THE NORTH-EASTERN HIGHLANDS.
My heart leaps up when I behold
The rainbow in the sky--
So was it when I was a boy;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
WORDSWORTH.
For our present purpose it is convenient to include, under the general
title of the North-eastern Highlands, the vast mountain district,
occupying portions of three counties, which extends from the Peak to
the neighbourhood of Greenfield. Reached in part by the Manchester,
Sheffield, and Lincolnshire system, in part by the L. & N. W.
Huddersfield line, it is tolerably well-known to travellers by those
railways. They are cognizant of it as a region of lofty moorland,
bleak and uninviting except at grouse-time. To people in general,
however, it is as strange as Norway; and no wonder, since a visit to
any one of the better portions implies a love of adventure which, if
not exceptional, is infrequent. Glorious, nevertheless, are those
untouched and silent wastes. Thousands of their acres have never felt
the ploughshare, nay, not even the spade, and probably never will. In
parts they seem to belong less to the existing order of nature than
to obsolete ages, suggesting, like the Sahara, the idea of a former
and exhausted world. Seal Bark might be the relics of some ancient
mountain, torn to fragments when the wind whistled among the Calamites
and the Sigillarias, now nothing but bones, nameless and immemorial.
The southernmost portion of this huge tract of wilderness is occupied
by Kinder Scout, the highest factor of the Peak, the elevation being
nearly two thousand feet above the sea; and which, presenting a "broad
bare back" or plateau of fully four miles in length from east to west,
with a width of more than half as much, is distinguishable at a glance,
though often cloud-capped, from all its neighbours. Unfortunately for
the rightful claims of massive Kinder, this great length detracts from
its majesty, since the majestic, to be appreciated, always demands a
certain amount of concentration. In substance, like most other parts of
our "north-eastern highlands," Kinder Scout is millstone-grit, thickly
overlaid with mountain-peat, the foothold of wiry scrub, though, here
and there presenting bold escarpments. The surface is deeply fissured
by rills of drainage-water, and hillocks and depressions are universal.
Paths cross it in various directions, but these of course are only for
the brave.
The best route, when it is desired to ascend this noble eminence, is
_viâ_ Hayfield, beginning at Bowden Bridge, and going up the valley
past Farlands. It is indispensable, however, either to be provided with
a map, or to be accompanied by a guide, as well as to take precautions
in regard to possible trespass.[19] Once upon the summit, the reward
is ample, alike in the magnificent scenery, rich with distant purple
shadows, and in the inspiring atmosphere. If in the landscape there
is nothing gay and festal, no slight thing is it to stand in the
presence-chamber of these antique solitudes, reading the silent history
of centuries of winter ravage, so terrible that no wonder the very
rocks have thrust up their grey heads to ask the meaning of it. No
slight thing is it either at any time to find ourselves beside the very
urn of a bounding and musical stream, such as trots along the valley,
this one having its birth in "Kinder Downfall"--a far-seen shoot of
water from the western cliff, a single silver line of pretty cataract
that might have heard of Terni and the Bridal Veil, and so much the
more precious because the only one of its kind within the distance,
which is from Manchester, say precisely twenty miles. Rain of course is
needed, as at Lodore, for the full development.
The writer of the "Guide" says that another very beautiful and not
infrequent spectacle to be witnessed here is when in wet weather, or
after a storm, the wind blows strongly from the W.S.W. "Coming from
the direction of Hayfield, it sweeps over the Upper Moor and the bare
backs of the bleak Blackshaws, and beating against the high flanking
walls of rock is concentrated with prodigious power into the angle
of the mountain, forcing back the whole volume of the cascade, and
carrying it up in most fantastic and beautiful lambent forms, which
are driven back again as heavy rain and mist for half a mile across
the bog, then perhaps to return to be shivered into spray once more,
unless in some momentary lull the torrent rushes down in huge volume."
"Sometimes," he adds, "in winter, the fall, with the huge walls of rock
flanking its sides, becomes one mass of icy stalactites, which as the
sun declines present a magnificent spectacle." According to Mr. H. B.
Biden, in _Notes and Queries_, Feb. 16th, 1878, though other writers
think differently, and, as it seems to us, less reasonably, it is to
the downfall that Kinder Scout owes its name. Kin-(cin)-dwr-scwd, he
tells us, in Cymraeg signifies "High water cataract."
Keeping to the main line, the original "Sheffield and Manchester," half
an hour carries us to Broadbottom and Mottram-in-Longdendale, where
we stop in order to make acquaintance with the lively Etherowe, which
here divides Cheshire from Derbyshire, running on to Compstall, where,
as above stated, it enters the Goyt. The scenery all the way to the
point of confluence is alluring. On the Cheshire side of the stream
the slope is occupied in part by Bottoms-hall Wood, through which
there is a footway to Werneth Low, and then to Hyde or Woodley, a very
pleasant sufficiency for an afternoon. On the Derbyshire side, after
crossing a few fields, Stirrup Wood forms a beautiful counterpoise to
Bottoms-hall; and when through this we are upon Stirrup-benches, famous
for profusion of the Oreads' fern--that fragrant one so fittingly
dedicated to the nymphs who once upon a time danced on green slopes
around Diana,
Hinc atque hinc glomerantur Oreades.
Botanists call it the _Lastrea Oreopteris_. It is well to be reminded
by them that scientific nomenclature is something more than Greek and
Latin, and a burden for the memory, and that all the best and oldest
portion of it lies bosomed in poësy. The mythical Oreads themselves are
not required, for we have better ones in our live companions; but of
the memory of them it would be an irreparable loss to be despoiled.
Above Stirrup-benches comes Ludworth Moor. Then far away, again up
above, the grand mountain-terrace called Charlesworth Coombs, the
semi-circular and denuded face of which is in some parts very nearly
perpendicular, the ridge affording, yet once again, supreme views.
On every side there is a tumultuous sea of mountain-crests, with
intermixture of sweet green knolls, often wooded, in the relish
of which, as upon Kinder, one thinks of the immortals in art and
literature,
Who never can be wholly known,
But still their beauty grows.
On the contrary side are the Glossop moors; within the valley, the
thriving town after which they are named; and the remarkably beautiful
cone, covered with trees, called Shire Hill, an isolated mound that
looks as if it might have been tossed there in pastime by the Titans.
Glossop, as every one knows, has a station of its own, which should
be remembered not only for the sake of Shire Hill, but for Lees-hall
Dingle, Ramsley Clough, Chunal Clough, Melandra Castle, and Whiteley
Nab, the climb to the brows of which last is no doubt somewhat
arduous, but well repaid. On summer Sunday mornings, very early,
when the smoke has had time to dissolve, the Glossop people say they
can distinguish even Chester and the sea. Ramsley Clough, a romantic
defile, apparently under the special protection of the deities of the
fountains, and the stream down which would be more fitly designated a
thousand little waterfalls, is remarkably prolific in mosses and other
green cryptogamous plants. "Melandra Castle"--an old rampart, with a
vast quantity of stones dug out or still embedded, is supposed, on the
showing of some fragments of Roman tiles, to date from not later than
A.D. 500.
Mottram-in-Longdendale, like Charlesworth, abounds in bold and romantic
scenery, though the elevation is much less, the height of Mottram
church above the sea being only about four hundred and fifty feet.
Tintwistle and the neighbourhood also furnish endless recreation, as,
indeed, does the whole country as far as Woodhead. The railway runs up
the valley of the Etherowe, which river rises in the moors above, and
has at this part been converted, by barricading, into five successive
_quasi_-lakes,--not so picturesque, perhaps, as some of the other
great reservoirs we have made acquaintance with, but still furnishing
an agreeable spectacle, alike from the train and from the hills. They
contribute the chief portion of the Manchester waterworks storage; the
collecting-grounds, which are estimated to have an extent of nearly
nineteen thousand acres, consisting chiefly of moorland, covered, as
at Kinder, with immense sponges of mountain-peat. Retaining the rain,
these serve a purpose corresponding to that of the snows and glaciers
upon the Alps, so various are the ways in which the munificence of
nature is expressed. Mounting on to the moors at the entrance to the
Woodhead tunnel (by the brookside) we presently find a clough, a
waterfall, and the beginnings of the river Derwent. Crossing the river,
as the alternative, there is a fine walk to Tintwistle, and thence,
over other seemingly boundless moors, to Staley Brushes.
But now we get to a district better sought by travel on the L. & N.
W. line, the long and picturesque portion of it, that is, which runs
through the Saddleworth valley _en route_ for Leeds. With the mind
absorbed in thought of the place one is bound to, or of the duties or
occupations there awaiting our arrival, the scenery right and left of
a railway often receives a very indifferent amount of attention. The
line from Ashton to Huddersfield, excepting only the great tunnel, is
one of those, however, which should never be used heedlessly. The
prospects are never wide-extended, for the track is entirely through
deep valleys: it is the slopes ascending from these which are in many
parts picturesque; if we think ever so slightly of what they lead up
to, they possess the still better quality of significance.
In the bygones the "Brushes," briefly so designated, were almost as
noted with the old Lancashire naturalists as Cotterill. The ravine
so called, grey crags guarding the entrance, and a stream, with
innumerable little mossy waterfalls descending from some undiscovered
fount above, was renowned not more for its wild grandeur than for its
botany and ornithology. Now it is only historical, the adaptation of
the best part to the purposes of a waterworks company having effaced
all the leading characteristics. The wheel-path remains much as it
was, at least above the dam, and by pursuing this, a somewhat long
ascent, we find ourselves once again upon the moors, here called
"North Britain." Two courses present themselves now. One is to bend to
the right, returning by way of Hollingworth; the other to strike off
sharply to the left, and after a while, descend to the railway. The
first-named supplies views of extraordinary breadth and changefulness,
extending up and across the Tintwistle valley, and covering the hills
above Dinting and Glossop; the Hollingworth reservoirs (supplementary
to those of Woodhead, and well set-off with trees,) contributing in the
best manner to the power of the landscape as a whole. The Holyngworthe
family (for such is the ancient and proper spelling of the name) up
to the time of the death of the last representative, had been seated
here from times anterior to the Conquest, thus reminding one of the
Traffords of Trafford Park. The hall, a quaint relic of the past, now
tenanted by Mr. Broderick, is to a considerable extent, of temp. Henry
VI. By taking the leftward path, over the heather, opportunity is
acquired for mounting the lofty crest, said to have been once occupied
by "Bucton Castle;" a fortress, to say the least of it, semi-fabulous,
though there is no reason to doubt that in the Armada times, Bucton,
like Alderley Edge, was used as a signalling station. In case of need,
flames shooting up from the topmost peak, would be visible, on clear
nights, at a distance of at least twenty miles.
Reference was made, a page or two back, to Seal Bark. For this we
quit the line at Greenfield, first ascending past "Bin Green" to the
"Moorcock," vulgarly "Bill's-o'-Jack's," from the heights around which
the outlook over the adjacent country is once again marvellous. Very
curious, too, and in itself well worth the climb, is the far-seen rock
"Pots and Pans," well, if not elegantly, so named, for on drawing
near it is discovered to be an immense mass of millstone-grit, left
there since the glacial period, with about a dozen roundish cavities
upon the top, the largest of them more than a yard across by about
fifteen inches in depth, and nine of the group usually holding water.
Local superstition, as would be expected, attributes these singular
basins to the Druids, who are supposed to have excavated them for
ritual purposes; but, as in other places--for such cavities are by no
means confined to Greenfield--there can be no hesitation in regarding
them as pure works of nature. Millstone-grit is, in parts, peculiarly
inadhesive. Exposed as this rock has been for untold ages to the
beating of tempests, its softer portions, where the cavities are, have
been slowly fretted away, and we are asked to recall nothing more than
the ancient proverb. Keeping to the road, by degrees the elevation
becomes so great that the topmost part is playfully termed the "Isle
of Skye." It is hereabouts that the cloudberry, that most artistic of
northern fruits, never seen and unable to exist upon lower levels, is
for our own neighbourhood, so plentiful. When ripe, so thick is the
spread of rosy amber that the spectacle is most bright and pretty, the
ground seeming strewed with white-heart cherries. Singular to say,
although very nice to human palates, the grouse leave it untouched,
turning to the whortleberry and the cranberry.
As the "Druidical" origin has been popular, and lest there may still
be a lingering doubt with some as to the natural origin of the
"Pots and Pans," it may be added that upon the high grounds within
a few miles of Todmorden there have been reckoned up nearly eight
hundred similar cavities, the diameter varying from a few inches to
four or five feet. They may be observed indeed in every stage of
formation, thus altogether neutralizing the idea of their having been
produced by artificial means. They occur, moreover, only in this
particular series of the millstone-grit, other descriptions of grit
in the neighbourhood--those not so amenable to the action of the
weather--being entirely without. Very often, too, the basins are in
positions such as neither Druids or any one else would ever select
for ritual or ceremonials. The number of basins is itself an argument
against the Druidical origin, since so many would never possibly
be required, to say nothing of the fairly determined fact that the
Druidical altar was usually a _cromlech_, formed by placing a great
slab of stone horizontally upon the edges of two other slabs fixed in
the ground vertically.
But we are bound for Seal Bark. To get hither, the road must be quitted
near the "Moorcock," and a way found through the fir-wood to the
bottom of the valley, then re-ascending by the borders of the stream.
A water so wild and beautiful it would be difficult to find nearer
than Scotland or Carnarvonshire. Sliding, gliding, tumbling, in every
conceivable mode, now it hurries along a smooth and limpid current;
now it plays with the boulders, and changes to little cascades; now it
fills little bays and recesses with reposing foam as white as snow, or
that are alive with circular processions of untiring bubbles that swim
awhile delicately, round and round, then, like the dancers in Sir Roger
de Coverley, when they bend beneath the arch of lifted arms, rejoin
their first partners and away down the middle, away and away, as swift
as thought. Great defiles open on the right and left, Rimmon Clough
and Birchen Clough, at the foot of which stands the one solitary
tree of this grand wilderness--a mountain-ash, the tree of all others
accustomed to loneliness. Above, at a vast height, is Ravenstone Brow,
so named from the number of birds that once nested thereabouts, and
where cuckoos still come. When at length we arrive at Seal Bark, who
shall mistake it? All the waste and broken rock of a kingdom seems to
have been pitched over the brow, and let fall and roll or stop just
where it liked. The probability is that at some remote period the
torrent undermined one side of the gorge, the ruins toppling over much
in the same way as those of the ancient Clevedon shore, where it is
plain that the fragments owe their present position to the remorseless
beating of the sea.
For those who care to run on through the great Standedge tunnel, three
miles and sixty-four yards long, thus getting to Marsden, there is an
extremely fine mountain-pass called Wessenden Clough, the heights on
either hand not less than a thousand feet, and once again a rushing
torrent. There is a path back to Greenfield over the moors, but the way
is rather long, except for the practised. The great tunnel at Woodhead,
upon the Sheffield line, often thought to exceed the Standedge, is, we
may here remark, twenty yards shorter.
[Illustration]
Footnote
[19: All needful particulars will be found in the little
"Guide to Hayfield and Kinder Scout," purchasable at Hayfield and at
Bowden Bridge.]
[Illustration]