. To the west of Ulting
church, the Chelmer receives the Ter, fresh from the well-wooded park
of Terbury Place. Considerably increased in volume by this addition, it
hastens to Maldon and its confluence with the Blackwater.
[Illustration: THE SHIRE HALL, CHELMSFORD.]
In discharging its waters at the termination of its long estuary, the
Blackwater, with the Chelmer in union, sweeps along the southern shore
of a charming little island in the bay between St. Peter-on-the-Wall
and Colne Point. This is Mersea Island, five miles long from east to
west, and three miles at its widest portion. The oysters which have
made Whitstable famous have good breeding ground in Pyefleet--the
creek, passable at low water, which separates the mainland from this
prettily wooded and verdant isle, with a bold front to the North Sea.
In common with all the coast from Southend to Harwich, the foreshores
at low water present a melancholy expanse of ooze, upon which the
sea-birds may forage without fear of the approach of man. But while at
its lower end Mersea Island faces the outflow of the rivers we have
been considering, its upper shores are in a similar position with
regard to the Colne, which will next engage our attention.
* * * * *
Of the four rivers of this name in England three are spelt with
the final "e," and this stream in the north-eastern portion of the
county is often described as the Essex COLNE to distinguish it from
its namesake, which is a tributary of the Thames. Rising near Moynes
Park, the river pursues a south-easterly course to Great Yeldham, a
village embowered in trees, amongst which must be reckoned, as of
particular account, the gnarled oak, of which the inhabitants are
not a little proud. A larger village is Castle Hedingham, standing
upon its breezy acclivity, and favoured with a delightful prospect of
highly cultivated valley. What remains of the Castle which gave name
to the place is in grand condition, the great tower or keep, with its
stupendously solid walls, standing almost externally entire upon its
turfy mound. The Norman masonry is square and lofty, with walls twelve
feet in thickness, and the keep, as a whole, is 100 feet high. So well
preserved is the structure, that the grooves for the portcullis in the
gateway facing the west might still be used for their original purpose.
Halstead, lower down the widening river, is doubtless what its name
signifies, a healthy place, covering the gentle ascent from the stream.
The market is one of the oldest in the country, and for many years the
population has prosecuted the trade of straw-plaiting, and manufactures
of silk and crape. A tributary feeds the Colne from the extensive lake
of 100 acres in the park of Gosfield Hall, three miles below Halstead.
Gosfield Hall was the seat of the Nugents, one of whom wrote the life
of Hampden, and it afterwards came into the hands of the Marquis of
Buckingham. Four villages, three on the left and one on the right, take
a portion of their name from the stream:--Colne Engaine, so called from
its ancient lords of the manor; Earls Colne, once the residence of the
Earls of Oxford; White Colne, a modern rendering of Colne-le-Blanc; and
Wakes Colne. This is the Colne village near which, at Chappell, the
valley is crossed by the Stour Valley railway viaduct, 1,000 feet in
length, and 80 feet above the level of the stream.
By the villages of Fordham, West Bergholt, and Lexden, the river at
length, by devious ways, arrives at Colchester, the largest town in
Essex, the ancient fortified post which historians nominate the capital
of the Trinobantes; and Mr. J. H. Round, who has written a history of
Colchester Castle, identifies the town with the British Camalodunum.
A similar honour, as we have seen, has been claimed for Maldon on the
Blackwater. This "hill-town at the bend of the river" has figured often
in history, and the relics exhibited in the Colchester Museum, and the
writings of early historians, sufficiently warrant us in beginning
with the Romans. The number of remains unearthed at Colchester has
been enormous, and Romans, Saxons, and Danes, in succession, occupied
this valuable position on the eastern coast. It became the point of
contention in civil war, sent ships and men to Edward III., was visited
by both Mary and Elizabeth, and was a staunch contributor of men and
money to the Parliament against Charles I.
The river Colne, to which Colchester owes so much of its importance
past and present, is navigable to Hythe, where the newest bridge, a
construction of iron, replaced a brick bridge which was washed away by
a winter flood in 1876. North Bridge is also an iron structure, and
East Bridge, with its five arches, is of brick. The public buildings
of Colchester are handsome and mostly modern, and the business of the
place has been much increased since the extension of Colchester Camp
as the headquarters of the Eastern Military District. The picturesque
portion of the town must be looked for on the high ground where stand
the remains of the Castle, supposed to have been built by the Romans.
The monastic ruins in the town are also of more than common interest.
The river Colne, widening as it goes, passes Wivenhoe Park, receiving a
small tributary called the Roman river, and henceforth it is an estuary
proper, with salt water, fishing-boats, oyster-beds, and marshes
intersected by creeks dear to the wild-fowler. One of the best known
landmarks for the incoming mariner is the tall tower of the church of
the fishing village of Brightlingsea.
* * * * *
Dividing for some distance the counties of Essex and Suffolk, next in
order comes the STOUR, born upon the borders of the adjoining county of
Cambridge, and running an almost parallel course with the Colne, but
longer. Three brooks contend for the reputation of starting the Stour
upon its journey, and the matter is not placed beyond dispute until
the three become one. The river begins to act as a county boundary
at Kedington, where Archbishop Tillotson was rector at the time of
the Commonwealth. Birdbrook and Whitley, Baythorn Park and Stoke
College, the village which gave a name to the Cavendishes, the old
hall of Pentlow, the village of Long Melford, with Melford Hall and
Kentwell Hall, and Liston Park opposite, bring us, with a curve of the
river, to the borough town of Sudbury, the birthplace of the painter
Gainsborough, and the point from whence the Stour becomes navigable.
With smaller villages in close succession planted along its course, the
Stour at Higham is joined by the Bret, and the district between Higham
and the town of Manningtree is the veritable country which inspired in
the heart of John Constable a love for rural scenes, and stored his
mind with the knowledge which in after life served him so well. The
artist was never tired of saying that these soft pastoral landscapes
in the Stour valley made him a painter. He was born at East Bergholt,
and numbers of his pictures were actually representations of scenes
at Flatford. The flocks and herds, the swelling uplands at different
periods of the year, the shade of the woods, the sunlight on the corn,
the dripping waterwheel, the cottage, and the church--they are still
the common objects of the country on either side of the river. At
Manningtree the Stour is lost in the sea long ere it arrives at the
thriving port of Harwich, where the channel is commanded by a port on
either side, and vessels are directed by a couple of lighthouses, one
of which is a lofty erection surmounted by a powerful lantern. A new
town, the watering-place of Dovercourt, which in all probability has a
future before it, is growing up a near neighbour to Harwich.
[Illustration: 1. MILL ON THE COLNE. 2. HIGH STREET, COLCHESTER.]
* * * * *
If the Stour has its Harwich, the river ORWELL, which farther north
joins the same estuary, has its Ipswich; and while the name of
Constable has been mentioned in connection with the former, that of
Crabbe belongs to the latter. The river, rising near the village of
Gipping, is generally known to the country people by that name in its
freshwater course; and it is formed by three small tributaries which
become united near Stowmarket, the ancient county town of Suffolk. This
town, celebrated in these later days for the manufacture of the new
explosives, fed the fire of genius in former times, for hither came
Milton to visit his tutor Young, and until modern times a mulberry
tree in the vicarage garden was called the Milton tree. George Crabbe
received the rudiments of his education at Stowmarket. The river
subsequently passes Needham Market, and a number of country seats
and villages; Barham being the parish where Kirby, the entomologist,
lived for more than half a century pursuing his patient and successful
studies. The stream is navigable to Stowmarket, and in the channel
between that town and Ipswich there is a total descent of ninety-three
feet, with fifteen locks in a distance of about sixteen miles. It is
not until the river approaches the tidal end that it is termed the
Orwell.
[Illustration: ON THE ORWELL AT IPSWICH.]
Ipswich is well situated on rising ground with a southern aspect,
and Gainsborough, who lived here, and Constable, who knew it well,
thought highly of the district of which it is the capital. Constable
said of it, "It is a most delightful county for a painter. I fancy I
see Gainsborough in every hedge and hollow tree." Ipswich in many a
quaint corner and irregular street gives evidences of its age. The
merry dog Rochester, boon companion of a merry king, saw Ipswich once
in the small hours of the morning, and described it as a town without
people on the banks of a river without water. The tide was out at
that time, and the banks of the Orwell are to this day a marvellous
acreage of muddy foreshore at low water. But Ipswich has always been
a prosperous town, and its leading inhabitants flourishing men of
mark. In these days it is the headquarters of agricultural implement
manufacture, sending labour-saving machinery to all parts of the
world. The busy ironworks extend along both banks of the river. New
docks are established where a new cut has been made to serve them.
Ocean-going ships and fleets of "billy-boys" from Goole and elsewhere
lie along the wharves. Public buildings, in a fine modern group, attest
the progress of Ipswich with the advancing times. Even the Grammar
School, one of Queen Elizabeth's foundations, has been reared in the
newer town. The wealthy merchants, trading with the Continent, used to
live in the midst of the people on the lower land; their villas now
stud the heights overlooking the river. Yet here and there an antique
chimney, an old-world doorway, indicate where the solid old houses once
stood. In the Butter Market there is a marvellous piece of ancient
architecture, a house front quaintly timbered and embellished with
carvings chiselled centuries ago; and the inhabitants love to believe
that this is one of the numerous houses in England in which Charles
the Second hid from those who sought his life. Also is the visitor
taken to see a gate through which it is affirmed entrance was obtained
to Cardinal Wolsey's cottage. The Ipswich of to-day, however, with
its water and steam mills, its export business in boots and shoes,
its great ironworks, is, in East Anglia, the conspicuous type of
go-aheadness, and when the Orwell is at high tide the outlook from the
heights is of extreme beauty. The estuary then is a lovely stretch of
scenery; gently rising hills laid out with grounds and country seats,
diversified by woods and high cultivation, appear on either side, and
the estuary from grassy shore to grassy shore is covered with water,
dotted with white-sailed yachts and craft of more serious order.
* * * * *
The river DEBEN runs in a parallel direction with the Orwell, rising a
short distance northward of Debenham, becoming navigable at Woodbridge
(where Crabbe learnt surgery), and making estuary near Felixstowe,
the favourite watering-place of southern Suffolk. Bernard Barton, the
Quaker poet, thus grandiloquently described the section of the coast:--
"On that shore where the waters of Orwell and Deben
Join the dark heaving ocean, that spot may be found:
A scene which recalls the lost beauties of Eden,
And which Fancy might hail as her own fairy ground."
The poet Crabbe, to whom passing reference has been already made, was
born at Aldborough, the quiet seaside town which receives its name
from the little river ALDE, and which was the subject of the poem "The
Borough." The stream passes close to the town, but instead of making
for the sea close by, turns abruptly south, and follows the line of
the coast, within sound of the ocean, for several miles, past Orford,
to Hollesley Bay. North of Aldborough is Southwold at the mouth of
the river Blythe, another minor stream, navigable to Halesworth, a
picturesquely situated town below Hevingham.
* * * * *
A district in many respects quite unique meets us at the estuary which
is marked on the maps, though scarcely known by the country folk, as
Lake Lothing, this being, in point of fact, an estuary harbour a little
south of Lowestoft railway station. Following the coast northward,
past Great Yarmouth, and up to a trifle beyond Cromer, we have that
extremely interesting district known as the East Anglian Broads, which
have now become one of the most popular summer resorts for boating
and fishing men, and a well-frequented haunt of the wild-fowler who
is not afraid to brave the bitter winds of winter, cruising over the
great watery wastes in search of the game which can be found in such
quantities in this part of the country. Till within a comparatively few
years this extraordinary network of waterways connecting freshwater
lakes was comparatively little known, but the increase of railway
communication, and the spread of knowledge consequent upon the
multiplication of cheap literature and the new departure taken by the
daily press, brought the rivers and broads of both Norfolk and Suffolk
before the public. Now for months together wherries and yachts peculiar
to the locality sail by day and anchor at night upon the Broads; and
camping-out parties may be encountered at all the villages connected
therewith. This may also be described as savouring of Dutch-land, the
salient features of which are in some wise reproduced here in our own
country. Although elsewhere changes are continually taking place in
the habits and customs of the people, and often in the aspect of the
country, the Broads so far remain unaltered.
The rivers are characterised by a slow rate of speed. Many of them
for miles together resemble canals in the appearance of their banks,
and in their tardy, discoloured currents. It is difficult sometimes
to imagine that the sheets of water are connected with them at all,
but, as the name Broad would indicate, the apparent lakes are nothing
but openings-out of the waterways, which sooner or later send their
contents to the sea. There are two or three exceptions, which will be
pointed out, but the Broads are for the most part fed by such rivers as
the Bure and the Yare. The southernmost river is the WAVENEY, which at
first runs from west to east, until it approaches within a few miles
of the estuary above named. Then, however, it takes an arbitrary turn
northwards, gives the go-by to Lowestoft, and, joining the river Yare
at Breydon Water, empties itself into the sea outside of Gorleston Pier.
[Illustration: HARWICH: THE QUAY.]
The Waveney, one of the largest of the Norfolk rivers, waters both
Norfolk and Suffolk. The talented Agnes Strickland, who wrote of the
Queens of England, calls this river the sweet stream of her childhood,
and in its upper part it certainly does merit that somewhat poetical
description. It rises from springs near Lopham Gate, and the little
Ouse, which takes a contrary direction, is also born in the same
neighbourhood. The first town on the banks of this river is Diss,
which is very prettily situated on high ground, with a considerable
lake with steep banks on the eastern side. The little river called the
Dove, which passes the borough of Eye, joins the Waveney. The town of
Harleston is near the Waveney proper, and at Bungay, on the borders of
Norfolk and Suffolk, where the river describes a curious loop towards
the village of Ditchingham, the Broads district is held to have its
south-western boundary. There are no Broads, however, near, but the
tourists who hire their wherries and make water parties for periods of
weeks and months frequently push on to this point. The ruins of Bungay
Castle remind us of the old days when Barons held their sway, and there
is a parish church which was once connected with a nunnery.
For the most part, the Broads district is a dead level that becomes
monotonous until one gets accustomed to its quietude and freedom. But
occasionally there is an exception to the rule, and we have an example
at Mettingham, a portion of which parish spreads over a range of hills,
upon which are the remains of a castle. Sir John Suckling, the poet,
was lord of the manor in the parish of Barham, which has its Hall some
distance from the river, and a stretch of marshes bordering it. The
mother of Nelson, and Captain Suckling, his uncle, were both born in
the Rectory House of Barham. Beccles, with its fen to the north, its
racecourse to the right, and the Gillingham marshes on the other side
of the river, are important stations connected with the line from
Lowestoft and Yarmouth. Beccles was a favourite resort of the poet
Crabbe. This little town is finely situated on a promontory, giving a
pleasant view of the broad valley, with villages and country houses
dotted along its banks.
In its northward course the Waveney passes Somerleyton station, then
St. Olaves, and finally, running parallel with the terminal course
of the Yare, winds through reedy marshes and becomes lost in Breydon
Water, a huge expanse of estuary, which visitors to Yarmouth will
remember as presenting such a dreary waste of muddy flat at low water.
The Yare and the Waveney are connected by an artificial channel, called
the New Cut, making the course by water to the ancient City of Norwich
complete from the south-eastern portion of the district. Away to the
east of the river at St. Olaves is Fritton Decoy, one of the smaller,
but at the same time typical, Broads of Norfolk.
* * * * *
The district of the Broads is computed to hold not less than 5,000
acres of lake, and 200 miles of river, or canal-like waterway that
passes as such; but the Broads, as they are popularly known, mostly
cluster along the banks of the BURE. Towards the coast in the
north-east is delightful little Horsey Mere, the outlying lake in that
direction connected with the combination of watery stretches, generally
known as Hickling Broads, the largest of the entire series, and brought
into the common watery highway by means of the Thurne, sometimes called
the Hundred Stream. As a rule, the water of these East Anglian Broads
is discoloured by sand in solution, and sometimes, as at Fritton, it
assumes a greenish hue. But Hickling, which is a very beautiful sheet
of water, though, by reason of its shallowness, not wholly beloved by
yachtsmen, has the enviable peculiarity of being clear. Upon the hard
gravelly bottom the loveliest of water plants grow; and sailing over
them in a small boat, brushing them lightly even with your keel, and
the breeze not being sufficiently strong to ruffle the surface, you
look down upon a submerged panorama, upon a subaqueous fairyland of
mossy meadows and weedy bowers, from and into which the zebra-barred
perch and the silvery cyprinidæ glide.
From Hickling it is a long sail down to Thurne mouth, where we
regain the main stream of the Bure, and the scenery is thoroughly
characteristic of East Anglia. Truly there is nothing like it elsewhere
in this country. League upon league we steal along the placid waterway,
between rustling sedge, flag, reed, and coarse grasses, protecting
all the aquatic flowers in their season. Sleek cattle graze upon the
low, fat, boundless pastures; everywhere weather-worn windmills catch
the breeze, and work devoted to the perpetual service of pumping out
the intersecting dykes. Beyond the marshes, undulating country swells
gently to picturesque and distant woods; square church-towers peep
above the trees. There are cornfields and patches of turnip surrounding
the ruddy buildings of many a happy homestead. Hour after hour we
silently move between margins gay with the bold purple loosestrife, the
free-blossoming willow-herb, the fragrant meadow-sweet, and the dark
glossy-leaved alder, which never thrives so well as when its feet are
in the water, and which seems to be most strong in the sap when other
trees are on the verge of decay.
The Broads connected with the upper part of the Bure are the most
generally known, following each other in close succession, and having
a number of villages in their neighbourhood. The trip from Yarmouth up
this river is at first monotonous in the extreme, but the traveller
soon gets accustomed to the Hollandish land and water. The smaller
the boat for this excursion, the better the speed; the mast has to be
lowered at the low, modest bridges, and to meet this requirement the
so-called wherries and the una-rigged boats are provided with special
appliances. Very soothing it is, when the breeze is merry, to loll upon
the cushions aft, gaze up at the heavens, and list to the ripple at
the bows. The shivering willows present an everlasting intermingling
of moving grey and green as the slender leaves expose now the upper
and now the under covering, after their kind. Water-fowl scuttle
off to cover as you heave in sight. By-and-bye there will bear down
upon you one of the famous East Anglian wherries, half-sister to the
sailing-barges of the Medway and the Thames. Her large ruddy sails are
hoisted by machinery, and as she sweeps round a bend, running free, she
will seem to be dooming you to destruction. Yet she flies past, making
splendid speed, and docile as a child under the management of the
skipper at the helm.
One of the show-places on the Bure is St. Benet's Abbey, to which
all strangers resort. The ruins that attract attention long before
the landing-place is reached are the remains of an ecclesiastical
establishment of the early part of the eleventh century. It was a
strong post, and the monks offered a stubborn resistance to William
the Conqueror. Eventually the abbey was annexed to the bishopric of
Norwich; and, inheriting the old right of the Abbot to a seat in the
House of Lords, the Bishops of Norwich, who are in legal parlance
Abbots of St. Benet's-at-Holme, as well as Bishops, have a double
claim to a seat on the Episcopal Bench. The river Bure was, in those
old fighting days, a line of defence to the abbey on the south, and
the position of the moat, which completed the isolation, may still be
traced. The gateway of the abbey, which was a cruciform building with
a plain round tower in the centre, stands, but it is blocked by the
rubbish of a large windmill which tumbled upon it in the last century.
There are other relics, and the prettiness of the place, its historical
associations, and the soft turf that contrasts so agreeably with the
rougher herbage of the marshes, make it a resort of picnic parties.
Walsham, Ranworth, Hoveton, Woodbastwick, Salhouse, and Wroxham Broads
are a close constellation. Wroxham is a typical specimen of the larger
Broads upon which regattas are held, where a large yacht may cruise,
and the shores of which present diversity of woodland, private grounds,
farm lands, and village life. Equally typical of the smaller lakes is
Salhouse Broad. I visited it last in the late summer, the boat slipping
out of Wroxham Broad through an inviting opening in the reeds. To my
mind there is nothing prettier in all Norfolk than this sheltered
lakelet, a watery retreat which, like many of the Broads, is private
property. The reeds around its margin on one shore, which presents a
series of bays within bays, are of gigantic height. They stand out
of the water in thickets, lofty walls of slender growth, coped with
nodding plumes and restless tassels. On the opposite shore the scenery
is park-like. At the time of my visit there were a number of small
yachts moored at Salhouse, and upon the weedy shore there was, at
points, a striking intermixture of ash trees, alders, and the guelder
rose, vieing with one another as to which could thrive best nearest the
water's edge. The guelder rose bushes were bright with their clumps of
red berries, glittering and transparent like Venetian glass.
Out of this small enclosure you push through a narrow waterway into
Hoveton Great Broad, a lake of quite another type, particularly
Dutch-like in its surroundings. Productive arable land stretches right
and left, and windmills mark the horizon all round; no point of the
prospect is without its square-towered church or red-tiled houses. So
shallow are many portions of Hoveton Broad, that as you sweep through
the light beds of reeds, forcing the graceful growths out of your
course, there are often not eighteen inches of water beneath your keel,
and the Dutch flavour before mentioned is intensified by the appearance
of large clumsy boats, laden high with cut reeds, to be used hereafter
as fodder.
Horning Ferry, a well-known waterside resting-place, may be taken as
a typical feature of village life in these parts. At a bend in the
river Bure you arrive at a village with granaries, and the red-tiled
cottages of a long street close to the water's edge. There are heaps
of produce on the bank, a fleet of boats-of-all-work, wherries
waiting for cargoes, and a huge windmill on the low ridge behind this
quaint country settlement. You sail close to the walls of the village
street, and it is expected that you offer a largesse of coppers to the
sunbrowned children who run along, keeping pace with the boat, and
singing a hymn, as the Horning children have done from time immemorial,
in praise of John Barleycorn. All the yachtsmen coming and going halt
at Horning Ferry, lounge upon the smooth-shaven lawn, and enjoy the
comforts of a civilised inn; for the first time, perchance, for days,
in the case of men who have been roughing it in wherries or smaller
boats. In the hotel parlour may be noticed a case of stuffed birds,
containing excellent specimens of the beautiful summer teal, black
tern, solitary fowl, and jack-snipes, and two or three rare visitants,
all shot by the proprietor of the hotel. Guns, fishing-rods, hunting
pictures, whips and spurs, adorning the walls, give an air of sport to
the place both welcome and fitting.
[Illustration: THE BEACH, YARMOUTH.]
The largest Broad in the north-eastern part of the district I have
already nominated as Hickling, which also includes Whitely and
Chapman's Broad. Horsey Mere is, however, still further east, and
it is a lovely bit of wild water, with an abundance of tall poplars
around the shores, and most picturesquely reeded. By proceeding up
Palling Dyke, on the trip to which I have once or twice referred, I
was able to stroll across to the beach, through the sand dunes, and
inhale the real odour of brine from the ocean. On the way I passed the
blackened ribs of a wrecked ship protruding from the silver sand which
had been drifting year by year with the kindly object of burying them
out of sight. The dunes here are high embankments of sand, covered
with spear-like grass. Looking east was the blue sea and its ships
and steamers; west was a sunshiny land, dotted with villages and
farms. Barton Broad is a detached lake of considerable size; and in
an opposite direction, south-east, is the long, narrow collection of
Broads--Filby, Rollesby, and Ormesby--one expanse of water, independent
of the rivers and cuts which abound in every other part of the district
of the Broads. This peculiar piece of water straggles along a length of
three miles, and throws out queerly shaped arms both east and west.
The attractions for visitors to the Broads are sailing, and sport with
rod and gun. The country is so sparsely populated that the visitor has
to provide rations for himself, and is, when once upon the Broads,
far away from the noise of the world. The angler who has read glowing
accounts of the sport to be obtained is likely to be disappointed
at the large proportion of the water which is in private hands. The
Broads and rivers abound with bream and roach; and there are pike,
perch, and eels. In some of the Broads the rudd, which is first-cousin
to the roach, occurs in incredible quantities, and affords capital
fly-fishing on summer evenings off the fringes of the reedy thickets. A
wholesale system of poaching, which has not been completely stopped by
the special legislation provided by the Norfolk and Suffolk Freshwater
Fisheries Act of 1877, has, however, of late years inflicted much
injury. In his description of the marriage of Thames and Medway,
Spenser selects the Yare as having--
"With him brought a present joyfully
Of his own fish unto their festival,
Which like none else could show; the which they ruffins call."
By "ruffins" Spenser means the pope or ruffe, the voracious little
impostor that pretends to be a perch, and that is often a nuisance
to the East Anglian fisherman. According to Cuvier, this fish was
discovered by Dr. Caius, who was a native of Norwich, and who, taking a
ruffe in the Yare, sent it to Gesner.
* * * * *
Though the Episcopal City of Norwich is its great inland headquarters,
Yarmouth is considered to be the capital of the Broads district. In the
literal sense of the term these are well-known towns. Norwich abounds
with old streets and houses, as becomes a city said to be of more than
fourteen centuries date. Kings of East Anglia dwelt in its castle, or
were ejected from it, as Saxons and Danes in turn carried it by storm.
The keep and outer vallum are well preserved, and in celebration of the
Queen's Jubilee the building has been dedicated to the purposes of a
County Museum. The cathedral, with its lofty steeple, and the Bishop's
Palace, are fine monuments of an historical past, and one of the palace
apartments is lined with a carved oak wainscot, brought from the St.
Benet's Abbey mentioned on a preceding page.
Yarmouth, at the mouth of the Yare, is the Margate, if not the
Brighton, of East Anglia. The narrow "rows" or connecting alleys
between the main thoroughfares of the oldest portion of the town have
a renown all their own. They are the principal curiosities of this
emporium of fish-curing, and may be taken as a foil to the magnificent
market-place, covering nearly three acres of flagged area. The types
of men and women who gather here at the Saturday market are of a most
varied and interesting kind; and the booths, like the comfortable
country folks who furnish them, are just what they have been during the
lifetime of the oldest inhabitant. The far-stretching yellow sands are
the abiding strength of Yarmouth as a watering-place, and they give the
place a steady average of prosperity which seaside resorts without so
noble a beach cannot reckon upon. Of the remains left of the ancient
walls, North Gate, bearing the date of 1396, is the best, but there are
many venerable buildings worthy of inspection, such as the Elizabethan
house on South Quay, built in 1596. The Market Place, as before
indicated, is one of the largest in the country; and the grand parish
church of St. Nicholas at its foot enjoys the same distinction. In all
but name it is a cathedral of which any diocese might be proud.
W. SENIOR.
[Illustration: OUTWARD BOUND.]
FOOTNOTES.
[1] Suffer in patience.
[2] "Our Own Country" (Alton Towers), Vol. IV., p. 234.
[3] "Our Own Country," Vol. VI., p. 155.
[4] "Beauties of England and Wales," Vol. IX., p. 566.
[5] A. J. Jukes-Browne, "Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society,"
Vol. XXXIX., p. 606.
[6] It is called Aldreth; there was here some twenty years since an old
wooden bridge, of which the late Professor Freeman (with whom I first
visited the place) wrote in his "Norman Conquest" (vol. iv., p. 465),
"It looked very much as if it had been broken down by Hereward, and not
mended since." A few years later I found it had almost disappeared.
[7] Much information not only on this, but also on many other questions
relating to the fens, will be found in Messrs. Miller and Skertchly's
book "The Fenland."
[8] The Author, "Cambridgeshire Geology," p. 8.
INDEX.
Abbey Craig, Stirling, 50, 51
Abbotsford, 104, 105
Aberdeen, Meadows of, 2, 15, 16
Aberdour, 62
Aberfeldy, "Birks" of, 10, 24
Aberfoyle, 43;
proximity to the Trossachs and Loch Katrine, 44
Abergeldie, 10, 11
Aberlady, 70;
the golf links, 70
Abernethy, 34
Aboyne, 14
Achray, Loch, 46
Ad Fines Camps, 115
Agricola, Estimate of the Tay by, 17, 18;
camp of, 18;
association of with Cilurnum, 142;
Corstopitum and, 153
Aire, The, 318
Aldborough, Importance of in Roman times, 311, 312;
Crabbe and, 362
Allan Water, 47, 48
Allen, River, 148, 149
Alloa, 47, 53, 54
Alrewas, Registers of, 236
Alston, 144, 145
Alwinton, 116, 117
Amble, Dreary, 127
Ancrum Moor, The fight at, 94, 102
Angus, 38
Anson, Admiral George, 232
Antonine, Wall of, 54
Ardoch, Roman Camp of, 48
Armstrang, Johnie, 95
Armstrong, Lord, Residence of, 120, 121
Ashbourne, The Divine of, 246, 247
Ashestiel, Association of Scott with, 106
Ashford-in-the-Water, 266, 267
Athole, Earls of, Castle of the, 35
Augustine, Saint, 144;
on Cross Fell, 144;
at Alston, 145
Avondhu, River, 43
Axe Edge, 241
Ayleburn, 145
Baliols, The, and Barnard Castle, 206
Ballater, 11
Balleichan, 24
Ballengeich, 50
Ballinluig, 22
Balmoral, History of, 7, 8;
situation and beauty of, 8;
the castle, 8-10;
the Queen and her "journal," 10
Banbury, 342
Bannockburn, Battle of, 50, 51
Bannock, River, 47
Barnard Castle, 206, 207
Barton, 322
Barty of the Comb, 134, 135
Bass Rock, Firth of Forth, 63, 64;
the Covenanters' Prison, 64;
"No Surrender," 64;
viewed from Tantallon Castle, 70
Beamsley, 304
Bear Park, 191
Beaudesert, 235
Beccles, 365
Bedford, 342
Bellingham, Comparison of with Donnybrook, 135, 136
Belper, 271, 272
Ben Alder, 22
Ben An, 45;
as a feature of Loch Achray, 46
Ben Chonzie, 35
Ben Cleuch, 51
Benedict (Biscopius), Labours of, 195, 196
Ben Lawers, 23
Ben Ledi, 46, 47
Ben Lomond, Romantic characteristics of, 42;
as the source of the Forth, 42;
"Rob Roy's" country, 42;
adjacent beauties, 42;
extensive prospect from, 42;
form of, 42;
as a feature of Loch Katrine, 45
Ben Macdhui, 2
Ben Venue, 45;
the "Coir-nan-Uriskin," 45;
in relation to Loch Achray, 46
Ben Voirlich, 35, 42;
as seen from Ben Ledi, 46
Ben-y-Gloe, 22
Beresford Hall, Charles Cotton and, 243, 244;
Hero's tower, 244
Berwick-on-Tweed, Position of, 75;
Halidon Hill, 75, 78;
the town walls, 75, 78;
as seen from the south bank, 75;
the old bridge, 75;
Tweedmouth, 75;
Spittal, 75;
Royal Border Bridge, 75;
view to the Cheviots, 75;
the outlook seawards, 75;
as a Saxon settlement, 77;
advent of the Danes, 77;
the town of the Scot, 77;
sold by John Baliol, 77;
stormed by Edward, 77, 78;
crushed into insignificance, 78;
emancipated by Robert Bruce, 78;
made English once more, 78;
the castle ruins, 78;
as a garrison town, 78;
the parish church, 78, 79;
the Town Hall, 79;
the curfew bell, 79;
churches without names, 79
Bewick, Thomas, Birthplace of, 155
Biddick, 194
Binchester (Binovium), 180
Birnam, Perthshire, 23, 25
Birse, Parish of, 14
Bishop Auckland, Palace and park of, 179;
castle of, 179
Bishopthorpe, Archbishop's palace at, 315
Bishop Wearmouth and Paley's "Evidences," 196
Black Adder, River, 79
Black Mount, 20
Blackwater (or Pant), The: Scenery of, 352;
source of, 352;
Saffron-Walden, 352, 353;
Hempstead and William Harvey, 353;
Cadham Hall and the author of "Hudibras," 353;
Spain's Hall, 353;
Bocking Church, 353;
Braintree, 353;
Stisted Park and Stisted Vale, 354;
Coggeshall, 354;
Feering and Bishop Bonner, 354;
Kelvedon Bridge, 354;
Felix Hall, 354;
Braxted Lodge, 354;
Tiptree Hall Farm, 354;
Witham, 354;
Maldon, 355;
confluence with the Chelmer, 357;
Mersea Island and Pyefleet, 357, 358
Blair in Athole, 21, 22
Bochastle, Roman encampment of, 46
Bolton Abbey, 301, 302
Bolton Percy, 308
Bo'ness, 54;
pig-iron industry of, 54
Boroughbridge, Historical interest of, 311
Boston, 332-334
Bracklinn, Falls of, 47
Braeriach, Mount, 2
Braes of Doune, The, 35
Braintree, 353
Brancepeth, Castle of, 180, 181
Breadalbane Family, Seat of the, 23
Bridge of Earn, Perthshire, 34
Brig of Turk, The, 46
Brinkburn, Priory of, 122;
its history, 122
Broads, East Anglian, Locality of the, 363;
as a summer resort, 363;
a wild-fowler's paradise, 363;
recent revelation of, 363;
Holland in England, 363;
character of the rivers, 363;
a typical
example, 365;
lake area of, 365;
Horsey Mere, 365, 366;
Hickling Broads, 365, 366;
colour of the waters, 365;
a characteristic district, 366;
up the Bure from Yarmouth, 366;
St. Benet's Abbey, 366, 367;
Wroxham Broad, 367;
Salhouse Broad, 367;
Hoveton Great Broad, 367;
Horning Ferry, 367, 368;
from Broad to sea, 368, 369;
Barton Broad, 369;
a curious trio, 369;
the fish to be caught, 369;
Norwich, 369;
Yarmouth, 370
Bruar, River, 21
Bruce, Chase of in Perthshire, 19
Bure, The, _see_ "Broads"
Burnet, Bishop, Birthplace of, 215
Burnsall, Well-Worship at, 297, 298
Burslem, Earthenware of, 223, 224
Burton-on-Trent, 238, 239
Burtreeford, Leadmines of, 175
Bywell, 154
Cairngorm Mountains, 2
Cairntoul, Mount, 2
Caldron Snout, A fallacy concerning, 197;
a splendid cataract, 199
Canning, Delight of in Dove Dale, 246
Cannock Chase, 234
Callander, 46;
view from bridge of, 46, 47
Callater, Loch and Glen, 13
Cambridge, _see_ "Cam"
Cambuskenneth, Abbey of, 48
Cambusmore, 47
Campsie Hills, 43