MERE CLOUGH.
O 'tis a quiet spirit-healing nook
Which all, methinks, would love; but chiefly he
The humble man, who in his early years
Knew just so much of folly as had made
His riper manhood more securely wise.
COLERIDGE.
Mere Clough! Where is that? Such will probably be the reception of
our present title, at least in thought, by not a few of those whom
we hope to be the means of introducing to this romantic little glen.
For it is positively surprising how much of the rural beauty of our
neighbourhood is unknown, even to those who delight in country scenes
and the fresh air of the fields; and how often the very existence of
it is unsuspected till some fortunate accident brings home the welcome
truth. Nowhere within the same very short distance of Manchester is so
much woodland beauty to be found as in Mere Clough and its immediate
neighbourhood; nor is any place within four miles of the Cathedral
the avenue to so many pleasant auxiliary walks. In botanical riches
Mere Clough is second nearly to Bowdon, over which place it has the
advantage of its earliest plants being among the rare ones of the
Manchester flora, while its latest are some of the most beautiful and
attractive. The name of "clough," though so familiar in Lancashire, is
not known in the southern counties. Hence it may be useful to observe
that "cloughs," beyond the Mersey, are those fissures or "clefts" in
the ground which give the first and simplest idea of a valley. Formed
by the rise, in opposite directions, of two gentle acclivities, which
run for a short distance in a more or less irregular and winding
parallel, and at last widely diverge, or else undulate away into the
plain, these "cloughs" have in every case a little stream along the
bottom, while the slopes on either side are clothed with trees and
natural shrubbery. Along the borders of the stream there is a slender
rustic path, which often quits the water-side to mount high upon the
slope, and thus give pretty little peeps of the shining current down
below and of the distant leafy intricacies of the wood. Rarely is there
so much water as to form a deep and steady brook; in summer-time we
may be sure it will be shallow enough to "make music to the enamelled
stones," and beguile us onward with that beautiful magic which always
accompanies the artless voices and tones of nature.[21] In the
neighbourhood of Prestwich there are several such cloughs, the "Dells"
below the church being the nearest and best known, and Mere Clough the
longest and most romantic. The others are Hurst Clough, to the west of
Stand, and Agecroft Clough, near the bridge of that name. All these
cloughs bear more or less directly towards the Irwell, into which river
their little streamlets convey themselves. The beauty of Prestwich
Dells has long rendered the latter place a favourite resort. Easy,
moreover, of access, and with the capital recommendation of a harbour
of refuge close at hand, in the shape of the commodious and well
provided Church Inn, no wonder that few except naturalists have cared
to push on farther. It needs something more than invites people to a
place like Prestwich Dells to take us to one still prettier, but where,
as far as concerns supplies for the inner man, we are like sailors on
the open sea--commanding only what we carry thither.
The conveyance to go by, should the walk be thought too long, is the
Whitefield omnibus. About three-quarters of a mile beyond Prestwich,
through which village the omnibus passes, there is an old-fashioned
"magpie" upon the left. Leave the omnibus here, and, going through the
farmyard, follow the path through the field, keeping to the right of
the new asylum, and in a few minutes the entrance to the clough will
come in view. At first, the path is near the summit of the slope;
afterwards it crosses the stream, and continues the rest of the way
at the bottom. If we please, when half-way through, we may re-ascend
(this time to the top of the northern slope), by going through the
field upon the right, to where the great arches support the roadway,
and so find our way by the carriage-track which leads to "The Park,"
the residence of Mr. R. N. Philips, and eventually through the private
lodge-gate at the extremity, there emerging on to the public path by
the reservoir, at nearly the same point that is reached by the lower
one. The latter course has the advantage of preserving the feet dry,
should the path by the stream be deceitful, as often happens after
wet weather, and also of providing views of the surrounding country,
but the lower path is considerably more romantic. The private grounds
are exceedingly pretty and sylvan, and up to about half a century ago
were used as pheasant-preserves. Like those at Norcliffe, they are
not forbidden to legitimate and respectful request made a few days
previously, with the understanding that there shall be no trowels
carried.
As stated in our second chapter, Mere Clough is fertile in curious
plants. In every part there is abundance in particular of that
beautiful reminder of pre-adamite vegetation, the sylvan horsetail,
in scientific language _Equisetum sylvaticum_, in form resembling a
tiny larch tree, the leaves, which are no longer or stouter than a
violet stalk, curving outwards and downwards in the most graceful way
imaginable, and forming a succession of little cupolas up the stem
which they encircle. Varying from a few inches to nearly two feet in
height when mature, and of a singularly delicate green, sometimes it
tapers off to a point, sometimes is crowned with a kind of miniature
fir-cone, which serves at once for flower and seed-pod, and will
well repay minute examination. When ripe, an impalpable green powder
dusts out of this little cone-like body, every particle a distinct
and living seed, and originating a new plant, if not destroyed before
it can germinate. Under the microscope, these particles perform most
amusing evolutions. It is merely necessary that some one breathe upon
them while we observe, to make every little atom twist and entangle
its long arms as if it were an animated creature. A magnifying power
of sixty is quite sufficient to show these curious movements, and the
seeds, if preserved in a pill-box, will keep good for many years.
All the neighbouring dells and groves likewise contain this charming
plant, and growing, as it often does, in large patches, we seem to have
woods within woods. Hurst Clough, best reached from Molyneux Brow,
noted also for the _Rosa villosa_, is one of the richest. Not that it
is confined to them, being more or less diffused in most directions
out of Manchester, but it is here that it grows most plentifully and
luxuriantly. Contemporaneous with the sylvan horsetail, there comes
a second kind of golden saxifrage. The common sort was mentioned
when describing Ashley meadows. This one, scientifically called the
_alternifolium_, is larger and handsomer, as well as rare, and is to
be gathered on the left hand borders of the stream, just after passing
the white cottage in the middle of the clough. Another plant of special
interest, and blooming at the same time, is the mountain-currant,
_Ribes alpinum_, which grows on the bank of the half-lane,
half-watercourse, running from the lower side of the reservoir towards
the river. It is a large, green, leafy bush, with glossy foliage,
and appears to be the only one in the Prestwich neighbourhood. How
it got there is a botanical problem, yet only one out of many of the
same kind. Nature is for ever putting some droll spectacle before our
eyes, and playing pantomimes for our amusement and curiosity, if we
would but care for them as they deserve. As Pott Shrigley is the place
above all others for bluebells, so is Mere Clough the place above all
others for its colleague the wood-anemone. Tens of thousands of this
lovely flower, the fairest companion of the opening buds, grow in the
open spaces among the trees at the lower part, sheeting them with the
purest white, tinged here and there with a faint blush, like sunbeams
falling on snow. On a fine day at the end of April or beginning of
May, there is not a more charming picture to be found. In the moister
parts of the clough, especially near the reservoir, may also now be
seen in perfection the deep yellow marsh-marigold. Like the anemone,
it is a common plant, but none the less to be admired. The same as
to that dainty little flower, the wood-sorrel, which begins to open
freely about the time that the anemones depart. Easily discovered by
means of its curious leaves, which are formed of three triangular
pieces, placed on the summit of a little stalk, and rise about three
inches above the ground, no one can fail to be charmed with its fairy
form and the delicacy of the lilac pencillings on the inner surface of
the petals, which are white as those of the anemone itself. Anemone,
translated, signifies "wind-flower," a name intended to denote fugacity
of the petals, or fall at the first touch. But such is not the fate
of the anemone-petals of to-day. The original application of the name
would appear to have been to the cistus. It was into this last that
the frail goddess transformed her love, her tears represented in the
disappearance in a moment.
Emerging from the clough, the difficulty is not which way to get home
again, but which pleasant way to give the preference to. We may go
past the dyeworks, and through the park to Agecroft Bridge; or turn
up the lane that curls back towards Prestwich; or, best of all, make
our way under the magnificent viaduct of the East Lancashire Railway,
and then across the river to Clifton Aqueduct. Arrived here, there is
another ample choice; either to ride home from the adjacent station
(Clifton Junction); to descend to the Irwell bank, and walk through
the meadows bordering the river to Agecroft Bridge; or to take the
fields and canal bank, the latter in some parts very pretty, and so
to Pendleton, where Mr. Greenwood will be glad to see us, and the
feeling probably be reciprocal. To invigorate ourselves, if purposing
to walk, it is prudent, and not difficult, to procure tea at one of
the cottages near the station. At one in particular, standing back
a little from the road, upon the left, with--at the bottom of the
garden--a nice, cool, face-refreshing well, that we have seen give
challenge on fair cheeks to the morning dew upon the rose, there is
a free, plentiful, whole-hearted hospitality, that adds quite a charm
to the associations already so pleasant, of summer afternoon in the
sweet stillness of Mere Clough. The hostess is as large as her welcome;
the bread and butter is incomparable.[22] Every one who has gone by
train to Bolton or Bury, will remember this beautiful valley, sometimes
called the Agecroft, sometimes after its river, the Irwell. On the
left, as soon as Pendleton is passed, the high grounds of Pendlebury
come into view, their brows covered with trees. On the right, first we
have broad, sweet lawns of meadow and pasture, and in autumn yellow
corn-fields; and, beyond these, rising in terraced slopes, with deep
bays and rounded promontories, according as the hill recedes or swells,
the woods overlooking Agecroft Park, presently succeeded by those
of Prestwich. For fully two miles the eye rests upon rich masses of
leaf, interrupted only by mounds of tender green, the crests of the
Rainsall and Agecroft hills, and towards the close, the picturesque
tower of Prestwich Church. The course of the river may be traced by the
winding line of continuous foliage, but the water is too low down to
be discerned until we catch sight of the white cottage at the foot of
Mere Clough, immediately after passing which, if upon the Bury line, we
continue along the viaduct and therefrom get a full view, as well as
of banks lined to the water's edge with vegetation. Here the scenery
changes entirely, though retained for a short distance on the Bolton
line, and we quit the Agecroft valley. Not one of the other railway
approaches to our town--ten minutes completing the journey--bears any
comparison with this for beauty; indeed, it is quite a surprise to
people entering Manchester for the first time by way of Bolton or Bury,
to find so picturesque a country at the very edge.
The best way to the valley on foot is to go over Kersal Moor,
descending on the further side, and so onward, past the print-works, to
Agecroft Bridge, which we must cross, and turn to the right. If more
convenient, there is a way by Pendleton and Charlestown, crossing the
Bolton railway, then along the path by the river-side. But this, as to
its earlier part, is a disagreeable means of access, and very little
is really gained. Going by Kersal, on the other hand, we come at once
into a green, sequestered walk, which accompanying the river for about
a mile, then changes to the bank of the canal, and will take us, if
we please, to the aqueduct, and thence round by the cottages to the
station. The road straight away from the bridge leads to Pendlebury, to
which village there is also a pleasant path across the fields, after
ascending the river-side some little distance. Keeping to the Kersal
side of the river there is a delightful walk through Agecroft Park,
beneath the woods, to the foot of the dells; another, by diverging a
little to the left when out of the park, through a farmyard, to the
river and viaduct; and if, instead of going through the park, we turn
up on the right among the cottages, it is not difficult to penetrate
the woods themselves, and to find one or two paths over the hills,
all tending to Prestwich as a common point. So numerous and varied
are the paths which converge hitherwards and in the direction of
Clifton Aqueduct, that it is impossible to go wrong. Were we to give a
preference, it would be to the walk first described, or that along the
river-side, commencing at Agecroft Bridge, and having the river upon
the right. The meadows abound with floral treasures, the rosy bistort,
the blue geranium, and the fragrant ciceley, in their several seasons,
and on the banks, at the further part, near the canal, may be seen
the broad-leaved wood-stitchwort, _Stellaria memorum_, and the yellow
dead-nettle. Early in June is the pleasantest time to go. The grass is
then uncut, the sycamores are hung with their honeyed bloom, the clover
glows like rubies, the white pagodas of the butter-bur, now gone to
seed, stand up like the banners of an army, and we find "the _first_
rose of summer, sweet blooming alone," amid thousands of juvenile green
buds.
But the yellow dead-nettle is the most interesting; it gives so useful
a lesson in practical botany. The stem is perfectly square; the leaves
grow two together; the large golden-coloured blossoms are set in
verandahs round the stalk, each particular flower shaped like the
jaws of some terrible wild beast, wide-open and ready to bite, while
the stamens are invariably four in number--a pair of long ones and a
pair of short ones. The seeds, also, are exactly four. Whenever these
peculiarities co-exist in a plant, we may be sure that there is nothing
deleterious about it. More than fifty different plants formed on this
plan grow wild in England, and considerably over two thousand in
foreign countries, and not one of them is in the least degree noxious,
either to quadruped or to man. Many are aromatic, and used with food,
as thyme, sage, mint, basil, and penny-royal; while others are useful
for medicinal tea, as balm and ground-ivy. Rosemary, lavender, and
bergamot belong to the same fragrant family. The great object of
botanical science is to determine such facts as these, _i.e._, to make
out the relation between the form of a plant and its properties;--can
a science of such useful, practical aim be justly deemed, as by some,
mere "learned trifling?" Surely not. No slight advantage has that man
over his fellows who, when he is walking through the meadows, or when
he emigrates to a distant land, can discriminate between the poisonous
plant and the wholesome, simply by examining the leaves and flowers.
We do not mean to say that every individual plant in the world has
its exact quality unmistakably configured upon it. The concurrence is
between certain general properties and certain great types or plans of
organisation, taking note of which latter we gain a good general idea
of the former. The _particular_ nature must be learned by special
inquiry. Though the yellow dead-nettle, for example, is shown by its
general structure to be devoid of anything bad, it cannot be told
whether it is fit to eat until tasted and tried. To persons who have an
idea of emigrating, or whose children are likely to go abroad, botany
is of the very highest service, for in foreign countries men are thrown
upon their own resources, and to be compelled by ignorance to look upon
every leaf as a possible poison is helplessness of the most wretched
kind.
The railway up the Agecroft valley is interesting as the first that was
constructed after the Liverpool and Manchester, and perhaps the "Grand
Junction." People used to go to the Prestwich hills to watch the trains
scudding along. The scenery here is certainly not spoiled by it. For
our own part, we consider that scenery is scarcely ever spoiled by the
presence of railways, and would contend rather that they are a capital
addition; for those spectacles are always most salutary to the mind,
and therefore most truly pleasing, where along with rural beauties are
combined the grand circumstances of human life and human enterprise.
Railways count with bridges, ships, gardens, the castles and abbeys of
the past, and the mansions of the present. Nature is beautiful, even in
its most retired and lonely solitudes, just in the proportion that we
connect with it, though unconsciously, the interests, the feelings, the
aspirations of humanity; the more of what is noble and comely in human
life we are able to assimilate with the outer world, the more does
that world minister to our happiness and our intelligence. In the case
of the railways, we are recipients of an immense amount of good. There
is not only the interest of what is witnessed on the instant, but the
pleasant flow of remembrance of the various localities they lead to.
As, looking at the sea, we are led in thought all round the world, so,
looking at the winged train and its pearly clouds, we visit over again
a thousand delicious spots, photographed on the mind, and endeared by
association. Here, for instance, in the valley of the Irwell, we go
on to the lakes of Cumberland, and its ancient and purple mountains,
and anon to the flowered and roofless aisles of sacred Furness. Should
these be places yet unknown, there are nearer ones where we _have_
been,--Rivington, Summerseat, Hoghton Tower, with its precipitous
beechen-wood and lovely walk by the river underneath; or Southshore,
where grow the blue eryngo and the grass of Parnassus, and where, on
calm September evenings, the round, red setting sun pours a stream of
crimson light across the sea, that reaches to the last ripple of the
retiring water, like a path of velvet unrolled for the feet of a queen;
or, if the wind blow high and fresh, the grand old deep-voiced waves,
with their gray locks hanging dishevelled over their broad bosoms,
roll gloriously over the rattling pebbles, change for a moment into
arcades as white as snow, then dissolve into a wilderness of foam. Thus
to make the common things of life so many centres of thought, from
which we can travel away to whole worlds of pleasant remembrance,
lying calm perhaps in the golden light of lang syne, is one of the
profoundest secrets of happiness, and one of the most useful habits
we can cultivate. Every one may acquire the art, and it strengthens
every day and year that we live. Happiness is not a wonderful diamond,
to be sought afar off, but, rightly understood, a thing to be reaped
every day out of the ordinary facts of life, even out of the sight of a
railway train steaming across the fields.
The plants of the woods and hills bordering the Agecroft valley
are mostly the same that are found in Mere Clough. In addition to
those above enumerated, may be mentioned the pretty round-leaved
marsh-violet, the whortleberry, and the wild cherry, one of the gayest
ornaments of the month of May. The whortleberry seldom ripens its fruit
at Prestwich, or anywhere so near the town: it seems to require the
bracing air of the moors and mountains. It is one of the shrubs which
rival the trees in brilliancy of tint, assumed as in the sky, when
the hour of departure is at hand. Along with the Canadian medlar, the
bramble, and some kinds of azalea, the leaves change not infrequently
to vivid crimson. People are apt to call these changes the "fading"
of the leaf; it would be better to say the _painting_. Primroses are
exceedingly scarce, both on the Agecroft hills and in the Irwell
valley, and their place is unoccupied by any other vernal flower as
fair and popular. The wild pansy is there, on the higher and drier
ground, and often with remarkably large and handsome flowers, but it
makes no show; and though there are daffodils in a few places, they
are not prominent to view. A field at the head of Prestwich Dells is
for a little time plentifully strewed with their lively yellow. When
September comes the want of the primrose is almost compensated by the
cheerful autumn crocus, which lifts its purple abundantly among the
grass, in the low meadows on the further side of Kersal Moor, near
the rivulet; also in the fields below Prestwich Church, the same that
in spring are dressed with the daffodil, and again in those between
the asylum and the dells. The autumnal crocus, like the colchicum, is
curious in seeming to produce its seeds before the flowers, the former
being ripe in May and June, whereas the latter do not open till three
months after. When the great Swedish botanist, Linnæus, was engaged in
promulgating the great doctrine of the sexuality of plants, now about a
century and a half ago, the circumstance in question was pointed to as
upsetting it. But the young seed-pod lies low down in the bosom of the
leaves, where it is fertilised, as in all other flowers, by the pollen
from the stamens, and there it abides during the winter, elevating
itself above the ground with the warmth of the ensuing summer, when it
ripens and scatters its contents. The true time of the vital energy
of the autumn crocus is thus, not from May to September, but from
September until May. The history has always seemed to us a memorable
instance of the quiet dignity with which truth and genuine science
pursue their way, triumphing and silencing all the little cavillers in
the end, however plausible they may make their case at starting.
Before quitting this beautiful valley it will be salutary to pause for
a moment upon its geological history, since, with the single exception
of that part of the Mersey valley which lies between Didsbury and
Cheadle, it is the newest part of our neighbourhood. The date, that is
to say, is the nearest preceding that of the first occupation of the
British Islands by mankind. The great ridges of Kinder Scout, Glossop,
and Greenfield are immensely more ancient than any of the exposed or
superficial parts of the country threaded by the Mersey at Cheadle, and
by the Irwell below Prestwich. With the remainder of the chain of hills
to which the Greenfield summits belong, those great ridges form the
eastern margin of an enormous and very irregular stone basin, tilted
up in such a way that the opposite or western edge is concealed far
below the surface of the ground, nobody can tell exactly where, but
in the direction of the Irish Sea, perhaps under it, far away beyond
Southport and the sandhills. It is within or upon the inner surface of
this great basin that all the other South Lancashire rocks and strata
have their seat. In different portions of its huge lap are deposited
the Coal strata (themselves often much elevated above the level on
which the deposit took place, and this at various periods); then,
in ascending order, there are deposits called "Permian";[23] above
these, in turn, come the Triassic rocks; and over all (except on the
higher hill-ranges) there is sand or clay, or gravel, both stratified
and unstratified. This last, in the aggregate, is technically termed
"Drift." The whole of this great surface was unquestionably once
covered by salt water. At the latest period of that marvellous marine
dominion, blocks of ice containing boulders floated in it; and wherever
great heaps of sand now occur, we have the remains of ancient beaches
or sand-banks, many of which were cut through by the water, while
others are charged with pebbles that had been rounded by rolling over
and over upon some primeval shore, rattling while on their journeys,
just as at Walney Island we may hear the pebbles of to-day. The lofty
eastern edges of this great stone basin are, as would be anticipated,
quite free from deposits of drift. But everywhere else, westwards,
drift covers up all the underlying rock, the latter showing itself only
where rivers in cutting their channels have slowly worn it away.
The Agecroft valley participates with all the rest of the district in
the possession of drift. Here, however, is well shown, in addition, how
the first settlings of gravel and sand often themselves became covered
at a later period with yet another new deposit--material brought down
and diffused by shallow and tranquil streams, then of considerable
breadth, but which in course of time shrank into relatively narrow
ones, and continue as such to the present moment. That the lower
Irwell, as we have it in the Agecroft valley, was once a broad flood of
this description is declared by the "river-terraces" discoverable at
intervals all the way up, and which correspond with those that betoken
the ancient presence of the waters of the Mersey at a much greater
elevation than at present. Abney Hall is built upon one of these
river-terraces. Cheadle village stands upon a yet higher and older one.
Peculiarly associated with the valley of the Irwell, and the adjacent
cloughs and woods of Stand and Prestwich, is the memory of John
Horsefield, one of the most celebrated of the old Lancashire operative
botanists. It was Horsefield who first showed us the way through Mere
Clough, and pointed out the spots occupied by its rare plants. For
thirty-two years he was president and chief stay of the Prestwich
Botanical Society, and from 1830, up to the time of his death,
president also of the united societies of the whole district. He earned
his livelihood as a hand-loom weaver, following that occupation in a
cottage at Besses-o'-th'-Barn. Though the small wages his employment
yielded him, and the trifling amount of leisure it permitted him to
enjoy, naturally hindered pursuit of his darling science so fully as
he desired, it is marvellous to see how much he accomplished. In the
_Manchester Guardian_ of March 2nd, 1850, in the course of a long
and very interesting autobiography, he gives some slight idea of
his labours. "Since I first held office as president," he tells us,
"I have attended upwards of four hundred of these general meetings;
thousands of specimens have passed through my hands, and all my reward
or fee is the privilege of being scot-free." With that autobiography
easily accessible, it is unnecessary to do more here than to point
to it, and to a continuation of the narrative in the papers of the
April following, which include several pieces of original poetry.
Perhaps nothing has ever appeared which shows more strikingly how
an indomitable will and ardent thirst for knowledge, and a deep and
faithful love of nature, will triumph over the obstacles of poor means
and humble station in life, and lift a man into the high places of
true science, and give him at once the power of usefulness to his
fellow-creatures, and of realising the true rewards of existence.
Horsefield was a member of the Banksian Society, but rarely came to the
meetings of the Mechanics' Institution class, reserving himself for
those country musters where his knowledge and good nature had the full
wide scope which they at once merited and deserved. In person he was
thin and spare, presenting a great contrast to the tall and patriarchal
figure of Crozier, partaking, however, so far as we had opportunities
of judging, of all his amiable, unsophisticated qualities.
[Illustration]
Footnotes
[21: While such is the original and proper sense of the word,
the application, as in the case of Wessenden Clough (p. 150), naturally
passed on to similar defiles destitute of trees. Not fewer probably
than a third of the cloughs mentioned in the present volume are of the
latter character.]
[22: Mrs. Taylor, we are very sorry to say, died, though
apparently of supreme vigour, in the spring of 1877, and the cottage
is now occupied by a totally different family. Mere Clough, too, is
not what it was. Though spared the desecrations of Boggart-hole, the
grove of fine trees that once filled the bottom has disappeared. The
best of the wild-flowers have also disappeared, or nearly so; and the
brook is less often limpid than impure. Similar changes have overtaken
everything public in the neighbourhood.]
[23: On account of their correspondence with others,
geologically the same, very extensively present in the portion of
Central and Eastern Russia called Perm.]
[Illustration]