GATLEY CARRS.
We live by admiration, hope, and love,
And even as these are well and wisely fixed,
In dignity of being we ascend.
WORDSWORTH.
There is not a more delightful ride out of town, at any season of
the year, than through Rusholme and Didsbury to Cheadle. The country
is on either hand fertile and pleasantly wooded, and in many places
embellished with handsome grounds, while gardens and shrubberies
succeed one another so fast that the road seems completely edged with
them. The variety of trees presented to view is greater than upon any
other road out of Manchester. In the five miles between Ducie-street
and Abney Hall, we have counted upwards of forty different species,
some of them by no means frequent in these parts, while others are
uncommonly fine examples of their kind. The finest sycamore, and, after
the great horse-chestnut between Singleton and Besses-o'-th'-Barn,
perhaps the finest tree of any sort near Manchester, as regards either
symmetry or altitude, stands upon the lawn of Mr. T. H. Nevill's
house at Didsbury, the second on the Manchester side of the College.
Oak, willow, elm, poplar in three different kinds, lime, ash, and
beech, both green and purple, are also represented very fairly. There
are examples, too, of walnut, of negundo, and of tulip trees. A noble
specimen of the last-named stood not far from the Didsbury sycamore
until about 1855, and was covered with flowers every season; but, like
the cedar in the grounds adjoining Mr. Callender's late residence at
Rusholme, which was another of the finest trees on the road, fell a
victim about that time to the axe of "improvement." Each was a cruel
case of what Miss Mitford well calls "tree murder." Such trees cannot
be replaced in less than three generations; the sycamore at Mr.
Nevill's is already over a hundred years old; so near to Manchester, it
will probably be impossible ever to see the like of them again; let us
hope, then, that what remain will be cherished. Cut them down when they
become ruinous, if you will,--though nothing makes a more beautiful
ornament of true pleasure-grounds than the torso of an ancient tree
from which the living glory has departed,--but spare them as long
as vigorous life endures. So numerous are the lilacs, laburnums,
chestnuts, thorns, both white and red, and other gay-blossomed
contributors to this charming arboretum, that from the end of May till
the middle of June the road is one long flower-show. Before these
commence their gala, there are the apple and pear trees; earlier yet
the silver birches, covered with their pendent catkins; and in the
autumn we seem to have flowers over again in the scarlet berries of the
holly and mountain ash.
Not only is the road beautiful in itself, but to residents upon the
Greenheys and Chorlton side of the town, the opportunities which
it provides of access to scenes of rural beauty are peculiarly
advantageous. Stretford way, there is nothing worth mention till we
reach Dunham. There are plenty of quiet lanes, it is true, and the
farm-land is well cultivated; but in landscape, the whole of the great
plain intersected by the Bowdon Railway is totally and admittedly
deficient. With Didsbury, on the other hand, we enter a country fit
for a Linnell. We may turn down by the church to the river-side, and
follow the stream through pleasant fields to Northen; or we may push
forward another mile, cross the Mersey at Cheadle Bridge, and strike
into a scene of such singular and romantic beauty, and so thoroughly
unique in its composition, that we know of nothing in the neighbourhood
to liken it to. This is the place called "Gatley Carrs." It is easily
found. Immediately the bridge is crossed, take the broad path through
the meadow on the right, and look out for the chimney of Mr. Jowett's
corn-mill. Go through the mill-yard, and over the brook, then through
another field or two into a lane red with refuse from a tile-croft, and
in a little while there will be seen, again upon the right, a cluster
of cottages and barns. These surround a bit of sward called "Gatley
Green," which must be traversed, and after a hundred yards further
walk by a runnel of water, we have the Carrs straight before us. The
term "Carr" is of Gothic derivation, and denotes an expanse of level
land, near a river, covered with alders or other water-loving trees.
Such is the character of the scene here. An extensive and verdant
plain, smooth and level as a bowling-green, stretches from our feet
away to some undiscoverable boundary, its further portion covered with
tall poplars, entirely bare of branches for half their height, and
leafy only towards their summit, the trunks standing just near enough
together to form a grove of pillared foliage, and just far enough apart
for every tree to be seen in its integrity, and for the sunshine to
penetrate and illuminate every nook. They are not the kind of poplar
commonly understood by the name--the slender, spire-like tree, which is
quite exceptional even among poplars--but one of the species with ample
and spreading crowns. The number of trees is immense--at a rough guess,
perhaps a thousand. They were planted by the late Mr. Worthington,
of Sharston Hall; the timber, though almost useless to the joiner,
being well adapted for cutting into the thin, narrow strips called
"swords," upon which it is customary to fold silks. The path commanding
this beautiful view runs along the upper margin of the plain. It is
somewhat elevated above the grass, and keeps company with a stream, the
opposite bank of which rises still higher, and is covered with oaks
and ferns. The superiority of position thus afforded, though trifling,
gives to the plain the aspect of a vast amphitheatre, and so calm and
delicious is the whole scene, so tranquil and consecrated the look of
the untrodden wood, that it seems surely one of the sacred groves of
the Druids, and one can hardly think but that presently we shall see
the priests enter in grand procession, in their white robes and ancient
beards, and carrying the golden knife that is to sever the misletoe
bough. In the evening there come effects of yet rarer charm, for then
the declining sun casts long interlineations of shadow across the
level, and lights up every leaf from underneath.
The botany of the Carrs corresponds in extent with that of Mobberley,
though in many respects quite different. The greatest curiosity,
perhaps, is the toothwort, or _Lathræa_, that singular plant which,
disliking the solar ray, lives recluse in woods and groves, often
half-concealed in dead tree-leaves, and scarcely lifting its cadaverous
bloom above the surface. Here also grows the _Poa nemoralis_. The
meads yield occasional specimens of a pretty rose-coloured variety of
the creeping bugle, and are so rich in wild-flowers in general as to
form, along with the woods beside the stream, quite a natural botanic
garden. The further part of the wood, towards Sharston, is, no doubt,
the abode of many plants of interest, and only wants searching out. The
reputation of a given locality for rare plants comes not infrequently
of some one of ardour having gone to work upon it; innumerable places,
were they thoroughly explored, would rise from unimportance into fame.
Happily, as regards Gatley Carrs, Mr. Edward Stone, son of the able
and well-known chemist, whose collection, both of indigenous and exotic
plants, in his garden at Cheadle, has done so much good service to the
cause of botany, is devoting himself to the task.
The stream above-mentioned curves, after a little while, to the right,
and the path changes to the opposite side. It is at this point that
the extent of the wood is developed, and that we turn to go homewards.
If time permit, it is well to continue awhile along the middle path
in front, and visit first the Upper Carrs, which, as seen from the
terrace that runs all the way from Cheadle to Baguley, are remarkably
beautiful. The wood, as here disclosed, is full of invitation, and
where the branches stand asunder, we see great prairies, the green
grass all a-glow with red sorrel blossom, and dotted with islands of
radiant white, where that giant of field flowers, the great moon-daisy,
shows its pride. This noble ornament of our meadow-land, called on
the other side of the Tweed the "horse-gowan," is one of the class of
flowers called "compound," being made up of some hundreds of "florets"
or miniature flowers, enclosed in a kind of basket. An average specimen
has been found to contain five hundred and sixty, and a fine one no
fewer than eight hundred. The florets are disposed in exquisite curving
lines, exactly resembling the back of an engine-turned watch. What has
the ingenuity of man ever devised that has not its prototype somewhere
in nature? The chalice holding this remarkable flower is of the most
elegant construction, and in form like an acorn-cup. Moving on by the
brookside, after crossing it at the bridge, we soon enter a spacious
meadow upon the left, and find ourselves again in sight of the Mersey.
On the bank of the stream, just before quitting it, may be seen the
wild red-currant, making, with its neighbours, the wild raspberry
and the wood strawberry, a show of native fruits without parallel in
this neighbourhood. The meadow is of exuberant fertility, owing to
the annual flood from the river. Leaving it, we come next to a rising
ground, planted with white willows, and from this emerge into a lane,
and so over the brow of the hill to Northen churchyard. Northen, of
course, becomes a resting-place, and a very pleasant one it is. Both
church and churchyard deserve examination. The former contains a neat
monument to the memory of Mr. Worthington, the planter of the poplars
in the Carrs, and another with an epitaph attributed to the pen of
Alexander Pope.[12] Several pretty memorials of the dead occur likewise
among the tombstones outside. On one fragment there is seemingly
written with green moss, the graving in the stone being entirely filled
up with the plant--
ANNE - DOVG
HTAR - OF -
HVMFREY - SA
VAGE - DYED
On another are the following pretty lines:--
The cup of life just with her lips she pressed,
Found the taste bitter, and declined the rest;
Averse then turning from the face of day,
She softly sighed her little soul away.
From Northen to Manchester the ways are many. One is to walk two miles
and a half along the lanes to Sale Moor station; a second, to follow
the southern bank of the river to Jackson's boat; a third, is to cross
the fields into the Cheadle road, and catch the townwards omnibus,
a distance of less than a mile; and the last, to our own mind much
the pleasantest--first along the northern bank for about a mile, and
then across the fields towards Platt and Rusholme. The commencement
of the last-named is exceedingly delightful, the water flowing on
the left, woods and pastures upon the right, in the evening sweetly
enlivened by the cuckoo. Nothing in the year's round of pleasure is
more heart-soothing than an hour in these quiet fields immediately
after sunset, while it is too light for the stars, but the planets peer
forth in their beautiful lustre, and the darkness quickens our ears to
the slightest sound. The nightingale alone is wanting to complete the
effect, but we have no nightingales near Manchester. There is nothing
for them to eat, and they stay away. The bird sometimes mistaken for
the nightingale, from its singing at the same hours, and running
through a variety of notes, is the sedge-warbler.
Enjoying this sweet neighbourhood in early summer, and while it is
yet broad day, one can hardly fail to notice the tribe of _grasses_,
at least up to the time of haymaking. No fewer than sixty-three
different kinds may be collected about Manchester, and fully a third of
these in the meadows. The remainder are inhabitants of the woods and
ponds, while a few grow exclusively upon the moors. Attaining their
perfection in May and June, easily collected, and not withering on
the way home, the grasses are the very best plants to begin with in
forming a collection of dried flowers. We have spoken before of the
pleasure that attends this pursuit: the utility, to any one who takes
the slightest interest in nature, is quite upon a par. How pleasant at
Christmas to turn over the pages of one's _Hortus Siccus_, freshening
our remembrance alike of the beautiful and diversified shapes of the
plants, and of the days and scenes where they were gathered! A more
interesting or instructive pursuit for a young person, of either sex,
than to set about collecting specimens of the grasses, ferns, and
wild-flowers in general, that they meet with in their country walks, is
in truth scarcely to be found. The attraction it gives to the country
is prodigious, and surely it is more sensible when out in the fields
thus to employ one's self than to wander along listlessly for want
of an object, and perhaps get into mischief. The method to pursue is
exceedingly simple. First get together a quantity of old newspapers,
and fold them to about eighteen inches square. Then buy a few quires of
Bentall's botanical drying paper, and procure also three or four pieces
of stout millboard. Such is the apparatus; nothing more is wanted;
and next we must gather our specimens, selecting, to begin with, such
as are of slender make and comparatively juiceless texture. Pieces of
about a foot long are large enough, but if the plant be less than ten
or twelve inches in height, it should be taken root and all. Having the
boards and papers in readiness, lay one of the former as a foundation,
and to serve as a tray; upon this place a folded newspaper, and upon
this a sheet of Bentall, and then the specimen intended to be dried.
Over the specimen should come a second sheet of Bentall, then another
newspaper, and so on till the whole collecting is deposited. All being
in order, it remains only to place a heavy weight upon the top of the
pile, so as to press the plants flat, and prevent the air entering to
shrivel them. The easiest weights to use are common red bricks, but,
as bricks look untidy in a parlour, and are unpleasant to handle in
their naked state, they should be tied up neatly and separately in
smooth brown paper, and then not the most fastidious or weak-fingered
can object to them. In this condition the pile should be left till
the next day, when it should be turned over, layer by layer, and the
specimens transferred into dry Bentall. The newspapers need not be
changed unless the plants are succulent ones, and their moisture has
penetrated. The weight should then be replaced, and the pile again be
left to itself for three or four days, when the specimens will be found
perfectly dry, their forms scarcely altered, and their colours, except
in special cases, almost as bright as when growing. For very delicate
plants, instead of Bentall, it is best to use sheets of clean white
cotton-wadding, with tissue paper, to prevent the specimens clinging
to the cotton when of adhesive nature. When quite deprived of their
juices, the specimens should be transferred into sheets of white paper,
and neatly fastened down, not with gum arabic, which is apt to smear
and look untidy, but with a solution of caoutchouc in naphtha, sold in
the shops under the name of "indiarubber cement." The great advantage
of this is that if any should exude from below the specimen, it may,
when dry, be rubbed off like a pencil mark. The name of the plant, and
the date and place where gathered, should be written underneath. Giving
a summer to the work, it is surprising how soon a large and beautiful
collection of plants will accumulate, and how rapidly we feel ourselves
progressing in botanical knowledge. Taking ordinary care, there is
no reason why plants should not look nearly as green and pretty when
dried as when living. If an herbarium be only a heap of Latin hay,
as sometimes happens, it is not that the art of preserving plants is
deceptive, but that the collector has been clumsy or neglectful. Nor
are dried plants, as some esteem them, mere vegetable mummies, wretched
corpses devoid of all instructiveness or value, for they are far more
lively than drawings, and answer all our questions with readiness. Many
good botanists, it is true, have done without such collections, showing
that they are by no means indispensable to the study of botany. But
none who have taken the trouble to form them ever regret it, while all
confess their inestimable service. Even if the herbarium served no
scientific purpose whatever, there is always the pleasure of finding in
it a garden all the year round.
Here spring perpetual leads the laughing hours,
And winter wears a wreath of summer flowers.
_Viâ_ Northen is the pleasantest route to the beautiful district of
which the centre is Wythenshawe Hall, a remarkably fine building of
the time of James the First, and at present the seat of Mr. Thomas
Wm. Tatton. It is approached through a piece of ground called the
"Saxfield," upon which tradition says there was once a terrible fight
between Saxons and Danes; old maps mark the place with crossed swords.
We have not much of historical interest pertaining to the neighbourhood
of Manchester, but what there is seems to concentrate about Northen.
The Pretender, Prince Charles Edward, crossed the river in 1745, at a
place not very far below Cheadle Bridge, and it is curious that the
Prince Consort's visit, in 1857, when he came to open the Art-Treasures
Exhibition at Old Trafford, should have been made by way of the very
bridge alluded to. In 1644 Wythenshawe was besieged by a party of
Cromwell's soldiers, who planted a battery on the side overlooking
Northen, and threw many cannon-shots against the house. During some
alterations in the garden a few years since, and the conversion of a
pond-bottom into flower-beds, several of the balls were found; and
another, which entered by the drawing-room window, and smashed the
wood-carving on the opposite wall, is shown to visitors privileged to
view this beautiful hall. The carving was not replaced, so that the
blank space preserves a distinct memorial of the attack. The siege
was conducted by the celebrated Colonel Robert Dukenfield, the most
conspicuous soldier, after Sir William Brereton, in the Cheshire
history of the Civil War. It occupied some time, and was only brought
to a close by getting two pieces of ordnance from Manchester, the same
probably from which the balls above alluded to were discharged. During
its progress, one of the maid-servants inside, for her amusement, took
aim with a musket at an officer of the Parliamentary forces, who was
carelessly lounging about, and managed to kill him. He is supposed to
have been the "Captayne Adams," stated in the Stockport register of
burials to have been "slayne at Withenshawe, on Sunday, the 25th." In
the course of alterations in the grounds during the last century, six
skeletons were discovered. They were lying close together, and are
reasonably supposed to have been those of soldiers who perished during
the siege. Cromwell afterwards stayed at the hall, and slept in a room
still called, from his occupation of it, "Oliver Cromwell's room." The
bed, which is dated 1619, is of elegantly carved wood, the furniture
and mirrors matching it, and of the same age. The wood-carving at Lyme
Hall is usually considered to show the best local work of the period,
but that at Wythenshawe, in the opinion of many, is still finer. The
gardens surrounding the hall are full of curious trees, many of them
remarkably good and shapely specimens, especially an _Arbor vitæ_,
consisting of a tall green pyramid, surrounded by minarets, like a
spire with pinnacles round the base, and exquisitely beautiful when
swayed slopingly by the wind. In 1858 there sprang up in a piece of
newly-turned land at the back of the hall, many hundreds of the _Rumex
sanguineus_, its large oval light-green leaves traced and pencilled in
every direction with the richest crimson. The ordinary green-juiced
form of the plant is common enough, but the crimson-juiced is one of
the rarities of our Flora.
Further again, for those who care for rural pleasures and the legacies
of the past, there is the interesting district of Baguley and its old
hall. Only one large apartment of the latter remains, the greater
portion of the structure having, at some remote period, been destroyed
by fire; the buildings which surround and prop up the ancient piece
are comparatively new. Baguley Old Hall is well worth a visit, and
may be reached, if more convenient to excursionists, by way of Sale
Moor station, and a walk of two or three miles along the lanes. In
the interior, it will be observed that the doorways are formed of
oaken boughs that were curved at one extremity, so that when sliced
and reared on end, with the curved portions directed one towards the
other, they would form arches. These arches are exceedingly curious,
and, along with the numerous armorial bearings, form quite a noticeable
feature of the place. A walk across a few fields leads to Baguley
Mill. The lanes are full of fragrant roses; the high hedges shelter
innumerable veronicas; and by the sides of the little water-courses,
close to the mill, grows abundance of the hart's-tongue fern. To
attempt the whole in the space of a single afternoon, of course is
not practicable, especially if one is verging towards that inexorable
period of life when gravitation begins to get the better of a man
sooner than he has been accustomed to; nor is it intended to recommend
so much. Gatley Carrs suffice for one walk; the immediate neighbourhood
of Northen and the river-banks provide another; and Baguley _viâ_
Sale will pleasantly supply objects for a third. There is a fourth,
moreover, well commenced at Didsbury, but keeping in the direction of
Chorlton-cum-Hardy, so as eventually to reach Barlow Hall, the local
residence of Mr. William Cunliffe Brooks. The archæological interest
of Barlow Hall we have not room here to enlarge upon. It must suffice
to invite attention to Mr. Letherbrow's beautiful etching of the best
fragment in preservation, the period of which is believed to be that
of the reign of Henry VIII., when the hall was occupied by the very
ancient and historical family of de Barlow, allied by marriage to the
still more celebrated Stanleys, as shown by the heraldry of the window.
[Illustration: Barlow Hall.]
No chapter of the original little volume of 1858 calls for so many
obituary notices, now in 1882, as this one descriptive of Gatley Carrs.
The magnificent, not to say unique, Didsbury sycamore was cut down a
year or two after the publication. The great horse-chestnut, near
Singleton has disappeared.[13] Mr. Callender died in 1872. Mr. Stone,
sen., is also "with the majority," and the Carrs themselves no longer
deserve the ancient appellation, having been crossed by a railway
embankment. A good deal remains no doubt that is pretty and pleasing,
but the picture drawn above exists no longer. That a locality once so
beautiful should have been thus rudely dealt with is unfortunate, few
will deny. But nothing that contributes to the prosperity of a great
nation, or to the public welfare, is at any time to be deplored. Such
changes simply illustrate anew the primæval law that great purposes
shall always demand some kind of sacrifice.
[Illustration]
Footnotes
[12: The epitaph, Mr. Kelly kindly points out to me, is
veritably Pope's, but was originally written for the Hon. Robt. Digby
and his sister Mary. It was altered and abridged to suit the monument
which now bears it,--one to the memory of the Hon. Penelope Ducie
Tatton, who died Jan. 31, 1747.]
[13: It may be well to say that this grand old tree stood
by the lodge gates of Polefield Hall, a few hundred yards through
the village of Holyrood, or Rooden Lane, on the right towards
Besses-o'-th'-Barn. Unlike the Didsbury sycamore, which was in the prime
of its princely life, the Singleton horse-chestnut had become decrepid,
and during the rigour of the winters beginning in 1878 received
injuries from which it could not possibly recover.]
[Illustration]