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Lancashire

HISTORICAL & DESCRIPTIVE NOTES

Leo H. Grindon

■■■■■n

Ex Libris
C. K. OGDEN

THE LIBRARY

THE UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA

LOS ANGELES

LANCASHIRE

EMIGRANTS AT LIVERPOOL

LANCASHIRE

BRIEF HISTORICAL AND
DESCRIPTIVE NOTES

LEO H. GRINDON

AUTHOR OF

'THE MANCHESTER FLORA'; 'MANCHESTER BANKS AND BANKERS'

'LIFE, ITS NATURE, VARIETIES, AND PHENOMENA'; ETC.

WITH MANY ILLUSTRATIONS

London
SEELEY AND CO., LIMITED

Essex Street, Strand

1S92

PREFACE

The following Chapters were written for the
Portfolio of 1 88 1, in which they appeared
month by month. Only a limited space being
allowed for them, though liberally enlarged
whenever practicable, not one of the many
subjects demanding notice could be dealt with
at length. While reprinting, a few additional
particulars have been introduced ; but even
with these, in many cases where there should
be pages there is only a paragraph. Lanca-
shire is not a county to be disposed of so briefly.
The present work makes no pretension to be
more than an index to the principal facts of
interest which pertain to it, the details, in almost
every instance, still awaiting the treatment they

IC977S2

viii Preface

so well deserve. If I have succeeded in mark-
ing out the foundations for a superstructure to
be raised some day by an abler hand, I shall
be content. It is for every man to begin
something, to the best of his power, that may
be useful to his fellow-creatures, though it may
not be permitted to him to enjoy the greater
pleasure of completing it.

Some of the commendations passed upon
Lancashire may seem to come of the partiality
of a man for his own county. It may be well
for me to say that, although a resident in
Manchester for forty years, my native place is
Bristol.

LEO GRINDON.

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

I. Leading Characteristics of the County . . i

II. Liverpool . . . . . .26

III. The Cotton District and the Manufacture of

Cotton . . . . . . .66

IV. Manchester . . . . . -99

V. Miscellaneous Industrial Occupations . .134

VI. Peculiarities of Character, Dialect, and

Pastimes . . . . • .170

VII. The Inland Scenery south of Lancaster . 194

VIII. The Seashore and the Lake District . . 227

IX. The Ancient Castles and Monastic Buildings . 252

X. The Old Churches and the Old Halls . . 282

XI. The Old Halls {continued) . . . . 303

XII. The Natural History and the Fossils . . 334

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Emigrants at Liverpool, By G. P. Jacomb Hood. Frontispiece

Shipping on the Mersey . By A. Brunet-Debaines

American Wheat at Liverpool

Ran away to Sea .

St. Nicholas Church, Liverpool, By H. Toussaint

The Custom-house, Liverpool

St. George's Hall, Liverpool

The Exchange, Liverpool

Wigan .

Warrington

The Dinner Hour

Pay-Day in a Cotton Mill

In a Cotton Factory

Manchester Cathedral

By R. Kent Thomas

By G. P. Jacomb Hood

St. Anne's Square, Manchester
Town Hall, Manchester
Deansgate, Manchester

By T. Riley

57
61

75
85
89

95
107
1 12

117
12^1

xii List of Illustrations

In the Wire Works ....

Making Coke .....

Smelting

Glass-Blowing

On the Bridgewater Canal

Blackstone Edge

The Lake at Littleborough

Waterfall in Cliviger

In the Burnley Valley

The Kibble at Clitheroe .

Coniston

By G. P. Jacomb Hood

By David Laiv

Near the Copper Mines, Coniston

Lancaster

Cli i iilrol Castle

Furness Abbey

Darcy Lever, near Bolton

SPEKE Hall

1 1 \i.e Hall

I [all in the Wood

He, 11 m\ Tower

Stonyhurst

By David Law

By R. Kent Thomas

By /'. Riley

By R. Kent Thomas

By R. Kent 'Thomas

148
151
154
157
161
165

195
199
203
21 1
219
241

247
259
263
271

275
305
309
311
315
325
329

LANCASHIRE

LEADING CHARACTERISTICS OF THE COUNTY

Directly connected with the whole world,
through the medium of its shipping and manu-
factures, Lancashire is commercially to Great
Britain what the Forum was to ancient Rome
— the centre from which roads led towards
every principal province of the empire. Being
nearer to the Atlantic, Liverpool commands a
larger portion of our commerce with North
America even than London : it is from the
Mersey that the great westward steamers
chiefly sail. The biographies of the dis-
tinguished men who had their birthplace in
Lancashire, and lived there always, many of
them living still, would fill a volume. A
second would hardly suffice to tell of those
who, though not natives, have identified them-
selves at various periods with Lancashire

2 Illustrations of Lancashire

movements and occupations. No county has
drawn into its population a larger number of
individuals of the powerful classes, some taking
up their permanent abode in it, others coming
for temporary purposes. In cultivated circles
in the large towns the veritable Lancashire
men are always fewer in number than those
born elsewhere, or whose fathers did not
belong to Lancashire. No trifling item is it
in the county annals that the immortal author
of the Advancement of Learning represented,
as member of Parliament, for four years (1588-
1592) the town which in 1809 gave birth to
William Ewart Gladstone, and which, during
the boyhood of the latter, sent Canning to
the House of Commons.1 In days to come
England will point to Lancashire as the
cradle also of the Stanleys, one generation after
another, of Sir Robert Peel, John Bright, and
Richard Cobderi. The value to the country
of the several men, the soundness ol their
legislative policy, the consistency of their lines
of reasoning, is at this moment not the ques-
tion. They are types of the vigorous con-
structive genius which has made England great
and free, and so far they are types of the

1 Vid Blue Book, 1878, Part I. p. 423. The fust return of liacon
for St. Albans was not until 1601. Roger Ascham, whose influence
upon education was even profounder than Bacon's, sat for another
Lancashire town— Preston— in the Parliament of 1563.

Leading Characteristics of the County

aboriginal Lancashire temper. Lancashire has
been the birthplace also of a larger number of
mechanical inventions, invaluable to the human
race ; and the scene of a larger number of the
applications of science to great purposes, than
any other fragment of the earth's surface of
equal dimensions. It is in Lancashire that we
find the principal portion of the early history of
steam and steam-engines, the first railway of
pretension to magnitude forming a part of it.
The same county had already led the way in
regard to the English Canal system — that
mighty network of inland navigation of which
the Manchester Ship Canal, now in process of
construction, will, when complete, be the mem-
ber wonderful above all others. No trivial
undertaking can that be considered ; no dis-
trust can there be of one in regard to its
promise for the future, which has the support of
no fewer than 38,000 shareholders. Here,
too, in Lancashire, we have the most interest-
ing part of the early history of the use of gas
for lighting purposes. In Lancashire, again,
were laid the foundations of the whole of the
stupendous industry represented in the cotton-
manufacture, with calico-printing, and the allied
arts of pattern design. The literary work of
Lancashire has been abreast of the county
industry and scientific life. Mr. Sutton's List

4 Illustrations of Lancashire

of Lancets hi ix' Authors, published in 1876, since
which time many others have come to the front,
contains the names of nearly 1250, three-
fourths of whom, he tells us, were born within
the frontiers- — men widely various, of neces-
sity, in wit and aim, more various still in
fertility, some never going beyond a pamphlet
or an " article,"— useful, nevertheless, in their
generation, and deserving a place in the
honourable catalogue. Historians, antiquaries,
poets, novelists, biographers, financiers, find a
place in it, with scholars, critics, naturalists,
divines. Every one acquainted with books
knows that William Roscoe wrote in Liver-
pool. Bailey's Fcstus, one of the most re-
markable poems of the age, was originally
published in Manchester. The standard
work upon British Bryology was pro-
duced in Warrington, and, like the life of
Lorenzo de Medici, by a solicitor — the late
William Wilson. Nowhere in the provinces
have there been more conspicuous examples of
exact and delicate philosophical and mathe-
matical experiment and observation than such
as in Manchester enabled Dalton to determine
the profoundest law in chemistry ; and llorrox,
the young curate of Hoole, long before, to be
the first of mankind to watch a transit of Venus,
providing thereby for astronomers the means

Leading Characteristics of the County 5

towards new departures of the highest moment.
During the Franco-Prussian war, when com-
munication with the interior of Paris was
manageable only by the employment of carrier-
pigeons and the use of micro-photography, it
was again a Lancashire man who had to be
thanked for the art of concentrating a page of
newspaper to the size of a postage - stamp.
Possibly there were two or three contem-
poraneous inventors, but the first to make
micro-photography — after the spectroscope, the
most exquisite combination of chemical and
optical science yet introduced to the world —
public and practical, was the late Mr. J. B.
Dancer, of Manchester.

Generous and substantial designs for pro-
moting the education of the people, and their
enjoyment, — habits also of thrift and of self-
culture, are characteristic of Lancashire. Some
have had their origin upon the middle social
platform ; others have sprung from the civilised
among the rich.1 The Co-operative system,
with its varied capacities for rendering good
service to the provident and careful, had its
beginning in Rochdale. The first place to
copy Dr. Birkbeck's Mechanics' Institution was
Manchester, in which town the first provincial

1 It is necessary to say the " civilised," because in Lancashire, a£ in
all other industrial communities, especially manufacturing ones, there
are plenty of selfish and vulgar rich.

6 J / lustrations of Lancashire

School of Medicine was founded, and which
to-day holds the headquarters of the Victoria
University. Manchester, again, was the first
town in England to take advantage of the Eree
Libraries Act of 1850, opening on September
2d, 1852, with Liverpool in its immediate wake.
The Chetham Eree Library (Manchester) had
already existed for 200 years, conferring
benefits upon the community which it would
be difficult to over-estimate. Other Lanca-
shire towns — Darwen, Oldham, Southport, and
Preston, for example, have latterly possessed
themselves of capital libraries, so that, in-
cluding the fine old collection at Warring-
ton, the number of books now within
reach of Lancashire readers, pro rata for the
population, certainly has no parallel out of
London. An excellent feature in the manage-
ment of several of these libraries consists in
the effort made to attain completeness in special
departments. Rochdale aims at a complete
collection of books relating to wool ; Wigan
desires to possess all that has been written about
engineering ; the Manchester library contains
nearly eight hundred volumes having reference
to cotton. In the last-named will also be found
the nucleus of a collection which promises to be
the finest in the country, of books illustrative of
English dialects. The Manchester libraries

Leading Characteristics of the County 7

collectively, or Free and Subscription taken
together, are specially rich in botanical and
horticultural works — many of them magnifi-
cently illustrated and running to several
volumes — the sum of the titles amounting to
considerably over a thousand. Liverpool, too,
is well provided with books of this description,
counting among them that splendid Lancashire
work, Roscoe's Mona?idrian Plants, the draw-
ings for which were chiefly made in the Liver-
pool Botanic Garden — the fourth founded in
England, or first after Chelsea, Oxford, and
Cambridge, and specially interesting in having
been set on foot, in 1800, by Roscoe himself.

The legitimate and healthful recreation of
the multitude is in Lancashire, with the
thoughtful, as constant an object as their
intellectual succour. The public parks in the
suburbs of many of the principal Lancashire
towns, with their playgrounds and gymnasia,
are unexcelled. Manchester has no fewer than
five, including the recent noble gift of the
" Whitworth." Salford has good reason to be
proud of its "Peel Park." Blackburn, Preston,
Oldham, Lancaster, Wigan, Southport, and
Heywood have also done their best.

In Lancashire have always been witnessed
the most vigorous and persistent struggles made
in this country for civil and political liberty

8 Illustrations of Lancashire

and the amendment of unjust laws. Some-
times, unhappily, they have seemed to indicate
disaffection ; and enthusiasts, well-meaning but
extremely unwise — so commonly the case with
their class — have never failed to obtain plenty of
support, often prejudicial to the very cause they
sought to uphold. But the ways of the people,
considered as a community, deducting the intem-
perate andthe zealots, havealways been patriotic,
and there has never been lack of determination
to uphold the throne. The modern Volunteer
movement, as the late Sir James Picton once
reminded us, may be fairly said to have origin-
ated in Liverpool ; the First Lancashire Rifles,
which claims to be the oldest Volunteer com-
pany, having been organised there in 1859. In
any case the promptitude of the act showed the
vitality of that fine old Lancashire disposition
to defend the right, which at the commence-
ment of the Civil Wars rendered the county
so conspicuous for its loyalty. It was in
Lancashire that the first blood was shed on
behalf of Charles the First, and that the last
effort, before Worcester, was made in favour
of his son — this in the celebrated battle of
Wigan Lane. It was the same loyalty which,
in 1644, sustained Charlotte de la Tremouille,
Countess of Derby, in the famous three months'
defence of Lathom House, when besieged by

Leading Characteristics of the County 9

Fairfax. Charlotte, a lady of French extrac-
tion, might quite excusably be supposed to
have had less care for the kino: than an
Englishwoman. But she was now the wife of
a* Lancashire man, and that was enough for her
heart ; she attuned herself to the Earl's own
devotedness, became practically a Lancashire
woman, and took equal shares with him in his
unflinching fervour. The faithfulness to great
trusts which always marks the. noble wife,
however humble her social position, however
exalted her rank and title, with concurrent
temptations to wrongdoing, doubtless lay at
the foundation of Charlotte's personal heroism.
But it was her pasturing, so to speak, in
Lancashire, which brought it up to fruition.
Of course, she owed much to the fidelity of her
Lancashire garrison. Without it, her own
brave spirit would not have sufficed. Lanca-
shire men have always made good soldiers.
Several were knighted "when the fight was
done " at Poitiers and Agincourt. The Middle-
ton archers distinguished themselves at Flodden.
The gallant 47th — the "Lancashire Lads"
were at the Alma, and at Inkerman formed
part of the "thin red line." There is equally
good promise for the future, should occasion
arise. At the great Windsor Review of the
Volunteers in July 1881, when 50,000 were

io Illustrations of Lancashire

brought together, it was unanimously allowed

by the military critics that, without the slightest

disrespect to the many other fine regiments

upon the ground, the most distinguished for

steadiness, physique, and discipline, as well

as the numerically strongest, was the ist

Manchester. So striking was the spectacle

that the Queen inquired specially for the name

of the corps which reflected so much honour

upon its county. In the return published in

the General Orders of the Army, February

1882, it is stated that the 2d Battalion of the

South Lancashire had then attained the proud

distinction of being its "best signalling corps."

The efforts made in Lancashire to obtain

changes for the better in the statute-book had

remarkable illustration in the establishment of

the Anti-Corn-Law League, the original idea

of which was of much earlier date than is

commonly supposed, having occupied men's

minds, both in Manchester and Liverpool, as

far back as the year 1825. The celebrated cry

six years later for Reform in the representation

was not heard more loudly even in Birmingham

than in the metropolis of the cotton trade.

The pioneers of every kind of religious
movement have, like the leaders in civil and
political reform, always found Lancashire
responsive ; and, as with practical scientific

Leading Characteristics of the County 1 1

inventions, it is to this county that the most
interesting part of the early history of non-
conforming bodies very generally pertains.
George Fox, the founder of the "Society of
Friends," commenced his earnest work in the
neighbourhood of Ulverston. " Denomina-
tions" of every kind have also in this county
maintained themselves vigorously, and there
are none which do not here still exist in their
strength. The " Established Church," as else-
where, holds the foremost place, and pursues,
as always, the even tenour of its way. During
the forty-three years that Manchester has been
the centre of a diocese, there have been built
within the bishopric (including certain rebuild-
ings on a larger scale) not fewer than 300
new churches. The late tireless Bishop Fraser
" confirmed " young people at the rate of 1 1,000
every year. The strength of the Wesleyans is
declared by their contributions to the great
Thanksgiving Fund, which amounted, on
15th November 1880, to nearly a quarter of
the entire sum then subscribed, viz. to about
,£65,000 out of the ,£293,000. They possess
a college at Didsbury ; not far from which, at
Withington, the Congregationalists likewise
have one of their own. The long standing
and the power of the Presbyterians is illustrated
in their owning the oldest place of worship in

12 Illustrations of Lancashire

Manchester next to the "Cathedra]," — the
"chapel" in Cross Street, — a building which
dates from the early part of the sixteenth century.
The sympathy of Lancashire with the Church of
Rome has been noted from time immemorial ;
■ — perhaps it would be more accurately said
that there has been a stauncher allegiance here
than in many other places to hereditary creed.
The Catholic diocese of Salford (in which
Manchester and several of the neighbouring
towns are included) claimed in 1879 a seventh
of the entire population.1 Stony hurst, near
Clitheroe, is the seat of the chief provincial
Jesuit college. Lastly, it is an interesting
concurrent fact, that of the seventy Societies or
congregations in England which profess the
faith called the " New Jerusalem," Lancashire
contains no fewer than twenty-four.

The historical associations offered in many
parts of Lancashire are by no means inferior to
those of other counties. One of the most
interesting of the old Roman roads crosses
Blackstone Edge. Names of places near the
south-west coast tell of the Scandinavian
Vikings. In 1323 Robert Bruce and his
army of Scots ravaged the northern districts
and nearly destroyed Preston. The neighbour-
hood of that town witnessed the Stuart enter-

1 Namely, 209,480 Catholic, as against 1,437,000 non-Catholic.

Leading Characteristics of the County 13

prise of 1 7 1 5, and of Prince Charles Edward's
march through the county in 1745 many
memorials still exist.

The ruins of two of the most renowned of
the old English abbeys are also here — Whalley,
with its long record of benevolence, and Furness,
scarcely surpassed in manifold interest even by
Fountains. One of the very few remaining ex-
amples of an ancient castle belongs to the famous
old town from which John o' Gaunt received
his title.1 Parish churches of remote foundation,
with sculptures and lettered monuments, supply
the antiquary with pleasing variety. Old halls
are numerous ; and connected with these, with
the abbeys, and other relics of the past, we find
innumerable entertaining legends and traditions,
often rendered so much the more attractive
through preserving, in part, the county speech
of the olden time, to be dealt with by and by.

In the sports, manners, and customs which
still linger where not superseded by modern
ones, there is yet further curious material for
observation, and the same may be said of the
recreations of the staid and reflecting among
the operative classes. It is in Lancashire that

1 . . . " Next to whom
Was John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster."

King Henry VI., Part 2d, ii. 2.
The first Duke of Lancaster was Henry, previously Earl of Derby,
whose daughter Blanche was married by John of Gaunt, the latter
succeeding to the title.

14 Illustrations of Lancashire

"science in humble life" has always had its
most numerous and remarkable illustrations.
Natural history, in particular, forms one of the
established pastimes in the cotton districts and
amoiiQf the men who are connected with the
daylight work of the collieries. Many of the
working-men botanists are banded into societies
or clubs, which often possess libraries, and
were founded before any living can remember.
Music, especially choral and part-singing, has
been cultivated in Lancashire with a devotion
equalled only perhaps in Yorkshire, and
certainly nowhere excelled. Both the air and
the words of the most popular Christmas hymn
in use among Protestants, " Christians, awake ! "
were composed within the sound, or nearly so,
of the Manchester old church bells. The
verses were written by Dr. Byrom, of steno-
graphic fame j1 the music, which compares well
with the " Adeste Fideles " itself, — the song
of Christmas with other communions, — was
the production of John Wainwright. On a
lower level we find the far-famed Lancashire
Hand-bell Ringers. The facilities provided in
Lancashire for self-culture have already been
spoken of. That private education and school
discipline are effective may be assumed, perhaps,
from the circumstance that in October 1880

1 Originally published in the Manchester Mercury, 19th October 1752.

Leading Characteristics of the County 15

the girl who at the Oxford Local Examinations
stood highest in all England belonged to
Liverpool.

Not without significance either is it that the
coveted distinction of "Senior Wrangler" was
won by a Lancashire man on five occasions
within the twenty years ending February
1 88 1. Three of the victors went up from Liver-
pool, one from Manchester, and one from the
Wigan grammar-school. Lancashire may well
be proud of such a list as this ; feeling added
pleasure in knowing that the gold medal, with
prize of ten guineas, offered by the Council of
Trinity College, London, for the best essay
on "Middle-class Education, its Influence on
Commercial Pursuits," was won in 1880 by a
Lancashire lady — Miss Agnes Amy Bulky, of
the Manchester College for Women.

The list of artists, chiefly painters, identified
with the county appears from Mr. Nodal's re-
searches to be not far short of a hundred, the
earliest having been Hamlet Winstanky, of
Warrington, where he died in 1756. Many of
his productions, family portraits and views
in the neighbourhood, are contained in the
Knowsky collection. Two of these Lancashire
artists — Joseph Farrington, R.A., and William
Green — were among the first to disclose the
beauties of the Lake District, by means of

1 6 Illustrations of Lancashire

lithography or engraved views prepared from
their drawings. Farrington's twenty views
appeared in 1789. Green's series of sixty
was issued from Ambleside in 18 14. A very
curious circumstance connected with art in
its way, is that Focardi's well-known droll
statuette, "The Dirty Boy," was produced in
Lancashire ! Focardi happened to be in
Preston looking for employment. Waiting
one morning for breakfast, and going down-
stairs to ascertain the cause of the delay,
through a half-open door he descried the
identical old woman and the identical dirty
boy ! Here at last was a subject for his
chisel. He got ^500 for the marble, and the
purchasers acknowledge that it was the most
profitable investment they ever made.

The scenery presented in many portions of
the county vies with the choicest to be found
anywhere south of the Tweed. The artist
turns with reluctance from the banks of the
Lune and the Duddon. The largest and
loveliest of the English lakes, supreme Win-
dermere, belongs essentially to Lancashire :
peaceful Coniston and lucid Esthwaite are
entirely within the borders, and close by
rise some of the loftiest of the English
mountains. The top of "Coniston Old Man"
— alt maen\ or "the high rock" — is 2577 feet

Leading Characteristics of the County 17

above the sea. The part which contains the
lakes and mountains is detached, and properly
belongs to the Lake District, emphatically so
called, being reached from the south only by
passing over the lowermost portion of West-
moreland, though accessible by a perilous way,
when the tide is out, across the Morecambe
sands. Still it is Lancashire, a circumstance
often surprising to those who, very naturally,
associate the idea of the "Lakes" with the
homes of Southey and Wordsworth, with
Ambleside, and Helvellyn, and Lodore.

The geological character of this outlying
piece being altogether different from that of
the county in general, Lancashire presents a
variety of surface entirely its own. At one
extremity we have the cold, soft clay so useful
to brickmakers ; on reaching the Lakes we find
the slate rocks of the very earliest ages. Much
of the eastern edge of the county is skirted by
the broad bare hills which constitute the central
vertebrae of the "backbone of England," the
imposing " Pennine range," which extends from
Derbyshire to the Cheviots, and conceals the
three longest of the English railway tunnels, one
of which both begins and ends in Lancashire.
The rock composing them is millstone-grit,
with its customary gray and weather-beaten
crags and ferny ravines. Plenty of tell-tale

1 8 Illustrations of Lancashire

gullies declare the vehemence of the winter
storms that beat above, and in many of
these the rush of water never ceases. Those
who seek solitude, the romantic, and the
picturesque, know these hills well ; in parts,
where there is moorland, the sportsman resorts
to them for grouse.

In various places the rise of the ground is
very considerable, far greater than would be
anticipated when first sallying forth from
Manchester, though on clear days, looking
northwards, when a view can be obtained,
there is pleasant intimation of distant hills.
Rivington Pike, not far from Hoi ton, is
1545 feet above the sea-level. Pendle, near
Clitheroe, where the rock changes to limestone,
is 1803. The millstone-grit reappears inter-
mittently as far as Lancaster, but afterwards
limestone becomes predominant, continuing
nearly to the slate rocks. It is to the lime-
stone that Grange, one of the prettiest places
in this part of the country, owes much of
its scenic charm as well as salubrity. Not
only does it give the bold and ivied tors which
usually indicate calcareous rock. Suiting many
kinds of ornamental trees, especially those
which retain their foliage throughout the year,
we owe to it in no slight measure the innumer-
able shining evergreens which at Grange, even

Leading Characteristics of the County 19

in mid-winter, constantly tempt one to exclaim
with Virgil, when caressing his beloved Italy,
" Hie ver assiduum ! "

The southernmost part of the county has

for its surface-rock chiefly the upper new red

sandstone, a formation not favourable to fine

hill-scenery, though the long ridges for which it

is distinguished, at all events in Lancashire and

Cheshire, often give a decided character to the

landscape. The highest point in the extreme

south-west, or near Liverpool, occupied by

Everton church, has an elevation of no more

than 250 feet, or less than a tenth of that of

" Coniston Old Man." Ashurst, between

Wigan and Ormskirk, and Billinge, between

Wigan and St. Helens, make amends, the

beacon upon the latter being 633 feet above

the sea. The prospects from the two last

named are very fine. They are interesting

to the topographer as having been first resorted

to as fit spots for beacons and signal-fires when

the Spanish Armada was expected, watchers

upon the airy heights of Rivington, Pendle, and

Brown Wardle, standing ready to transmit

the news farther inland. It is interesting to

' recall to mind that the news of the sailing of

the Armada in the memorable July of 15 88

was brought to England by one of the old

Liverpool mariners, the captain of a little

20 Illustrations of Lancashire

vessel that traded with the Mediterranean and
the coast of Africa.

Very different is the western margin of this
changeful county, the whole extent from the
Mersey to Duddon Bridge being washed by
the Irish Sea. But, although maritime, it has
none of the prime factors of seaside scenery, —
broken rocks and cliffs, — not, at least, until
after passing Morecambe Bay. From Liver-
pool onwards there is only level sand, and, to
the casual visitor, apparently never anything
besides ; for the tide, which is swift to go out,
recedes very far, and seldom seems anxious to
come in. Blackpool is exceptional. Here the
roll of the water is often glorious, and the
dimples in calm weather are such as would
have satisfied old yEschylus. On the whole,
however, the coast must be pronounced
monotonous, and the country that borders on
it uninteresting. But whatever may be want-
ing in the way of rocks and cliffs, the need is
fully compensated by the exceeding beauty in
parts of the sandhills, especially near Birkdale
and St. Anne's, where for miles they have the
semblance of a miniature mountain range.
Intervening there are broad, green, peaty
plateaux, which, becoming saturated after rain,
allow of the o-rowth of countless wild-flowers.
Orchises of several sorts, the pearly grass of

Leading Characteristics of the County 21

Parnassus, the pyrola that imitates the lily of
the valley — all come to these wild sandhills to
rejoice in the breath of the ocean, which, like
that of the heavens, here "smells wooingly."
Looking seawards, though it is seldom that
we have tossing surge, there is further com-
pensation very generally in the beauty of
sunset — the old-fashioned but inestimable privi-
lege of the western coast of our island — part
of the "daily bread" of those who thank God
consistently for His infinite bounty to man's
soul as well as body, and which no people in
the world command more perfectly than the in-
habitants of the coast of Lancashire. Seated on
those quiet sandhills, on a calm September even-
ing, one may often contemplate on the trembling
water a path of crimson light more beautiful than
one of velvet laid down for the feet of a queen.

At the northern extremity of the county,
as near Ulverstone, there are rocky and turf-
clad promontories ; but even at Humphrey
Head, owing to the flatness of the adjacent
sands, there is seldom any considerable amount
of surf.

The most remarkable feature of the sea-
margin of Lancashire consists in the number
of its estuaries. The largest of these form
the outlets of the Ribble and the Wyre, at the
mouth of the last of which is the comparatively

22 Illustrations of Lancashire

new port of Fleetwood. The estuary of the
Mersey (the southern shore of which belongs
to Cheshire) is peculiarly interesting, on ac-
count of the seemingly recent origin of most
of the lower portion. Ptolemy, the Roman
geographer, writing about a.d. 130, though he
speaks of the Dee and the Ribble, makes no
mention of the Mersey, which, had the river
existed in its present form and width, he could
hardly have overlooked.1 No mention is made
of it either in the Antonine Itinerary ; and as
stumps of old oaks of considerable magnitude,
which had evidently grown in situ, were not
very long ago distinguishable on the northern
margin when the tide was out, near where the
Liverpool people used to bathe, the conclusion
is quite legitimate that the level of the bed of
the estuary must in the Celtic times, at the
part where the ferry steamers go, have been
much higher, and the stream proportionately
narrow, perhaps a mere brook, with salt-
marshes right and left. "Liverpool" was
originally the name, simply and purely, of
the estuary, indicating, in its derivation, not a
town, or a village, but simply water. How far

1 Unless, possibly, as contended by Mr. T. G. Rylands in the
Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society's Proceedings for 1878,
vol. xvii. p. 81, following Horsley and Keith Johnston, Pliny intended
the Mersey by his " Belisama." But West, Professor William Smith,
and authors in general, consider that the "Belisama" was the modern
Ribble.

Leading Characteristics of the County

upwards the brook, with its swamp or morass,
extended, it is not possible to tell, though prob-
ably there was always a sheet of water near
the present Runcorn. Depression of the shore,
with plenty of old tree-stumps, certifying an
extinct forest, is plainly observable a few miles
distant on the Cheshire coast, just below New
Briohton.

In several parts of Lancashire, especially in
the extreme south-east, the surface is occupied
by wet and dreary wrastes, composed of peat,
and locally called "mosses." That they have
been formed since the commencement of the
Christian era there can be little doubt, abund-
ance of remains of the branches of trees being
found near the clay floor upon which the peat
has gradually arisen. The most noted of these
desolate flats is that one called Chat, or St.
Chad's Moss, the scene of the special difficulty
in the construction of the original Liverpool
and Manchester Railway. Nothing can exceed
the dismalness of the mosses during nine or
ten months of the year. Absolutely level,
stretching for several miles, treeless, and with a
covering only of brown and wiry scrub, Nature
seems expiring in them. June kindly brings a
change. Everything has its festival some time.
For a short period they are strewed with
the summer snow of the cotton-sedge, — the

24 Illustrations of Lancashire

"cana" of Ossian, "Her bosom was whiter
than the down of cana"; and again, in Septem-
ber, they are amethyst-tinted for two or three
weeks with the bloom of the heather. During:
the last quarter of a century the extent of these
mosses has been much reduced, by draining- and
cultivation at the margins, and in course of time
they will probably disappear.

Forests were once a feature of a good part
of Lancashire. Long subsequently to the
time of the Conquest, much of the county
was still covered with trees. The celebrated
" Carta dc Foresta" or " Forest Charter," under
which the clearing of the ground of England
for farming purposes first became general and
continuous, was granted only in the reign of
Henry III., a.d. 1224, or contemporaneously
with the uprise of Salisbury Cathedral, a date
thus rendered easy of remembrance.

Here and there the trees were allowed to
remain ; and among these reserved portions of
the original Lancashire "wild wood" it is
interesting to find West Derby, the " western
home of wild animals," thus named because so
valuable as a hunting-ground.1 No forest, in
the current sense of the word, has survived in

1 Retained to this clay as the name of one of the principal Lancashire
''Hundreds." it is West Derby which gives title to the Earls of the
house cf Stanley, and not, as often supposed, the city in the midland
counties.

Leading Characteristics of the County 25

Lancashire to the present day. Even single
trees of patriarchal age are almost unknown.
Agriculture, when commenced, proceeded
vigorously, chiefly, however, in regard to
meadow and pasture ; cornfields have never
been either numerous or extensive, except
in the district beyond Preston called
the Fylde — an immense breadth of alluvial
drift, grateful in almost all parts for good
farming.

LIVERPOOL

The situation of this great city is in some
respects one of the most enviable in the
country. Stretching along the upper bank of
an unrivalled estuary, 1 200 yards across where
narrowest, and the river current of which flows
westwards, it is near enough to the sea to be
called a maritime town, yet sufficiently far in-
land never to suffer any of the discomforts of
the open coast. Upon the opposite side of the
water the ground rises gently. Birkenhead, the
energetic new Liverpool of the last fifty years,
covers the nearer slopes ; in the distance there
are towers and spires, with glimpses of trees,
and even of windmills that tell of wheat not
far away.

Liverpool itself is pleasantly undulated.
Walking through the busy streets there is
constant sense of rise and fall. An ascent
that can be called toilsome is never met with;

•i : '

;

5 "

-Ksao

Liverpool 29

nor, except concurrently with the clocks, and in
some of the remoter parts of the town, is there
any long continuity of flatness.

Compared with the other two principal
English seaports, London and Bristol, the
superiority of position is incontestable. A
town situated upon the edge of an estuary
must needs have quite exceptional advantages.
London is indebted for its wealth and grandeur
more to its having been the metropolis for a
thousand years than to the service directly
rendered by the Thames ; and as for Bristol,
the wonder is that with a stream like the Avon
it should still count with the trio, and retain its
ancient title of Queen of the West. Away
from the water-side, Liverpool loses. There
are no green downs and "shadowy woods'
reached in half-an-hour from the inmost of the
city, such as give character to Clifton ; nor,
upon the whole, can the scenery of the neigh-
bourhood be said to present any but the very
mildest and simplest features. Only in the
district which includes Mossley, Allerton, Tox-
teth, and Otterspool, is there any approach to
the picturesque. Hereabouts we find meadows
and rural lanes ; and a few miles up the
stream, the Cheshire hills begin to show
plainly. Yet not far from the Prince's Park
there is a little ravine that aforetime, when

30 Illustrations of Lancashire

farther away from the borough boundaries,
and when the name was given, would seem
to have been another Kelvin Grove, —

" Where the rose, in all its pride,
Paints the hollow dingle side,
And the midnight fairies glide,
Bonnie lassie, O ! '

Fairyland, tram-cars, and the hard facts of a
great city, present few points of contact —
Liverpool contrives to unite them in " Exchange
to Dingle, 3d. inside." Among the dainty
little poems left us by Roscoe, who was quick
to recognise natural beauty, there is' one
upon the disappearance of the brooklet which,
descending from springs now dried up, once
babbled down this pretty dell with its tribute to
the river.

To the stranger approaching Liverpool by
railway, these inviting bits of the adjacent
country are, unfortunately, not visible. But
let him not murmur. When, after passing
through the town, he steps upon the Land-
ing-stage and looks out upon the heaving
water, with its countless craft, endless in
variety, and representing every nation that
possesses ships, he is compensated. The
whole world does not present anything in
its way more abounding with life. A third
of a mile in length, broad enough for

►J
o
o

f <

Liverpool 2>3

the parade of troops, imperceptibly adjusting
itself to every condition of the tide, the
Liverpool Landing-stage, regarded simply as
a work of constructive art, is a wonderful
sight. It is the scene of the daily movement
of many thousands of human beings, some
departing, others just arrived ; and, above all
there is the many-hued outlook right and left.

Thoroughly to appreciate the nobleness, the
capacities, and the use made of this magnificent
river, a couple of little voyages should be
undertaken : one towards the entrance, where
the tall white shaft of the lighthouse comes
in view ; the other, ascending the stream as
far as Rock Ferry. By this means the extent
of the docks and the mao-nitude of the neieh-
bouring warehouses may in some degree be
estimated. Up the river and down, from the
middle portion of the Landing-stage, without
reckoning Birkenhead, the line of sea-wall
measures more than six miles. The water
area ol the docks approaches 2 70 acres ; the
length of surrounding quay-margin is nearly
twenty miles. The double voyage gives op-
portunity also for observation of the many
majestic vessels which are either moving or
at anchor in mid-channel. Merchantmen pre-
dominate, but in addition there are almost
invariably two or three of the superb steamers

34 Illustrations of Lancashire

which have their proper home upon the
Atlantic, and in a few hours will be away.
The great Companies whose names are so
familiar — the Cunard, the Allan, the White
Star, the Iriman, and five or six others —
despatch between them no fewer than ten of
these splendid vessels every week, and fort-
nightly two extra, the same number arriving
at similar intervals. Columbus's largest ship
was about ninety tons ; the steamers spoken
of are mostly from 2000 to 5000 tons : a few
are of 8000 or 9000 tons. Besides these, there
are the South Americans, the steamers to the
East and West Indies, China, Japan, and the
West Coast of Africa, the weight varying from
1 500 to 4000 tons, more than fifty of these
mighty vessels going out every month, and as
many coming in. The total number of ships
and steamers actually in the docks, Birken-
head included, on the 6th of December 1880
was 438.

A fairly fine day, a sunshiny one if possible,
should be selected for these little voyages, not
merely because of its pleasantness, but in order
to observe the astonishing distance to which
the river-life extends. Like every other town
in our island, Liverpool knows full well what
is meant by fog and rain. " Some days must
be dark and dreary." At times it is scarcely

Liverpool

possible for the ferry-boats to find their way
across, and not a sound is to be heard except
to convey warning or alarm. But the gloomy
hours, fortunately, do not come often. The
local meteorologists acknowledge an excellent

RAN AWAY TO SEA

average of cheerful weather, — the prevailing
kind alone the whole extent of the lower
Lancashire coast, the hills being too distant
to arrest the passage of the clouds, — and the
man who misses his boat two or three times
running must indeed be unlucky. Happily,

36 Illustrations of Lancashire

these uncertainties and vexations of the by-
gones, actual and possible, have now been
neutralised, say since 20th January 1886, by
the construction of the Cheshire Lines tunnel
under the river.

Nothing, on a fine day, can be more ex-
hilarating than three or four hours upon the
Mersey. Liverpool, go where we may, is, in
the better parts, a place emphatically of ex-
hilarations. The activity of the river-life is
prefigured in the jauntiness of the movement
in the streets ; the display in the shop-windows,
at all events where one has to make way for
the current of well-dressed ladies which at noon
adds in no slight measure to the various gaiety
of the scene, is a constant stimulus to the fancy
— felt so much the more if one's railway ticket
for the day has been purchased in homely
Stockport, or dull Bury, or unadorned Middle-
ton, or even in thronged Manchester. Still it
is upon the water that the impression is most
animating. High up the river, generally near
the Rock Ferry pier, a guardship is stationed
— usually an ironclad. Beyond this we come
upon four old men-of-war used as training-
ships. The Conway \ a naval school for young
officers, accommodates 150, including many of
good birth, who pay £$0 a-year apiece. The
Indefatigable gives gratuitous teaching to the

L iverpool 3 7

sons of sailors, orphans, and other homeless
boys. The Akbar and the Clarence are Re-
formatory schools, the first for misbehaving
Protestant lads, the other for Catholics. The
good work done by these Reformatories is
immense. During the three years 1876 to
1878, the number passed out of the two vessels
was 1890, and of these no fewer than 1420 had
been converted into capital young seamen.1

Who will write us a book upon the
immeasurable in i nor privileges of life, the
things we are apt to pass by and take no
note of, because "common"? Sailing upon
this glorious river, how beautiful overhead the
gleam, against the azure, of the sea-gulls !
Liverpool is just near enough to the salt-
water for them to come as daily visitants, just
far enough for them to be never so many as
to spoil the sweet charm of the unexpected :
for the moment they make one forget even
the ships. Man's most precious and enduring
possessions are the loveliness and the signifi-
cance of nature. Were all things valued as
. they deserve, perhaps these cheery sea-birds
would have their due.

The Liverpool docks are more remarkable
than those even of London. Some of the

1 Vide Mr. Inglis's Twenty-third Report to Government on the
Certified and Industrial Schools of Great Britain, December 1SS0.

38 Illustrations of Lancashire

famed receptacles fed from the Thames are more
capacious, and the number of vessels they
contain when full is proportionately greater
than is possible in the largest of the Liverpool.
But in London there are not so many, nor is
there so great a variety of cargo seen upon the
quays, nor is the quantity of certain imports so
vast. In the single month of October 1880
Liverpool imported from North America of
apples alone no fewer than 167,400 barrels.
Most of the docks are devoted to particular
classes of ships or steamers, or to special
branches of trade. The King's Dock is the
chief scene of the reception of tobacco, the
quantity of which brought into Liverpool is
second only to the London import ; while the
Brunswick is chiefly devoted to the ships
bringing timber. The magnificent Langton
and Alexandra Docks, opened in September
1 88 1, are reserved for the ocean steamers,
which previously had to lie at anchor in
the channel, considerably to the disadvan-
tage of all concerned, but which now enjoy
all the privileges of the smallest craft. At
intervals along the quays there are huge
cranes for lifting ; and very interesting is it
to note the care taken that their strength,
though herculean, shall not be overtaxed, every
crane being marked according to its power,

Liverpool 39

" Not to lift more, than two tons," or whatever
other weight it is adapted to. Like old
Bristol, Liverpool holds her docks in her
arms. In London, as an entertaining German
traveller told his countrymen some fifty years
ago, a merchant, when he wants to despatch
an order to his ship in the docks, "must often
send his clerk down by the railroad ; in Liver-
pool he may almost make himself heard in
the docks out of his counting-house."1 This
comes mainly of the town and the docks
having grown up together.

The " dockmen " are well worth notice.
None of the loading and unloading of the
ships is done by the sailors. As soon as the
vessel is safely "berthed," the consignees con-
tract with an intermediate operator called a
stevedore,2 who engages as many men as he
requires, paying them 4s. 6d. per day, and
for half-days and quarter-days in proportion.
Nowhere do we see a better illustration than
is supplied in Liverpool of the primitive Judean
market-places, " Why stand ye here all the
day idle ? Because no man hath hired us."
Work enough for all there never is : a circum-
stance not surprising when we consider that

1 J. G. Kohl. England, Scotland, and Ireland, vol. iii. p. 43.

l844-

- For the derivation of this curious word, see Notes and Queries,

Sixth Series, vol. ii. pp. 365 and 492. 1SS0.

40 J 'II ust 'rations of Lancashire

the total number of day-labourers in Liverpool
is estimated at 30,000. The non-employed,
who arc believed to be always about one-half,
or 15,000, congregate near the water; a
favourite place of assembly appears to be the
pavement adjoining the Baths. The dockmen
correspond to the male adults among the
operatives in the cotton-mill districts, with the
great distinction that they are employed and
paid by time, and that they are not helped
by the girls and women of their families, who in
the factories are quite as useful and important
as the rougher sex. They correspond also to
the "pitmen" of collieries, and to journeymen
labourers in general. Most of them are Irish
— as many, it is said, as nine-tenths of the
30,000 — and as usual with that race of people,
they have their homes near together. These
are chiefly in the district including Scotland
Road, where a very different scene awaits the
tourist. Faction-fights are the established
recreation ; the men engage in the streets, the
women hurl missiles from the roofs of the
houses. Liverpool has a profoundly mournful
as well as a brilliant side : Canon Kingsley
once said that the handsomest set of men he
had ever beheld at one view was the group
assembled within the quadrangle of the Liver-
pool Exchange : the Income-tax assessment

Liverpool 41

of Liverpool amounts to nearly sixteen millions
sterling : the people claim to be " Evan-
gelical " beyond compare ; and that they have
intellectual power none will dispute :— behind
the scenes the fact remains that nowhere in our
island is there deeper destitution and pro-
founder spiritual darkness.1 When the fam-
ished and ignorant have to be dealt with, it is
better to begin with supply of good food than
writh aeriform benedictions. Lady Hope (n£e
Miss Elizabeth R. Cotton) has shown that
amonp- the p-enuine levers of civilisation there
are none more substantial than pood warm
coffee and cocoa. Liverpool, fully understand-
ing this, is giving to the philanthropic all over
England a lesson which, if discreetly taken up,
cannot fail to tell immensely on the morals, as
well as the physical needs, of the poor and
destitute. All along the line of the docks
there are "cocoa-shops," some of them upon
wheels, metallic tickets, called " cocoa-pennies,"
giving access.

Liverpool is a town of comparatively
modern date, being far younger than Warring-
ton, Preston, Lancaster, and many another
which commercially it has superseded. The
name does not occur in Domesday Book, com-

1 Vide The Dark Side of Liverpool, by the Rev. R. II. Lundie,
Weekly Review, 20th November 18S0, p. n 13.

4 2 I 1/ ush ■( itions of L a ncash ire

piled a.d. 1086, nor till the time of King »
John does even the river seem to have been
much used. English commerce during the
era of the Crusades did not extend beyond
continental Europe, the communications with
which were confined to London, Bristol, and
a few inconsiderable places on the southern
coasts. Passengers to Ireland went chiefly by
way of the Dee, and upon the Mersey there
were only a few fishing-boats. At the com-
mencement of the thirteenth century came a
change. The advantages of the Mersey as a
harbour were perceived, and the fishing village
upon the northern shore asked for a charter,
which in 1 207 was granted. Liverpool, as a
borough, is thus now in its 685th year. That
this great and opulent city should virtually
have begun life just at the period indicated is
a circumstance of no mean interest, since the
reign of John, up till the time of the barons'
gathering at Runnymede, was utterly bare of
historical incident, and the condition of the
country in general was poor and depressed.
Cceur de Lion, the popular idol, though
scarcely ever seen at home, was dead. John,
the basest monarch who ever sat upon the
throne of England, had himself extinguished
every spark of loyal sentiment by his cruel
murder of Prince Arthur. Art was nearly

„.=~~1

__-

•

ST. NICHOLAS CHURCH, LIVERPOOL

Liverpool 45

passive, and literature, except in the person
of Layamon, had no existence. Such was the
age, overcast and silent, in which the founda-
tions of Liverpool were laid : contemplating
the times, and all that has come of the event,
one cannot but think of acorn -planting in
winter, and recall the image in Faust, —

" Ein Theil der Finsterniss die sich das Licht gebar."
(Part of the darkness which brought forth Light !)

The growth of the new borough was for a

o o

long period very slow. In 1272, the year of
the accession of Edward I., Liverpool con-
sisted of only 168 houses, occupied (computing
on the usual basis) by about 840 people ; and
even a century later, when Edward III.
appealed to the nation to support him in his
attack upon France, though Bristol supplied
twenty-four vessels and 800 men, Liverpool
could furnish no more than one solitary barque
with a crew of six. It was shortly after this
date that the original church of " Our Lady
and St. Nicholas" was erected. Were the
building, as it existed for upwards of 400 years,
still intact, or nearly so, Liverpool would
possess no memorial of the past more attractive.
But in the first place, in 1774, the body was
taken clown and rebuilt. Then, in 181 5, the
same was done with the tower, the architect

46 J /lustrations of Lancashire

wisely superseding the primitive spire with the
beautiful lantern by which St. Nicholas's is now
recognised even from the opposite side of the
water. Of the original ecclesiastical establish-
ment all that remains is the graveyard, once
embellished with trees, and in particular with a
"great Thorne," in summer white and fragrant,
which the tasteless and ruthless old rector of the
time was formally and most justly impeached
for destroying "without leave or license."
Wilful and needless slaying of ornamental trees,
such as no money can buy or replace, and
which have taken perhaps a century or more to
grow, is always an act of ingratitude, if not of
the nature of a crime, and never less excusable
than when committed on consecrated oround.
The dedication to St. Nicholas showTs that the
old Liverpool townsfolk were superstitious, if
not pious. It is St. Nicholas who on the
strength of the legend is found in Dibdiri as
" the sweet little cherub" —

" that sits up aloft,
And takes care of the life of poor Jack."

Up to 1699 the building in question was only
the " chappell of Leverpoole," the parish in
which the town lay being Walton.

In 1533, or shortly afterwards, temp. Henry
VIII., John Leland visited Liverpool, which

Liverpool 47

he describes as being "a pavid Towne," with
a castle, and a "Stone Howse," the residence
of the "Erie of Derbe." He adds, that there
was a small custom-house, at which the dues
were paid upon linen - yarn brought from
Dublin and Belfast for transmission to Man-
chester.1 A fortunate circumstance it has
always been for Ireland that she possesses so
near and ready a customer for her various pro-
duce as wealthy Liverpool. Fifty years later,
Camden describes the town as " neat and popu-
lous " — the former epithet needing translation ;
and by the time of Cromwell the amount of
shipping had nearly doubled : the Mersey, it
hardly needs saying, is the natural westward
channel for the commerce of the whole of the
active district which has Manchester for its
centre, and the value of this was now fast be-
coming apparent. By the end of the sixteenth
century south-east Lancashire was becoming
distinguished for its productive power. A large
and constantly increasing supply of manufac-
tures adapted for export implied imports. The
interests of Manchester and Liverpool soon
declared themselves alike. Of no two places
in the world can it be said with more truth,
that they have " lived and loved together,
through many changing years " ; though it

1 Itinerary, vol. vii. p. 40. Oxford, 171 1.

48 Illustrations of Lancashire

may be a question whether they have always
"wept each other's tears." In addition to
the impulse given to shippers by extended
manufacturing, the captains who sailed upon
the Irish Sea found in the Mersey their
securest haven, the more so since the Dee
was now silting up — a misfortune for once
so favoured Chester which at last threw it
commercially quite into the shade. The
Lune was also destined to lose in favour : an
event not without a certain kind of pathos, since
cotton was imported into Lancaster long before
it was brought to Liverpool. Conditions of all
kinds being so happy, prosperity was assured.
Liverpool had now only to be thankful, in-
dustrious, honest, and prudent.

Singular to say, in the year 1635 Liverpool
was not thought worthy of a place in the map
of England. In Selden's J fare Clausum, sen
de Dominio Maris there is a map in which
Preston, Wigan, Manchester, and Chester, are
all set clown, but, although the Mersey lies in
readiness, there is no Liverpool !

The period of the Restoration was particu-
larly eventful. The Great Plague of 1665 and
the Great Fire of 1666 led to a large migra-
tion of Londoners into Lancashire, and especi-
ally to Liverpool, trade with the North
American " Plantations," and with the sugar-

Liverpool 49

producing islands of the Caribbean Sea, being
now rapidly progressive. Contemporaneously
there was a flocking thither of younger sons of
country squires, who, anticipating the Duke of
Argyll of to-day, saw that commerce is the best
of tutors. From these descended some of the
most eminent of the old Liverpool families.
The increasing demand for sugar in England
led, unfortunately, to sad self- contamination.
Following the example of Bristol, Liverpool
gave itself to the slave-trade, and for ninety-
seven years, 1709 to 1806, the whole tone and
tendency of the local sentiment were debased
by it. The Roscoes, the Rathbones, and
others among the high-minded, did their best
to arouse their brother merchants to the
iniquity of the traffic, and to counteract the
moral damage to the community ; but mischief
of such a character sinks deep, and the lapse
of generations is required to efface it entirely.
Mr. W. W. Briggs considers that the shadow
is still perceptible.1 Politely called the "West
India trade," no doubt legitimate commerce was
bound up with the shocking misdeed, but the
kernel was the same. It began with barter of
the manufactures of Manchester, Sheffield, and
Birmingham, for the negroes demanded, first,
by the sugar-planters, and afterwards, in Vir-

1 Vide Liverpool Mont >y, nth December 1880.
E

50 Illustrations of Lancashire

ginia, for the tobacco-farms. Infamous fraud
could not but follow ; and a certain callousness,
attributable in part to ignorance of the methods
employed, was engendered even in those who
had no interest in the results. When George
III. was but newly crowned, slaves of both
sexes were at times openly sold by adver-
tisement in Liverpool ! Money was made fast
by the trade in human beings, and many men
accumulated great fortunes, memorials of which
it would not be hard to find. All this, we may
be thankful, is now done with for ever. To
recall the story is painful but unavoidable, since
no sketch of the history of Liverpool can be
complete without reference to it. There is
no need, however, to dwell further upon it.
Escape always from the thought of crime
as soon as possible. Every one, at all
events, must acknowledge that, notwithstand-
ing the outcry by the interested that the
total ruin of Liverpool, with downfall of
Church and State, would ensue upon abolition,
the town has done better without the slave-
trade.

The period of most astonishing expansion
has been that which, as in Manchester, may be
termed the strictly modern one. The best of
the public buildings have been erected within
the memory of living men. Most of the docks

-4

fL ^gN#-

'^31 L

■ ■ , ' • . i

sra

"ym

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K
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Liverpool 53

have been constructed since 1812. The first
steamboat upon the Mersey turned its paddles
in 181 5. The first steam voyage to New York
commemorates 1838. In Liverpool, it should
not be forgotten, originated directly afterwards
the great scheme which gave rise to the " Pen-
insular and Oriental," upon which followed in
turn the Suez Railway, and then the Suez
Canal. The current era has also witnessed an
immense influx into Liverpool of well-informed
American, Canadian, and continental mer-
chants, Germans particularly. These have
brought (and every year sees new arrivals)
the habits of thought, the special views, and
the fruits of the widely diverse social and
political training peculiar to the respective
nationalities.

A very considerable number of the native
English Liverpool merchants have resided,
sometimes for a lengthened period, in foreign
countries. Maintaining correspondence with
those countries, having connections one with
another all over the world, they are kept alive
to everything that has relation to commerce.
They can tell us about the harvests in all parts
of the world, the value of gold and silver, and
the operation of legal enactments. Residence
abroad supplies new and more liberal ideas,
and enables men to judge more accurately.

54 Illustrations of Lancashire

The result is that, although Liverpool, like
other places, contains its full quota of the in-
curably ignorant and prejudiced, the spirit and
the method of the mercantile community are in
the aggregate thoughtful, inviting, and enjoy-
able. The occupations of the better class of
merchants, and their constant consociation with
one another, require and develop not only
business powers, but the courtesies which dis-
tinguish gentlemen. A stamp is given quite
different from that which comes of life spent
habitually among "hands";1 the impression
upon the mind of the visitor is that, whatever
may be the case elsewhere, in Liverpool ability
and good manners are in partnership. And
this not only in commercial transactions : the
characteristics observable in office hours reap-
pear in the privacy of home.

The description of business transacted in
Liverpool is almost peculiar to the place.
After the shipbuilders and the manufacturers
of shipping adjuncts, chain - cables, etc., there
are few men in the superior mercantile class
who produce anything. Liverpool is a city of
agents. Its function is not to make, but to
transfer. Nearly every bale or box of mer-

1 In Liverpool, strictly speaking, there are no "hands," no troops
of workpeople, that is to say, young and old, male and female, equiva-
lent as regards relation to employer to the operatives of Oldham and
Staly bridge.

Liverpool 55

chandise that enters the town is purely en route.
Hence it comes that Liverpool gathers up coin
even when times are "bad." Whether the
owner of the merchandise eventually loses or
gains, Liverpool has to be paid the expenses of
the passing through. Much of the raw ma-
terial that comes from abroad changes hands
several times before the final despatch, though
not by any means through the ordinary old-
fashioned processes of mere buying and selling.
In the daily reports of the cotton - market a
certain quantity is always distinguished as
bought "upon speculation." The adventurous
do not wait for the actual arrival of the par-
ticular article they devote their attention to.
Like the Covent Garden wholesale fruitmen,
who risk purchase of the produce of the Kentish
cherry - orchards while the trees are only in
bloom, the Liverpool cotton - brokers deal in
what they call "futures."

Another curious feature is the problematical
character of every man's day. The owner of a
cotton-mill or an iron-foundry proceeds, like a
train upon the rails, according to a definite and
preconcerted plan. A Liverpool foreign mer-
chant, when leaving home in the morning, is
seldom able to forecast what will happen before
night. TeleQTams from distant countries are
prone to bring news that changes the whole

56 Illustrations of Lancashire

complexion of affairs. The limitless foreign
connections tend also to render his sympathies
cosmopolitan rather than such as pertain to
old-fashioned citizens pure and simple. Once
a day at least his thoughts and desires are in
some far-away part of the globe. Broadly
speaking, the merchants, like their ships in the
river, are only at anchor in Liverpool. The
owner of a " works " must remain with his
bricks and mortar ; the Liverpool merchant, if
he pleases, can weigh and depart. Though the
day is marked by conjecture, it is natural to
hope for good. Hence much of the sprightli-
ness of the Liverpool character — the perennial
uncertainty underlying the equally well-marked
disposition to "eat, drink, and be merry, for
to-morrow we die," or, at all events, may die.
This in turn seems to account for the high
percentage of shops of the glittering class and
that deal in luxuries. Making their money in
the way they do, the Liverpool people care less
to hoard it than to indulge in the spending.
How open-handed they can be when called
upon is declared by the sums raised for
the Bishopric and the University College.
In proportion, they have more money than
other people, the inhabitants of London alone
excepted. The income-tax assessment has
already been mentioned as nearly sixteen

►J
o
o

w
o

H
r.

Liverpool 59

millions. The actual sum for the year
ending 5th April 1876 was ,£15,943,000,
against Manchester, £"13,907,000, Birming-
ham, £"6,473,884, London, £"50,808,000. The
superiority in comparison with Manchester may
come partly, perhaps, of certain firms in the
last-named place returning from the country
towns or villages where their "works" are
situated. Liverpool is self-contained, Man-
chester is diffused.

Liverpool may well be proud of her public
buildings. Opinions differ in regard to the
large block which includes the Custom-house,
commonly called "Revenue Buildings"; but
none dispute the claim of the sumptuous
edifice known as St. George's Hall to repre-
sent the architecture of ancient Greece in
the most successful degree yet attained in
England. The eastern facade is more than
400 feet in length ; at the southern extremity
there is an octostyle Corinthian portico, the
tympanum filled with ornament. Strange, con-
sidering the local wealth and the local claim of a
character for thoroughness and taste, that this
magnificent structure should be allowed to
remain unfinished, still wanting, as it does, the
sculptures which formed an integral part of Mr.
E lines' carefully considered whole. Closely
adjacent are the Free Library and the new

60 Illustrations of Lancashire

Art Gallery, and, in Dale Street, the Public
Offices, the Townhall, and the Exchange,
which is arcaded. Among other meritorious
buildings, either classical or in the Italian
palazzo style, we find the Philharmonic Hall
and the Adelphi Hotel. The Free Library is
one of the best-frequented places in Liverpool.
The number of readers exceeded in 1880, in
proportion to the population, that of every
other laro-e town in EnQ-land where a Free
Library exists. In Leeds, during the year
ending at Michaelmas, the number was
648,589; in Birmingham, 658,000; in Man-
chester, 958,000; in Liverpool, 1,163,795. In
the Reference Department the excess was
similar, the issues therefrom having been in
Liverpool one-half; in Leeds and Birmingham,
two-fifths ; in Manchester, one-fifth. The
Liverpool people seem apt to take advantage of
their opportunities of every kind. When the
Naturalists' Field Club starts for the country,
the number is three or four times greater in
proportion to the whole number of members
than in other places where, with similar objects,
clubs have been founded. Many, of course,
join in the trips for the sake of the social enjoy-
ment ; whether as much work is accomplished
when out is undecided. They are warm sup-
porters also of literary and scientific institutions,

o
o

S3
U
X

Liverpool 6$

the number of which, as well as of societies de-
voted to music and the fine arts, is in Liverpool
exceptionally high. At the last " Associated
Soiree," the Presidents of no fewer than fifteen
were present. Educational, charitable, and
curative institutions exist in equal plenty. It
was Liverpool that in 1 791 led the way in
the foundation of Asylums for the Blind. The
finest ecclesiastical establishment belongs to the
Catholics, who in Liverpool, as in Lancashire
generally, have stood firm to the faith of their
fathers ever since 1558, and were never
so powerful a body as at present. The
new Art Gallery seems to introduce an agree-
able prophecy. Liverpool has for more than 140
years striven unsuccessfully to give effect to the
honourable project of 1769, when it sought to
tread in the steps of the Royal Academy,
founded a few months previously. There are
now fair indications of rejuvenescence, and, if
we mistake not, there is a quickening appre-
ciation of the intrinsically pure and worthy,
coupled with indifference to the qualities which
catch and content the vulgar — mere bigness
and showiness. Slender as the appreciation
may be, still how much more precious than the
bestowal of patronage, in ostentation of pocket,
beginning there and ending there, which all
true and noble art disdains.

64 J /lust radons of Lancashire

Liverpool must not be quitted without a
parting word upon a feature certainly by no
means peculiar to the town, but which to the
observant is profoundly interesting and sug-
gestive. This consists in the through move-
ment of the emigrants, and the arrangements
made for their departure. Our views and
vignettes give some idea of what may be
seen upon the river and on board the
ships. But it is impossible to render in
full the interesting spectacle presented by the
strangers who come in the first instance from
northern Europe. These arrive, by way
of Hull, chiefly from Sweden and Den-
mark, and, to a small extent, from Russia
and Germany — German emigrants to America
usually going from their own ports, and by way
of the English Channel. Truly astonish-
ing are the piles of luggage on view at
the railway stations during the few hours or
days which elapse before they go on board.
While waiting, they saunter about the streets
in parties of six or eight, full of wonder and
curiosity, but still impressing every one with
their honest countenances and inoffensive
manners and behaviour. There are very
few children among these foreigners, most
of whom appear to be in the prime of life,
an aged parent now and then accompanying

Liverpool 65

son or daughter. In 18S0 there left Liver-
pool as emigrants the prodigious number of
183,502. Analysis gave — -English, 74,969;
Scotch, 181 1 ; Irish, 27,986; foreigners,.

74. 1 15-

Ill

THE COTTON DISTRICT AND THE MANUFACTURE

OF COTTON

First in the lonor list of Lancashire manufac-
turing towns, by reason of its magnitude and
wealth, comes Manchester. By and by we shall
speak of this great city in particular. For the
present the name must be taken in the broader
sense, equally its own, which carries with it the
idea of an immense district. Lancashire, east-
wards from Warrington, upwards as far as
Preston, is dotted over with little Manchesters,
and these in turn often possess satellites.
The idea of Manchester as a place of cotton
factories covers also a portion of Cheshire,
and extends even into Derbyshire and York-
shire— Stockport, Hyde, Stalybridge, Dukin-
field, Saddleworth, Glossop, essentially belong
to it. To all these towns and villages Man-
chester stands in the relation of a Royal
Exchange. It is the reservoir, at the same

The Cotton District 67

time, into which they pour their various pro-
duce. Manchester acquired this distinguished
position partly by accident, mainly through its
very easy access to Liverpool. At one time it
had powerful rivals in Blackburn and Bolton.
Blackburn lost its chance through the frantic
hostility of the lower orders towards machinery,
inconsiderate men of property giving them
countenance — excusably only under the law
that mental delusions, like bodily ailments,
are impartial in choice of victims. Bolton,
on the other hand, though sensible, was too
near to compete permanently, neither had it
similar access to Liverpool. The old sale-
rooms in Bolton, with their galleries and
piazzas, now all gone, were ninety years ago
a striking and singular feature of that busy
hive of spinning and weaving bees.

Most of these little Manchesters are places
of comparatively new growth. A century ago
nearly all were insignificant villages or hamlets.
Even the names of the greater portion were
scarcely known beyond the boundaries of their
respective parishes. How unimportant they
were in earlier times is declared by the vast
area of many of the latter, the parishes in
Lancashire, as everywhere else, having been
marked out according to the ability of the
population to maintain a church and pastor.

68 ///us/rations of Lancashire

It is not in manufacturing Lancashire as in the
old-fashioned rural counties, — Kent, Sussex,
Hampshire, and appled Somerset, — where on
every side one is allured by some beautiful
memorial of the lang syne. "Sweet Auburn,
loveliest village of the plain ' is not here.
Everything, where Cotton reigns, presents
the newness of aspect of an Australian colony.
The archaeological scraps — such few as there
may be — are usually submerged, even in the
older towns, in the "full sea " of recent build-
ing. Even in the graveyards, the places of
all others which in their tombstones and in-
scriptions unite past and present so tenderly,
the imagination has usually to turn away unfed.
In place of yew-trees old as York Minster, if
there be anything in the way of green monu-
ment, it is a soiled and disconsolate shrub from
the nearest nursery garden.

The situation of these towns is often pleasing
enough : sometimes it is picturesque, and even
romantic. Having begun in simple home-
steads, pitched where comfort and safety
seemed best assured, they are often found
upon gentle eminences, the crests of which,
as at Oldham, they now overlap ; others, like
Stalybridge, lie in deep hollows, or, like Black-
burn, have gradually spread from the margin
of a stream. Not a few of these primitive sites

The Cotton District 69

have the ancient character pleasingly com-
memorated in their names, as Haslingden, the
"place of hazel-nuts." The eastern border of
the county being characterised by lofty and
rocky hills, the localities of the towns and
villages are there often really favoured in
regard to scenery. This also gives great
interest to the approaches, as when, after
leaving Todmorden, we move through the
sinuous gorge that, bordered by Cliviger,
" mother of rocks," leads on to Burnley. The
higher grounds are bleak and sterile, but the
warmth and fertility of the valleys make amends.
In any case, there is never any lack of the
beauty which comes of the impregnation of
wild nature with the outcome of human intelli-
gence. Manchester itself occupies part of a
broad level, usually clay-floored, and with peat-
mosses touching the frontiers. In the bygones
nothing was sooner found than standing water :
the world probably never contained a town
that only thirty to a hundred years ago pos-
sessed so many ponds, many of them still in
easy recollection, to say nothing of as many
more within the compass of an afternoon's
walk.

Rising under the influence of- a builder so
unambitious as the genius of factories and
operatives' cottages, no wonder that a very

/O Illustrations of Lancashire

few years ago the Lancashire cotton towns
seemed to vie with one another which should
best deserve the character of cold, hard, dreary,
and utterly unprepossessing. The streets,
excepting the principal artery (originally the
road through the primitive village, as in the
case of Newton Lane, Manchester), not being
susceptible of material change, mostly remain
as they wrere — narrow, irregular, and close-
built. Happily, of late there has been im-
provement. Praiseworthy aspirations in regard
to public buildings are not uncommon, and even
in the meanest towns are at times undeniably
successful. In the principal centres — Man-
chester, Bolton, Rochdale, and another or two —
the old meagreness and unsightliness are daily
becoming less marked, and a QT>od deal that is
really magnificent is in progress as well as
completed. Unfortunately, the efforts of the
architect fall only too soon under the relentless
influence of the factory and the foundry.
Manchester is in this respect an illustration
of the whole group ; the noblest and most
elegant buildings sooner or later get smoke-
begrimed. Sombre as the Lancashire towns
become under that influence, if there be collieries
in the neighbourhood, as in the case of well-
named "coaly Wigan," the dismal hue is in-
tensified, and in dull and rainy weather grows

3 v**^*-^

WIGAN

The Cotton District 73

still worse. On sunshiny days one is reminded
of a sullen countenance constrained to smile
against the will.

A "Lancashire scene" has been said to
resolve into " bare hills and chimneys " ; and
as regards the cotton districts the description is,
upon the whole, not inaccurate. Chimneys
predominate innumerably in the landscape, a
dark pennon usually undulating from every
summit — perhaps not pretty pictorially, but in
any case a gladsome sight, since it means work,
wages, food, for those below, and a fire upon
the hearth at home. Though the sculptor may
look with dismay upon his ornaments in marble
once white as a lily, now under its visitation
gray as November, never mind — the smoke
denotes human happiness and content for
thousands : when her chimneys are smokeless,
operative Lancashire is hungry and sad.

In the towns most of the chimneys belong-
to the factories — buildings of remarkable ap-
pearance. The very large ones are many
storeys high, their broad and lofty fronts pre-
senting tier upon tier of monotonous square
windows. Decoration seems to be studiously
avoided, though there is often plenty of scope
for inexpensive architectural effects that, to say
the least, would be welcome. Seen by day,
they seem deserted ; after dark, when the in-

74 Illustrations of Lancashire

numerable windows arc lighted up, the spectacle
changes and becomes unique. Were it desired
to illuminate in honour of a prince, to render
a factory more brilliant from the interior would
be scarcely possible. Like all other great
masses of masonry, the very large ones, though
somewhat suggestive of prisons, if not grand,
are impressive. In semi-rural localities, where
less tarnished by smoke, especially when toler-
ably new, and not obscured by the contact of
inferior buildings, they are certainly very fine
objects. The material, it is scarcely needful
to say, is red brick.

All the towns belonging to the Manchester
family-circle present more or less decidedly
the features mentioned. They differ from one
another not in style, or habits, or physio-
gnomy ; the difference is simply that one makes
calico, another muslins, and that they cover a
less or greater extent of ground. The social,
moral, and intellectual qualities of the various
places form quite another subject of considera-
tion. For the present it must wait ; except
with the remark that a Lancashire manufactur-
ing town, however humble, is seldom without a
lyceum, or some similar institution ; and if
wealthy, is prone to emulate cities. Witness
the beautiful Art Exhibition held not long ago
at I )arwen !

WARRINGTON

The Cotton District yy

The industrial history of the important
Lancashire cotton towns, although their
modern development covers less than ninety
years, dates from the beginning of the four-
teenth century. As early as A.D. 131 1, temp.
Edward II., friezes were manufactured at
Colne, but, as elsewhere in the country, they
would seem to have been coarse and of little
value. "The English at that time," says
quaint old Fuller, " knew no more what to do
with their wool than the sheep that weare it, as
to any artificial curious drapery." The great
bulk of the native produce of wool was trans-
mitted to Flanders and the Rhenish provinces,
where it was woven, England repurchasing the
cloth. Edward III., allowing himself to be
guided by the far-reaching sagacity of his wise
queen, Philippa, resolved that the manufacture
should be kept at home. Parties of the
Flemish weavers were easily induced to come
over, the more so because wretchedly treated
in their own country. Manchester, Bolton,
Rochdale, and Warrington, were tenanted
almost immediately, and a new character was
at once given to the textile productions both of
the district and the island in general. Furness
Abbey was then in its glory ; its fertile pastures
supplied the wants of these industrious people :
they seem, however, not to have cared to push

78 Illustrations of Lancashire

their establishments so far, keeping in the
south and east of the county, over which they
gradually spread, carrying, wherever they went,
the "merry music of the loom." The same
period witnessed the original use of coal —
again, it is believed, through the advice of
Philippa ; the two great sources of Lancashire
prosperity being thus in their rise contempor-
aneous. The numerous little rivers and water-
falls of East Lancashire contributed to the
success of the new adventurers. Fulling-mills
and dye-works were erected upon the margins :
the particular spots are now only conjectural ;
mementoes of these ancient works are never-
theless preserved in the springing up occa-
sionally, to the present day, on the lower
Lancashire river-banks, of plants botanically
alien to the neighbourhood. These are specially
the fullers' teasel, Dipsacus fullouuni, and the
dyers' weed, Reseda luteola, both of which
were regularly used, the refuse, with seeds, cast
into the stream being carried many miles clown
and deposited where the plants now renew
themselves. The retention of their vitality by
seeds properly ripened, when buried too deep
for the operation of the atmosphere, sunshine,
and moisture, all at once, is well known to
naturalists, as well as their germination when
brought near enough to the surface of the

The Cotton District 79

ground. This ancient woollen manufacture
endured for quite 300 years. Cotton then
became a competitor, and gradually superseded
it ; Rochdale and a few other places alone
vindicating the old traditions.

The Flemings also introduced the national
sabots, from which have descended the wooden
clogs heard in operative Lancashire wherever
pavement allows of the clatter, only that while
the sabots were wholly wooden, with a lining of
lambskin, the Lancashire clogs have leathern
tops.

In the writings of the period before us,
and in others long afterwards, the Flemings'
woollens are called "cottonnes," a circumstance
which has led to much misapprehension as to
the date of the original use in England of
cotton ipsissima. In 1551-52, temp. Edward
VI., an " Acte " passed for the making of
"woollen clothe" prescribes the length and
breadth of "all and everie cottonnes called
Manchester, Lancashire, and Cheshire cot-
tonnes." Leland, in the following reign, men-
tions in similar phrase, that " divers villagers
in the moores about Bolton do make cottons."
Genuine cotton fabrics manufactured abroad
were known in England, no doubt, though the
raw material had not been seen. Chaucer
habits his Knight in " fustian," a word which

So Illustrations of Lancashire

points to Spain as the probable source. The
truth as regards the " cottonnes " would seem
to be that certain woollens were made so as to
resemble cotton, and called by the same name,
just as to-day certain calicoes have the look of
linen given to them, and are sold as " imitation
Irish," and as gloves made of the skins of
uncertain animals are passed off as " French
kid"; unless, indeed, as conjectured by some,
the word "cottonnes" was a corruption of
" coatings."

The employment of cotton for manufactur-
ing in England is mentioned first in 164.1,
when it was brought to London from Cyprus
and Smyrna. The word " cotton ' itself, we
need hardly say, is of oriental origin, taking one
back to India, the old-world birthplace of the
plant. Used there as the clothing material from
time immemorial, it is singular that the move-
ment westward should have been so slow.
The people who introduced it, practically, to
Europe, were the Moors, who in the tenth
century cultivated cotton in old Granada,
simultaneously with rice, the sugar-cane, and
the orange-tree, all brought by themselves from
Asia. In those days Moslems and Christians
declined to be friendly, and thus, although the
looms were never still, the superabundance of
the manufacture went exclusively to Africa and

The Cotton District 81

the Levant. The cotton-plant being indigenous
also to Mexico and the West Indies, when
commerce arose with the latter, Cyprus and
Smyrna no longer had the monopoly. Precise
dates, however, are wanting till the first years
of the eighteenth century, when the United
States and the Mersey of to-day had their
prototype in Barbadoes and the Lune, already
mentioned as having been a cotton port long
anterior to Liverpool. Lancaster city itself is
not accessible by ships. The cotton was
usually landed on the curious lingula which
juts into the Irish Sea where the estuary dis-
appears, and hither the country people used to
come to wonder at it.1 The first advertisement
of a sale of cotton in Liverpool appeared in
November 1758, but thirty years after that
Lancaster was still the principal Lancashire
seat of import. One of the most distinguished
of the " Lancashire worthies," old Mr. John
Blackburne, of Orford Mount, near Warring-
ton, an enthusiastic gardener, cultivated the
cotton-plant so successfully that he was able to
provide his wife with a muslin dress, worn by
her on some state occasion in or about 1 790,
the material derived wholly from the green-

1 Vide the Autobiography of JViu. Stoat, the old Quaker grocer,
ironmonger, and general merchant of Lancaster. He mentions
receiving cotton from Barbadoes in 1701, and onwards to 1725, when
the price advanced "from iod. to near 2s. id. the lb."

82 Illustrations of Lancashire

house he loved so fondly. Strange that, except
occasionally in an engine-room, we scarcely
ever see the cotton-plant in the county it has
filled with riches — the very place where one
would expect to find it cherished. How well
would it occupy a few inches of the space so
generally devoted to the pomps and vanities of
mere colour-worship ! Apart from the associa-
tions, it is beautiful ; the leaves resemble those
of the grape-vine ; the flowers are like single
yellow roses. There never was a flood without
its ark. One man a few years ago did his
part with becoming zeal — the late Mr. R.
H. Alcock, of Bury. Lancashire, it may be
allowed here to remind the reader, is the
only manufacturing district in England which
depends entirely upon foreign countries for the
supply of its raw material. One great distinc-
tion between England and other countries is that
the latter send away the whole, or very much,
of their natural produce, usually as gathered
together, England importing it and working it
up. How terribly the dependence in question
was proved at the time of the Federal and
Confederate war, all who were cognisant of the
great Cotton-famine will remember. Next in
order would come sugar and timber, a dearth
of either of which would unquestionably be
disastrous ; but not like want of cotton in

The Cotton District St,

Lancashire — the stranding of a whole com-
munity.

The Lancashire cotton towns owe their exist-
ence essentially to the magic touch of modern
mechanical art. During all the long proces-
sion of centuries that had elapsed since the
time of the "white-armed" daughter of Alcin-
ous, her maidens, and their spinning-wheels,
and of the swarthy weavers of ancient Egypt,
the primeval modes of manufacture had been
followed almost implicitly. The work of the
Flemings themselves was little in advance
of that of the Hebrews under Solomon. In
comparison with that long period, the time
covered by the change induced by machinery
was but a moment, and the growth of the
weaving communities, compared with that of
previous times, like a lightning- flash. The
movement commenced about 1760. Up till
long after the time of Elizabeth, the staple
manufacture of Lancashire, as we have seen,
was woollen. Flax, in the sixteenth century,
began to be imported largely, both from
Ireland and the Continent, and when cotton at
last arrived the two materials were combined.
Flax was used for the " warp " or longitudinal
threads, which in weaving require to be
stronger than the "woof," while cotton was em-
ployed only for the latter — technically the "weft."

84 Illustrations of Lancashire

Fabrics composed wholly of cotton do not
appear to have been made in Lancashire before
the time of George II., Bolton leading the way
with cotton velvets about 1 756. The cotton weft
was spun by the people in their own cottages,
chiefly by the women, literally the "spinsters"
of the family, representative eighteen centuries
afterwards, of the good housewife of the
Aincid and of the still older one in the Book
of Proverbs, though as the years rolled on
so greatly did the demand increase that every
child had work of one kind or another. Thus
began "infant labour," afterwards so much
abused. The employment of children over
thirteen in the modern factory is quite a
different thino-. Placed under legal restrictions,
it is a blessing alike to themselves and to their
parents, since if not there, the children now
earning their bread would be idling, and prob-
ably in mischief. Those, it has been well
said, who have to live by labour should early
be trained to labour. Diligent as they were,
the spinsters could not produce weft fast
enough for the weavers. Sitting at their looms,
which were also in the cottages, thoughtful
men pondered the possibilities of quicker
methods. Presently the dream took shape,
and from the successive inventions of Whyatt,
Kay, Highs, and Hargreaves, emerged the

THE DINNER HOUR

The Cotton District Sy

famous "spinning-jenny,"1 a machine which
did as much work in the same time as a dozen
pair of hands. Abreast of it came the warping-
mill, the carding-engine, and the roving-frame :
the latter particularly opportune, since the
difficulty had always been to disentangle the
fibres of the cotton prior to twisting, and to
lay them exactly parallel. Arkwright now
came on the scene. He himself never invented
anything ; but he had marvellous powers of
combination, such as enabled him to assimilate
all that was good in the ideas of other men, and
to give them unity and new vitality. The
result was machinery that gave exquisite even-
ness and attenuation to the " rovings," and a
patent having been granted 15th July 1769,
Arkwright is properly regarded as the founder
of the modern modes of manufacture. Ark-
wright possessed, in addition, a thoroughly
feminine capacity for good management and
perseverance, with that most excellent adjunct,
the art of obtaining ascendancy over capitalists.
Among the immediate results were the disuse
of linen warp, the new frames enabling cotton
warp to be made strong enough ; and the con-

1 That the spinning-jenny was so named after a wife or daughter of
one of the inventors is fable. The original wheel was the "jenny," a
term corresponding with others well known in Lancashire, — the "peggy "
and the "dolly," — and the new contrivance became the " spinning-
jenny."

88 Illustrations of Lancashire

centration of all the early processes, spinning'
included, in special buildings, with employment
of horse or water-power. The weaving, how-
ever, long remained with the cottagers, and
survives to a slight extent even to the present
day. The Lancashire cotton manufacture,
strictly so called, is thus very little more
than a century old. No further back than
in 1774, fabrics made wholly of cotton were
declared by statute to have been " lately
introduced," and a "lawful and laudable
manufacture."

The following year, 1775, saw the perfecting
of Crompton's celebrated " mule," which pro-
duced, at less expense, a much finer and
softer yarn than Arkwrrght's machine. It
was specially suitable for muslins ; and from
this date most assuredly should be reckoned
the elevation of the manufacture to its highest
platform. Like the jenny, it was used at first
in private houses, but a nobler application was
close at hand — a new revolution — the super-
seding of hand, and horse, and water power,
all at one moment, by steam. Had the former
remained the only artificial sources of help —
even supposing rivers and brooks not subject
to negation by drought, the cotton manufacture
must needs have been confined within narrow
limits, and the greatest conceivable supply of

The Cotton District 91

the raw material would not have altered the
case. Steam, which, like Lord Chatham,
" tramples upon impossibilities," at once gave
absolute freedom ; and manufacturing, in the
space of thirty years, eclipsed its history during
3000. The "mule" was now transferred to
the mill, and the factory system became com-
plete. Power-looms were first employed in
Manchester in 1806. Stockport followed, and
by degrees they became general, improvements
going on up till as late as 1830, when the
crowning triumph of cotton machinery was
patented as the "self-acting mule." The pride
of Lancashire, it must be remembered, consists,
after all, not in the delicacy and the beauty of
its cottons, for in these respects India has not
yet been out-run ; but in the rapidity, the
cheapness, and the boundless potentialities ol
the manufacture, which enable it to meet, it
called upon, the requirements of every nation in
the world. While any human creature remains
imperfectly clad, Lancashire still has its work
to do. To be entrusted with this great
business is a privilege, and in the honourable
execution consists its true and essential glory.
" Over-production," while any are naked, is a
phrase without meaning. That which wants
correcting is deficient absorption.

Reviewing the whole matter, the specially

9 2 Illustrations of L an cash ire

interesting point — rendered so through inciting
to profoundest reflection — is that those poor
and unlettered men — Hargreaves, Arkwright,
Crompton, and the others — were the instru-
ments, under Providence (for such things do
not happen fortuitously), by which the world
became possessed of an entirely new industrial
power, fraught with infinite capacities for pro-
moting human welfare ; and which, in its
application, introduced quite new styles of
thinking and reasoning, and gave new bias to
the policy of a great nation. Hargreaves,
Arkwright, Crompton, had no prescience of
what would come of their efforts. In no part
of the transformation was there any precedent
or example ; it had neither lineage nor inherit-
ance ; it was anticipated in momentousness
only by the inventions of Caxton and Gioia ; l
and if in our own day the electric telegraph and
the telephone reveal natural laws scarcely distin-
guishable from those of miracle, it may still be
questioned if these latter discoveries surpass in
intrinsic value the three or four that gave life
to the modern cotton manufacture.

The interior of a great cotton factory, when at
work, presents a spectacle altogether unimagin-
able. The vast area of the rooms, or "flats,"
filled in every part with machinery, admits of

1 Inventor of the mariners' compass.

The Cotton District 93

no comparison with anything else in England,
being found in the factory alone. A thousand
great iron frames, exquisitely composite, and
kept fastidiously clean, some by self-acting
dusters, are in simultaneous movement, the
arms of some rising and falling, while parts of
others march in and out, and to and fro, giving
perfect illustrations of order, reciprocal adap-
tation, and interdependence, and seeming not
only alive, but conscious. Nothing is more
striking, perhaps, than to watch the shuttles
as they dart alternately right and left, every
movement meaning an added thread to the
beautiful offspring. The poets are supposed
by some to concern themselves only with
fiction. Men and women who write verses are
poets only when they deal with truth, though
presented in the garb of fable ; and assuredly,
for a poet's theme, there is nothing to excel
a skilfully conducted human manufacture.
Erasmus Darwin, it will be remembered,
describes the whole series of processes in
connection with cotton as observed by him
in Arkwright's original factory upon the Der-
went.

A common practice is to have the looms in
a "shed" upon the surface of the ground. To
be as near the earth as possible is a desire no
less with the spinner, who, like the weaver,

94 Illustrations of Lancashire

finds the lower atmospheric conditions much
more favourable to his work than the upper.
In any case, where the power-looms are, long
lines of slender pillars support the roof, pre-
senting an unbroken and almost endless per-
spective ; and between the machinery and the
ceiling, connected with the horizontal shafts
which revolve just below it, are innumerable
strong brown leather straps that quiver as they
run their courses. According to the depart-
ment we may be in, either threads or coils of
cotton whiter than pearl, and of infinite
number, give occupation to those thousand
obedient and tireless slaves — not of the ring or
the lamp, but of the mighty engine that invis-
ibly is governing the whole ; and in attendance
are men and women, boys and girls, again
beyond the counting. Their occupations are in
no degree laborious : all the heavy work is done
by the steam-engine ; muscular power is not
wanted so much as delicacy and readiness of
hand and finger. Hence in the factory and
the cotton-mill there is opportunity for those
who are too weak for other vocations.
Machinery in all cases has the merit of at
once increasing the workman's wages and
lessening his fatigue. The precision in the
working of the machinery enforces upon those
who attend to it a corresponding regularity of

o
u

77/c Cot I on District 97

action. There is no re-twisting or re-weaving ;

everything, if done at all, must be done pro-
perly and at the proper moment. Apart from
its being a place wherein to earn creditably
the daily bread, if there be anything in the
world which conduces pre-eminently to the
acquisition of habits such as lie at the founda-
tion of good morals, — order, care, cleanliness,
punctuality, industry, early rising, — assuredly it
is the wholesome discipline of the well-ordered
cotton factory. Whatever may befall on/side,
there is nothing deleterious inside ; the per-
sonal intercourse of the people employed is
itself reduced to a minimum ; if they corrupt
one another, it is as people not in factories do.
In the rooms and "sheds" devoted to weaving,
the rattle of the machinery forbids even con-
versation, except when the voice is adjusted to
it. In the quieter parts the girls show their
contentedness not infrequently by singing —

"The joyful token of a happy mind."

"How often," says the type of the true
Lancashire poet, most genial of his race, — the
late Edwin Waugh. — "how often have I heard
some fine psalm-tune streaming in chorus from
female voices when passing cotton - mills at
work, and mingling with the spoom of thou-
sands of spindles." That the girls in par-

98 Illustrations of Lancashire

ticular are not unhappy is shown by their
preference of the cotton - mill to domestic
service. Their health is as good as that of
any other class of operatives ; and though they
have to keep upon their feet, it is not lor so
long a time as young women in city shops.
Of course there is a shadowy side to life
identified with the factory. The hands do not
live in Elysium, any more than the agricultural
labourer does in Arcadia. The masters, as
everywhere else, are both good and bad : in
the aggregate they are no worse than their
fellows in other places, and to expect them to
■be better would be premature. In case of
grievance or abuse there is an "inspector" to
apply to for remedy. The wages are as good
as those earned by any other large class of
English work-people; and if the towns in
which so many abide are unlovely, the Lanca-
shire cotton-operatives at all events know little
or nothing of the vice and filth of metropolitan
St. Giles'.

MANCHESTER

The writer of the entertaining article in the
Cornhilliox February 1880 upon "The Origin
of London ' shows that had the choice of the
best site for a capital to be made now, and for
the first time, the selection would naturally fall
upon south-east Lancashire, and on the par-
ticular spot covered by modern Manchester.
Geographically, as the author points out, it is
the centre of the three kingdoms ; and its
advantageousness in regard to commerce, all
things considered, is paramount. These facts
alone suffice to give interest to the locality ;
and that the town itself should have acquired
the importance now possessed, in some respects
almost metropolitan, looks not so much like
accident or good fortune as the fulfilment of a
law of Nature. The locality in question is by
no means picturesque. The ground, as said
before, is, on the Cheshire side, and westwards,

ioo Illustrations of Lancashire

nearly level, the country being here bordered
by the Mersey, a river, as Pennant long ago
remarked, utterly devoid along its course of
the charms usually identified with fairly broad
and winding streams. At Northen there are
some pleasant shaded pathways, with willows
and poplars like those upon which CEnone was
carved ; but the bank, if much above the level,
is artificial, the original having been raised with
a view to protecting the adjacent fields from
inundation in time of Hoods, such as occur not
infrequently — the Mersey being formed in the
beginning by the confluence of several minor
streams, which gather their waters from the
moors and the Derbyshire hills, and are apt to
be well filled and of rapid movement.

At a few miles' distance in other directions,
or receding from the Mersey, the ground be-
comes slightly elevated, and in parts agreeably
broken, as at Prestwich, and near Heywood,
where there are numberless little dells and
ravines, ferny and full of trees. These are a
pleasant change after the flatness on the
Cheshire side, but are too far away to be
called Manchester. To the Mersey Man-
chester makes no claim : three other rivers
are distinctly its own — the Irwell, which divides
the town from Salford, with its tributaries, the
Medlock, and the Irk; and of these, though

Manchester i o i

the colour is inexpressible, unless we go to
mythology for a term, it is proud, since no
three rivers in the world do harder work. All
three pass their earlier life in valleys which in
the bygones must have been delightful, and in
some parts romantic. Traditions exist to this
day of the times when in their upper reaches
they were " silver-eddied." For a long distance
before entering, and all the way while passing
through, they have now for many years been
converted into scavengers ; the trout, once so
plentiful, are extinct; there are water-rats
instead. This, perhaps, is inevitable in a dis-
trict which, though once green and tranquil,
has been transformed into an empire of work-
shops.

The Manchester rivers do not stand alone
in their illustration of what can be accom-
plished by the defiling energy of "works." In
the strictly manufacturing parts of South Lan-
cashire it would be difficult to find a single
watercourse of steady volume that any longer
"makes music with the enamelled stones."
The heroine of Verona1 would to-day be im-
pelled less to poetical similes than to epitaphs ;
no sylvan glade, however hidden, if there be
water in it, has escaped the visitation of the
tormentors. Are we then to murmur? — to

1 Two Gentlemen, ii. 7.

102 Illustrations of Lancashire

feel as if robbed ? By no means. Nothing
can be regretful that is inseparable from the
conditions of the industry and the prosperity of
a great nation. The holidays will be here by
and by. A couple of hours' railway journey
enables any one to listen to the "liquid lapse"
of streams clear and bright as Cherith.
Everything lovely has its place of safety
somewhere. However doleful the destiny of
the South Lancashire streams, a thousand
others that can never be sullied await us at a
little distance.

Little can be said in praise of the Manchester
climate, and that little, it must be confessed,
however reluctantly, is only negative. The
physicians are not more prosperous than else-
where, and the work of the Req;istrar-oeneral
is no heavier. On the other hand, the peach
and the apricot cannot ripen, and there is an
almost total absence of the Christmas ever-
greens one is accustomed to see in the southern
counties — the ilex to wit, the bay, the arbutus,
and the laurustinus. In the flourishing of these
consists the true test of geniality of climate ;
rhododendrons and gay flower - gardens, both
of which Manchester possesses in plenty, certify
nothing. Not that the climate is positively
cold, though as a rule damp and rainy. Snow
is often seen in the Midlands when in Man-

Manchester 103

Chester there is none. The special feature,
again negative, is deficiency of bright, warm,
encouraging sunshine. Brilliant days come at
times, and sultry ones ; but often for weeks
together, even in summer, so misty is the
atmosphere that where the sun should be in
view, except for an hour or two, there is only
a luminous patch.

The history of Manchester dates, the authori-
ties tell us, from the time of the " ancient
Britons." There is no need to go so far back.
The genuine beginnings of our English cities
and large towns coincide with the establish-
ment of the Roman power. They may have
been preceded in many instances by en-
trenched and perhaps rudely ramparted clusters
of huts, but it is Only upon civilisation that a
"town" arises. Laying claim, quite legiti-
mately, to be one of the eight primitive Lanca-
shire towns founded by Agricola, a.d. 79, its
veritable age, to be exact, is 181 2 years, or
nearly the. same as that of Warrington, where
the invaders, who came from Chester, found
the river fordable, as declared in the existing
name of the Cheshire suburb, and where they
fixed their original Lancashire stronghold.
Y\ nat is thought to have happened in Man-
chester during their stay may be read in
Whitaker. The only traces remaining of their

104 Illustrations of Lancashire

ancient presence are some fragments of the
"road " which led northwards over the present
Kersal Moor, and which are commemorated
in the names of certain houses at Higher
Broughton. The fact in the local history which
connects the living present with the past is
that the De Traffords of Trafford Hall possess
lands held by their ancestor in the time of
Canute. How it came to pass that the family
was not displaced by some Norman baron, an
ingenious novelist may be able perhaps to tell.
Private policy, secret betrothals, doubtless lay
in the heart of as many adjustments of the
eleventh century as behind many enigmas of
the nineteenth. The Traffords reside close to
" Throstlenest," a name occurring frequently
in Lancashire, where the spirit of poetry has
always been vigorous, and never more marked
than in appellations having reference to the
simple beauty of unmolested nature. At
Moston there is also Throstle-glen, one of the
haunts, half a century ago, of Samuel Bam-
ford. At the time spoken of the county was
divided into " tithe-shires." The " Hundred
of Salford " was called " Salford-shire," and in
this last was included Manchester ; so that
whatever dignity may accrue therefrom belongs
properly to the town across the river, which
was the first, moreover, to be constituted a free

Manchester 105

borough, receiving its charter in the time of
Henry III., who died in 1272, whereas the
original Manchester charter was not granted
till 1 30 1. To all practical intents and pur-
poses, the two places now constitute a social
and commercial unity. Similar occupations are
pursued in both, and the intercourse is as con-
stant as that of the people who dwell on the
opposite sides of the Thames.

The really important date in the history of
Manchester is that of the arrival of the Flemish
weavers in the reign of Edward III. Though
referable in the first instance, as above men-
tioned, to the action of the king and the far-
seeing Philippa, their coming to Manchester
seems to have been specially promoted by the
feudal ruler of the time — De la Warre, heir of
the De Grelleys, and predecessor of De Lacy-
men all of great distinction in old Manchester
records. Leading his retainers to the field of
battle, De la Warre literally, when all was over,
turned the spear into the pruning-hook, bring-
ing home with him some of these industrious
people, and with their help converting soldiers
into useful artisans. A wooden church had
been erected at a very early period upon the
sandstone cliff by the river, where the outlook
was pleasant over the meadows and the arriving
Irk. By 1422, so much had the town increased,

io6 Illustrations of Lancashire

it sufficed no longer, and then was built
the noble and beautiful "old church," the
"cathedral" of to-day, the body of which is
thus now nearly 470 years old.1

Up till 1656 the windows of this fine church,
in conformity with the first principles of all
high-class Plantap-enet and Tudor ecclesiastical
architecture, were coloured and pictorial ; the
design being that they should represent to the
conoreeation assembled inside some qrand or
touching Scripture incident, making palpable
to the eye what the ear might be slow to
apprehend. In the year mentioned they were
broken to pieces by the Republicans, one of
the reasons, perhaps, why the statue of Crom-
well— the gloomy figure in the street close by
— has been so placed as for the ill-used building
to be behind it. While the church was in its
full beauty the town was visited by Leland,
who on his way through Cheshire passed
Rostherne Mere, evidently, from his language,
as lovely then as it is to-day :

" States fall, arts fade, but Nature doth not die ! "

" Manchestre," he tells us, was at that period
(temp. Henry YIII.) "the fairest, best-builded,
quikkest, and most populous Tounne of Lan-

1 The original lower remained till 1S64, when, being considered
insecure, ii was taken down, and the existing facsimile erected in its
place.

M WCHESTF.R CATHEDRAL

Manchester 109

castreshire" (v. 78). Whatever the precise
comparative meaning of "fairest and best-
builded," there can be no doubt that in Leland's
time, and for a long subsequent period, Man-
chester was rich in houses of the Elizabethan
type, including many occupied by families of
note. The Q-reater number of these would be
" magpie," or wood and plaster fronted, in black
and white, the patterns, though simple, often
very ingenious, as indicated in relics which have
only lately disappeared, and in the old country
halls of the same period still perfect, which we
shall come to by and by. The style of the
inferior kind is shown in an old tavern, the
"Seven Stars," in Withy-grove.

At the commencement of the Civil Wars
Manchester was important enough to be a
scene of heavy contest. The sympathies of the
town, as a whole, were with the Parliament ;
not in antagonism to royalty, but because of
the suspicion that Charles secretly befriended
Popery. It was the same belief which
estranged Bolton — a place never in heart
disloyal, so long as the ruler does his own
part in faithfulness and honour. Standing in
the Cathedral graveyard, it is hard to imagine
that the original of the bridge now called the
"Victoria" was once the scene of a deadly
struggle, troops filling the graveyard itself.

1 10 Illustrations of Lancashire

Here, however, it was that the severest assault
was made by the Royalists, unsuccessfully, as
were all the other attacks, though Manchester
never possessed a castle, nor even regularly con-
structed fortifications.

The town was then "a mile in length," and
the streets were "open and clean." Words
change their meaning with lapse of time, and
the visitor who in 1650 thus describes them
may have been given a little to overpraise ; but
if Manchester deserved such epithets, alas for
the condition of the streets elsewhere ! As the
town increased in size, the complexion may
also very possibly have deteriorated. The
fact remains, that after the lapse of another 1 50
years, say in 1800, it was inexpressibly mean
and common, continuing so in a very con-
siderable degree up to a period quite recent.
People who know Manchester only as it looks
to-day can form no conception of the beggarly
appearance of most of the central part no further
back than during; the reign of George IV.
Several years after he came to the throne,
where Market Street now is, there was only a
miserable one-horse lane, with a footpath of
less than twenty-four inches. Narrow " entries "
led to adjacent " courts." Railed steps led
down to cellars, which were used for front
parlours. The shops were dark and low-

Manchester i 1 1

browed ; of ornament there was not a scrap.
Mosley Street, King Street, and one or two
others comparatively modern, presented, no
doubt a very decided contrast. Still it was
without the slightest injustice that so late as
in or about 1845 ^r- Cobden described Man-
chester as the shabbiest city in Europe for its
wealth. That the town needed some improve-
ment is indicated rather suggestively by the
fact, that between 1832 and 1861 the authorities
paved, drained, and flagged the footways of no
fewer than 1578 streets, measuring upwards of
sixty miles in length. Many of them, certainly,
were new, but the great mass of the gracious
work was retrospective. These matters are worth
recalling, since it is only by comparison with the
past that modern Manchester can be appreciated.
Shortly after the Restoration there was a
considerable influx, as into Liverpool, from the
surrounding country; and by 1710 again had
the population so much increased that a second
church became necessary, and St. Anne's was
erected, cornfields giving place to the " Square."
St. Anne's being the "new" church, the exist-
ing one was thenceforwards distinguished as
the "old."1 Commerce shortly afterwards

1 St. Anne's was so named in compliment to the queen then on the
throne. "St. Ann's," like "Market-street Lane," came of careless-
ness or something worse. The thoroughfare so called was properly
Market-stead Lane — i.e. the lane leading to the Market-place.

i 1 2 Illustrations of Lancashire

received important stimulus by the Irwell being

ST. ANNES SQ1 Ai;l . M \M HESTER

mack: navigable to its point of confluence
with the Mersey, and by the erection of the

Manchester i 1 3

original Manchester Exchange. In 1757 War-
rington, the first town in Lancashire to publish
a newspaper, was imitated in the famous old
Manchester Mercury. Then came the grand
inventions above described, upon which quickly
arose the modern cotton manufacture. In 177 1
a Bank and Insurance Office were found
necessary, and in less than a year afterwards
the renowned " Jones Loyds " had its beginning.
Social and intellectual movements were acceler-
ated by the now fast developing Manchester
trade. Liverpool had founded a Subscription
Library in 1758: Manchester followed suit in
1765. In 1 78 1 a Literary and Philosophical
Society was set on foot, and in 1792 Assembly
Rooms were built.

New streets were now laid out, — to-day, so
vast has been the subsequent growth, em-
bedded in the heart of the town,— the names
often taken from those of the metropolis, as
Cannon Street, Pall Mall, Cheapside, and
Spring Gardens, and at a little later period
Bond Street and Piccadilly. Factories sprang
up in not a few of the principal thoroughfares :
perhaps it would be more correct to say that
the building of factories often led to the
formation of new streets. The kind of variety
they conferred on the frontages is declared to
the present day in Oxford Road. Similar

ii4

Illustrations of Lancashire

buildings, though not so large, existed till very
lately where now not a vestige of them remains.
The " Manchester and Sal ford Bank" occupies
the site of a once important silk-mill. Gather-
ing round them the inferior class of the popula-
tion,— the class unable to move into more
select neighbourhoods when the town is re-
lished no longer, — it is easy to understand
how, in most parts of Manchester that are
fifty years old, splendour and poverty are never
far asunder. In London, Bath, Leicester, it
is possible to escape from the sight of
rags and squalor : in Manchester they are
within a bow-shot of everything upon which
the town most prides itself. The circumstance
referred to may be accounted for perhaps
in part by the extreme density of the popula-
tion, which exceeds that of all other English
manufacturing towns, and is surpassed only in
Liverpool.1 Manchester, it may be added, has
no "court-end." When the rich took (light
they dispersed themselves in all directions.
They might well depart. The reputation of
Manchester in respect of "smuts," that, like

1 The population per statute acre of the towns referred to, and of

rast, is as follows :

one 01 ivvo ouicis, \\ n

Liverpool .

1 II ma) i ic us

106

emu) (an in ewiiii.

Sal ford

im, i^ no luuuira .
■ ■ 38

Manchester

• «5

Oldham .

. 26

Plymouth .

• 54

Nottingham

London

• 49

Sheffield .

Bristol

Leeds

• '5

Birmingham

. 48

Norwich

Manchester 1 1 5

the rain in Shelley, are "falling for ever," is
only too well deserved ; and, despite of legal
enactments, it is to be feared is inalienable.

Architecturally, modern Manchester takes
quite a foremost place among the cities by
reason of its two great achievements in Gothic
— the Assize Courts and the new Town-hall.
Classical models were followed up till about
i860, as in the original Town-hall (1822-25)
- now the City Free Library ; the Royal
Institution, the Concert Hall (1825-30), and
the Corn Exchange — one of the happiest efforts
of a man of real ability, the late Mr. Lane.
The new Exchange also presents a fine
example of the Corinthian portico. After Mr.
Lane, the town was fortunate in possessing
Mr. Walters, since it was he who introduced
artistic details into warehouse fronts, previously
to his time bald and vacant as the face of a
cotton-mill. Very interesting examples of the
primitive Manchester warehouse style are
extant in Peel Street and thereabouts. Man-
chester is now employed in rebuilding itself, to
a considerable extent, under the inspiration
received originally from Mr. Walters, and here
and there very chastely. Would that his
impress could have been seen upon the whole
of the newly-contrived. We should then have
been spared the not uncommon spectacle of

1 16 I /lust rat ions of Lancashire

the grotesque, to say nothing of the grimaces
of the last few years. It is not to be over-
looked that the whole of the improvement
in Manchester street architecture has been
effected since 1840. Four-fifths of all the
meritorious public buildings, the modern banks
also, and nearly all the ecclesiastical architec-
ture that deserves the name, may be referred
to the same period. The Assize Courts and
the new Town-hall are both from designs by
Mr. Waterhouse completed. The former were
in 1866, but not used till July 1868, three
months after which time the first stone was laid
of the superb pile in Albert Square. The gilt
ball at the apex of the tower, 286 feet high,
was fixed 4th January 1876. The dimensions
may be imagined from the number of separate
apartments (314), mostly spacious, and ap-
proached, as far as possible, by corridors,
which are as well proportioned as elaborate in
finish. The cost up to 15th September 1877,
when much remained to be done, including
nearly the whole of the internal decoration,
was ,£751,532. In designing the coloured
windows, Mr. Waterhouse is said to have had
the assistance of a lady. Without pressing for
the secret, it is undeniable that the tints are
blended with a sense of delicate harmony purely
feminine. Some people prefer the Assize

TOWN HALL, MANCHESTER

Manchester i i 9

Courts — a glorious building", peculiarly distin-
guished for its calmness. Structures of such
character cannot possibly correspond. Perhaps
it may be allowed to say that the Assize Courts
seem to present in greater perfection the unity
of feeling indispensable to all great works of
art, however varied and fanciful the details.
Due regard being paid to the intrinsic fitness
of things and their moral significance, which
in Art, when aspiring to the perfect, should
always be a prime consideration, it may be
inquired, after all, whether Gothic is the
legitimate style for municipal offices. We
cannot here discuss the point. Liverpool
would have to be heard upon the other side.
Better, in any case, to have a Gothic town
hall than to see churches and chapels copy the
temples devoted a couple of thousand years
ago to the deities of pagan Greece and Rome.
It is not pleasant on a Sunday forenoon to be
reminded of Venus, Apollo, and Diana. The
new Owens College buildings, Oxford Road,
are early fourteenth century Gothic, and when
complete will present one of the finest groups
of the kind in England. The architect (Mr.
Waterhouse), it has been well said, has here, as
elsewhere, "not fettered himself with ancient
traditions, but endeavoured to make his learn-
ing a basis rather than a limit of thought."

1 20 Illustrations of Lancashire

A great treat awaits the stranger also in the
Catholic "Church of the Holy Name," a few
steps beyond the Owens College. For a passer-
by to help noting the beautiful western front
and the maze of lofty buttresses and pinnacles
is impossible. Ornament has been expended
with a lavish but not indiscriminate profusion,
the general effect being one of perfect sym-
metry— a character possessed equally by the
interior. The style is geometric Gothic of the
thirteenth century, to the capacities of which,
all will acknowledge, Mr. Hanson has done full
justice. The very gracefully designed Tudor
buildings at Old Trafford, well known as the
Asylums for the Blind and the Deaf and
Dumb, were erected in 1838.

Manchester is much less of a manufacturing1
town at present, in proportion to its extent and
the entire breadth of its business life, than
when the cotton trade was young. Now, as
described in the preceding chapter, the towns
and villages outside are all devoted to spinning
and weaving. While Liverpool is one great
wharf, the middle of Manchester is one great
warehouse — a reservoir for the production of
the whole district. The trade falls under two
principal heads — the Home and the Export. In
either case, the produce of the looms, wherever
situate, is bought just as it Hows from them —

Manchester 1 2 1

rough, or, technically, " in the grey." It is
then put into the hands of bleachers, dyers, or
printers, according to requirement, and after-
wards handed to auxiliaries called " makers-
up." Very interesting is it to observe, in
going through a great warehouse, not only how
huge is the quantity waiting transfer, but how
differently the various fabrics have to be folded
and ornamented so as to meet the taste of the
nations and foreign countries they are intended
for. Some prefer the absolutely plain ; others
like little pictures ; some want bright colours,
and embellishment with o;old and silver. The
uniformity of the general business of Man-
chester allowed of agreement, in November
1843, to shut all doors upon Saturdays at one
o'clock. The warehouse half-holiday movement
soon became universal, and now, by four or
five p.m. on Saturdays large portions of the
middle of the town are as quiet as upon
Sundays.

The composition of the Manchester com-
munity is extremely miscellaneous. A steady-
influx of newcomers from all parts of Great
Britain — Scotland very particularly — has been
in progress for eighty or ninety years, and seems
likely to continue. Not very long ago the
suburb called Greenheys was regarded as a
German colony. Many Levantine Greeks

[22 I II usl rations of Lancashire

have also settled in Manchester, and of Jews
the estimated number is ten thousand. Not-
withstanding the influence which these new-
comers have almost necessarily, though unde-
signedly, brought to bear upon the general
spirit of the town, the original Lancashire
character is still prominent, though greatly
modified, both for the better and the worse.
Primitive Lancashire is now confined perhaps
to Rossendale, where, after all, it would be felt
that Manchester is the better place to live in.
The people were distinguished of old by
industry and intense frugality, the women in
particular being noted for their thrift. They
were enterprising, vigilant, shrewd, and pos-
sessed of marvellous aptitude for business :
they had judgment, and the capacity for minute
and sleepless care which is quite as needful as
courage to success in life, and which to many
a man has been better capital to start with
than a well-filled purse. Hence the countless
instances in South Lancashire of men who,
additionally fortunate in being born at the
favourable moment, though at first earning
wages of perhaps fifteen shillings a- week as
porters or mill-hands, rose by degrees to opu-
lence, and in man)- cases laid the foundation of
families now in the front rank of local import-
ance. Considering the general history, it is

Manchester i 2 5

easy to understand why carriage - heraldry,
except of the worthless purchaseable kind, is
scanty ; and not difficult either to account for
the pervading local shyness as to pedigrees and
genealogies. Curiously in contrast, one of the
very rare instances of an untitled family having
supporters to the heraldic shield is found in
Ashton-under-Lyne, Mr. Coulthart the banker
being entitled to them by virtue of descent
from one of the ancient Scottish kings. To a
Lancashire magnate of the old school it was
sufficient that he was himself. The disposition is
still locally vigorous, and truly many of the living
prove that to be so is a man's recommendation.
None of the excellent attributes possessed by,
for instance, the original Peels and Ainsworths,
have disappeared, though it cannot be denied
that in other cases there has been inheritance
of the selfish habits, contracted ideas, and
coarsely-moulded character, so often met with
in men who have risen from the ranks. Given
to saying and doing the things natural to them,
no people were ever more devoid than the
genuine Lancashire men, as they are still, of
frigid affectations, or less given to assumption of
qualities they did not possess. If sometimes
startled by their impetuosities, we can generally
trust to their candour and whole-heartedness,
especially when disposed to be friendly, the

126 Illustrations of Lancashire

more so since they are little inclined to pay
compliments, and not at all to ilatter.

That men of small beginnings, and who
have had little or no education, are apt, on
becoming rich, to be irritable, jealous, and
overbearing, is true perhaps everywhere ; in
Lancashire it has been observed with satisfac-
tion that the exceptions are more numerous than
the rule. Whatever the stint and privations
in the morning of life, these, it has been again
observed, have seldom led to miserly habits
when old. Most of the modern Lancashire
wealthy (or their fathers, at all events, before
them) began with a trifle. Hence the legiti-
mate pride they take in their commercial belong-
ings— a genuine Lancashire man would rather
you praised his mill or warehouse than his
mansion. So far from becoming miserly, no
one in the world deteriorates less. Most
Lancashire capitalists are well aware that it is
no credit to a man of wealth to be in arrears
with the public, and when money is wanted for
some noble purpose are quick in response.
This, however, represents them but imper-
fectly. Of a thousand it might be said with as
much truth as of the late Sir Benjamin Hey-
wood, the eminent Manchester banker, " He
dared to trust God with his charities, and
without a witness, and risk the consequences."

Manchester 127

So much for the Lancashire heart ; though on
many of its excellent attributes, wanting space,
we have not touched. The prime character-
istic of the head seems to consist, not in the
preponderance of any particular faculty, but in
the good working order of the faculties in
eeneral ; so that the whole can be brouoht to
bear at once upon whatever is taken in hand.1

The Lancashire man has plenty of faults
and weaknesses. His energy is by no means
of that admirable kind which is distinguished
by never degenerating into restlessness ; neither
in disputes is he prone to courtly forbearance.
Sincerity, whether in friend or foe, he admires
nevertheless ; whence the exceptional toleration
in Lancashire of all sorts of individual opinions.
Possessed of good, old-fashioned common-sense,
when educated and reflective he is seldom
astray in his estimate of the essentially worthy
and true ; so that, however novel occasionally
his action, we may be pretty sure that under-
neath it there is some definite principle of
equity. Manchester put forth the original

1 For delineations of local and personal character in full we look to
the novelists. After supreme Scarsdale, and the well-known tales by
Mrs. Gaskell and Mrs. Banks, may be mentioned, as instructive in
regard to Lancashire ways and manners, Coultotirs Factory, by Miss
Emily Rod well, and the first portion of Mr. Hirst's Hiram Greg.
Lord Beaconsfield's admirable portrait of Millbank, the Lancashire
manufacturer, given in Coningsby in 1S44, had for its original the late
Mr. Edmund Ashworth of Turton, whose mills had been visited by
the author, then Mr. Disraeli, the previous year.

128 Illustrations of Lancashire

programme of the "free and open church"
system ; and from one of the suburbs came
the first cry for the enfranchisement of women.
Lancashire, if nothing else, is frank, cordial,
sagacious, and given to the sterling humanities
of life. These always revolve upon Freedom,
whence, yet again in illustration of the Lan-
cashire heart, the establishment of the Society
(original in idea, if not unique) for the Pre-
servation of Ancient Footpaths.1 The large
infusion of the German element has been
immensely beneficial, not only in relation to
commerce, but to the general culture of the
town. It is owing in no slight degree to the
presence of educated Germans that the Man-
chester "shippers," in their better portion, now
resemble the corresponding class in Liverpool.
The change for the better, since the time
when Coleridge met with his odd reception,
is quite as marked, no doubt, among the
leaders of the Home commerce, in whose
ranks are plenty of peers of the Liverpool
"gentlemen." Records of the past are never
without their interest. During the siege, the
command of the defence was in the hands of
Colonel Rosworm, a celebrated German engin-
eer, who, when all was over, considered himself

1 Founded in 1826. See the interesting particulars in .Mr. Prentice's
Historical Sketches and Personal Recollections, pp. 289-295. 1851.

Manchester 129

ill-used, and published a pamphlet complaining
of the town's injustice, enumerating the oppor-
tunities he had had of betraying it to the
Royalists, and of dividing the inhabitants
against themselves. " But then," he adds,
" I should have been a Manchester man, for
never let an unthankful one, or a promise-
breaker, bear another name ! " On the title-
page of " The Pole Booke for Manchester,
2 2d May 1690," an old list of the inhabitants,
printed by the Chetham Society, the aforetime
owner has written, " Generation of vipers ! "

Manchester is now, like Liverpool, if not a
school of refinement, one of the principal seats
of English culture. It possesses not fewer
than ten or twelve fine libraries, including the
branches of the City Free Library, established
under Mr. E wart's Act, which last are available
on Sundays, and are freely used by the class
of people the opening was designed to benefit.
The staff of assistants at the City Library and
its branches consists very largely of young
women. There is another first-class Free
Library in Salford, with, in the same build-
ing, a Free Gallery of Paintings, and a well-
arranged and thoroughly useful museum. The
" Athenaeum " provides its members with 60,000
newspapers per annum, and, in addition, 9500
weekly, and 500 monthly and quarterly maga-

130 Illustrations of Lancashire

zines. Societies devoted to science, literature,
and the fine arts exist, as in Liverpool, in
plenty. The exhibitions of paintings at the
Royal Institution have always been attractive,
and never more so than during the last few-
years, when on Sunday afternoons they have
been throwrn open to the public gratis. The
"School of Design," founded in October 1838,
now called the "School of Art," recently pro-
vided itself with a proper home in Grosvenor
Square. There is also a society expressly of
"Women Painters," the works of many of
whom have earned honourable places. In
addition to its learned societies, Manchester
stands alone, perhaps, among English cities
in having quite seven or eight set on foot
purely with a view to rational enjoyment in
the fields, the observation of Nature in its most
pleasing and suggestive forms, and the obtain-
ing accurate knowledge of its details — the birds,
the trees, and the wild-flowers. The oldest of
these is the " Field- Naturalists and Archaeolo-
gists," founded in i860. The members of the
youngest go by the name of the "Grass-
hoppers." Flower-shows, again, are a great
feature in Manchester : some held in the Town-
hall, others in the Botanical Gardens. In
August 1 88 1 the greatest and richest Horti-
cultural Exhibition of which there is record was

Manchester r 3 1

held at Old Trafford, in the gardens, lasting
five days, and with award in prizes of upwards
of ^"2000. Laid out within a few yards of the
ground occupied in 1857 by the celebrated
Fine Art Treasures Exhibition, the only one of
the kind ever attempted in England, it was no
less brilliant to the visitor than creditable to the
promoters. No single spot of earth has ever
been devoted to illustrations so exquisite of the
most beautiful forms of living nature, and of
the artistic talent of man than were then brought
together.

Music is cultivated in Manchester with a
zest quite proportionate to its value. The
original "Gentlemen's Concert Club" was
founded as far back as the year of alarm
1745. The local love of glees and madrigals
preserves the best traditions of the Saxon
"glee-men." On 10th March 1881 the
veteran Charles Halle, who quite recently
had been earning new and glorious laurels
at Prague, Vienna, and Pesth, led the five
hundredth of his great concerts in the Free-
trade Hall. "Our town," remarked the
Guardian in its next day's report of the pro-
ceedings, "is at present the city of music
par excellence in England. . . . The outside
world knows three things of Manchester — that
it is a city of cotton, a city of economic ideas,

1 3 2 Illustrations of Lancashire

and a city of music. Since then the old
character has been more than well sustained.
Cobden was perhaps the first who made
all the world see that Manchester had a turn
for the things of the mind as well as for the
production of calico and the amassing of money.
Similarly, Mr. Halle has made it evident to all
the world that there is in Manchester a public
which can appreciate the best music conveyed
in the best way." It is but fair to the sister
city to add that the first musical festival in the
north of England was held in Liverpool in
1 784, and that the erection of St. George's
Hall had its germ in the local musical tastes
and desire for their full expression.

A eood deal might be said in regard to the
religious and ecclesiastical history of Man-
chester, a curious fact in connection with which
is, that between 1798 and 1820, though the
population had augmented by 80,000, nothing
was done on their behalf by the Episcopate.
The Wesleyan body dates from 7th May 1747,
when its founder preached at Salford Cross — a
little apartment in a house on the banks of the
Irwell, where there were hand-looms, being
insufficient to accommodate the congregation
assembled to hear him. The literary history
of Manchester is also well worthy of extended
treatment ; and, above all, that of the local

Manchester 133

thought and private spirit, the underlying
current which has rendered the last sixty or
seventy years a period of steady and exemplary
advance. To some it may seem a mere coin-
cidence, a part only of the general progress
of the country ; but advance, whether local
or national, implies impetus received ; and
assuredly far more than simple coincidence
is involved in the great reality that the
growth of the town in all goodly respects,
subsequently to the uprise of the cotton
trade, has been exactly contemporaneous with
the life and influence of the newspaper just
quoted — the Manchester Guardian — the first
number of which was published 5th May 1821.

MISCELLANEOUS INDUSTRIAL OCCUPATIONS

Lancashire is not only the principal seat of the
English cotton manufacture. Over and above
the processes which are auxiliary to it and
complete it, many are carried on of a nature
altogether independent, and upon a scale so
vast as again to give this busy county the pre-
eminence. The mind is arrested not more by
the variety than by the magnitude of Lan-
cashire work. Contemplating the inexpressible
activity, all directed to a common end, one
cannot but recall the famous description of the
building of Carthage, with the simile which
makes it vivid for all ages. Like all other
manifold work, it presents also its amusing
phases. In Manchester there; are professional
" knockers-up M -men whose business it is to
tap at up-stair windows with a long wand,
when the time comes to arouse the sleeper
from his pillow.

Miscellaneous Industrial Occupations 135

The industrial occupations specially identified
with the cotton trade are bleaching, dyeing,
and calico-printing. Bleaching, the plainest
and simplest, was effected originally by ex-
posure of the cloth to the open air and solar
light. Spread over the meadows and pastures,
as long as summer lasted, the country, wherever
a "whiter" or " whitster " pursued his call-
ing, was more wintry-looking in July than often
at Christinas. The process itself was tedious,
requiring incessant attention, as well as being
liable to serious hindrance, and involving much
loss to the merchant through the usually long
delay. Above all, it conduced to the moral
damage of the community, since the bleaching
crofts were of necessity accessible, and furnished
to the ill-disposed an incentive to the crime
which figures so lamentably in their history.
That changes and events, both good and evil,
are prone to come in clusters is a very ancient
matter of observation. At the precise moment
when the ingenious machinery produced by
Hargreaves, Arkwright, and Crompton, was
developing its powers, a complete revolution
took place in regard to bleaching. Scheele
discovered that vegetable colours gave way
to chlorine. Berthollet and Dr. Henry (the
latter residing in Manchester) extended and
perfected the application. By 1774 the bleach-

136 Illustrations of Lancashire

ing process had been shortened one-half; the
meadows and pastures were released ; the
summer sunshine fell once more upon verdure,

" Diffugere nives, redeunt jam gramma campis " ;

and by about 1790 the art became what we
have it to-day, one purely for indoors. The
new method was first practised successfully in
the neighbourhood of Bolton, which place has
preserved its original reputation, though long
since rivalled in every part of the cotton-
manufacturing district, and often in more
distant spots, a copious supply of clean water
being indispensable, and outweighing in its
value the advantages of proximity to town.
Many successive steps have to be taken before
perfect whiteness can be secured, these de-
manding the utmost care and the strictest order
of procedure. Finally, unless destined for the
dye-house or the print-works, the cloth is
stiffened with starch made from wheaten flour,
the consumption of which article is very large
also in the factories, where it is employed to
give tenacity to the yarn, reacting beneficially
upon the agricultural interest ; then, in order
to give it the beautiful smoothness and gloss
which remind one of the petals of the snow-
drop, it is pressed between huge rollers which
play against one another under the influence of

Miscellaneous Industrial Occupations 137

powerful engines. On emerging from them it
is said to have been " cylindered," or, corruptly,
"calendered." Bleaching, it will appear from
this, is a process which but slightly taxes human
strength. Very interesting is it to note how, in
the presence of chemistry and steam, the old
word "manufacture" has in modern times
changed its meaning. To-day the office of
human finders is less to "make" than to
guide the forces of nature, all the harder work
being delegated to inanimate wood and iron.
The time ordinarily allowed for bleaching is
one or two days, though, if needful, the entire
process can be accelerated. The cost is about
a halfpenny per yard.

Dyeing is carried on in Lancashire quite as
extensively as bleaching. Here, again, the
exactest chemical knowdedo-e is wanted. The
managers are usually men well versed in
science. A visit to an important dye-works
always awakens the liveliest sentiments of
admiration, and wrere it not for the relentless
fouling of the streams which receive the refuse,
few scenes of industry would live longer in
pleasant memory. For although dye-works
exist in towns and their suburbs, they are
more frequently established out in the country,
where there are babbling brooks and "shallow
falls," with a view to obtaining a plentiful and

1 38 Illustrations of Lancashire

steady supply of clean water. Factories also
are sometimes found amid the fields, occupying
quite isolated positions, the object being similar
— the command of some definite local advan-
tage. When at the foot of a hill it is interest-
ing to observe that the chimney is placed half-
way up the slope, a preliminary underground
passage inducing a more powerful draught.

It is in the neighbourhood of these rural
establishments that the hurt done by manu-
facturing to the pristine beauty of the country
becomes conspicuous. Near the towns the
results are simply dirt, withered hedges, and
a general withdrawal of meadow adornment.
In the country we perceive how the pic-
turesque becomes affected. Railways are not
more cruel. Cotton, with all its kindliness,
reverses the celestial process which makes
the wilderness blossom as the rose. There
are differences in degree — the upper portion
of the Irwell valley, near Summerseat, is in
a measure exceptional ; but we must never
expect to find a spot wholly devoid of illustra-
tions of blight and mischief. Against the
destruction of natural beauty, when works and
factories assume the sway, of course must be
set not only the employment of the industrious,
but the enormous rise in the value of the land ;
since rise of such character is a sign of advanc-

Miscellaneous Industrial Occupations 139

ing civilisation, which in due time will more
than compensate the damage. In the manu-
facturing parts of Lancashire land available for
farming purposes commands ten times the
rental of a century ago. Mr. Henry Ashworth's
paper on the increase in the value of Lanca-
shire property, published in 1841, showed that
since 1692 the rise in Bolton had been six
hundredfold.

The highest place in the trio of beautiful
arts now before us is held undeniably by
calico-printing, since it not only " paints " the
woven fabric "with delight," but in its power
to multiply and vary the cheerful pictures is
practically inexhaustible ; thus representing,
and in the most charming manner, the out-
come of the sweet facility of the seasons.
Next to the diversities of living flowers
assuredly come the devices of the pattern-
designer who discreetly goes to nature for
his inspiration. Much of his work must of
necessity be conventionalised, and some of it
cannot be other than arbitrary and artificial ;
but there is no reason why, in its steadiest
practice, strictly natural forms and colours
should not always be regarded as truest and
best. The tendency is daily more and more
in this direction, so that calico-printing may
justly anticipate a future even more distin-

140 Illustrations of Lancashire

guished than its present and its past. The
"past," if we press for the birthday, is an
ancient one indeed. Not to mention the
chintzes of India, in the days of Calidasa,
Pliny shows us very plainly that printing by
means of mordants was practised in Egypt
in the first century of the Christian era.
When introduced into Western Europe is
not known ; for our present sketch it is
enough that in England it began about a.d.
1 700, coming, like many other excellent things,
of the short - sighted efforts of selfishness,
which, fortunately for mankind, always invites
the retaliations of generosity. In the year
mentioned, 1 700, with a view to favouring
the manufacturers of woollen and silk, the
importation of prints from India was for-
bidden. Experiments were at once made
with a view to production of similar work
at home. This was soon discovered to be
practicable, and preparations were, made for
printing upon a large scale, and at a moderate
cost, when a new hindrance arose — say rather
that the old malignant one, jealous opposition,
reappeared. For a time this was successful,
but at last the privilege to print in England
was conceded, burdened, however, with the
condition that the metropolis and the imme-
diate vicinity should alone possess the right

Miscellaneous Industrial Occupations 141

— a circumstance which recalls to mind the
original law as to joint-stock banks. The
monopoly wrought its own destruction, for there
was one county at least, a despised but cour-
ageous one in the north, which was not likely
to remain a passive spectator. Contempor-
aneously with the new bleaching process above
described, contemporaneously also with the em-
ployment of the new cotton machinery, calico-
printing obtained the provincial footing which
Irom that time forwards has never ceased to
strengthen, and which now renders Lancashire
the most important district in the world in
regard alike to the immensity of production
and the inexpressible beauty of the workman-
ship. It is not too much to say, with an emin-
ent author, that the calico-printing works of
Lancashire are entitled to count with the most
distinguished English seats of useful science,
and the most interesting scenes of the exercise
of tasteful invention. The earliest enterprise
was in Manchester itself, in 1745, the year of
the visit of Prince Charles and his army,
the original Lancashire efforts having been
made, so history says, by the grandfather of
the late distinguished surgeon, Mr. Joseph
Jordan. The "works" were situated on the
banks of the Irwell, close to St. Mary's Church.
Blackburn soon followed, and under the influ-

142 Illustrations of Lancashire

ence of the supreme abilities of the Peels,
remained for many years the uncontested
centre. Print-works are now met with in
every little recess where there is supply of
water, doubtless the first thing looked for
when they were founded. The natural current
sufficed at first ; but it soon became customary
to construct home or private reservoirs, and
upon these the dependence is now essentially
placed. No county in England needs so much
water as Lancashire, and certainly there is not
one that presents so many little bits of water-
surface artificially prepared. It is pleasant to
observe that the reservoirs belonging to
"works," when belonging to a man of taste,
have often been rendered extremely pretty by
the introduction of water-lilies : flowers not
only of unrivalled queenliness among aquatics,
but distinguished among our native vegetation
by the pensive languor always associated with
the idea of the Oriental — the water-lilies' birth-
right— Tor, as a race, they are much more
Asiatic than European, and by happy coin-
cidence the most appropriate that could be
placed there, the water-lily being the emblem
not more of the Nile than of the Ganges.

The multiplicity of the printing processes,
and their complexity, call for many distinct
buildings. Hence, when large, and isolated

Miscellaneous Industrial Occupations 1 4

away in the country, as very generally hap-
pens, a print-works has quite the look of a
rising village. There is a laboratory, with
library, for the managing chemist, a suite of
apartments for the designers, and a house and
fruitful garden for the resident partner, with, in
addition, not uncommonly, a schoolroom for the
children. When the designers have completed
their sketches, the engraver's work begins — a
business in itself, and carried on almost exclu-
sively in town, and especially in Manchester.
Originally the pattern was cut upon a block of
wood, usually sycamore, the success of the
transfer to the cloth depending chiefly upon
the dexterity of the workman. In 1785 this
very primitive mode was superseded by "cylin-
der-printing," the pattern being engraved upon
copper rollers, as many as there are colours ;
and though "block-printing" shares the un-
quenchable vitality of hand-loom weaving, the
roller may now be considered universal. The
employment of copper supplies another very
interesting illustration of the resort made to
this metal in almost every kind of high deco-
rative art, and prepares us to understand the
fitness of the ancient mythological use, and
why associated with the goddess of love and
beauty.

These great undertakings — the bleaching,

144 Illustrations of Lancashire

the dyeing, and the printing of the calico
— demand steady supplies of the chemicals
and other agents by means of which the
various objects are attained. Hence in Lan-
cashire the unrivalled number and extent of
the manufacturing chemical works; and, especi-
ally in Manchester, the business, — never heard
of in many English counties, here locally
distinguished as the " drysalter's." The dry-
salter sees to the importation from foreign
countries of the indigo, the madder, and other
dye-stuffs in daily request ; he deals also in the
manifold kinds of gum constantly asked for,
supplying himself partly from abroad, vid
Liverpool, partly from works close by which
prepare it artificially. A well-known sight in
Manchester is that of a cartload of logs of
some curious tropical dyewood, rudely hewn
by the axe, and still retaining in the cavities
of the bark little relics of the mosses and
lichens of their native forest.

The chemical works are located principally
in the extreme south-west, especially near
Widnes, a place which at once betrays itself
to the passing traveller in the almost suffo-
cating atmosphere, and the total extinction of
the beauty of trees and hedges, spectres and
gaunt skeletons alone remaining where once
was verdure. Here we find in its utmost

Miscellaneous Industrial Occupations 145

vigour the manufacture of " soda-ash ': (an
impure carbonate), and of chloride of lime,
both for the use of bleachers ; also, prepared
from the first-named, " caustic soda," for the
soap - boilers of Liverpool and Warrington ;
and chlorate of potash, peculiarly for the
dyers. Nitric acid also is made in immense
quantity, the basis being Chilian saltpetre,
though for their materials for the soda-pro-
ducts the manufacturers have no need to go
further than Cheshire, the supply of salt being
drawn entirely from the Northwich mines.
The discharge of stifling vapours was much
worse before the passing of the Alkali Act
than at present ; and, curiously enough, though
by no means without a parallel, involved posi-
tive loss to the manufacturer, who now manages
to detain a considerable amount of good resi-
duum previously wasted. The Act permits a
limited quantity of noxious matter to go up the
chimney ; the stream is tested every day to see
that the right is not abused : how terrible is
the action even of that little the surrounding'
fields are themselves not slow to testify ; every-
thing, even in summer, looks dirty, lean, and
dejected. Sulphuric acid is likewise manufac-
tured on a great scale, especially at Newton-le-
Willows, the basis (except when required to be
very pure, when sulphur is employed) being

146 Illustrations of Lancashire

iron pyrites imported from Spain. Hundreds
of thousands of tons are prepared every year.
There is probably not a single manufacturing
process carried on in England in which chemi-
cal agency is involved which does not call for
it. Hence, in the consumption of sulphuric
acid, we have always a capital index to the
state of trade, so far as regards appeal to the
activity of the producing classes.

In the extent of its manufacture of all the
substances above mentioned, Lancashire is far
ahead of every competitor in the world ;
Germany comes next, and then probably
France.

Carbolic acid is of peculiarly Lancashire
origin, having been originally introduced com-
mercially by the late Dr. Crace Calvert.
Supplies are in daily request for the production
of colour : the employment for antiseptic pur-
poses is larger yet ; the export is also very
considerable. Other immensely important
chemicals prepared in South Lancashire, and
on a scale almost incredible, — Manchester help-
ing the Widnes corner, — are sulphate of soda
and sulphate of copper, the last-named being
now in unlimited demand, not only by the
dyers and calico-printers, but for the batteries
used in electric telegraphy. In the presence of
all this marvellous work, how quaintly reads the

Miscellaneous Industrial Occupations 147

history of the Lancashire chemistry of 500
years ago. It had then not emerged from
alchemy, which, after being forbidden by
Henry IV., and again legalised by Henry VI.,
was warmly encouraged by the credulous
Edward III., and had no devouter adherents
than the Asshetons and the Traffords, who in
their loyalty undertook to supply the king
with silver and gold to the extent of his needs
— so soon as the " philosopher's stone "' should
be discovered ! Before we laugh at their mis-
directed zeal, it may be well to inquire whether
the world has suffered more from scornful and
premature rejection, or from honest and simple
enthusiasm, such as in playing with alchemy
brought to life the germs of the profoundest
and most variously useful of the sciences.

Though Lancashire tries no longer to trans-
mute the baser metals into the precious ones
by means of alchemy, it succeeds by the
honester and less circuitous route of industry.
Lead is obtained, though not in large quantity,
at Anglezark, near Rivington Pike ; and iron, in
the excellent form of haematite, plentifully in the
Ulverston and Furness district. The smelting
is carried on chiefly at Barrow, where the
business will no doubt continue to prosper,
though haematite of late years has somewhat
lost its ancient supremacy, methods having

148

Illustrations of Lancashire

been discovered by which ores hitherto deemed
inferior are practically changed to good and
useful ones.

In any case the triumphs of Lancashire will
continue to be shown, as heretofore, in her
foundries and engine-works, the latter innumer-

IX Till". W1KK WORKS

able. \\ nitworth, Fairbairn, Nasmyth, are
names too well known to need more than
citation. Nasmyth's steam-hammer in itself
is unique. Irresistible when it smites with a
will, a giant in power and emphasis, it can
assume, when it pleases, the lightsome manners
of a butterfly. Let a lady place her hand upon

Miscellaneous Industrial Occupations 1 49

the anvil, the mighty creature just gives it a
kiss, gently, courteously, and retires. It is
rather a misfortune for the stupendous products
of the foundry and engine-works that, except
in the case of the locomotive, as soon as com-
pleted they are hidden away for evermore,
embedded where completely lost to view, and
thought of as little as the human heart.
Happily in the streets of Manchester there is
frequent reminder, in the shape of some levia-
than drawn slowly by a team of eight, ten,
twelve, or even fourteen superb horses. Brad-
ford, one of the suburbs of Manchester, supplies
the world with the visible factor of its nervous
system — those mysterious-looking threads which
now everywhere show against the sky, and
literally allow of intercourse between " Indus
and the Pole." In addition to their manu-
facture of telegraph-wire, the Messrs. Johnson
prepare the whole of what is wanted for the
wire-rope bridges now common in America.
Large quantities of wire are produced also at
Warrington ; here, however, of kinds adapted
more particularly for domestic use. In connec-
tion with metal it is worthy also of note that
Lancashire is the principal seat of the manufac-
ture of the impregnable safes which, laughing
at thieves and fire, challenge even the earth-
quake. They are made in Liverpool by Milner

150 Illustrations of Lancashire

and Company, and near Bolton by the
Chatwoods.

Lancashire was long distinguished for its
manufacture of silk, though it never acquired
the importance held by Macclesfield. In
Europe this beautiful art came to the front as
one of the results of the later Crusades — enter-
prises which, though productive of untold
suffering, awoke the mind of all the civilised
parts of the Continent from its slumber of ages,
enlarging the sphere of popular thought, re-
viving the taste for elegant practices forgotten
since the fall of the Western Empire, and
extending commerce and knowledge in general.
To Lancashire men the history is thus one of
special interest. Italy led the way in the
manufacture ; Spain and France soon followed,
the latter acquiring distinction, and at the close
of the sixteenth century the English Channel
was crossed. Tyranny, as in the case of calico-
printing, was the prime cause, the original
Spitalfields weavers having been part of the
crowd of Protestants who at that period were
constrained, like the unhappy and forlorn in
more modern times, to seek the refuge always
afforded in our sea-girt isle.1 James I. was

1 The late greatly respected Mr. E. R. Le Mare, who came to
Manchester in 1S29, and was long distinguished among the local silk-
merchants, belonged by descent to one of these identical old Hugue-
not families. Died at Clevedon, 4th February 1SS1, aged eighty-four.

Miscellaneous Industrial Occupations 15

1 =;i

so strongly impressed with the importance of
the manufacture that, hoping to promote it at
home, he procured many thousands of young
mulberry-trees, some of which, or their immediate
descendants, are still to be found, venerable but

MAKING COKE

not exhausted, in the grounds and gardens ot
old country houses. The Civil Wars gave a
heavy check to further progress. Little more
was done till 1 7 1 8, when a silk-mill, worked by
a water-wheel, was built at Derby. This in

1 5 2 I/lust radons of Lancashire

time had to close its doors awhile, through the
refusal of the King of Sardinia to permit the
exportation of the raw material, always so
difficult to procure in quantity. At last there
was recovery ; the manufacture crept into
Cheshire, and at the commencement of the
present century into Lancashire, taking root
especially in the ancient villages of Middleton
and Eccles, and gradually spreading to the
adjacent hamlets.

The arrival was opportune, and helped to
break the fall of the hand-loom cotton weavers,
many of whom could not endure the loss of
freedom imposed by the rules of the factory,
and whose latent love of beauty, as disclosed
in their taste for floriculture, was called forth in
a new and agreeable manner. Silk-weaving
was further congenial to these men in being-
more cleanly and less laborious than the former
work, requiring more care and vigilance, and
rather more skill, thus exactly suiting a race of
worshippers of the auricula, the polyanthus, and
the carnation. The auricula, locally called the
"basier," a corruption of "bear's ear," is the
subject of a charming little poem by one of
the old Swinton weavers, preserved intact, re-
printed in Wilkinson's Lancashire Ballads, and
peculiarly valuable in respect of the light it
throws upon the temperament of a simple and

Miscellaneous Industrial Occupations 153

worthy race, now almost extinct. We may be
allowed to quote two of the verses :

Come and listen awhile unto what we shall say
Concerning the season, the month we call May ;
For the flowers they are springing, the birds they do sing,
And the basiers are sweet in the morning of May.

When the trees are in bloom, and the meadows are green,
The sweet-smelling cowslips are plain to be seen ;
The sweet ties of nature we plainly do say,
For the basiers are sweet in the morning of May !

The silk-weavers about Middleton were re-
nowned also for their zest in entomology, and
truly wonderful were their cabinets of Lepi-
doptera. Unfortunately, when all was prosper-
ous, there came a change. Ever since i860,
the year of the new, and still current, silk-
treaties with France, whereby its original
command of the trade was restored, the manu-
facture of silk in Lancashire, and everywhere
else in England, has been steadily and hope-
lessly declining ; and at the present day, com-
pared with half a century ago, the production
is less than a tenth of what it was. Power-
looms naturally have the preference with em-
ployers, since they represent invested capital ;
whereas the hand-loom weaver, if there is no
work for him, has merely to be told so. The
latter, as a consequence, is now seldom met
with. The trade, such as remains, gathers

154 Illustrations of Lancashire

chiefly about Leigh. Middle ton, once so
famous for its "broad silks," — those adapted

^ for ladies' dresses, — now
spends its time chiefly
in the preparation of
" trimmings " ; and
wherever carried on the
manufacture is almost
wholly of the kind called " mixed," or cotton
and silk combined, this being more in demand,

Miscellaneous Industrial Occupations i 5 5

because lower in price, though not wearing so
well.

From silk that befits empresses to hemp,
the material of sackcloth, the way is long.
But it must not be overlooked, in regard to the
textile manufactures of Lancashire, that each
extreme is familiar. Warrington, in the by-
gones, prepared more than half the entire
quantity of sailcloth required for the navy. It
was a ship laden with hemp from the Baltic for
use in Lancashire which, touching at the Isle
of Skye, brought the first news of Prince
Charles Edward's landing there.

Lancashire produces one-sixth of all the
paper made in England. In other words, there
are in this county about fifty of the nearly 300
English paper-mills, including the very largest of
them — Messrs. Wrigley and Sons', near Bury.
The first to be established was Crompton's, at
Farnworth, near Bolton, which dates from
1676, or exactly eighty-eight years after the
building of the famous Kentish one referred to
by Shakspere,1 which itself followed, by just
a century, the primeval one at Stevenage.
Every description of paper, except that re-
quired for bank-notes, is made in Lancashire.
The mills themselves, like the dyeworks, haunt

1 Sir John Spielman's, at Dartford. — Vide 2nd Henry VI., Act iv.
Scene 7.

1 56 I /lustrations of Lancashire

the river-sides, though they no longer draw
their supplies of water from the stream.
Paper- works cannot possibly prosper if there
be iron in the water they use, or decomposed
vegetable matter. Hence in Lancashire it is
now customary to sink wells of considerable
depth, and in any case to provide for elaborate
filtration. No spectacle in its way is more
wonderful than that of a paper-machine at
work. There is no limit to the length of the
piece it is able to produce continuously, save
that which is imposed by its own restricted
dimensions. A roll could be made — as it is —
of three or four miles in length, the cylinder
gradually gathering up the pulp till it can hold
no more. Very interesting also is it to observe
the variety of material now employed. Esparto,
or " Spanish grass," is brought to Liverpool
(as to Cardiff and Newcastle) in exchange for
coal, and wood-pulp from Norway and Sweden
via Hull.

At Darwen we find the largest and most
important production in England of the orna-
mental wall-papers which now take the place
of the distemper painting of ancient Egypt,
Herculaneum, and Pompeii. The manufacture
was originally very similar to block calico-
printing. In or about 1839 Messrs. C. & J. G.
Potter introduced "rollers," with the additional

Miscellaneous Industrial Occupations 159

novelty of the pattern being cut in relief; and
this is now almost universal, the Messrs. Potter
having progeny, as it were, all over the country,
though they themselves still produce quite one-
half of the quantity consumed. They have
customers in every part of the civilised world,
and adapt their work to the diverse and often
fantastic tastes of all in turn, directed not un-
commonly, as in the case of the Hindoos and
the Japanese, by native designs, which they are
required to follow implicitly.

To go further into the story of modern Lan-
cashire manufacturing is not possible, since
there is scarcely a British industry which in
this county is without example, and to treat of
the whole even briefly wrould require thrice
the space already occupied. Among the fore-
most scenes to be described would be the plate-
glass works at St. Helens; and the Manchester
india-rubber works, the original, now sixty-
seven years old, still carried on under the
familiar name of Charles Macintosh & Co.
The first were established in Glasgow ; Lon-
don, and then Manchester, were the next
following centres, beginning with simple water-
proof, but now producing articles of every
conceivable variety. Thread, tape, pins, carpen-
ters' tools, nails, screws, terra -cotta, bottles,
aniline, soap, brass, and pewter- work, are also

1 60 Illustrations of L a ncash ire

Lancashire staples. Gunpowder is manufac-
tured near the foot of Windermere ; and at
Prescot and thereabouts the people employ
themselves, as they have done now for nearly
three centuries, in manufacturing the delicate
"works" and "movements" required for
watches. Not without significance either, in
regard to the general capabilities of the county,
is the preparation at Newton by Messrs.
M'Corquodale of the whole of the require-
ments of the Government, both for home use
and in India, in the way of stationery and
account- books. For the Government alone
they manufacture forty millions of envelopes
every year. They also execute the enormous
amount of printing demanded by the L. & N.
W. Railway Company. The great ship -build-
ing works at Barrow now need no more than
a reference. The magnificent Atlantic Inman
steamer, the City of Rome, a ship with a gross
tonnage of 8400, and propelled by, upon the
lowest estimate, 8500 indicated horse-power,
was launched here in June 1881. After the
ill-fated Great Eastern, this was the largest
vessel then afloat All has come into existence
since about i860, when the population of this
out-of-the-way Lancashire village was under
4000, though now nearly 50,000, a growth with-
out parallel except in the United States.

Miscellaneous Industrial Occupations 163

Omittinof a considerable number of minor
activities, there is, in addition to the above, the
vast sphere of industry, part of the very life of
working Lancashire, though not a manufacture,
indicated by the little word "coal." In their
value and importance the Lancashire collieries
vie with the cotton -mills, declaring once again
how close and constant is the dependence of
the prosperity of a great manufacturing district
upon its geology. Coalfields lying below the
surface leave the soil above them free for the
purposes of the farmer and the builder ; in other
words, for the raising of human food and the
development of useful constructive arts. Where
there is plenty of coal double the number
of people can exist ; the enormous population
of Lancashire south of the Ribble has unques-
tionably come as much of its coalfields as of
the invention of the spinning -jenny. The pre-
vailing rock in this portion of Lancashire is the
well-known new red sandstone, the same as
that which overlies all our other best English
coal deposits. Concurrently with it, and with
the millstone-grit, the measures which have
brought so much wealth to the county, extend
from Pendleton, two miles from Manchester, to
Colne in the north-east, and to St. Helen's in
the west, many vast branches running out in
various directions from the principal mass.

164 I Hush-aliens of Lancashire

What the exact thickness may be of course is
not known, but, according to Mr. Dickinson,
it may be estimated at 6450 feet. Some of the
deepest pits in the country have been sunk in
it, as at the Rosebridge Colliery, near Wigan,
where the depth already reached is nearly 2500
feet, and the Ashton-moss Pit, near Ashton-
under-Lyne, which goes still lower, — it is said
to 2700 feet, — in which case this last will be the
deepest in England. The direction of the dip
is described by the colliers in a very pretty
way. They say it is towards "the rising sun,"
or "the setting sun," the different points in-
cluded between these opposites being similarly
expressed by "dipping towards nine-o'clock
sun," "twelve-o'clock sun," and so on. The
sun is thus their compass, though few men see
less of it during their hours of labour. The
neighbourhood of a colliery is generally well
declared. Independently of the apparatus over
the opening of the pit, there is no mistaking
the significance of the row of neat cottages, all
fashioned on the same architectural model, a
few stray ones here and there, a trim little front
garden seldom wanting, with close by a few
shops, a school-house, a chapel, both very plain,
and the proprietor's or agent's residence, some-
what ornate, and garnished with evergreen
shrubs, ready always for the washing of a

ON THE BKIDGKWATKR CANAL

Miscellaneous Industrial Occupations 167

kindly shower. In many places, as at Wlgan,
Atherton, Tyldesley, and St. Helens, women,
both single and married, work at the collieries,

but only above ground, or at the bank. They
are prohibited by statute from descending the
pit, and their names and ages are all exactly
registered. Up to the waist they are dressed
like men. Above the knees, instead of a coat,
they have a peculiarly fashioned tunic, a com-
promise between gown and jacket, by which
they may be distinguished from afar : a limp
bonnet tied under the chin protects the head,
but never conceals the ear-rings and plaited
hair. Many of these women are plainly equal
to their masculine colleagues in physical power,
yet they earn only two -thirds of the wages
given to men. The decorum of their behaviour
while at work is unimpeachable ; on Sundays
they do their best to dress like ladies. The
Lancashire quarries are also remarkable, though
little resorted to by the architect. Commercial
prosperity is always most conspicuous where
the buildings are principally not of stone, but of
brick.

Nothing does more to sustain and encourage
the industry of a working population than a
steady system of transit, and a well-timed
delivery, alike of the natural products of the
ground and of the articles manufactured.

1 68 Illustrations of Lancashire

Hence the early development in Lancashire of
the idea of the canal, and, sixty years after-
wards, of that of the railway. The history
of the Bridgewater Canal is one of the most
interesting connected with the county enter-
prise, the more so since all other canals were
imitations of it. Many, however, are not aware
that the celebrated peer under whose dictation
it was constructed — Francis Egerton, the third
and last Duke of Bridoewater — was led to

devote himself for solace sake to engineering
through a disappointment in love. That women,
when troubled or bereaved, should take refuge
in works of charity, and that when wealthy
they should found hospitals and build orphan-
ages, is very natural, and has plenty of exem-
plification; but for a man to turn when similarly
circumstanced to science is phenomenal, and
the records of search for consolation after this
manner would probably be sifted in vain for a
parallel case. Several versions of the story are
afloat ; whichever way be the true one, it is
beyond a doubt that one of the greatest indus-
trial achievements ever witnessed in England
had for its prime cause the caprice or the
temper of the widowed Duchess of Hamilton, —
to whom a second coronet was offered, — she
who in her early days was the celebrated belle
Elizabeth Gunning. There is a waterway of

Miscellaneous Industrial Occupations 1 69

this description in Lancashire more remarkable
in some respects even than the duke's canal —
that one called the Leeds and Liverpool, the
Lancashire portion of which curls round from
the great seaport by way of Ormskirk, South-
port, Wigan, Chorley, Burnley, and Colne,
where the Yorkshire boundary is crossed. Near
the towns, and especially in the south-west
and south-east, these useful highways are dreary
and uninteresting ; but in rural districts, such as
they must needs traverse, often for lengths of
many miles, the borders sometimes acquire an
unlooked-for picturesqueness, and are gaily
dressed with wild -flowers. In any case they
never foil in possession of the rude charms of
the gliding boat, the slow -paced horse, and
artless guide. The Lancashire railway system,
it may be remarked, extends to within a
trifle of 600 miles.

PECULIARITIES OF CHARACTER, DIALECT, AND

PASTIMES

The primitive Lancashire character — indus-
trious, frugal, sanguine, persevering, inflexible
in determination — has already been sketched in
brief. Some additional features, observable
more particularly among the operatives and
away in the country, deserve notice, the more
so since it is in a people's average tempera-
ment that the key is usually found to their
pursuits in playtime — after the songs, the
most interesting chapter in a local history.
The sum total of the private morals of work-
ing Lancashire probably does not differ pro
rata from that which would be disclosed by
a census of any other county. So with the
manners and customs, for although in Lanca-
shire the suavity of the South is soon missed,
and though there is little touching of the hat
or saying of "Sir," the absence of a courteous

Peculiarities 171

spirit is more apparent than real, and in any
case is amply compensated by a thoroughness
of kindly sentiment which more polished com-
munities do not always share. The "factory-
folk," the colliers, and others, are usually
considered turbulent and given to outrages.
They are not so by nature. Though often
rough, self-willed, and obstinate, the working
population as a whole is too thoroughly Saxon
for the riotousness one looks for while in the
presence of the Celt. Social conflicts, when
they arise, are set on foot by mischief-makers
and noisy idlers whose personal interest it is
to promote antagonisms. Save for these verit-
able " disturbers of the peace " the probability
is that there would be few or none of the
" strikes " and " turn-outs " which bring so much
misery to the unfortunate women and children
who have no say in the matter. The people
who " strike " are in the mass more to be pitied
than held chargeable with love of disorder, for,
as a rule, they have been cruelly misled into
the notion that it is the master's interest to pay
as little as possible for their labour, the truth
being that for his own sake he pays them the
utmost the business will justify, so that they
shall be strong enough, healthy enough, cheer-
ful and good-tempered enough, to work with
a will, thus augmenting his personal profits.

i 72 I /lustrations of Lancashire

Every master of common - sense understands
the principle, and does so pay. It may be use-
ful to remind the reader that the profits made
by a Lancashire "cotton-lord" differ totally in
their composition from the payment received
lor his work by an artist, a physician, or a
barrister. The cotton - manufacturer's profits
consist of an infinite number of particles, an
atom per head on the work of 500, and often
1000 assistants. To the outside and afar-off
public, who hear of contentions over pennies,
the sum seems nothing, and the man who
refuses the penny a sordid fellow. But to the
employer it very soon means hundreds of
pounds, and represents perhaps half a year's
income.

In Lancashire, whatever may be the case
elsewhere, the people who "strike" are de-
ceived in no slight measure through their own
honesty and sincerity of purpose. One of the
original characteristics of the county is to be
fair and unsuspecting ; no people in the world
have a stronger dislike of deceit ; one of the
reasons why a genuine Lancashire man can
usually be trusted is, that he is so little inclined
to overstate or misrepresent. The very circum-
stance that wins our esteem thus renders him
vulnerable. Disposed to be honest themselves,
the operatives fall so much more readily a prey

Peculiarities 173

to unscrupulous agitators. It is amusing, at
the same time, to note how soon, when he
detects an impostor, a Lancashire man will put
him out of countenance ; and how quick he is,
in excellent balance, to perceive the meritorious,
either in person or subject, and, perceiving, to
appreciate.

A remarkable instance of the promotion of
strikes by mischief-makers occurred at the com-
mencementofthespringof 1 88 1, when the colliers
stood out for six weeks, at a loss to themselves
of no less than ^250,000 in wages, such as other-
wise they would have earned. The chairman
of the London and North -Western Railway
Company explained it at the shareholders'
meeting on 24th July, pointing out at the
same time the immense collateral harm inflicted:

" They might remember that at the beginning of the
year there was a settlement made with the colliers of Lan-
cashire and their employers with regard to a mutual insur-
ance fund against accident ; but a Member of Parliament
went down and persuaded these poor, unhappy people
that they had better not accept it, but take care of them-
selves. He also persuaded them to make a strike, the
result of which was disaster to every one. Prices did not
go up, and unless prices went up wages could not ; and
the men afterwards suffered great distress. From this
cause they estimated that the Company had lost traffic to
the amount of about ,£100,000."

Another result was the permanent loss of an
important market to the local colliery proprie-

i;4 Illustrations of Lancashire

tors. Many thousands of tons of Lancashire
steam-coal were previously being- sent weekly
to Birkenhead ; but during the stoppage of
the Wigan collieries the coal masters of North
and South Wales obtained possession of the
market, and the quantity now sent to Birken-
head is confined to only a few hundreds of
tons. The general question as to strikes, and
of the kind of grievances that may sometimes
be not unreasonably complained of, is no
doubt a very large and complex one. But
whatever may be the case elsewhere, it is
impossible for the "strikers" to deny that in
the aggregate, and in the long run, the tend-
ency of the Lancashire masters' doings is to
create and diffuse social happiness among the
employed. It is the master's interest that his
people should be not only strong and healthy
and good workmen, but good men. Comfort-
able homes are prepared for their families.
Schools were provided by innumerable Lanca-
shire masters long before they were required
to do so by law. Many an employer is noted
for the pains he takes, and the money he spends,
with a view to the operatives' enjoyments.

During the continuance of these ill-advised
"strikes," and when the depression of trade-
quite as distasteful to the master as to the man
-involves "short time" — four or five days'

Peculiarities 175

work in the week, or even less, instead of six,
another capital feature of the Lancashire char-
acter comes to the front. No people in the
world are capable of profounder fortitude.
Patience under suffering never fails. Though
pinched by hunger, such is the manly and
womanly pride of the Lancashire operatives
that they care less about privations than to be
constrained to surrender any portion, however
trifling, of their independence. That the
large-hearted and intelligent among mankind
are always the last to complain in the hour of
trial no one needs telling. People of this char-
acter are probably more numerous everywhere
than may be thought, for the simple reason
that they are the least likely to be heard of ;
but it is worth putting on paper that no better
illustrations are to be found than exist in plenty
in working; Lancashire. It is refreshing also

o o

to note the hearty kindness of the Lancashire
operatives one to another in time of distress.
Not upon "Trades' Union" principles, but
upon the broad and unselfish basis of strong,
natural, human sympathy, familiar to the
friendly visitor ; and which, when elevated, as
it often is, by religion, and warmed and ex-
panded by personal affection, becomes so
beautiful that in its presence all short-comings
are forgotten. These good qualities are un-

i 76 Illustrations of Lancashire

folded very specially on the occurrence of a
terrible accident, such as a coal-pit explosion.
In the yearning to be foremost in help to rescue ;
in the gentleness, the deference to authority,
the obedience .to discipline, the resignation then
exhibited, — this last coming not of indifference,
but of calmness, — a capacity is plainly shown
for the highest conceivable moral development.
The Dialect. — The original county dialect of
Lancashire is of twofold interest. Still heard
among the rustics, it is peculiarly valuable to
the student of the English language. "Our
South Lancashire speech," says its most accom-
plished interpreter, "is second to none in
England in the vestiges which it contains of
the tongue of other days. . . . To explain
Anglo - Saxon there is no speech so original
and important as our own South Lancashire
patois." 1 To the ears of strangers who know
nothing about it the sound is often uncouth and
barbarous. That it is far from being so is
proved by the use long made of this dialect
for lyric poetry and for tales both racy and
pathetic.2 There is conclusive evidence also
of its sweet and meaningful pathos in the re-
sorting to it in times of deep emotion by people

1 On the South Lancashire Dialect. By Thomas Heywood, F.S.A.
Chetham Society. Vol. lvii. pp. 8, 36.

'■ Vide Mr. George Milner, " On the Lancashire Dialect considered
as a Vehicle for Poetry," Manchester Literary Club Papers, vol. i. p.
20. 1875.

Peculiarities 177

of the highest culture, who then unconsciously
throw aside the learning and the vocabulary of
school and college for the simplicity that never
fails to touch the heart. The titles of the
stories hold a conspicuous place in Mr. Axon's
list of the no fewer than 279 publications illustra-
tive of the general subject of the Lancashire
dialect ; x the literature of which, he justly
remarks in the introduction, is richer than that
of the popular speech of any other English
county. This is so much the more noteworthy
since, with the famous manufacturing epoch of
1785, everything belonging to primitive Lan-
cashire began to experience change and decay.
In a certain sense it may be said that the
dialect has not only survived unhurt, but has
risen, during the last thirty or forty years, to
a position worthy of the native talent ; and that
the latter, in days to come, will have no better
commemoration than the metrical literature.
Two particulars at once arrest attention. No
English dialect more abounds in interesting
archaisms ; and certainly not one is so little
tainted with expressions of the nature of slang.2

1 Vide Mr. George Milner, " On the Lancashire Dialect considered
as a Vehicle for Poetry," Manchester Literary Club Papers, Appendix
to the vol. for 1876.

- The modern slang of great towns is of course quite a different
thing from the ancient dialect of a rural population. Affected mis-
spellings, as of "kuntry" for country, are also to be distinguished in
toto from the phonetic representation of sounds purely dialectical.

i ;X Illustrations of Lancashire

Rochdale occupies the centre of the most
distinctively Lancashire - dialect region. As
ordinarily employed, the phrase vaguely de-
notes the rural speech of the manufacturing
districts. But beyond the Ribble, and more
particularly beyond the Lune, there is unmis-
takable variation from the genuine Lancashire
of " Tim Bobbin " ; and in Furness there is
an echo of Cumberland. In genuine Lanca-
shire we have first the old-accustomed permu-
tations of the vowels. Then come elisions of
consonants, transpositions, and condensations
of entire syllables, whereby words are often
oddly transformed. Ancient idioms attract us
next ; and lastly, there are many of the ener-
getic old words, unknown to current diction-
aries, which five centuries ago were an integral
part of the English vernacular. The vowel
permutations are illustrated in the universal
" wayter," " feyther," " reet," " oi," " aw,"
" neaw," used instead of water, father, right,
I, now. " Owt " stands for aught, "nowt" for
naught. Elisions and contractions appear in
a thousand such forms as " dunnoyo " for "do
you not," "welly" for "well-nigh." "You"
constantly varies to thee and thou, whence the
common " artu " for "art thou," " wiltohameh "
for " wilt thou have me." A final g is seldom
heard ; there is also a characteristic rejection

Peculiarities 1 79

of the guttural in such words as scratched,
pronounced "scrat." The transpositions are
as usual, though it is only perhaps in Lancashire
that gaily painted butterflies are " brids," and
that the little field - flowers elsewhere called
birds' eye are " brid een."

The old grammatical forms and the archaic
words refer the careful listener, if not to the
Anglo-Saxon of King Alfred, at all events to
the Canterbury Tales ; they take us pleasantly
to Chaucer, and Chaucer in turn introduces
us agreeably to Lancashire, where "she" is
always " hoo," through abiding in the primitive
"he, heo, hit;" and where the verbs still end
in n : " we, ye, they loven," as in the Pro-
logue—

" For he had geten him yet no benefice."

Very interesting is it also when the ear catches
the antiquated his and it where to-day we say
it and its. Often supposed to correspond with
the poetical use of " his " in personifications
(often found in the authorised version of
Scripture), the Lancashire employment of his
is in truth the common Shaksperean one, his
in the county palatine being the simple genitive
of the old English hit, as in Hamlet, iv. 7 —

" There is a willow grows aslant the brook,
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream."

i So Illustrations of Lancashire

So with the obsolete possessive it. When
a Lancashire woman says, " Come to it
mammy ! " how plain the reminder of the lines
in King fo/in —

" Do, child, go to it grandam, child ;
Give grandam kingdom, and it grandam will
Give it a plum, a cherry, and a fig ;
There's a good grandam."

Archaic words are illustrated in many a
familiar phrase. A Lancashire girl in quest of
something "speers" for it (Anglo-Saxon sftirian,
to inquire). If alarmed, she "dithers"; if comely
and well conducted, she behaves herself " far-
rantly " ; if delicately sensitive, she is "nesh" —

It seemeth for love his herte is tendre and neshe.

So when the poor " clem " for want of food —
" Hard is the choice," says Ben Jonson, "when
the valiant must eat their arms or clem."
Very many others which, though not obsolete
in polite society, are seldom heard, help to
give flavour to this inviting old dialect. To
embrace is in Lancashire to " clip " ; to move
house is to "Hit"; when the rain descends
heavily, "it teems"; rather is expressed by
"lief" or "liefer," as in Troilus and Cresseide —

" Yet had I levre unwist for sorrow die."
Pastimes and Recreations. — The pastimes

Peculiarities 181

and recreations of the Lancashire people fall,
as elsewhere, under two distinct heads ; those
which arise upon the poetic sentiment, the love
of purity, order, and beauty, and those which
come of simple desire to be entertained.
Where poesy has a stronghold, we have never
lone to wait for the "touches of sweet har-
mony " ; hence a characteristic of working
Lancashire, immemorial as to date, is devoted-
ness to music. In all Europe it would be
difficult to find a province where the first and
finest of the fine arts is better understood, or
more reverently practised. High-class sacred
music — German music in particular — fills many
a retired cottage in leisure hours with solace
and joy ; and very generally in villages, as
well as in the large towns, there are clubs and
societies instituted purely for its promotion.
" On the wild hills, where whin and heather
grow, it is not uncommon to meet working-
men with their musical instruments on their
way to take part in some village oratorio many
miles distant. . . . Up in the forest of Rossen-
dale, between Derply Moor and the wild hill
called Swinshaw, there is a little lone valley,
a green cup in the mountains, called Dean.
The inhabitants of this valley are so notable
for their love of music that they are known all
through the neighbouring country as 'Th' Deign

1 82 Illustrations of Lancashire

layrocks.' In many of the large country

manufacturing establishments — the printworks,
for instance — the operatives have regularly
organised "bands," — the employers giving
encouragement, — the value of which, in regard
to moral culture, is shown in the members
being usually the trusted men.

The same primitive inclination towards the
poetic would seem to underlie the boundless
Lancashire love of flowers and gardens. Not
that the passion is universal. The chief seat,
as of the intrinsically best of the dialect, is the
south-eastern part of the county : the portion
abutting on Yorkshire is unfavourably cold,
and though in the north occur fine examples
of individual enthusiasm, there is little illustra-
tion of confederated work. Societies strong
and skilful enough to hold beautiful exhibitions
are dotted all over the congenial parts of the
cotton district. They attend as diligently to
the economic as to the decorative ; one never
knows whether most to admire the onions, the
beans, and the celery, or the splendid asters,
dahlias, and phloxes — in many parts there is
ancient renown also for gooseberries. After
the manner of the wise in other matters, the
operative Lancashire gardeners, if they cannot

1 i.e. the larks, or singing birds, of Dean. Edwin Waugh,
Sketches, p. 199.

Peculiarities 183

grow the things they might prefer, give their
whole hearts to liking those they have at com-
mand. The rivalry and ambition in regard to
gooseberries is unique. While the fruit is
ripening upon the bushes it is sacrilege for a
stranger to approach within a distance of many
yards. On cold and hurtful nights the owner
sits up to watch it, like a nurse with an invalid,
supplying or removing defence according to
the conditions, and on the show day the excite-
ment compares in its innocent measure with
that of Epsom. The exhibitors gather round
a table : the chairman sits with scales and
weights before him, calling in turn for the
heaviest red, the heaviest yellow, and so on,
every eye watching the balance ; the end of
all being a bright new kettle for the wife at
home.

Many of the operative gardeners are assidu-
ous cultivators of "alpines," the vegetable
bijouterie of the mountains ; others are enam-
oured of ferns, and these last are usually
possessed of good botanical knowledge. The
beginning would seem to date from the time of
Elizabeth, thus from the time of Shakspere,
when other immigrations of the Flemish
weavers took place. Things of home too dear
to leave behind them, they brought with them
their favourite flowers, the tulip and the poly-

184 Illustrations of Lancashire

anthus. These early growers would doubt-
less for a time be shyly looked upon as
aliens. Nothing is known definitely of the
work of the ensuing century, but there is
certain proof that by 1725 Lancashire had
already become distinguished for its " florists'
flowers," the cultivation lying almost entirely
in the hands of the artisans, who have never for
an instant slackened, though to-day the activity
is often expressed in new directions.

It is owing, without doubt, to the example
of the operative Lancashire gardeners of the
last century and a half that floriculture at the
present moment holds equal place with classical
music among the enjoyments also of the
wealthy ; especially those whose early family
ties were favourable to observation of the early
methods. More greenhouses, hothouses, and
conservatories ; more collections of valuable
orchids and other plants of special beauty and
lustre exist in South Lancashire, and especially
in the immediate neighbourhood of Manchester,
than in any other district away from the metro-
polis. Orchid culture was practised here, as
in Macclesfield and Birmingham, long before
what orchids are was even a question in many
parts. The name of one of the noblest species
yet. discovered, the Cattleya Mossice, commemor-
ates an old Liverpool merchant, Mr. John

Peculiarities 185

Moss, one of the first to grow these matchless
flowers ; while in that of the Anguloa Clowesii
we are reminded of the beautiful collection
formed at Higher Broughton by the Rev.
John Clowes, which, after the decease of the
possessor, went to Kew. A very remarkable
and encouraging fact is that orchids, the queen-
liest and most fragrant of indoor flowers, can,
like auriculas, with skilful management be
brought to the highest possible state of perfec-
tion in an atmosphere in which many plants
can barely exist — the smoky and soot-laden
one of Manchester. The proof was supplied
by the late Dr. R. F. Ainsworth of Cliff Point,
to whom flower-show honours were as familiar
as to Benjamin Simonite of Sheffield, that
astonishiiiQ- old florist whose auriculas are
grown where the idea of a garden seems
absurd.

These very practical proofs of the life and
soundness of the poetic sentiment in working
Lancashire prepare us for a county feature in
its way quite as interesting and remarkable —
the wide -spread and very deep-seated local
taste for myth, legend, and superstition, which,
in truth, is no other than the poetic sentiment
uncultured and gone astray. Faith in "folk-
lore" is by no means to be confounded with
inane credulity. The folk-lore of a civilised

1 86 Illustrations of Lancashire

nation is the debris of the grand old spirit-
worship — vague, but exquisitely picturesque,
and figuratively significant, which, in the
popular religion of the pre-Christian world,
filled every sweet and romantic scene with
invisible beings — Dryads, who loved the wood-
land ; Naiads, that sported in the stream and
waterfall ; Oreads, who sat and sang where now
we gather their own fragrant Oreopteris? and
which assigned maidens even to the sea — the
Nereids, never yet lost. " Nothing," it has
been well said, " that has at any time had a
meaning for mankind ever absolutely dies."
How much of the primeval faith shall survive
with any particular race or people — to what
extent it shall be transformed — depends upon
their own culture, spiritual insight, and ideas of
the omnipresence of the Almighty, of which the
fancies as to the nymphs, etc., declared a dim
recognition : it is affected also very materially
by the physical character and complexion of
their country. This has been illustrated in the
completest manner as regards the eastern
borders of Lancashire by the accomplished
author of Scarsdale'1 already named: the
influence of the daily spectacle of the wild
moor, the evening walk homewards through

1 I.aslrca Oreopteris, "sweet mountain-fern," abundant in South-
Easl Lancashire.

'-' Tlie late Sir James Philips Kay-Shuttleworth, Bart,

Peculiarities 187

the shadowy and silent ravine, the sweet
mysteries of the green and ferny clough, with
its rushing stream, all telling powerfully, he
shows us with perennial grace, upon the
imagination of a simple-hearted race, constitu-
tionally predisposed towards the marvellous,
and to whom it was nourishment. Nobody is
really happy without illusions of some kind, and
none can be more harmless than belief in
the mildly supernatural. The local fairy tales
having now been pretty well collected and
classified,1 it remains only to recognise their
immense ethnograpical value, since there is
probably not a single legend or superstition
afloat in Lancashire that, like an ancient coin,
does not refer the curious student to distant
lands and long past ages. Lancashire, we must
remember, has been successively inhabited, or
occupied, more or less, by a Celtic people, — by
Romans, Danes, and Anglo-Saxons, — all of
whom have left their footprints. No one can
reside a year in Lancashire without hearing of
its "boggarts" — familiar in another form in
the Devonshire pixies, and in the "merry
wanderer of the night," Titania's " sweet
Puck." Absurd to the logician, the tales and
the terrors connected with the boggarts carry

1 Lancashire Folk-lore. By John Harland and T. T. Wilkinson.
1S67.

1 88 Illustrations of Lancashire

with them, like all other fables, a profound
interior truth — the truth for which, as Carlyle
says, "reason will always inquire, while half-
reason stands indifferent and mocking." The
nucleus of the boggart idea is, that the power
of the human mind, exercised with firmness
and consistency, triumphs over all obstacles,
and reduces even spirits to its will ; while,
contrariwise, the weak and undetermined are
plagued and domineered over by the very same
imps whom the resolute can direct and control.
So with the superstitions as to omens. \\ hen
in spring the anglers start for a day's enjoyment,
they look anxiously for "pynots," or magpies,
one being unlucky, while two portend good
fortune. The simple fact, so the ornithologists
tell us, is that in cold and ungenial weather
prejudicial to sport with the rod, one of every
pair of birds always stays in the nest, whereas
in fine weather, good for angling, both birds
come out. Illustrations of this nature might
be multiplied a hundred-fold, and to unabating
advantage. Time is never ill-spent upon inter-
pretation of the mythic. The effort, at all
events, is a kindly one that seeks —

"To unbind the charms that round slight fables lie,
And show that truth is truest poesy."

The dialect itself is full of metaphor,

Peculiarities 189

images of great beauty not infrequently turn-
ing up. Some of them seem inherited from
the primevals. That light and sound are
reciprocally representative needs, for instance,
no saying. From the earliest ages the idea of
music has always accompanied that of sunrise.
Though to-day the heavens declare the glory
ol God silently, in the beginning "the morning
stars sang together": — old Homer's "rosy-
fingered morn " is in Lancashire the " skryke "
or cry " of day."

Though much that is deplorably brutal oc-
curs among the lowest Lancashire classes, the
character of the popular pastimes is in general
free from stain ; and the amusements them-
selves are often eminently interesting, since in
honest and bona fide rustic sports there is always
archaeology. The tales they tell of the past
now constitute in truth the chief attraction of
the older ones. The social influences of the
railway system have told no less upon the
village-green than on the streets of cities ; any
picture that may now be drawn must needs owe
its best colours to the retrospective. Contem-
plating what remains of them, it is pleasant,
however, to note the intense vitality of customs
and ceremonials having their root in feelings of
reverence ; such, for example, as the annual
"rush-bearing" still current in many parts, and

190 ///its/ rat ions of Lancashire

not unknown even in the streets of modern
Manchester. That in the olden time, prior to
the introduction of carpets, the practice was to
strew floors and indoor pavements with green
rushes every one knows. Among the charges
brought against Cardinal Wolsey was his ex-
travagance in the too frequent and ostentatious
spreading of clean ones. Employed also in
churches and cathedrals on the anniversary of
the feast of the saint to whom the building was
dedicated, when renewed it was with special
solemnity. In an age when processions full
of pomp and splendour were greatly delighted
in, no wonder that the renewal became an ex-
cuse for a showy pageant ; and thus, although
to-day we have only the rush-cart, the morris-
dancers, the drums and trumpets, and the flags
-the past, in association, lives over again.
Small events and great ones are seldom far
asunder. In the magnificent "rush-bearing"
got up for the delectation of James I. when at
Hoghton Tower, Sunday, 17th August 161 7,
lay one of the secret causes of the Stuart down-
fall. Sports on the Sabbath day had been
forbidden by his predecessor. James, admitting
as argument that the cause of the reformed
religion had suffered by the prohibition, gave
his "good people of Lancashire" leave to
resume them. The Puritans took offence ; the

Peculiarities 191

wound was deepened by Charles ; and when
the time of trial came it was remembered.

"Pace-egging" (a corruption of Pasche or
Pasque - egging) is another immemorial Lan-
cashire custom, observed, as the term indicates,
at Easter, the egg taking its place as an emblem
of the Resurrection. Perverted and degraded,
though in the beginning decorous, if not pious,
the original house-to-house visitation has long
had engrafted upon it a kind of rude drama
supposed to represent the combat of St. George
and the Dragon — the victory of good over
evil, of life over death. So with " Simnel-
Sunday," a term derived from the Anglo-Saxon
symbliau, to banquet, or symbel, a feast, a
"simnel' being literally " banquet - bread." 1
This corresponds with the Midlent-Sunday of
other counties, and, particularly in Bury, is a
time of special festivity. The annual village
"wakes" observed everywhere in Lancashire,
and equivalent to the local rush -bearings,
partake, it is to be feared, of the general
destiny of such things. Happily the railway
system has brought with it an inestimable
choice of pleasure for the rational. The em-
phatically staple enjoyment of the working

1 In the Anglo-Saxon version of the Old Testament there are many
examples of derivative words. In Exodus xxiii. 15, 16, feasting-time is
symbel-tid ; xxii. 5, a feast-day is symbel-dag. In Psalm lxxxi. 3, we
have symelnys, a feast-day.

192 1 r 11 ust rations of Lancashire

Lancashire population to-day consists in the
Whitsun-week trip to some distant place of
wonder or wholesome gratification, the sea-
side always securing the preference. In Lan-
cashire it is not nearly or so much Whitsun-
Monday or Whitsun-Tuesday as the whole of
the four following days. In the south-eastern
part of the county, Manchester particularly,
business almost disappears ; and very delight-
ful is it then to observe how many little parties
of the toiling thrifty are away to North Wales,
Scotland, Ireland, and even to France. The
factory system always implies masses. The
people work in masses, and suffer in masses,
and rejoice in masses. In Whitsun-week, fifty
miles, a hundred miles away, we find in a score
of places five hundred, perhaps a thousand.
There are salutary home-pleasures ready besides.
Manchester does wisely in holding its principal
(lower -show during this great annual holiday,
drawing, in fair weather, some 50,000 visitors.
The example is a good one, since with the
growing disposition of the English people to
enjoy their holidays, it behoves all those who
have the management of places of healthy
recreation to supply the most humanising that
may be possible, and thus mitigate the influence
of the hurtful ones. The staple game of mus-
cular Lancashire was formerly that of bowls.

Peculiarities 193

A history of Manchester would be incomplete
without plenty of lively chat about it ; and in
regard to the more modern pastime, the cricket
match, it is no vaunt to add that while the
chief cricketing in England lies in the hands of
only nine out of its forty counties, the premier-
ship has once at all events, say in 1879, been
claimed as fairly by Lancashire as by its great
rival on the banks of the Trent. Nottingham-
shire, moreover, had held its position without
half the difficulties in the way that Lancashire
had to contend with.

VII

THE INLAND SCENERY SOUTH OF LANCASTER

Scenery more diversified than that of Lanca-
shire, taking the Dnddon as its northern
boundary, does not exist in any English county.
For the present we shall keep to the portion
south of the Lune, deferring the Lake District
to the next chapter, to which may also be left
the little that has to be said concerning the
shore south of that river. The eastern parts
have attractions quite as decided as those of
the north, though of a character totally different.
Every acknowledged element of the picturesque
may be discovered there, sometimes in abund-
ance. The only portion of the county entirely
devoid of landscape beauty is that which is
traversed by the Liverpool and Southport
Railway, not unjustly regarded as the dullest
in the kingdom. The best that can be said
of this dreary district is, that at intervals it
is relieved by the cheerful hues of cultivation.

a
z

Inland Scenery south of Lancaster 197

From Liverpool northwards to the banks of
the Ribble, excepting- at some distance from
the sea, and eastwards to Manchester, the
ground is nearly level. Nothing must be ex-
pected where it borders upon the Mersey
above the estuary. To quote the precise terms
employed by Pennant, " The Mersey is by no
means a pleasing water." The country border-
ing upon it, he might have added, appeals
very slenderly to the imagination ; and most
assuredly, since the old topographer passed
along, Nature has made no change for the
better as regards the river, while man has done
his best to efface any pretty features it may
once have owned. But we have not to go far
from the modern Tyre in order to find hills
and the picturesque. Newborough and the
vicinity present a remarkable contrast to the
plains beneath. Here the country begins to
grow really beautiful, and thenceforward it
constantly improves. Some of the slopes are
treeless, and smooth as a lawn ; others are
broken by deep and wooded glades, with
streamlets bound for the Douglas (an affluent
of the Ribble), one of the loveliest dells of
the kind in South Lancashire occurring near
Gathurst. On the summits, at Ashurst par-
ticularly, a sweet and pleasant air never fails
to " invite our gentle senses." Here too we

198 Illustrations of Lancashire

get our first lesson in what may be truly said,
once for all, of Lancashire — that wherever the
ground is sufficiently bold and elevated we are
sure not only of fine air and an extensive
prospect, but a glorious one. At Ashurst,
while Liverpool is not too far for the clear
discerning of its towers and spires, in the south
are plainly distinguished the innumerable Dela-
mere pines, rising in dark masses like islands
out of the sea ; and far away, beyond the Dee,
the soft swell of the hills of North Wales,
Moel Vamma never wanting. This celebrated
eminence, almost as well known in South
Lancashire as in Denbighshire, may be de-
scried even at Eccles, four or five miles from
the Manchester Exchange.

Eastwards of the great arterial line of
railway which, running from Manchester to
Lancaster through Bolton and Preston, almost
exactly bisects the county, the scenery is rich
in the eloquent features which come of wild
and interminable surges of broad and massive
hill, often rocky, with heights of fantastic form,
the irregularities giving token, in their turn, of
deep chasms and clefts, that subdivide into
pretty lateral glens and moist hollows crowded
with ferns. The larger <_>lens constitute the
" doughs " so famous in local legend, and the
names of which recur so frequently in Lanca-

iff;'

♦it

,<sJip

1. . —'.SUiW,

aiv

Inland Scenery south of Lancaster 201

shire literature. As Yorkshire is approached, the
long succession of uplands increases in volume,
rising at last in parts to a maximum altitude of
nearly 1 900 feet. Were a survey possible from
overhead, the scene would be that of a tempest-
ruffled ocean, the waves suddenly made solid.

Very much of this vast hill-surface consists
of desolate, heathery, unsheltered moorland.
The amount of unreclaimed land still existing
in Lancashire, and which must needs remain
for ever as it is, constitutes in truth one of the
striking characteristics of the county. Not
merely in the portion now specially under
notice are there cold and savage wastes such
as laugh the plough to scorn. The "fells" of
the more northern districts present enormous
breadths of similar character, incapable of sup-
porting more than the poorest aboriginal
vegetation, affording only the scantiest pastur-
age for a few scattered mountain-sheep, thus
leaving the farmer without a chance. In itself
the fact of course is in no degree remarkable,
since there are plenty of hopeless acres else-
where. The singular circumstance is the
association of so much barrenness with the
stupendous industries of the busiest people in
the world. It is but in keeping after all with
the general idea of old England, — -

" This precious gem, set in the silver sea," —

202 Illustrations of Lancashire

the pride of which consists in the constant
blending of the most diverse elements. If we
have grim and hungry solitudes, rugged and
gloomy wildernesses, not very far off, be sure
there is counterpoise in placid and fruitful vale
and mead. Lancashire may not supply the
cornfield : the soil and climate, though good for
potatoes, are unfriendly to the cerealia ; there
is no need either to be too exacting ; if the
sickle has no work, there is plenty for the
scythe and the spade.

A few miles beyond Bolton the hills begin
to rise with dignity. Here we find far-famed
and far-seen Rivington Pike, conspicuous, like
Ashurst, through ascending almost immediately
out of the plain. " Pike" is in Lancashire, and
in parts of the country closely adjacent, the
equivalent of " peak," the highest point of a hilly
neighbourhood, though by no means implying
an exactly conical or pyramidal figure, and very
generally no more than considerable elevation,
as in the case of the " Peak of Derbyshire."
Rivington well deserves its name, presenting
from many points of view one of those beauti-
ful, evenly swelling, and gently rounded
eminences which the ancient Greeks were
accustomed to call titQoL and ixaaroi, as in the
case of the classic mound at Samos which
Callimachus connects so elegantly with the

WATERFALL IN CLIVIGEK

Inland Scenery south of Lancaster 205

name of the lady Parthenia. There are spots,
however, where the mamelon disappears.
From all parts of the summit the prospect is
delightful. Under our feet, unrolled like a
carpet, is a verdant flat which stretches un-
brokenly to the sea -margin, twenty miles
distant, declared, nevertheless, by a soft, sweet
gleam of silver or molten gold, according to the
position of the sun in the heavens. The
estuary of the Ribble, if the tide be in, renews
that lovely shining ; and beyond, in the remote
distance, if the atmosphere be fairly clear, say
fifty or sixty miles away, may be discerned the
grand mountains that cast their shadows into
Coniston. Working Lancashire, though it has
lakes of its own, has made others ! From the
summit of Rivington we now look down upon
half a dozen immense reservoirs, so located
that to believe them the work of man is scarcely
possible. Fed by the inflow of several little
streams, and no pains taken to enforce straight
margins, except when necessary, these ample
waters exemplify in the best manner how art
and science are able at times to recompense
Nature —

" Leaving that beautiful which always was,
And making that which was not."

After heavy and continuous rain, the overflow
gives rise to musical waterfalls. Up in the

206 Illustrations of Lancashire

glen called Deanwood there is also a natural
and nearly permanent cascade.1

The eastern slopes of the Rivington range
descend into the spacious valley which, be-
ginning just outside Manchester, extends nearly
to Agricola's Ribchester, and in the Roman
times was a soldiers' thoroughfare. In this
valley lie Turton, Darwen, and Blackburn.
The hills, both right and left, again supply
prospects of great extent, and are especially
attractive through containing many fine re-
cesses, sometimes as round as amphitheatres.
Features of much the same kind pertain to the
nearly parallel valley in which Summerseat
nestles, with the pleasurable additions that
come of care to preserve and to compensate
in case of injury. By this route we may pro-
ceed, for variety, to YVhalley, the Mecca of
the local archaeologist ; thence on to Clitheroe,
and to the foot of famous Pendle. At Whalley
we find "Nab's Hill," to ascend which is
pastime enough for a summers evening.
Inconsiderable in comparison with some of
its neighbours, this favoured eminence gives
testimony once again to the advantages con-
ferred by situation and surroundings, when the

1 These vast reservoirs belong to the Liverpool Waterworks, which
first used them in January 1857. The surface, when they are full, is
500 acres. Another great sheet of water, a mile in length, Air local
service, occurs at Knlwistle, near Turton.

Inland Scenery south of Lancaster 207

rival claims consist in mere bulk and altitude.
Lord Byron might have intended it in the
immortal lines :

" Green and of mild declivity, the last,
As 'twere the cape of a long ridge of such,
Save that there was no sea to lave its base,
But a most living landscape."

Westwards, from the summit the eye ranges,
as at Rivington, over a broad champaign, the
fairest in the district, the turrets of princely
Stonyhurst rising amid a green throng of
oaks and beeches. In the north it rests upon
the flanks of airy Longridge, the immediate
scene accentuated by the ruined keep of the
ancient castle of the De Lacys. On the right
towers Pendle itself, most massive of English
mountains, its "broad bare back" literally
"upheaved into the sky"; and completing
the harmonious picture, — since no landscape
is perfect without water, — below runs the
babbling Calcler. Whalley Nab has been
planted very liberally with trees. How easy
it is for good taste to confer embellishment !

Pendle, the most distinguished and pro-
minent feature in the physical geography of
Mid- Lancashire, is not, like mountains in
general, broken by vast defiles, but fashioned
after the manner of the Dundry range in
Somersetshire, presenting itself as a huge

2oS Illustrations of Lancashire

and almost uniform green mound, several
miles in length, and with a nearly level sky-
line. Dundry, however, is much less steep.
The highest point is at the upper or north-
east extremity, stated by the Ordnance Survey
to be 1850 feet above the sea. The super-
ficial extent is estimated at 15,000 statute
acres, or about 25 square miles, including the
great gorge upon the southern side called
Ogden Clough — a broad, deep, and mysterious-
looking hollow, which contributes not a little
to the fine effect of this gigantic hill as seen
from the Yorkshire side.

The slope which looks upon Yorkshire
marks the boundary of the famous "forest of
Pendle," a territory of nearly 25,000 acres —
not to be understood as now or at any former
period covered with great and aged trees,
but simply as a tract which, when the property
was first apportioned, lay ad for as, or outside
the lands deemed valuable for domestic pur-
poses, and which was left undisputed to the
wild animals of the country. Immense breadths
of land of this description existed in England
in early times, and in no part was the pro-
portion larger than in Lancashire, where
many of the ancient " forests " still retain their
primitive appellation, and are peculiarly inter-
esting in the marked survival among the in-

Inland Scenery south of Lancaster 209

habitants of the language, manners, and customs
of their ancestors. Generally speaking, these
ancient "forests" are distinguished also by
dearth of primitive architecture and of rude
primeval fences, the forest laws having for-
bidden all artificial hindrances to the chase,
which in the refuges thus afforded to "deer,"
both large and small, had its most ample and
enjoyable scope.

From the summit of Pendle, all that is seen
from Whalley Nab, now diminutive, is renewed
on a scale quite proportionate to its own noble-
ness. The glistening waters of the Irish Sea
in the far west ; in the north the mountains of
Westmoreland ; proximately the smiling valleys
of the Ribble, the Hodder, and the Calder ;
and, turning to the east, the land as far towards
the German Ocean as the power of the eye can
reach. When the atmosphere is in its highest
state of transparency even the towers of York
Minster become visible. Well might the old
historian of Whalley commend the prospect
from mighty Pendle as one upon which " the
eye, the memory, and the imagination rest with
equal delight." To the same author we owe
the showing that the common Lancashire term
Pendle-/^/// is incorrect, seeing that the sense
of "hill" is already conveyed, as in Penman-
mawr and Penyghent. " Nab's Hill" would

210 Illustrations of Lancashire

seem to involve a corresponding repetition,
"nab" being a form of the Scandinavian ncbbc
or nibba, a promontory — as in Nab-scar, near
Rydal, and Nab-crag, in Patterdale.

All these grand peaks belong essentially to
the range reached another time by going from
Manchester to Littleborough, ascending from
which place we find ourselves upon Blackstone
Edge, so lofty (1553 feet), and, when climbed,
so impressive in all its circumstances, that we
seem to be pacing the walls of an empire. All
the topmost part is moorland ; below, or upon
the sides, there is abundance of the pictur-
esque ; precipitous crags and rocky knolls,
receding dells and ravines, occurring frequently.
Many of the dells in summer bear witness to
the descent in winter of furious torrents ; the
broad bed of the now tiny streamlets that fall
from ledge to ledge being" strewed with stones
and boulders, evidently washed down from the
higher channel by the vehement water, heed-
lessly tossed about and then abandoned. The
desolate complexion of these winter - torrent
gullies (in Lancashire phrase "water-gaits")
in its way is unique, though often mitigated by
the innumerable green fern-plumes upon the
borders. The naturalist's enjoyment is further
quickened by the occurrence, not infrequently,
of fragments of calamites and other fossils. The

W
X

Inland Scenery south of Lancaster 213

ascent to the crest is by no means arduous.
Attaining it, provided the atmosphere is free
from mist, the prospect — now an old story —
is once again magnificent, and, as at Rivington,
made perfect by water. Nowhere perhaps in
England has so much landscape beauty been
provided artificially and undesignedly by the
construction of great reservoirs as in the
country of twenty miles radius around Man-
chester. The waters at Lymm and Taxal
belong respectively to Cheshire and Derby-
shire. Independently of those at Rivington,
Lancashire excels both of them in the romantic
lake below Blackstone Edge, well known to
every pleasure-seeker as " Hollingworth." The
measurement round the margin is quite two
miles ; hills almost completely encircle it, and,
as seen from the edge, near Robin Hood's
crags, so utterly is it detached from all that
pertains to towns and cities as to recall the
remotest wilds beyond the Tweed. Holling-
worth Lake was constructed about ninety years
ago with a view to steady maintenance of the
Rochdale Canal. Among the hills upon the
opposite or north-western side of the valley,
Brown Wardle, often named in story, is con-
spicuous ; and adorning the lofty general outline
may be seen — best, perhaps, from near " Middle-
ton Junction" -another mamelon -- this one

214 Illustrations of L an cash ire

believed in local story to be a haunt of the
maidens of the Midsummer Night's Dream.

Looking westward from the Robin Hood
pinnacles, the prospect includes the valleys of
the Roch and the Spodden — the last-named
stream in parts wild and wilful. At Healey
its walls of rock appear to have been riven at
different times. Here, struggling through a
lengthened and tortuous cleft, and forming
more than one lively cascade before losing
itself in the dingle below, so plainly does the
water seem to have forced a passage, asserting
mastery over all impediments, that in the
vernacular this spot is called the " Thrutch."
The first phrase heard in a Lancashire crowd is,
" Where are you thrutching ? " The perennial
attrition of the broken and impending rocks
causes many of them to terminate in sharp
ridges, and in one part has given birth to the
" Fairies' Chapel." The streams spoken of
have their beginning in the lofty grounds which
intervene between Rochdale and Cliviger, and
include aspiring Thieveley Pike. Thieveley
in the bygones served the important use of a
station for beacon-fires, signalling on the one
hand to Pendle, on the other to Buckton
Castle. The prospect from the top, 1474
feet above the sea, comprehends, to the north,
almost the whole of Craven, with Ingleborough,

Inland Scenery south of Lancaster 2 1 5

and the wilds of Trawden Forest. The nearer
portions of the Lake District mountains, now
familiar, are discernible; and on sunny evenings,
when the river is full, once more the bright-
faced estuary of the Ribble. The view reaches
also to North Wales and Derbyshire, the ex-
tremities of this great map being quite sixty
miles asunder.

Cliviger, after all, is the locality which most
astonishes and delights the visitor to this part
of Lancashire. Soon after quitting Rochdale,
the railway passes through the great " Summit
Tunnel," and so into the Todmorden Valley,
there very soon passing the frontier formed
by the Calder,1 and entering Yorkshire. The
valley is noted for its scenery, new com-
binations of the most varied elements, rude
but not inhospitable, rising right and left in
quick succession. Turning up the Burnley
Valley, we enter Cliviger proper : a district
having a circuit of nearly twenty miles, and
presenting an endless variety of the most
romantic features possible to mingled rock and
pastured slope, constantly lifted to mountain-
height, the charm of the huge gray bluffs of

1 This, of course, is not the Calder seen at Whalley, there being
three rivers in Lancashire of the name — the West Calder, the East
Calder, and a little stream which enters the Wyre near Garstang.
The West Calder enters the Ribble half way between Whalley and
Stonyhurst ; the eastern, after a course of forty miles, joins the Aire in
the neighbourhood of Wakefield.

2 1 6 Illustrations of Lancashire

projecting gritstone augmented in many parts
by abundance of trees, the predominant forms
the graceful ones of larch, birch, and mountain-
ash. The trees are now very nearly a century
old, having been planted during the fifteen years
ending with i 799, yet, to appearance, still in the
prime of their calm existence. A striking-
characteristic of this admired valley is the
frequent apparent closing -in of the passage
by protruding crags, which nevertheless soon
give way to verdant curves. Cliviger in every
part is more or less marked by crags and
curves, so that we incessantly come upon vast
green bowls or hemispherical cavities, the:
bases of which change at times into circular
plateaux, at midsummer overlaid with carpets
of the prettiest botanical offspring of the pro-
vince,—

" In emerald tufts, flowers purple, blue, and white,
Like sapphire, pearl, and rich embroidery."

For introduction to these choice bits it is
needful, of course, to leave the main thorough-
fares and take one of the innumerable by-paths
which lead away to the lonely and impressive
silence of the moors, which, though desolate
and sometimes bleak, have a profoundly delight-
ful influence upon the mind. Their interest is
heightened by the portions which are vividly

Inland Scenery south of Lancaster 2 1 7

green with bog-moss, being the birthplace of
important streams. No slight matter is it to
stand at any time where rivers are cradled.
Here the flow of water is at once both east and
westwards — a phenomenon witnessed several
times in the English Apennine, and always
bidding the traveller pause awhile. The
Ribble and the Wharf begin this way ; so do
the Lune and the Swale : playmates in child-
hood, then parting for ever. Similarly, in
Cliviger Dean the two Calders issue from the
same fragment of watery waste, destined im-
mediately for opposite courses. Hard by, in a
stream called Erewell, at the foot of Derply
Hill, on the verge of Rossendale, may be seen
the birthplace of the Manchester Irwell.

The promise given at Newborough in regard
to the scenery of East Lancashire is thus
perfectly fulfilled. It does not terminate either
with Cliviger, being renewed, after passing
Pendle, all the way to the borders of West-
moreland. Ward - stone, eight or nine miles
south-east of Lancaster, part of the Littledale
Fells, has an altitude exceeding even that of
Pendle.

Asking for the best portions of the Lanca-
shire river scenery, they are soon found, per-
taining to streams not really its own — the
Lune, approaching from Westmoreland by way

2i8 Illustrations of Lancashire

of Kirby Lonsdale, to which place it gives
name ; and the Ribble, descending- from the
high moorlands of Craven, first passing Ingle-
borough, then Settle, and Bolton Abbey. The
only two important streams which actually rise
within the confines of the county are the Wyre
and the much-enduring Irwell. Lancashire is
rich in home-born minor streams, a circumstance
said to be recognised in the ancient British
name of the district, — literally, according to
Whitaker, the "well-watered,"1 — and many of
these, the affluents in particular, do, no doubt,
lend themselves freely to the production of the
picturesque, as in the case of the Darwen,2
which glides almost without a sound beneath
Hoghton Tower, joining the Ribble at Walton ;
and the Wenning, which, after bathing the
feet of a thousand water - flags and forget -
me-nots, strengthens the well -pleased Lime.

1 II may not be amiss here to mention the names, in exact order,
of the Lancashire rivers, giving first those which enter the sea, the
affluents and their tributaries coming afterwards: (1) The Mersey,
formed of the union of the non-Lancashire Tame, Etherowe, and
Goyt. Affluents and tributaries— the Irwell, the Roche, the Spodden,
the Medlock, the Irk. (2) The Alt. (3) The Ribble. Affluents and
tributaries — the Douglas, the Golforden, the Darwen, the West Calder,
the Lostock, the Yarrow, the Brun. (4) The Wyre, which receives
the third of the Calders, the Brock, and several others. (5) The
Lune, or Loyne. Affluents and tributaries — the Wenning, the Conder,
the Greta, the Leek, the Hindburn. Then, north of Lancaster, the
Keer, the Bela, the Kent, the Winster, the Leven (from Windermere),
the Crake (from Coniston Water), and the Duddon.

'-' The river immortalised by .Milton, alluding to the conflict of
17th August 164S :

" And Darwen stream with blood of Scots imbrued."

Inland Scenery south of Lancaster 221

Tributaries, — the little primitive streamlets
which swell the affluents, — since they begin
almost always among the mountains, are at all
times, all over the world, wherever they run,
in their youth pure and companionable. One
joyous consideration there is open to us always,
namely, that if we go to the beginning of things
we are fairly well assured of purity ; whatever
may be the later history, the fountain is usually
a synonym for the undefiled, as very pleasantly
certified by the Erewell Springs ; the be-
ginnings of the unhappy Irwell itself are
clear and limpid. Still, as regards claims to
high distinction, the river scenery of Lancashire
is that, as we have said, which pertains to its
welcome guests, the Ribble and the Lune,
When proud and wealthy Ribchester was in
existence fifteen centuries ago, there is reason
to believe that the Ribble, for many miles
above Preston, was considerably broader and
deeper than at present, or at all events that
the tide came very much farther up than it does
to-day. It did so as late as the time of Leland.
The change, as regards the bed of the
river, would thus be exactly the reverse of
the helpful one to which modern Liverpool
owes its harbour. England nowhere contains
scenery of its kind more suave than that of the
Ribble, from Ribchester upwards. In parts

Illustrations of Lancashire

the current is impetuous. Whether rapid or
calm, it is the life of a peaceful dale, from
which the hills retire in the gentlest way im-
aginable, presenting as they go, green, smooth
faces fit for pasture ; then, through the un-
expected changefulness which is always so
much more congenial to the fancy than repeti-
tion, even of the most excellent things, wooded
banks and shaded recesses, followed by more
green lawns and woods again, the last seeming
to lean against the sky. When the outline
drops sufficiently, in the distance, according to
the point of observation, rises proud old Pendle.
or Penyghent, or Wharnside. Near Mitton,
where Yorkshire darts so curiously into Lanca-
shire, the channel is somewhat shallow. Here,
after a busy and romantic course of its own,
the H odder surrenders its waters, thus in good
time to take part in the wonderful whirl, or
"wheel," at Salesbury, a little lower down, an
eddy of nearly twenty yards in depth, and
locally known as " Sale-wheel." If a haven
ever existed at the mouth of the Ribble, it has
now disappeared. The sands at the bar con-
tinually shift with high tides, so that navigation
is hazardous, and vessels of light draught can
alone attempt the passage.

The very interesting portion of the scenery
on the banks of the Lime, so far as concerns

Inland Scenery south of Lancaster 223

Lancashire, lies just above Lancaster itself.
Nearly all the elements of perfect landscape
intermingle in this part of the valley. If either
side of the stream possesses an advantage,
perhaps it will belong to the road along the
southern border, or that which proceeds by way
of Melon and Caton to Hornby, distant from
Lancaster about nine miles. The river winds
so waywardly that in many parts it seems a
string of lakelets. Masses of woodland creep
down to the edge, and whichever way the eye
is turned, green hills form pictures that leave
nothing to be desired.

The Roman Road. — The portion of Roman
Road referred to at the outset as crossing
Blackstone Edge presents, like all similar
remains in our island, one of the most conclusive
as well as interesting memorials we possess of
the thorough conquest of the country by the
Caesars. Labour and skill, such as were so
plainly devoted to the construction of these
wonderful roads, would be expended only by
conquerors determined on full and permanent
possession, such as the Romans maintained for
three hundred and seventy years : — the Black-
stone Edge road has in addition the special in-
terest which attaches to features not found any-
where else, at all events nowhere else in England.
The roads in question were designed not more to

224 Illustrations of Lancashire

facilitate the movements of the troops than for the
easier transport of merchandise and provisions,
a purpose which this one on Blackstone Edge
seems to indicate perfectly. In the district we
to-day call "Lancashire" there were several
roads of the principal class, these serving to
connect Warrington, Manchester, Ribchester,
and Lancaster, from which last place there was
continuation to Carlisle, and furnishing ready
access to modern "Yorkshire," thus to Ilkley —
the Olicana of Ptolemy — and York, the famous
city which saw the death of Severus and the
birth of Constantine. Manchester and Rib-
chester were the two most important strong-
holds in Western Brigantia, standing on the
direct great western line from the south to the
north. There were also many branch or vicinal
roads leading to minor stations ; those, for
instance, represented to-day by Wigan, Colne,
Burnley, Kirkham, Urswick, Walton-le-Dale,
and Overborough. The lines of most of these
roads have been accurately determined, the
chief of them having been usually straight as
an arrow, carried forward with undeviating
precision, regardless of all obstacles. They
were formed generally in Lancashire of huge
boulder stones, probably got from neighbouring
watercourses, or of fragments of rock embedded
in gravel, and varied in width from four yards

Inland Scenery south of Lancaster 225

to perhaps fourteen. The stones have in most
places disappeared — made use of, no doubt, by
after-comers for building purposes ; as ex-
emplified on Blackstone Edge itself, where the
materials of which the wall near the road has
been constructed point only too plainly to their
source. Complete remains continuous for any
considerable distance are found only upon
elevated and unfrequented moorlands ; where
also the substance of the road appears to have
been more rioid. The Blackstone Edq-e road,
one of this kind, ascends the hill at a point
about two miles beyond Littleborough — an
ancient Roman station, here consisting of a
strip of pavement exactly sixteen feet wide. It
is composed of square blocks of millstone-grit,
obtained upon the spot, laid with consummate
care, and presenting, wherever the dense
growth of whortleberry and other coarse
herbage has been cleared away, a surface so
fresh and even, that for seventeen centuries
to have elapsed since its construction seems
incredible. The unique feature of the road
consists in the middle being formed of blocks
considerably larger than those used at the sides,
harder, and altogether of better quality, laid
end to end, and havino- a continuous lonm-
tudinal groove, obviously the work of the chisel.
This groove, or " trough," evidently extended

226 Illustrations of Lancashire

down the entire roadway where steep, begin-
ning- at the top of the hill. Nothing like it, as
said above, is found anywhere else in England,
for the simple reason, it would appear, that no
other British Roman road descends by so steep
an incline. For it can hardly be doubted that
Dr. March is correct in his conjecture, that it
was intended to steady the passage of wagons
or other vehicles when heavily laden ; brakes
adjusted to the wheels retarding their progress
as indicated by marks still distinguishable. In
some parts there are indications also of lateral
trenches cut for the downilow of water, the
road itself being kept dry by a slight convexity
of surface. Over the crest of the hill the
descent is easy, and here the paving seems to
have been discontinued. The Robin Hood
rocks close by present remarkably fine ex-
amples of typical millstone-grit. Rising to the
height of fifty feet and fantastically " weathered,"
on the summits there are basin-like cavities,
popularly attributed, like so many other things
they had no hand in, to the Druids ; but palp-
ably referable to a far less mythical agency
-the quiet action, during thousands of years,
of the rain and the atmosphere.

VIII

THE SEASHORE AND THE LAKE DISTRICT

The coast of Lancashire has already been
described as presenting, from the Mersey up-
wards as far as the estuary of the Kent, an
almost unbroken surface of level sand. In
several parts, as near Birkdale, the western
sea-breeze, pursuing its work for ages, has
heaped up the sand atom by atom into hills
that have a romantic and attractive beauty all
their own. But of overhanging rocks and
crags there are no examples, except when at
Heysham, in Morecambe Bay, the millstone
grit cropping out so as to form a little pro-
montory, gives pleasing change. Almost im-
mediately after entering this celebrated bay —
although the vast expanse of sand remains un-
altered— the mountains begin to draw nearer,
and for the rest of the distance, up to the
estuary of the Duddon, where Cumberland
begins, the scenery close inshore is picturesque.

228 Illustrations of Lancashire

The peculiar feature of the coast consists,
perhaps, in its estuaries. No seaside county in
England has its margin interrupted by so many
as there are in Lancashire, every one of the
rivers which leave it for the Irish Sea, except-
ing the insignificant Alt (six or eight miles
north of Liverpool), widening immensely as
the sands are approached. Embouchures more
remarkable than those of the Ribble, the
Wyre, the Lune, and the various minor streams
which enter Morecambe Bay, are certainly not
to be found, and there are none that through
association awaken interest more curious.

When, accordingly, the visitor to any one of
the Lancashire watering-places south of the
Ribble desires scenery, he must be content
with the spectacle of the sea itself, and the
glimpses obtained in fair weather of the moun-
tains of maritime North Wales. At Blackpool
it is possible also, on clear evenings, to descry
the lofty peaks of the Isle of Man, and oc-
casionally even Cumberland Black Combe.
At Fleetwood these quite compensate the
dearth of inland beauty, and with every step
northwards more glorious becomes the outlook.
Not to mention the noble sea in front — an
ocean when the tide is in — all the higher
grounds of Cartmel and Furness are plainly in
view. Upon these follow the fells of Coniston,

The Seashore and the Lake District 229

and a little more to the east the dim blue cones
which mark the near neighbourhood of the
head of Windermere. Everything is renewed
at Morecambe, and upon a scale still more
commanding : the last reflection, as one turns
homeward from that favoured spot, is that the
supreme seaside scenery of old England per-
tains, after all, to the many-sided county of the
cotton-mills.

The watering-places themselves are health-
ful, well-conducted, and ambitious. None of
them had substantial existence seventy or eighty
years ago. Southport, the most important and
the most advanced in all that is honourable, is
a daughter of the primitive neighbouring village
of Churchtown, — -filia pulchrior very emphati-
cally. Blackpool, in 181 7, was only a rabbit-
warren, the sunward slopes, like those of original
Birkdale and Churchtown, a playground for
quick -eyed lizards, their descendants, both gray
and green, not yet extinct. Fleetwood has
grown up within easy recollection ; Morecambe
is a creation almost of yesterday. Unexcelled,
in summer, for the visitor in search of health,
in its cool, firm, ample sands, Fleetwood as-
pires to become important also commercially.
Morecambe, though destitute of a deep channel,
and unable to offer the security of a natural
harbour, is making vigorous efforts in the same

230 Illustrations of Lancashire

direction. Sir J. E. Smith, in his account of
the evening-primrose in English Botany^ a.i>.
1805, described the Lancashire coast as a sort
of ultima Thule: — to-day, at Southport, there
is the finest Winter Garden out of London ;
and at a couple of miles distance, reached by
tram-car, a Botanical Garden, including fernery
and conservatories, that puts to shame many an
ancient and wealthy city. A drawback to these
South Lancashire watering-places, as mentioned
before, is that the water, at low tide, recedes so
far, and ordinarily is so reluctant to return.
But is the tide everything ? When out, there
is the serene pleasure of silent stroll upon the
vast expanse, the inspiring solitude beyond
which there is only Sea. On these smooth and
limitless sands there is plenty alike for repair of
body, the imagination, and the solace of the
naturalist. Shells may be gathered in plenty,
and in different parts, of very various kinds :
solens, long and straight ; mactras, dentalias,
that resemble miniature elephant's tusks ; the
fragile pholas ; tellinas, that seem scattered
rose -petals ; and towards Fleetwood pearly
trochuses, dappled with lilac. A more delicious
seaside walk for those who love the sound of
the rolling" surge, the sense of infinite tran-
quillity, total seclusion from every circumstance
of town and city life, and the sight of old

The Seashore and (he Lake District 231

ocean's playthings, may be sought the world
over, and not found more readily than by pur-
suing the five or six miles between Fleetwood
and Blackpool, one's face turned all the while
to the poetic west. Wanting- rocks, upon these
quiet sands there are no native seaweeds,
though fragments lie about, torn from beaches
far away, and stranded.

Very distinct interest attaches to the physical
history of this part of the coast, the elevation
of which was at some not very remotely distant
period, almost without doubt, much higher.
Mr. Joseph Dickinson, the well-known geolo-
gist, and Government Inspector of Wines,
believes that in certain portions it has subsided
through the solution of rock-salt in the strata
below — the circumstance to which the forma-
tion of most, if not all, of the natural Cheshire
meres is attributed. The existence of the rock-
salt has been clearly proved by the sinking of
a shaft and subsequent borings, near Preesal, a
village about a mile and a half south-east of
Fleetwood. The thickness of the deposit is
similar to that met with in the salt districts
of Cheshire, at Port Clarence, near the mouth
of the Tees, and at Stoke Prior, Worcester-
shire. The subsidence of the shore at Black-
pool is, on the northern side, very palpable.
Here the path to Rossall is pursued for some

232 Illustrations of Lancashire

distance along the brow of an earthy, crumbling
cliff, not very far from which, exposed at the
lowest of low tides, there is a little insulated
mound, upon which, according to well -sustained
tradition, there once stood a cottage long since
overwhelmed by envious Neptune.

The great rampart of sand-hills which
stretches for so many leagues, and which has
been calculated to have an area of twenty -two
square miles, is thought by another distin-
guished geologist — Mr. T. Melland Reade —
to have taken certainly not less than 2500
years to form, probably a much longer time.
Some of the mounds, however, are manifestly
quite recent, interstratifications of cinders and
matter thrown up from wrecks, being found
near the base. A strong westerly wind brings
up the sand vehemently, and very curious then
becomes the spectacle of its travel, which re-
sembles the flow of thin waves of translucent
smoke. The wind alternately heaps up the
sand and disperses it, except where a firm hold
has been obtained by the maram,1 or star-grass,
the roots of which bind and hold all too-ether.

Decoration of the smooth surface of the sloping
sand-hills is supplied by the wind -whirling of
the slender stalks half way round, and some-

1 Maram, the popular name of the Ammophila arenaria, is probably
the Danish marhalm, sea-haulm or straw, a term applied in Norway
to the Zostera.

The Seashore and the La he District 233

times quite so, when there is room for free play :
circles and semicircles are then grooved, smaller
ones often inside, as perfect as if drawn with
compasses. Another curious result of the
steady blowing of the sea-breeze is that on
the shore there are innumerable little cones of
sand, originating in shells, or fragments of shells,
which arrest the drifting particles, and are, in
truth, rudiments of sand-hills, such as form the
barrier a little further in.

Further north the shore has little to offer in
the way of curiosities, nor is there any agree-
able bathinor-o-round ■ not even at Grange.
Never mind. The further we advance towards
the county frontier, the more wonderful become
the sands, these spreading, at low water, like a
Sahara, with the difference, that the breath of
ocean, nowhere in the world sweeter, blows
across them for ever and ever. On a moon-
light night, when the tide is at the full, More-
cambe Bay, surveyed from Kent's Bank, pre-
sents an aspect of inexpressible fascination, the
rippled lustre being such as a shallow sea,
gently moving, alone can yield.

"Splendet tremulo sub lumine pontus."

Moving onwards, or towards Cumberland, we
find that Lancashire is not without its island.
This is Walney, off the estuary of the Duddon,

234 Illustrations of Lancashire

closely abutting- on the mainland of Furness — a
very singular bank or strip of mingled sand,
pebbles, and shingle, nearly ten miles in length,
and half a mile broad where widest. Barren as
it may seem from the description, the soil is in
parts so fertile that capital crops of grain are
reaped. There are people on it, likewise,
though the inhabitants are chiefly sea-gulls.
Walney Island is the only known locality for
that beautiful wild-flower the Geranium Lancas-
triense, a variety of the sanguineum, the petals,
instead of blood-colour, as at Fleetwood, on St.
Vincent's Rocks, and elsewhere, cream -white
netted with rose. The seaward or western
side of Walney is defended by a prodigious
heap of pebbles, the mass of which is con-
stantly augmenting, though left dry at low
water. At the lower extremity of the island
there is a light -house, sixty -eight feet high,
and adjacent to it there are one or two
islets.

The portion of Lancashire to which Walney
belongs, or that which, as it is locally said, lies
"north of the sands" (the sands specially in-
tended being those of Morecambe Bay), agrees,
in natural composition, with Westmoreland and
Cumberland. It is distinguished by mountain-
summits, greatly exceeding in elevation those
found upon the confines of Yorkshire, and the

The Seashore and the Lake District 235

lower slopes of which are, as a rule, no longer
naked, but dressed with shrubs and various
trees. Concealed among these noble moun-
tains are many deep and romantic glens, while
at their feet are lakes of matchless purity. No
feature is more striking than the exchange of
the broad and bulky masses of such hills as
Pendle for the rugged and jutting outlines
characteristic of the older rocks, and particu-
larly, as here, of the unstratihed. Before com-
mencing the exploration, it is well to contem-
plate the general structure of the country from
some near vantage-ground, such as the newly-
opened public park at Lancaster ; or better still,
that unspeakably grand terrace upon the West-
moreland side of the Kent, called Stack-head,
where the "Fairy steps" give access to the
plain and valley below, and which is reached
so pleasantly by way of Milnthorpe, proceeding
thence through Dallam Park, the village of
Beetham, and the pine -wood — in itself worth
all the journey. The view from the Stack-
head terrace (profoundly interesting also, geo-
logically) comprises all that is majestic and
beautiful as regards the elements of the pictur-
esque, and to the Lancashire man is peculiarly
delightful, since, although he stands actually in
Westmoreland, all the best part of it, Arnside
Knot alone excepted, is within the borders of

236 Illustrations of Lancashire

his own county.1 Whether the most pleasing
first impressions of the scenery of the Lake
District are obtained in the way indicated ; or
by taking the alternative, very different route,
by way of Fleetwood and Piel, is nevertheless
an open question. The advantage of the Lan-
caster route consists in the early introduction
it gives to the mountains themselves — to go
via Fleetwood and Piel involves one of those
inspiring little initiative voyages which har-
monise so well with hopes and visions of new
enjoyment, alluring the imagination no less
agreeably than they gratify the senses.

The Lancaster route implies, in the first
instance, quiet and unpretending Silverdale ;
then, after crossing the estuary of the Kent,
leafy Grange — unrivalled upon the north-west
coast, not only for salubrity, but for the ex-
haustless charms of the neighbouring country.
Whatever the final intentions in visiting this
part of England, a ftw days' delay at Grange
will never be regretted : it is one of those
happy places which are distinguished by wild
nature cordially shaking hands with civilisation.
Sallying forth from the village in an easterly
direction, or up the winding and shady road

1 " Knot," in the Lake District, probably denotes a rocky protuber-
ance upon a hill. But it is often used, as in the present instance, for the
hill in its entirety. Hard Knot, in Eskdale, and Farleton Knot, near
Kendal, are parallel examples.

The Seashore and the Lake District 237

which leads primarily to Lindal, we may, if
we please, proceed almost direct to Winder-
mere, distant about ten miles. Turn, before
this, up the green slope just beyond Ellerhow,
the village on the left, perched conspicuously
on the highest hill in front, thus reaching
Hampsfell. Many beautiful views will have
been enjoyed upon the way, land and sea con-
tributing equally ; all, at the top of Hampsfell,
are renewed threefold, innumerable trees re-
membering that no witchery is perfect in the
absence of graceful apparel ; while in the
valley below, gray and secluded Cartmel talks
of a remote historic past. Fully to realise the
absorbing beauty of the scene, there must be
no hesitation in ascending to the Hospice,
where the "herald voice" of "good tidings"
heard at Lindal is proved not to have uttered
a single syllable in excess. Hampsfell may be
reached also by a path through the Eggerslack
woods, noted for the abundance of their hazel-
nuts, and entered almost immediately after
emerging from Grange ; and again by a third,
somewhat circuitous, near the towering lime-
stone crags called Yewbarrow.

Kent's Bank, a couple of miles beyond
Grange, supplies hill scenery little inferior.
The heights above Allithwaite cover almost
the whole of the fine outlook characteristic of

238 Illustrations of Lancashire

the northern shore of Morecambe Bay. Kirk-
head and Humphrey Head also give unlimited
prospects, especially when the tide is in. The
man who loves solitude will find them lonely
enough for hermitages :-- blackberries beyond
measure grow on the slopes. Humphrey
Head presents features rarely met with, con-
sisting of a limestone promontory, the sides,
in part, nearly vertical, thus closely resembling
the rock at the south-western extremity of
Clevedon, with which many associate Tennyson
and the mournful verses which have for their
burden, " Break, break, break, on thy cold gray
stones, O Sea!' Grange, Kent's Bank, Kirk-
head, and Humphrey Head, constantly awaken
recollections of the beautiful village on the
eastern edgfe of the Bristol Channel. The
scenery corresponds, and in productions there
is again a very interesting similarity, though
Clevedon has a decided advantage in regard
to diversity of species. Hampsfell and Alli-
thwaite recur at intervals all the way to the
borders of the Leven ; thence, constantly vary-
ing, westward to the banks of the Duddon, and
southward to the Furness Valley : not, indeed,
until we reach Piel — the little cape where the
boats arrive from Fleetwood- - is there sur-
render.

Piel, as said above, is preferable as a route

The Seashore and I he Lake District 239

to the Lake District, because of the preli-
minary half hour upon the water, which is
generally smooth and exhilarating. It offers
the most interesting way of approach, also, to
Duddon Bridge, where the coast of Lancashire
ends— a place itself of many attractions. The
river, it is scarcely necessary to say, is the
Duddon immortalised by Wordsworth, one of
whose sonnets describes the " liquid lapse
serene" of this too-seldom visited stream as
it moves through Dunnerdale, after entering,
near Newfield, through a rent in the rocky
screen which adds so much to the romantic
features of its early existence. The bridge
gives ready approach to Black Combe, most
gloomy and austere of the Cumberland moun-
tains, but affording full compensation in the
magnificence of the prospects, the height being
little short of 2000 feet. Close by, in Lanca-
shire, we find the ancient village of Broughton,
the lords of which, four or five centuries
ago, gave their name to a well-known suburb
of Manchester — so curious is the history of
estates.

The railway, after touching at Broughton,
leads right away to Coniston, then to the foot
of the "Old Man," the summit, 2649 ^eet
above the level of the sea, so remarkable in
its lines and curves that, once exactly distin-

240 Illustrations of Lancashire

guished from the crowd of lower heights, like
the head of Ingleborough, it is impossible to
be mistaken. Towards the village it throws
out a ridge, upon which the houses are chiefly
placed. A deep valley intervenes, and then
the mountain rises abruptly, the walls in some
places nearly perpendicular, but in others dis-
appearing, so that, if well selected, the path
upwards is by no means toilsome, or even diffi-
cult, though impeded here and there by rocks
and stones. The climbing- is well repaid.
From the brows of the old giant are seen
mountains innumerable, lakes, rivers, woods,
deep valleys, velvety meads, with, in addition,
the accessories of every perfect landscape,—
those which come of its being impregnated
with the outcome of human intelligence and
human feeling, the love of gardens, and of
refined and comfortable homes. Looking
south, south-west, and south-east, there are
changing views of Morecambe Bay, flooded
with brightness ; the estuaries of the Kent,
the Leven, and the Duddon ; the capes and
promontories that break the sea margin ; Wal-
ney Island, the shining Irish Sea, with the Isle
of Man beyond, and the whole of the long line
of coast which runs on to the portals of the
Wyre and more distant Ribble.

Over the mouth of the Leven, Lancaster

The Seashore and the Lake Distriet 243

Castle is distinguishable. Far away, in the
same line, the lofty ranges of the Craven dis-
trict come in view ; and when the atmosphere
is very clear a dim blue mountain wave on the
side where sunset will be indicates Snowdon.
In other directions the views are somewhat
circumscribed, Coniston being situated upon
the frontiers rather than within the actual area
of the hill country it so greatly enriches. The
figure in general, of all that is seen; so far as
the nature of the barriers will allow, is never-
theless majestic, and in itself worth all the
labour of the ascent. The Old Man, it must
be admitted, is prone to hide his ancient brows
in mist and vapour ; the time for climbing
must therefore be chosen carefully and de-
liberately.

The lake, called Coniston Water, extends to
a length of about six miles. It is in no part
quite a mile in breadth, but although so narrow
never gives the slightest idea of restriction ;
thus agreeing with Windermere, to which,
however, Coniston bears not the least re-
semblance in detail, differing rather in every
particular, and decidedly surpassing it in
respect of the wildness and purple sublimity
of the surroundings. The immediate borders,
by reason of the frequently recurring showers
of rain, are refreshingly green all the year

244 Illustrations of Lancashire

round ; they allure, also, at every season, by
the daintiness and the generosity with which
the greater portion has been planted. Beyond
the line to which the handiwork of man has
been continued, or where the ground becomes
steep and rocky, there are brown and heathy
slopes, fissures and winding ravines, redolent
of light and shade, the sunward parts often
laced with little white streamlet waterfalls, that
in the distance seem not cascades, but veins of
unmelted winter snow. The slopes, in turn,
like the arches in a Gothic cathedral, lead the
eye upwards to outlines that please so much
the more because imperfectly translatable ;
since when the clouds hover round the sum-
mits of these soaring peaks, they change to
mystery and fable, wooing the mind with the
incomparable charm that always waits upon
the margin of the undiscovered.

From what particular point the best views,
either of the lake or of the adjacent mountains,
arc readily obtainable, must of necessity be
very much a matter of taste. Perhaps it is
discreetest to take, in the first instance, the
view up the lake, or from Nibthwaite, where
the waters contract, and become the little river
Crake— the stream which, in conjunction with
the Leven from Windermere, forms the estuary
named after the latter.

The Seashore and the Lake District 245

Contemplated from Nibthwaite, the moun-
tains in which the lake is bosomed are certainly
less impressive than when viewed from some
distance farther up ; but the mind is touched
with a more agreeable idea of symmetry, and
the water itself seems to acquire amplitude.
None of the mountains are out of sight ; the
merit of this particular view consists jointly in
their presence, and in the dignified composure
with which they seem to stand somewhat aloof.
The view down the lake, — that which is ob-
tained by approaching Coniston via Hawks-
head and Waterhead, is indescribably grand,
the imposing forms of the adjacent mountains,
those in particular of the Furness Fells (the
altitude of which is nearly or quite 2600 feet),
being here realised perfectly, the more distant
summits fading delicately, the nearer ones dark
and solemn. To our own fancy, the most
impressive idea alike of the water and its
framework is obtained, after all, not from either
extremity, but from the surface, resting upon
one's oars, as nearly as possible in the middle.
Coniston Water contains a couple of islets, the
upper one named, after its abundant Highland
pines, " Fir Island." Many streamlets contri-
bute to its maintenance, the principal being
Coniston Beck and Black Beck. No cele-
brated waterfall occurs very near. All the

246 Illustrations 0/ Lancashire

famous hike waterfalls bearing names belong
either to Cumberland or Westmoreland.

Windermere, or more correctly, as in the
well-known line :

"Wooded Winandermere, the river-lake,"

is nearly twice the length of Coniston Water,
but of little more than the same average width.
Superficially it belongs to Westmoreland ; the
greater portion of the margin is, nevertheless,
in Lancashire, without leaving which county
the beauty of the English Zurich may be
gathered perfectly.

The finest view of the lake, as a whole, is
obtained near Ambleside, on the road through
the valley of Troutbeck, where it is visible for
nearly the whole extent, the islands seeming-
clustered in the middle. Yet nothing can be
lovelier, as regards detail, than the views ob-
tained by ascending from Newby Bridge, the
point at which the Leven issues. The scenery
commences long before the lake is actually
reached, the river having a fall, in the short
space of four miles, of no less than 105 feet,
consequently flowing with great rapidity, and
supplying a suitable introduction to the charms
above its source. Newby Bridge deserves
every word of the praise so often bestowed
upon it. Lofty and wood-mantled hills enclose

NEAR THE COPPER MINES, CONISTON

The Seashore and the Lake District 249

the valley on every side, and whichever way
we turn the impression is one of Eden -like
retirement. The pine - crowned summit of
Finsthwaite, reached by a wroodland path
having its base near the river - side, com-
mands a prospect of admirable variety, the
lake extending in one direction, while on the
other the eye ranges over Morecambe Bay.
The water of Windermere is clear as crystal
— so limpid that the bottom in the shallower
parts shows quite plainly, the little fishes dart-
ing hither and thither over the pebbles.
Taken in its entirety, Windermere is the
deepest of the English lakes, excepting only
Wastwater, the level of the surface being, in
parts, upwards of 240 feet above the bed.
The maximum depth of Wastwater is 270
feet. Whether, on quitting Newby Bridge,
the onward course be made by boat, or, more
wisely, on foot or by carriage, along the road
upon the eastern margin of the lake, the pre-
vailing character of the scenery, for a consider-
able distance, will be found to consist in con-
summate softness and a delicacy of finish that
it may be permitted to call artistic.

Not until we reach the neighbourhood of
Storrs Hall (half way to Ambleside), where
Lancashire ends and Westmoreland begins,
is there much for the artist. The scenery so

250 Illustrations of Lancashire

far has been captivating, but never grand.
Here, however, and of rarest hues, especially
towards sunset, come in view the majestic
Langdale Pikes, with mountains of every
form, and Windermere proves itself the
veritable "Gate Beautiful." Everywhere,
upon the borders, oak and ash fling out their
green boughs, seeking amiably others that
spring from neighbours as earnest. Wood-
bine loves to mingle its fragrant coronals
of pink, white, and amber with the foliage amid
which the spirals "gently entwist ; " and at all
seasons there is the rich lustre of the peerless
" ivy green." The largest of the Windermere
islands (in the Lake District, as in the Bristol
Channel, called "holms") has an area of thirty
acres.

Esthwaite, the third and last of the trio of
lakes claimed by Lancashire, is a quiet, un-
assuming water, so cheerful, withal, and so
different in character from both Coniston and
Windermere, that a day is well devoted to it.
The length is not quite three miles ; the width,
at the broadest part, is about three furlongs ;
the best approach is by the ferry across Winder-
mere, then ascending the mountain-path among
trees, the lake presently appearing upon the
left, silvery and unexpected, so suddenly does
it come in view. Esthwaite, like the Duddon,

The Seashore and the Lake District 251

has been immortalised by Wordsworth, who
received his education at Hawkshead, the little
town at the northern extremity. The outlet
is by a stream called the Cunsey, which carries
the overflow into Windermere.

THE ANCIENT CASTLES AND MONASTIC
BUILDINGS

At the period so memorable in history when
Wiclif was giving his countrymen the first
complete English Bible — this under the kindly
wing of John o' Gaunt, who shielded the daring
reformer in many a perilous hour — Lancashire
possessed six or seven baronial castles ; and no
fewer than ten, or rather more, of the religious
houses distinguished by the general name of
abbeys and priories. Every one of the castles,
except John o' Gaunt's own, has disappeared ;
or if relics exist, they are the merest fragments.
Liverpool Castle, which held out for twenty-
four days against Prince Rupert, was de-
molished more than 200 years ago. Rochdale,
Bury, Standish, Penwortham, are not sure even
of the exact spots their citadels occupied. A
fate in some respects heavier has overtaken the
monastic buildings, these having gone in every

The Old Castles 253

instance ; though the ruins of one or two are so
beautiful architecturally, that in their silent
pathos there is compensation for the ruthless
overthrow : one is reconciled to the havoc by
the exquisite ornaments they confer, as our
English ruins do universally, on parts of the
country already picturesque.

" I do love these ancient ruins !
We never tread among them, but we set
Our foot upon some reverend history."

Lancaster Castle, the only survivor of the
fortresses, stands upon the site of an extremely
ancient stronghold ; though very little, some-
what singularly, is known about it, or indeed of
the early history of the town. The latter would
seem to have been the Bremetonacis of the
Romans, traces of the fosse constructed by
whom around the castle hill are still observable
upon the northern side. On the establishment
of the Saxon dynasty the Roman name was
superseded by the current one ; the Saxon
practice being to apply the term caster, in
different shapes, to important former seats of
the departed Roman power, in the front rank of
which was unquestionably the aged city touched
by the waters of the winding Lune. Omitting
fractions, the name of Lancaster is thus just a
thousand years old. The Saxons seem to have
allowed the castle to fall into decay. The

254 Illustrations of Lancashire

powerful Norman baron, Roger de Poictou
(leader of the centre at the battle of Hastings)
— who received from the Conqueror, as his
reward, immense portions of Lancashire terri-
tory from the Mersey northwards — gave it new
life. He, it is believed, was the builder of
the massive Lun^ess Tower, though some
assign this part of the wrork to the time of
William Rufus. In any case, the ancient glory
of the place was restored not later than a.d.
i ioo.

After the disgrace of Roger de Poictou, who
had stirred up sundry small insurrections, the
possession was transferred to Stephen, Earl of
Boulogne, inheritor of the crown, and from that
time forwards, for at least two centuries, the
history of Lancaster Castle becomes identified
with that of the sovereigns of our island to a
degree seldom equalled in the annals of any
other away from London. King John, in 1206,
held his court here for a time, receiving within
the stately walls an embassy from France.
Subsequent monarchs followed in his wake.
During the reign, in particular, of Henry IV.,
festivities, in which a brilliant chivalry had
no slight share, filled the courtyard with in-
describable animation. The gateway tower
was not built till a later period, or the castle
would probably not have suffered so severely

The Old Castles 255

as it did when the Scots, after defeating Edward
II. at Bannockburn, pushed into Lancashire,
slaying and marauding. The erection of this
splendid tower, perhaps the finest of its kind
in the country, is generally ascribed to John o'
Gaunt (fourth son of Edward III.), who, as
above mentioned, was created second Duke of
Lancaster (13th June 1362) by virtue of his
marriage to Blanche, daughter of the first
duke, previously Earl of Derby, and thus
acquired a direct personal interest in the place.
But certain portions of the interior — the inner
flat-pointed archway, for instance, the passage
with the vaulted roof, and a portion of the
north-west corner — are apparently thirteenth-
century work ; and although it is quite possible
that the two superb semi-angular towers and
the front wall as high as the niche containing
the statue may have been built by this famous
personage, the probabilities point rather toward
Henry, Prince of Wales, eventually Henry V.
Ten years after the death of John o' Gaunt, or in
1409, this prince was himself created Duke of
Lancaster, and may reasonably be supposed to
have commemorated the event in a manner at
once substantial and agreeable to the citizens.
The presumption is strongly supported by the
heraldic shield, which could not possibly have
been John o' Gaunt's, since the quartering for

256 Illustrations of Lancashire

France consists of only three fleurs de lys.
The original bearing of the French monarchy,
as historians are well aware, was azure, semee
de fleur de lys, or. Edward III. assumed these
arms, with the title of King of France, in 1340.
In 1364 the French reduced the number of
fleurs de lys to the three we are so familiar
with, and in due time England followed suit.
But this was not until 1403, when John o'
Gaunt had been in his grave nearly four
years. The shield in question is thus plainly
of a period too late for the husband of the Lady
Blanche.

But whoever the builder, how glorious the
features ! how palatial the proportions ! Placed
at the south-east corner of the castle, and over-
looking the town, this superb gateway tower
is not more admirably placed than exalted in
design. The height, sixty-six feet, prepares
us for the graceful termination of the lofty
wings in octagonal turrets, and for the thick-
ness of the walls, which is nearly, or quite,
three yards : it is scarcely possible to imagine
a more skilfully proportioned blending of
strength, regal authority, and the air of peace-
fulness. The statue of John o' Gaunt above
the archway is modern, having been placed
there only in 1822. But the past is soon
recalled by the opening for the descent of

The Old Castles 257

the portcullis, though the ancient oaken doors
have disappeared.

The entire area of Lancaster Castle meas-
ures 3S0 feet by 350 without reckoning the
terrace outside the walls. The oldest portion
— probably, as said above, Roger de Poictou's
-is the lower part of the massive Lungess
Tower, an impressive monument of the im-
pregnable masonry of the time, 80 feet square,
with walls 10 feet in thickness, and the original
Norman windows intact. The upper por-
tion was rebuilt temp. Queen Elizabeth, who
specially commended Lancaster Castle to the
faithful defenders of her kingdom against the
Spaniards. The height is 70 feet ; a turret at
the south-west corner, popularly called John
o' Gaunt's Chair, adding another ten to the
elevation. Delightful views are obtained from
the summit as, indeed, from the terrace. The
chapel, situated in the basement, 55 feet by
26, here, as elsewhere in the ancient English
castles, tells of the piety as well as the dignity
of their founders and owners. In this, at
suitable times, the sacraments would be ad-
ministered, not alone to the inmates, but to the
foresters, the shepherds, and other retainers of
the baron or noble lady of the place ; the chapel
was no less an integral part of the establish-
ment than the well of spring water ; the old

258 Illustrations of Lancashire

English castle was not only a stronghold but a
sanctuary. Unhappily in contrast but in equal
harmony with the times, there are dungeons
in two storeys below the level of the
ground.

The Lancaster Castle of 1S81 is, after all, by
no means the Lancaster Castle of the Planta-
genets. As seen from Morecambe and many
another spot a few miles distant, the old fortress
presents an appearance that, if not romantic, is
strikingly picturesque :

" Distance lends enchantment to the view,"

and the church alongside adds graciously to the
effect, seeming to unite with the antique out-
lines. But so much of the buildino- has been
altered and remodelled in order to adapt it to
its modern uses — those of law-courts and
prison ; the sharpness of the new architecture
so sadly interferes with enjoyment of the
blurred and wasted old ; the fitness of things
has been so violated that the sentiment of the
associations is with difficulty sustained even in
the ample inner space once so gay with knights
and pageantry. The castle was employed for
the trial of criminals as early as 1324, but 1745
seems to be the date of its final surrender of
royal pride. No sumptuous halls or storied
corridors now exist in it. Contrariwise, every-

1 1

■Hilil lii i,1:

it fell

- _ ^:-^_

The Old Castles 261

thine: is there that renders the building con-
venient for assizes ; and it is pleasing to observe
that with all the medley of modern adaptations
there has been preserved, as far as practicable,
a uniformity of style — the ecclesiastical of temp.
Henry VII.

Clitheroe Castle, so called, consists to-day of
no more than the Keep and a portion of the
outermost surrounding wall. The situation and
general character of this remarkable ruin are
perhaps without a match. Half a mile south
of the Ribble, on the great green plain which
stretches westwards from the foot of Pendle,
there suddenly rises a rugged limestone crag,
like an island out of the sea. Whether it
betokens an upheaval of the underlying strata
more or fewer millions of years ago, or whether
it is a mass of harder material which withstood
the powerful descending currents known to have
swept in primaeval times across the country
from east to west, the geologists must decide.
Our present concern is with the fine old feudal
relic perched on the summit, and which, like
Lancaster Castle, belongs to the days of Roger
de Poictou and his immediate successors,
though a stronghold of some kind no doubt
existed there long previously — a lofty and
insulated rock in a country not abounding in
strong military positions, being ■ too valuable

262 Illustrations of Lancashire

to be neglected even by barbarians. The
probability is, that although founded by Roger
de Poictou, the chief builders were the De
Lacys, those renowned Norman lords whose
headquarters were at Pontefract, and who could
travel hither, fifty miles, without calling at any
hostelrie not virtually their own. They came
here periodically to receive tribute and to dis-
pense justice. There was never any important
residence upon the rock. The space is not
sufficient for more than might be needed for
urgent and temporary purposes ; and although
a gentleman's house now stands upon the slope,
it occupies very little of the old foundation.

The inside measurement of the keep is
twenty feet square ; the walls are ten feet
thick, and so slight has been the touch, so far,
of the " effacing fingers," that they seem
assured of another long seven centuries. The
chapel was under the protection of the monks
of Whalley Abbey. Not a vestige of it now
remains ; every stone, after the dismantling of
the castle in 1649, having been carried away,
as in so many other instances, and used in the
building of cottages and walls. After four
generations, or in little more than a hundred
years, the line of the De Lacys became extinct.
Do we think often enough, and with commen-
surate thankfulness, of the immense service

■¥~

t . -

■

• P. '17

-^mp

i-i

The Old Castles 265

they and the other old Norman lords rendered
our country during their lifetimes ? The Nor-
mans, like the Romans, were scribes, architects,
reclaimers of the waste, instruments of civilisa-
tion— all the most artistic and interesting relics
of the Norman age Old England possesses
bear Norman impress. How voiceful, to go
no further, their cathedrals — Hereford, Peter-
borough, Durham, Gloucester ! Contemplating
their castles, few things more touch the imagin-
ation than the presence, abreast of the aged
stones, of the shrubs and flowers of countries
they never heard of. Here, for instance,
sheltering at the knee of old Clitheroe Castle
Keep, perchance in the identical spot where a
plumed De Lacy once leaned, rejoicing in the
sunshine, there is a vigorous young Nepalese
cotoneaster. Surely it is the gardener, per-
petuator of the earliest of ennobling profes-
sions, who, by transfer of plants and fruits
from one country to another, shows that art
and taste co-operating, as at Clitheroe, do
most literally "make the whole world kin."
How welcome will be the volume which some
day will be devoted to thorough survey of the
benevolent work ! From whatever point ap-
proached, the ancient keep salutes the eye long
before we can possibly reach it : no one who may
seek it will pronounce the visit unrewarded.

266 Illustrations of Lancashire

Nor will the tourist exploring Lancashire
think the time lost that he may spend among
the sea-beaten remains of the Peel of Foulclrey,
— the cluster of historic towers which forms so
conspicuous an object when proceeding by
water to Piel Pier, en route for Furness Abbey
and the Lakes. The castle owes its existence
to the Furness abbots, who, alarmed by the
terrible raid of the Scots in 1316, repeated in
1322, temp. Edward II., discreetly constructed
a place for personal safety, and for deposit of
their principal treasures. No site could have
been found more trustworthy than the little
island off the southern extreme of Walney.
While artillery was unknown Fouldrey must
have been impregnable, for it was not only
wave-girt but defended by artificial moats, and
of substance so well knit that although masses
of tumbled wall are now strewn upon the beach,
they refuse to disintegrate. These huge lumps
are composed partly of pebbles, and of cement
now hard as rock. The keep is still standing,
with portions of the inner and outer defences.
Traces of the chapel are also discoverable, in-
dicating the period of the erection ; but there
is nothing anywhere in the shape of ornament.
The charm of Fouldrey is now purely for the
imagination. Hither came the little skiffs that
brought such supplies to the abbey as its own

The Old Castles 267

broad lands could not contribute. Here was

given the welcome to all distinguished visitors

arriving by sea, and from Fouldrey sailed all

those who went afar. To-day all is still. No

voices are heard save those of the unmusical

seafowl, and of the waves that toss up their

foam —

" Where all-devouring Time
Sits on his throne of ruins hoar,
And winds and tempests sweep his various lyre."

" Peel," a term unknown in the south of
England, was anciently, in the north, a com-
mon appellation for castellets built as refuges
in times of peril. They were often no more
than single towers, square, with turrets at the
angles, and having the door at a considerable
height above the ground. The word is vari-
ously spelt. Pele, pile, pylle, and two or three
other forms, occur in old writers, the whole
resolving, apparently, into a mediaeval pelum,
which would seem to be in turn the Latin
pila, a mole or jetty, as in the fine simile in
Virgil, where the Trojan falls smitten by a
dart :

" Qualis in Euboico Baiarum litore quondam
Saxea pila cadit," etc. — sEneid, ix. 710, 711.

Fouldrey itself is not assured of immortality,
for there can be no doubt that much of the
present sea in this part of Morecambe Bay

268 Illustrations of Lancashire

covers, as at Norbreck, surface that aforetime
was dry, and where fir-trees grew and hazel-
nuts. Stagnant water had converted the
ground into moss, even before the invasion
of the sea ; for peat is found by digging deep
enough into the sands, with roots of trees and
trunks that lie with their heads eastwards.
Walney, Fouldrey, and the adjacent islets,
were themselves probably formed by ancient
inrush of the water. The beach hereabouts,
as said by Camden, certainly " once lay out a
great way westward into the ocean, which the
sea ceased not to slash and mangle . . . until
it swallowed up the shore at some boisterous
tide, and thereby made three huge bays."
Sand and pebbles still perseveringly accumu-
late in various parts. Relentless in its rejec-
tion of the soft and perishable, these are the
things which old ocean loves to amass.

The castle was dismantled by its own
builders at the commencement of the fifteenth
century, probably because too expensive to
maintain. From that time forwards it has
been slowly breaking up, though gaining per-
haps in pictorial interest ; and seen, as it is,
many miles across the water, never fails to
excite the liveliest sentiments of curiosity. One
of the abbots of Furness was probably the
builder also of the curious old square tower

The Old Abbeys 269

still standing in the market-place of Dalton,
and locally called the "Castle." The architec-
ture is of the fourteenth century.

Furness Abbey, seven miles south-west of
Ulverston, once the most extensive and beauti-
ful of the English Cistercian houses, — which
held charters from twelve successive kings,
and whose abbots had jurisdiction, not only
ecclesiastical but civil, over the whole of the
great peninsula formed by the Duddon, the
Leven, Windermere, and the sea, — still attests
in the variety and the stateliness of the re-
mains that the " pomp and circumstance " of
monastic authority must here have been played
forth to the utmost limit. In its clay the build-
ing must have been perfect alike in design and
commodiousness. The outermost walls en-
closed no less than sixty-five acres of ground,
including the portion used as a garden. This
great area was traversed by a clear and swiftly
flowing stream, which still runs on its ancient
way ; and the slopes of the sequestered glen
chosen with so much sagacity as the site, were
covered with trees. To-day their descendants
mingle also with the broken arches ; these
last receiving comfort again from the faithful
campanula, which in its season decks every
ledge and crumbling corbel, flowering, after its
manner, luxuriantly — a reflex of the "heavens'

270 1 1 lustra (ions of Lancashire

own tinct," smiling, as Nature always does,
upon the devastation she so loves to adorn.
The contrast of the lively hues of the vegeta-
tion with the gray-red tint of the native sand-
stone employed by the builders, now softened
and subdued by the touch of centuries, the
painter alone can portray. When sunbeams
glance through, falling on the shattered arcades
with the subtle tenderness which makes sun-
shine, when it creeps into such places, seem,
like our own footsteps, conscious and reverent,
the effects are chaste and animating beyond
expression. Even when the- skies are clouded,
the long perspectives, the boldness with which
the venerable walls rise out of the sod, the
infinite diversity of the parts, — to say nothing
of the associations, — render this glorious ruin
one of the most fascinating in our country.

Furness Abbey was founded in the year
1 1 27, the twenty-sixth of Henry I., and sixty-
first after the Norman Conquest. The original
patron was the above-named Stephen, Earl of
Boulogne, afterwards King of England, a
crowned likeness of whom, with a correspond-
ing one of his queen, Matilda, still exists upon
the outer mouldings of the east window. The
carving is very slightly abraded, probably
through the sculptor's selection of a harder
material than that of the edifice, which pre-

i li

7 7ie Old ; I bbeys 273

sents, in its worn condition, a strong contrast
to the solid, though simple, masonry. The
Furness monks were seated, in the first in-
stance, on the Ribble, near Preston, coming
from Normandy as early as 1 124, then as Bene-
dictines. On removal to the retired and fertile
"Valley of Nightshade," a choice consonant
with their custom, they assumed the dress of
the Cistercian Order, changing their gray habili-
ments for white ones, and from that day for-
wards (7th July 1 127) they never ceased to
grow steadily in wealth and power. The dedi-
cation of the abbey, as usual with the Cister-
cians, was to Our Lady, the Virgin Mary. The
building, however, was not completed for many
years, transition work being abundant, and the
lofty belfry tower at the extreme west plainly
not older than the early part of the fifteenth
century, by which time the primitive objection
with the Cistercians to aspiring towers had
become lax, if not surrendered altogether. The
oldest portions in all likelihood are the nave
and transepts of the conventual church, the
whole of which was completed perhaps by the
year 1200. Eight pillars upon each side,
alternately clustered and circular, their bases
still conspicuous above the turf, divided the
nave from the aisles, the wall of the southern
one still standing. Beneath the window of the

274 Illustrations of Lancashire

north transept the original Early Norman door-
way (the principal entrance) is intact, a rich
and delectable arch retiring circle within circle.
Upon the eastern side of the grand cloister
quadrangle (33S feet by 102) there are five
other deeply-recessed round arches, the middle
one leading into the vestibule of the Chapter-
house— the fretted roof of which, supported
by six pillars, fell in only about a hundred years
ago. The great east window, 47 feet in
height, 23J in width, and rising nearly from
the ground, retains little of its original detail,
but is imposing in general effect.

Scrutinising the various parts, the visitor
will find very many other beautiful elements.
With the space at our command it is impos-
sible here even to mention them, or to do
more that concentrate material for a volume
into the simple remark that Furness Abbey
remains one of the most striking; mementoes
England possesses, alike of the tasteful con-
structive art of the men who reared it and of
the havoc wrought, when for four centuries it
had been a centre of public usefulness, by the
royal thirst, not for reformation, but for spoil.
The overthrow of the abbeys no doubt pre-
pared the way for the advent of a better order
of things ; but it is not to be forgotten that the
destruction of Furness Abbey brought quite

The Old Abbeys 277

a hundred years of decay and misery to its own
domain.

Of Whalley Abbey, within a pleasant walk
from Clitheroe, there is little new to be said ;
few, however, of the old monasteries have a
more interesting history. The original estab-
lishment, as with Furness, was at a distance,
the primitive seat of the monks to whose
energy it owed its existence having been at
Stanlaw, a place at the confluence of the Gowy
writh the Mersey. In Greenland itself there is
not a spot more desolate, bleak, and lonely. It
was selected, it would seem, in imitation of
the ascetic fathers of the Order, who chose
Citeaux — whence their name — because of the
utter sterility. After a time the rule was
prudently set aside, and in 1296, after 118
years of dismal endurance, the whole party
migrated to the green spot under the shadow
of Whalley Nab where now we find the ruins
of their famous home. The abbey grounds,
exceeding thirty -six acres in extent, were
encircled, where not protected by the river, by
a deep trench, crossed by two bridges, each
with a strong and ornamental gatehouse tower,
happily still in existence. The principal build-
ings appear to have been disposed in three
quadrangles, but the merest scraps now remain,
though amply sufficient to instruct the student

278 Illustrations of Lancashire

of monastic architecture as to the position and
uses of the various parts. Portions of massive
walls, dilapidated archways, little courts and
avenues, tell their own tale ; and in addition
there are piles of sculptured stones, some with
curiously wrought bosses bearing the sacred
monooram " M." referring to the Virgin, to
whom, as said above, all Cistercian monasteries
were dedicated. The abbot's house did not
share in the general demolition, but it has
undergone so much modernising that little can
now be distinguished of the original structure.
The abbot's oratory has been more fortunate,
and is now dressed with ivy.

The severest damage to this once glorious
building was not done, as commonly supposed,
temp. Henry VIII., nor yet during the reign of
his eldest daughter, wrhen so great a panic
seized the Protestant possessors of the abol-
ished abbeys, and the mischief in general was
so cruel. " For now," says quaint old Fuller
(meaning temp. Mary), " the edifices of abbeys
which were still entire looked lovingly again
on their ancient owners ; in prevention whereof,
such as for the present possessed them, plucked
out their eyes by levelling them to the ground,
and shaving from them as much as they could
of abbey characters." Whatever the time of
the chief destruction wrought at Furness, that

The Old Abbeys 279

of Whalley did not take place till the beginning
of the reiom of Charles II.

Third in order of rank and territorial pos-
sessions among the old Lancashire religious
houses came Cokersand Abbey, founded in
1 190 on a bit of seaside sandy wilderness
about five miles south of Lancaster, near the
estuary of the streamlet called the Coker.
There is no reason to believe that the edifice
was in any degree remarkable, in point either
of extent or of architectural merit. Nothing
now remains of it but the Chapter-house, an
octagonal building thirty feet in diameter, the
roof supported upon a solitary Anglo-Norman
shaft, which leads up to the pointed arches of a
groined ceiling. The oaken canopies of the
stalls, when the building was dismantled, were
removed, very properly, to the parish church of
Lancaster.

Burscough Priory, two miles and a half
north-east of Ormskirk, founded temp. Richard
I., and for a long time the burial-place of the
Earls of Derby, has suffered even more heavily
than Cokersand Abbey. Nothing remains but
a portion of the centre archway of the church.
Burscough has interest, nevertheless, for the
antiquary and the artist ; the former of whom,
though not the latter, finds pleasure also in the
extant morsel of the ancient priory of Cartmel

2 So Illustrations of Lancashire

— a solitary gateway, standing almost due west
of the church, close to the little river Ea, and
containing some of the original windows, the
trefoil mouldings of which appear to indicate
the early part of the fourteenth century. The
foundation of the edifice, as a whole, is referred
to the year 1 1 88, the name then given being
"The Priory of the Blessed Mary of Kartmell."
The demolition took place very shortly after
the fatal 1535, when the church, much older,
was also doomed, but spared as being the
parochial one. Contemplating old Cartmel,
one scarcely thinks of Shakspere, but it was
to the "William Mareshall, Earl of Pembroke,"
in King John, that the Priory owed its birth.

Of Conishead Priory, two miles south of
Ulverston, there are but atoms remaining, and
these are concealed by the modern mansion
which preserves the name. The memory of
good deeds has more vitality than the work of
the mason : — the monks of Conishead were
entrusted with the safe conveyance of travellers
across the treacherous sands at the outlet of
the Leven ; the Priory was also a hospital for
the sick and maimed. Upholland Priory, near
Wigan, dates from 13 19, though a chantry
existed there at a period still earlier. One of
the lateral walls still exists, with a row of small
windows, all covered with ivy. Some frag-

The Old Abbeys 281

ments of Penwortham Priory, near Preston,
also remain ; and lastly, for the curious there
is the never-finished building called Lydiate
Abbey, four miles south-west of Ormskirk, the
date of which appears to be temp. Henry
VIII., when the zeal of the Catholic founders
received a sudden check. The walls are
covered with ivy, "never sere," and the aspect
in general is picturesque ; so calmly and con-
stantly always arises out of the calamities of
the past nutriment for pleasure in the present.

THE OLD CHURCHES AND THE OLD HALLS

Christianity in Lancashire — so far, at all
events, as concerns the outward expression
through the medium of places of worship — had
a very early beginning, the period being that
of Paulinus, one of the missionaries brought
into England by Augustine. In 625 the
kingdom of Northumbria, which included the
northern portions of the modern county of
Lancaster, had for its monarch the celebrated
Edwin — he who espoused the Christian
princess Edilberga, daughter of the king of
Kent — the pious woman to whom the royal
conversion was no doubt as largely owing as
to the exhortations of the priest who found in
her court welcome and protection. The story
is told at length by Bede. There is no
necessity to recapitulate it. The king was
baptized, and Christianity became the state
religion of the northern Angles. Paulinus

The Old Churches 283

nowhere in his great diocese — that ot York —
found listeners more willing than the ancestors
of the people of East Lancashire ; and as
nearly as possible twelve and a half centuries
ago, the foundations were laid at Whalley of
the mother church of the district so legitimately
proud to - day of a memorial almost unique.
Three stone crosses, much defaced by exposure
to the weather, still exist in the graveyard.
They are considered by antiquaries to have
been erected in the time of Paulinus himself,
and possibly by his direction ; similar crosses
occurring near Burnley Church, and at Dews-
bury and Ilkley in Yorkshire. The site is a
few yards to the north of that one afterwards
chosen for the abbey. The primitive Anglo-
Saxon churches, it is scarcely requisite to say,
were constructed chiefly, and often entirely, of
wood.1 Hence their extreme perishableness,
especially in the humid climate of Lancashire ;
hence also the long step to the next extant
mementoes of ecclesiastical movement in this
county ; for these, with one solitary exception,
pertain, like the old castles, to the early
Norman times. The Saxon relic is one of the
most interesting in the north of England ; and
is peculiarly distinguished by the mournful

1 Thus in conformity with their general architectural practice, and as
expressed in the Anglo-Saxon word for "to build " — getymbrian.

284 J /lustrations of Lancashire

circumstances of the story which envelops it,
though the particular incidents are beyond dis-
covery. At Heysham, as before mentioned,
four miles from Lancaster, on the edge of
Morecambe Bay, there is a little projecting
rock, the only one thereabouts. Upon the
summit formerly stood " St. Patrick's Chapel,"
destroyed ages ago, though the site is still
traceable; fragments of stonework used in the
building of the diminutive Norman church
beneath, and others in the graveyard, adding
their testimony. That, however, which attracts
the visitor is the existence to this day, upon
the bare and exposed surface of the rock, of
half a dozen excavations adapted to hold the
remains of human beings of various stature —
children as well as adults. These "coffins,"
as the villagers call them, tell their own tale.
Upon this perilous and deceitful coast, one
dark and tempestuous night a thousand years
ago, an entire family would seem to have lost
their lives by shipwreck. The bodies were
laid side by side in these only too significant
cavities ; the oratory or " chapel " was built
as a monument by their relatives, with, in
addition, upon the highest point of the hill,
a beacon or sort of rude lighthouse, with the
maintenance of which the priest and his house-
hold were charged. On this lone little North

The Old Churches 285

Lancashire promontory, where no sound is
ever heard but that of the sea, the heart is
touched well-nigh as deeply as by the busiest
scenes of Liverpool commerce.

The church architecture of the Norman
times has plenty of examples in Lancashire.
It is well known also that many modern
churches occupy old Norman and even Saxon
sites, though nothing of the original structure
has been preserved. The remains in question
usually consist, as elsewhere, of the massive
pillars always employed by the Norman
architects for the nave, or of the ornamented
arch which it was their custom to place at the
entrance of the choir. Examples of Norman
pillars exist at Colne, Lancaster, Hawkshead,
Cartmel, Whalley, and Rochdale ; the last-
named, with the arches above, bringing to
mind the choir of Canterbury Cathedral ; at
Clitheroe we find a chancel -arch ; and at the
cheerful and pretty village of Melling, eleven
miles north-west of Lancaster, a Norman door-
way, equalled perhaps in merit by another at
Bispham, near Blackpool. Chorley parish
church also declares itself of Norman origin,
and at Blackburn are preserved various sculp-
tured stones, plainly from Norman tools, and
which belonged to the church now gone, as
rebuilt or restored in the De Lacy times. The

286 ] /lustrations of Lancashire

most ancient ecclesiastical building in Lanca-
shire is Steele, or Styd, Chapel, a mile and a
half north of the site of Ribchester. The
period of the erection would appear to be
that of Stephen, thus corresponding with the
foundation of Furness Abbey. The windows
are narrow lancet ; the doors, though rather
pointed, are enriched with Norman ornaments ;
the floor is strewed with ancient gravestones.
In this quiet little place divine service is still,
or was recently, held once a month.

Whalley Church, as we have it to-day — a
building commemorative in site of the intro-
duction of the Christian faith into this part of
England — dates apparently, in its oldest por-
tion— the pillars in the north aisle — from the
twelfth century. The choir is a little later,
probably of about 1235, from which time for-
wards it is evident that building was continued
for quite 200 years, so that Whalley, like
York Minster, is an epitome of architectural
progress. The sedilia and piscina recall times
antecedent to the Reformation. Every portion
of the church is crowded with antiquities, many
of them heraldic ; very specially inviting among
them are the stalls in the chancel, eighteen in
number, transferred hither from the conventual
church at the time of the spoliation. The
luxuriant carving of the abbot's stall is in itself

The Old Churches 287

enough to repay an artist's journey. At the
head of one of the compartments of the east
window we have the Lancastrian rose ; the
rlower of course tinctured gules, and almost
the only representation of it in the county :

" Let him that is no coward, nor no flatterer,
But dare maintain the party of the truth,
Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me."

1 Henry VI., ii. 4.

The floral badge of the house of Lancaster, it
may be well to say, is the purely heraldic rose,
the outline being conventionalised, as is the
case also with the white rose of York. When
used as the emblem of England, and associated
with the thistle and the shamrock, the queen of
flowers is represented as an artist would draw
it — i.e. truthfully to nature, or with stalk, leaves,
and buds, the petals still, as in the Lancastrian,
of a soft crimson hue, "rose-colour" emphati-
cally. The titles of the various subjects are all
in old black letter.

The history of Cartmel Church reads like a
romance. The original building was of earlier
date than the Conquest, but changes subse-
quently made bring it very considerably forwards
— up indeed to the time of Edward III. It
was then that the windows of the south aisle of
the chancel were inserted, and painted as usual
in that glorious art-epoch, as shown by the few

288 Illustrations of Lancashire

portions which remain. Other portions of the
coloured glass were probably brought from the
priory when broken up by the unhallowed
hands of Henry VIII., under whose rule the
church was threatened with a similar fate, but
spared, in answer to the cry of the parishioners,
who were allowed to purchase it at an indulgent
price, with the loss of the roof of the chancel.
Thus laid open to the rain and snow, these were
allowed to beat into it for eighty years, with
results still plainly visible upon the woodwork.
A partial restoration of the fabric was then
effected, and within these last few years every
part has been put in perfect order.

The ground- plan of this interesting old
church is that of a Greek cross. The nave,
sixty-four' feet in length (Furness exceeding
it by only a few inches), leads us through
angular pillars, crowned with the plain abacus,
to a choir of unusual proportionate magnitude ;
and here, in contrast to the pointed nave-
arches, the form changes to round, while the
faces are carved.

In one of the chapels to which the chancel-
arches lead there is some fine perpendicular
work. Similar windows occur in the transepts ;
and elsewhere there are examples of late
decorated. The old priory-stalls, twenty-six
in number, are preserved here, as at \\ nalley.

The Old Churches 289

Externally, Cartmel Church presents one of
the most curious architectural objects existing
in Lancashire, the tower being placed diagon-
ally to the body of the edifice, a square cross-
ways upon a square, as if turned from its first
and proper position half-way round. What
particular object was in view, or what was the
motive for this unprecedented deviation from
the customary style of building, — a parallel to
which, in point of the singularity, is found,
perhaps, only in Wells Cathedral, — does not
appear. We owe to it, however, four pillars of
great beauty and strength, necessarily placed at
the points of the intersection of the transepts.

The interior of the church is encrusted with
fine monuments, many of them modern, but
including a fair number that give pleasure to
the antiquary. The most ancient belong to a
tomb upon the north side of the altar, within a
plain arch, and inscribed, upon an uninjured
slab of gray marble, in Longobardic characters,
Hie jaeet Frator Willemus de Walton, Prior de
Cartmel. Opposite this there will be found
record of one of the celebrated old local family
of Harrington — probably the Sir John who in
1305, when Edward I. was bound for Scotland,
was summoned by that monarch to meet him at
Carlisle. An effigy of the knight's lady lies
abreast of that of the warrior ; the arch above

290 Illustrations of Lancashire

it is of pleasing open work, covered with the
grotesque figures of which the monks were so
fond.

Had exact annals been preserved of early
church-buildino: in Lancashire in the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries, they would tell most
assuredly of many important foundations. The
beginning of Eccles Church, near Manchester,
on the west, is referred by the archaeologists to
about the year 1 1 20, but probably it is one of
the two mentioned in "Domesday Book" in
connection with Manchester. The first distinct
reference to Eccles occurs in the " Coucher
Book " of Whalley Abbey, or about thirty years
later than 1 1 20. The Whalley monks held
large estates both in Eccles and the neighbour-
hood, with granaries, etc., — the modern " Mon-
ton " is probably a contraction of " Monks'
Town," and the very name is thought to indicate
a church settlement. Ecclesiastical relics of
age quite, or nearly, corresponding are found
also near Preston, especially in the tower and
chancel near the church of Walton-le-Dale, the
former of no great elevation, but very strong,
buttressed and embattled. Placed in a skilfully
chosen position on the crest of a little hill near
the confluence of the Darwen with the Ribble,
the aspect of the old place is distinctly pictur-
esque ; the site at the same moment explaining

The Old Churches 291

the local appellation of " Low Church," -the
Anglo-Saxon low or law denoting an isolated
eminence, as in the case of Cheshire Werneth
Low and Shuttlings Low. The date assigned
to this ancient tower is 1162; to about thirty
years after which time the oldest existing
portions of Samlesbury, a few miles distant,
appear to belong, the relics of the original here
including the baptismal font. Didsbury Church,
near Manchester, represents a chapel built
about 1235, originally for the private use of the
lord of the manor and a few families of local
distinction, but a century afterwards made
parochial.1

There are numerous indications also of
ecclesiastical energy, if not of enthusiasm, temp.
Edward III., to which period seem to belong
the choir of Rochdale Church, with its rich
window tracery, the choir, probably, of Burnley
Church, and perhaps the older portions of
Wigan Church. As happens with many others,
the history of the last-named is very broken.
A church existed at Wigan in 1246, but the
larger portion of the present pile belongs to
two centuries later. That it cannot be the
original is proved by the monument to the
memory of Sir William Bradshaigh and the

1 The existing church dates only from 1620, and in many of its
details only from 1852 and 1S55.

292 Illustrations of Lancashire

unfortunate lady, his wife, the principal figure
in the leeend of Mab's, or Mabel's cross. The
knight is cross-legged, in coat of mail, and in
the act of unsheathing his sword ; the lady is
veiled, with hands uplifted and conjoined as if
in prayer. The deaths of these two occurred
about the time of the Flemish weavers' settling
in Lancashire, and of Philippa's intercession for
the burghers of Calais.

Manchester "old church," since 1847 the
"Cathedral," was founded, as before stated, in
1422, the last year of Henry V. and first of
Henry VI. — that unhappy sovereign whose fate
reflects so dismally upon the history of Lan-
cashire faithfulness. The site had previously
been occupied by an edifice of timber, portions
of which are thought to have been carried away
and employed in the building of certain of the
old halls for which the neighbourhood was loner
noted, the arms of the respective families (who,
doubtless, were contributors to the cost of the
new structure) being displayed in different parts.
But there does not appear to be any genuine
ground for the belief; and at a period when oak
timber was so readily procurable as in the time
of Henry VI., it is scarcely probable that men
who could afford to build handsome halls for their
abode would care to introduce second-hand
material, unless in very small quantity, and

The Old Churches 293

then merely as commemorative of the occasion.
Choice of a quarry by the builders of the new
church was not in their power. They were
constrained to use the red -brown friable sand-
stone of the immediate vicinity, still plainly
visible here and there by the river- side. The
exterior of the building has thus required no
little care and cost to preserve, to say nothing
of the injury done by the smoke of a manu-
facturing town. There was a time when
Thoresby's quotation from the Canticles in
reference to St. Peter's at Leeds would have
been quite as appropriate in regard to the
Manchester "Cathedral" — "I am black, but
comely." The style of the building, with its
square and pinnacled tower, 139 feet high, is
the florid Gothic of the time of the west front
and south porch of Gloucester. The interior,
in its loftiness and elaborate fretwork, its
well-schemed proportions and ample windows,
excites the liveliest admiration. The chancel-
screen is one for an artist to revel in ; the
tabernacle work is, if possible, more beautiful
yet.

The second best of the old Lancashire
ecclesiastical interiors belongs to Sefton, near
Liverpool, a building of the time of Henry
VIII., upon the site of a pre-Conquest church.
The screen, which contains sixteen stalls, pre-

294 I I hist rat ions of Lancashire

sents a choice example of carved work. There is
also a fine carved canopy over the pulpit, though
time with the latter has been pitiless. Strik-
ing architectural details are also plentiful with,
in addition, some remarkable monuments of
Knights Templars with triangular shields.
Sefton church is further distinguished as one
of the few in Lancashire more than a hundred
years old which possesses a spire, the favourite
style of tower in the bygones having been the
square, solid, and rather stunted — never in any
degree comparable with the gems found in
Somerset, or with the circular towers that give
so much character to the churches of Norfolk
and Suffolk. A very handsome octangular
tower exists at Hornby, on the banks of the
Lune, built about the middle of the sixteenth
century. Winwick church, an ancient and far-
seen edifice near Warrington, supplies another
example of a spire ; and at Ormskirk we have
the odd conjunction of spire and square tower
side by side. Leland makes no mention of the
circumstance — one which could hardly have
escaped his notice. The local tale which pro-
poses to explain it may be dismissed. The
probability is that the intention was to provide a
place for the bells from Burscough Priory, some
of the monuments belonging to which were also
removed hither when the priory was dissolved.

The Old Churches 295

Many remains show that in Lancashire,
in the time of Henry VIII., the spirit of
church extension was again in full flow. In-
dications of it occur at Warrington, Burnley,
Colne, and St. Michael-le-Wyre, near Gar-
stang, also in the aisles of Middleton Church,
and in the towers of Rochdale, Haslingden,
Padiham, and Warton, near Lancaster. Here,
however, we must pause ; the history of the
old Lancashire churches treated in full would
be a theme as broad and various as that of
the lives and writings of its men of letters.
There is one, nevertheless, which justly claims
the special privilege of an added word, the very
interesting little edifice called Langho Chapel,
four miles from Blackburn, the materials of
which it was built consisting of part of the
wreck of Whalley Abbey. Sculptured stones,
with heraldic shields and other devices, though
much battered and disfigured, declare the source
from which they were derived ; and in the heads
of some of the windows, which resemble the
relics of others at the Abbey, are fragments of
coloured glass in all likelihood of similar origin.
The date of the building would seem to have
been about 1557, though the first mention of it
does not occur until 1575. How curious and
suggestive are the reminders one meets with in
our own country (comparing the small with the

296 Illustrations of Lancashire

great), of the quarrying of the Coliseum by the
masons of mediaeval Rome !

In old halls, mansions, and manor-houses,
especially of sixteenth-century style, Lancashire
abounds. A few are intact, held, like Widnes
I louse, by a descendant of the original owners ;
or preserved through transfer to some wealthy
merchant or manufacturer from the town, who
takes an equal pride in maintaining the integrity
of all he found — a circumstance to which we are
indebted for some of the most beautiful archaeo-
logical relics the county possesses. On the
contrary, as would be expected, the half-ruined
largely predominate, and these in many cases
are now devoted to ignoble purposes. A con-
siderable number of stronger substance have
been modernised, often being converted into
what are sometimes disrespectfully called " farm-
houses," as if the home of the agriculturist were
not one of the most honourable in the land ; —
now and then they have been divided into
cottages. Still, they are there ; attractive very
generally to the artist in their quaintness,
always dear to the antiquary and historian, and
interesting, if no more, to all who appreciate
the fond care which clings to memorials of the
past, whether personal or outside, as treasures
which once lost can never be recovered. They
tell of a class of worthy and industrious men

The Old Halls 297

who were neither barons nor vassals, who had
good taste, and were fairly well off in purse,
and loved field-sports — for a kennel for harriers
and otter hounds is not rare, — who were
hospitable, and generous, and mindful of the
poor.

The history of these old halls is, in truth
very often, the history of the aboriginal county
families. As wealth increased, and abreast of
it a longing for the refinements of a more
elevated civilisation, the proprietors usually
deserted them for a new abode ; the primitive
one became the "old," then followed the
changes indicated, with departure, alas ! only
too often, of the ancient dignity.

In the far north a few remains occur which
point to a still earlier period, or when the dis-
position to render the manorial home a fortress
was very natural. Moats, or the depressions
they once occupied, are common in all parts,
even where there was least danger of attack.
In the neighbourhood of Morecambe Bay the
building was often as strong as a castle, as in
the case of the old home of the Harringtons at
Gleaston, two miles east of Furness Abbey.
These celebrated ruins, which lie in a hollow in
one of the valleys running seawards, are appar-
ently of the fourteenth century, the windows in
the lower storey being acutely pointed single

298 Illustrations of Lancashire

lights, very narrow outside, but widely splayed
within. Portions of three square towers and
part of the curtain-wall connecting them attest,
with the extent of the enclosure (288 feet by
170 where widest), that the ancient lords of
Aldingham were alike powerful and sagacious.
On the way to Gleaston, starting from Grange,
a little south of the village of Allithwaite,
Wraysholme tells of similar times, though all
that now remains is a massive tower, the walls
3J feet thick as they rise from the sod. It was
near Wraysholme, it will be remembered,
that according to tradition and the ballad, the
last of the English wolves was killed. The

fine old tower of Hornby Castle, the only re-
maining portion of a stronghold commenced
soon after the Conquest, is of much later
date, having been built in or about 1520.
That without being originally designed to
withstand the attack of a violent enemy, more
than one of these substantial old Lancashire
private houses held its own against besiegers
in the time of the civil wars is matter of well-
known history. Lathom House (the original,
long since demolished) has already been men-
tioned as the scene of the memorable discom-
fiture of Fairfax by Charlotte, Countess of
Derby, the illustrious lady in whom loyalty
and conjugal love were interwoven.

The Old Halls 299

The Elizabethan halls so termed, though
some of them belong to the time of James I.,
are of two distinct kinds, — the half-timbered,
black-and-white, or "magpie," and the purely
stone, the latter occurring in districts where
wood was less plentiful or more costly.
Nothing in South Lancashire, and in the
adjacent parts of Cheshire, sooner catches the
eye of the stranger than the beautiful old pat-
terned front of one of the former ; — bars vertical
and horizontal, angles and curves, mingling
curiously but always elegantly, Indian ink
upon snow, many gables breaking the sky-line,
while the entrance is usually by a porch or
ornamental gateway, the windows on either side
low but wide, with many mullions, and usually
casemented. The features in question rivet
the mind so much the more because of the
proof given in these old half-timbered houses
of the enduring vitality of the idea of the
Gothic cathedral, and its new expression
when cathedral-building ceased, in the subdued
and modified form appropriate to English
homes — the things next best, when perfect, to
the fanes themselves. The gables repeat the
high-pitched roof; the cathedral window, as to
the rectangular portion, or as far as the spring
of the arch, is rendered absolutely; the filagree
in black-and-white, ogee curves appearing not

300 Illustrations of Lancashire

infrequently, is a varied utterance of the
sculpture ; the pinnacles and fmials, the
coloured glass, and the porch complete the
likeness. Anything that can be associated
with a Gothic cathedral is thereby ennobled : —
upon this one simple basis, the architecture
we are speaking of becomes artistic, while its
lessons are pure and salutary.

Drawing near, at the sides of the porch, are
found seats usually of stone. In front, closing
the entrance to the house, there is a strong
oaken door studded with heads of great iron
nails. Inside are chambers and corridors, many
and varied, an easy and antique staircase lead-
ing to the single upper storey, the walls every-
where hidden by oaken panels grooved and
carved, and in the daintier parts divided by
fluted pilasters ; while across the ceilings,
which are usually low, run the ancient beams
which support the floor above. So lavish is
the employment of oak, that, when this place
was built, surely one thinks a forest must have
been felled. But those were the days of giant
trees, the equals of which in this country will
probably never be seen again, though in the
landscape they are not missed. Inside, again,
how cheery the capacious and friendly hearth,
spanned by a vast arch ; above it, not uncom-
monly, a pair of huge antlers that talk of joy in

The Old Halls 301

the chase. Inside, again, one gets glimpses
of heraldic imagery, commemorative of ancient
family honours, rude perhaps in execution, but
redeemed by that greatest of artists, the Sun-
shine, that streaming through shows the colours
and casts the shadows. Halls such as these
existed until quite lately even in the immediate
suburbs of Manchester, in the original streets
of which town there were many black - and -
white fronts, as to the present moment in
Chester, Ludlow, and Shrewsbury. Some of
the finest of those still remaining in the rural
parts of Lancashire will be noticed in the next
chapter. Our illustrations give for the present
an idea of them. When gone to decay and
draped with ivy, like Coniston Hall, the ancient
home of the le Flemings, whatever may be
the architecture, they become keynotes to
poems that float over the mind like the sound
of the sea. In any case there is the sense,
when dismemberment and modernising have
not wrought their mischief, that while the
structure is always peculiarly well fitted for
its situation, the outlines are essentially English.
It may be added that in these old Lancashire
halls and mansions the occurrence of a secret
chamber is not rare. Lancashire was always a
stronghold of Catholicism, and although the
hiding-places doubtless often gave shelter to

Illustrations of Lancashire

cavaliers and other objects of purely political
enmity, the popular appellation of "priest's
room," or "priest's hole," points plainly to their
more usual service. They were usually em-
bedded in the chimney-stacks, communication
with a private cabinet of the owner of the
house being provided for by means of sliding
shutters. Very curious and interesting refuges
of this character exist to this day at Speke,
Lydiate, Widnes, and Stonyhurst, and in an
old house in Goosenargh, in the centre wall of
which, four feet thick, there are two of the
kind. In a similar "hole" at Mains Hall,
in the parish of Kirkham, tradition says that
Cardinal Allen was once concealed.

the old halls {continued)

Although the few perfect remaining examples
of the old timbered Lancashire halls are preserved
with the fondest reverence by their owners, the
number of those which have been allowed to fall
into a state of partial decay diminishes every
year. They disappear, one by one, perhaps
inevitably, and of many, it is to be feared,
not a trace will soon be left. Repairs and re-
storations are expensive ; to preserve such build-
ings needs, moreover, a strong sense of duty,
and a profounder devotedness to " reliquism,"
as some author terms it, than perhaps can ever
be expected to be general. The duty to pre-
serve is plain. The wilful neglect, not to say
the reckless destruction of interesting old build-
ings that can be maintained, at no great cost,
in fair condition and as objects of picturesque
beauty, is, to say the least of it, unpatriotic.
The possessors of fine old memorials of the

304 J /lustrations of Lancashire

past are not more the possessors in their own
right than trustees of property belonging to the
nation, and the nation is entitled to insist upon
their safe keeping and protection. The oaks
of Sherwood, festooned with stories of Robin
Hood and Maid Marian, are not more a ducal
inheritance, than, as long as they may survive,
every Englishman's by birthright. Architec-
tural remains, in particular, when charged with
historical interest, and that discourse of the
manners and customs of "the lang syne," are
sacred. Let opulence and good taste con-
struct as much more as they please on modern
lines. Every addition to the architectural
adornment of the country reflects honour
upon the person introducing it, and the donor
deserves, though he may not always receive,
sincere gratitude. Let the builder go further,
pull down, and, if he so fancies, reconstruct his
own particular work. But no man who calls
himself master of a romantic or sweet old place,
consecrated by time, has any right, by destroy-
ing, to steal it from the people of England ; he
is bound not even to mutilate it. There are
occasions, no doubt, when to preserve is no
longer practicable, and when to alter may be
legitimate ; we refer not to these, but to need-
less and wanton overthrow — such as unhappily
has had examples only too many. There was

O
H

K
<

►J

The Old Halls — Continued 307

no need to destroy that immemorial mansion,
Reddish Old Hall, near the banks of the
Tame, now known only through the medium
of a faithful picture ; x nor was there excuse
for the merciless pulling to pieces of RadclifTe
Old Hall, on the banks of the Irwell, a building
so massive in its under - structure that the
utmost labour was required to beat it down.
We need not talk of Alaric, the Goths, and the
Vandals, when Englishmen are not ashamed to
behave as badly.

Of the venerated and unmolested, Speke
Hall is, perhaps, the oldest in South Lanca-
shire that remains as an example of the
"magpie," or black-and-white half-timbered
style. It stands upon the margin of the estuary
of the Mersey, a few miles above Liverpool, with
approach at the rear by an avenue of trees from
the water's edge. As with all the rest of its
class, the foundations are of solid masonry, the
house itself consisting of a framework of im-
mensely strong vertical timbers, connected by
horizontal beams, with diagonal bracings, oak
in every instance, the interstices filled with
laths upon which is laid a peculiar composition
of lime and clay. The complexion of the
principal front is represented in our drawing,
but no pencil can give a perfect idea of the

1 In the Chetham Society's 42nd vol., p. 211.

308 I/lustrations of Lancashire

repose, the tender hues, antique but not wasted,
the far-reaching though silent spell with which
it catches and holds both eye and fancy. Over
the principal entrance, in quaint letters, " This
worke," it is said, " 25 yards long, was wolly
built by Edw. N., Esq., Anno 1598." The N.
stands for Norreys, the surname of one of the
primitive Lancashire families, still represented
in the county, though not at Speke. A baronial
mansion belonging' to them existed here as
early as 1350, but of this not a stone that can
be recognised remains. A broad moat once
surrounded the newer hall, but, as in most
other instances, the water has long since given
way to green turf. Sometimes, in Lancashire,
the ancient moats have been converted into
orchards. Inside, Speke is distinguished by
the beauty of the corridors and of the great
hall, which latter contains some carved wain-
scoting brought from Holyrood by the Sir
Wm, Norreys who, serving his commander,
Lord Stanley, well at Flodden, a.d. 15 13, got
leave to despoil the palace of the unfortunate
monarch there defeated. The galleries look
into a spacious and perfectly square central
court of the kind usually pertaining to these
old halls, though now very seldom found with
all four of the enclosing blocks of building.
The court at Speke is remarkable for its pair

■'■ !,; -^°" ' K- V* ; •■■■■ '^ii

y i"j

SPEKE HALL

The Old Halls — Continued

3ii

of aged yew trees ; one of each sex, the female
decked in autumn with its characteristic scarlet
berries — a place for trees so exceptional that it
probably has no counterpart. Everywhere and
at all times the most imperturbable of trees,
yews never fail to give an impression of long

HALE HALL

inheritance and of a history abreast of dynas-
ties, and at Speke the association is sustained
perfectly.

Near Bolton there are several such build-
ings, all in a state of praiseworthy preservation.
In the time of the Stuarts and the Republicans
they must have been numerous. Smithills, or

3 1 2 Illustrations of Lancashire

Smethclls, a most beautiful structure placed at
the head of a little glen, occupies the site of
an ancient Saxon royal residence. After the
Conquest, the estate and the original hall
passed through various successive hands, those
of the Ratcliffes included. At present it is
possessed, fortunately, by one of the Ains-
worth family above mentioned (p. 125), so that,
although very extensive changes have been
made from time to time, including the erection
of a new east front in stone, and the substitu-
tion of modern windows for the primitive case-
ments, the permanency of all, as we have it
to-day, is guaranteed. The interior is rich in
ancient wood-carving. Quaint but charmingly
artistic decoration prevails in all the chief
apartments ; some of the panels are emblaz-
oned in colours ; everywhere, too, there is the
sense of strength and comfort. In the quad-
rangle, open on one side, and now a rose-
garden, amid the flower-borders, and in the
neighbouring shrubberies, it is interesting to
observe once again how the botanical aspect
of old England is slowly but surely under-
going transformation, through the liberal plant-
ing of decorative exotics.

Speke suggests the idea of botanical meta-
morphosis even more powerfully than Smithills.
At each place the ancient occupiers, full of

The Old Halls — Continued \\ x

J ' 3

the native spirit of "never say die," the oak,
the hawthorn, and the silver birch, — trees that
decked the soil in the days of Caractacus, —
wonder who are these new-comers, the rhodo-
dendrons and the strange conifers from Japan
and the antipodes. They bid them welcome
all the same. As at Clitheroe, they stand arm
in arm ; we are reminded at every step of the
good householder "which bringeth forth out of
his treasure things both new and old."

Hall i' th' Wood, not far off, so called
because once hidden in the heart of a forest
containing wild boars, stands on the brow of a
precipitous cliff at the base of which flows the
Eagley. Possessed of a large bay window,
Hall i' th' Wood may justly be pronounced one
of the best existing specimens of old English
domestic architecture — that of the franklins,
or aboriginal country gentlemen, not only of
Lancashire, but of the soil in general, though
some of the external ornaments are of later
date than the house itself. The oldest part
seems never to have suffered " improvements "
of any kind ; in any case, Hall i' th' Wood
is to the historian one of the most interesting
spots in England, since it was here, in the
room with the remarkable twenty -four- light
window, that Crompton devised and con-
structed his cotton-machine. The noble old

3 H Illustrations of Lancashire

trees have long since vanished. When the
oaks were put to death, so large were they that
no cross-cut saw long enough for the purpose
could be procured, and the workmen were
obliged to begin with making deep incisions in
the trunks, and removing large masses of the
ironlike timber. This was only a trifle more
than a century ago.

Turton Tower, near Bolton, an old turreted
and embattled building, partly stone, partly
black-and-white, the latter portion gabled,
originally belonged to the Orrells, afterwards
to the Chethams. the most distinguished of
whom, Humphrey Chetham, founder of the
Chetham Free Library, died here in 1653.
The upper storeys, there being four in all,
successively project or overhang, after the
manner of those of many of the primitive
Manchester houses. The square form of the
building gives it an aspect of great solidity ;
the ancient door is oak, and passing this, we
come once again upon abundance of elaborate
wood- carving, with enriched ceilings, as at
Speke. Turton has, in part, been restored, but
with strict regard to the original style and
fashion, both within and without.

The neighbourhood also of Wigan is cele-
brated for its old halls, pre-eminent among
which is I nee, the ancient seat of the Gerards,

■ ~ — ~ ™ ~ : ' /'■ "" .;•.■ h trf ...- , ; . " i 7 », "

■■■' )

o
o

X
H

The Old Halls — Continued 317

and the subject of another of our sketches.
I nee stands about a mile to the south-east of
the comparatively modern building of the
same name, and in its many gables surmount-
ing the front, and long ranges of windows, is
not more tasteful as a work of art than con-
spicuous to the traveller who is so fortunate as
to pass near enough to enjoy the sight of it.
Lostock Old Hall, black-and-white, and dated
1563, possesses a handsome stone gateway, and
has most of the rooms wainscoted. Standish
Hall, three and a half miles N.N.W., is also
well worth a visit ; and after these time is well
given to Pemberton Old Hall, half timbered
(two miles W.S.W.), Birchley Hall, Winstanley
Hall, and Haigh Hall. Winstanley, built of
stone, though partly modernised, retains the
ancient transom windows, opposing a quiet and
successful resistance to the ravages of time and
fashion. Haigh Hall, for many ages the seat
of the Bradshaigh family (from which, through
females, Lord Lindsay, the distinguished Lan-
cashire author and art-critic, descended), is a
stately mansion of various periods — the chapel
as old apparently as the reign of Edward II.
Placed upon the brow of the hill above the
town, it commands a prospect scarcely sur-
passed by the view from Billinge.

The old halls of Manchester and the

1 8 Illustrations of Lancashire

immediate neighbourhood would a hundred
years ago have required many chapters to
themselves. It has already been mentioned
that a great portion of the original town was
"black-and-white," and most of the halls
belonging to the local gentry, it would seem,
were similar. Those which stood in the way
of the fast-striding bricks and mortar of the
eighteenth century and the beginning of the
nineteenth, if not gone entirely, have been
mutilated beyond recognition. In the fields
close to Garratt Hall partridges were shot only
seventy or eighty years ago : to-day there is
scarcely a fragment of it left! Hulme Hall,
which stood upon a rise of the red sandstone
rock close to the Irwell, overlooking the
ancient ford to Ordsall, — once the seat of the
loyal and generous Prestwich family, — is
remembered by plenty of the living as the
point aimed for in summer evenings by those
who loved the sight of hedges covered with
the white bells of the convolvulus — Galatea's
own pretty flower. Workshops now cover the
ground ; and though Ordsall Hall, its neigh-
bour across the water, not long ago a mile
from any public road, is still extant, it is hall
only in name. Ordsall, happily, is in the
possession of a firm of wealthy manufacturers,
who have converted the available portions

The Old Halls — Continued 319

into a sort of institute for their workpeople.1
Crumpsall Old Hall ; Hough Hall, near
Moston ; Ancoats Old Hall, now the Ancoats
Art Gallery ; Barton Old Hall, near Eccles ;
Urmston Old Hall, and several others, may be
named as examples of ancient beauty and
dignity now given over to the spirit of change.
Leaving them to their destiny, it is pleasant to
note one here and there among the fields
still unspoiled, as in the case of " Hough End,"
a building of modest proportions, but an excel-
lent example of the style in brick which pre-
vailed at the close of the reign of Elizabeth ; the
windows square-headed, with substantial stone
mullions, and transomed. Hough End was
originally the home of the Mosleys, having
been erected by Sir Nicholas Mosley, Lord
Mayor of London in 1600, "whom God," says
the old biographer, "from a small and low
estate, raysed up to riches and honour." One
of the prettiest of the always pretty "magpie"
style is Kersall Cell, near the banks of the
Irwell, at Agecroft, so named because on the
site of an ancient monkish retreat or hermitaafe,
the predecessor of which in turn was a little
oratory among the rocks at Ordsall, lower
down the stream, founded temp. Henry II.

1 Messrs. R. Howarth & Co., whose "weaving-shed," it may be
added, is the largest and most astonishing in the world.

3 20 Illustrations of L ancash ire

Worsley Old Hall, another example of " mag-
pie," though less known to the general public
than the adjacent modern Worsley Hall, the
seat of the Earl of Ellesmere, is one of the
most imposing edifices of its character in
South Lancashire. With the exception of
Worsley Hall, Manchester possesses no
princely or really patrician residences. The
Earl of Wilton's, Heaton Park, though
well placed, claims to be nothing more than
of the classical type so common to its
class.

When relics only exist, they in many cases
become specially interesting through containing
some personal memorial. Barlow Hall, for
instance, originally black-and-white, with quad-
rangle, now so changed by modernising and
additions that we have only a hint of the
primitive aspect, is rich in the possession of
an oriel with stained glass devoted to heraldry.
One of the shields — parted per pale, appar-
ently to provide a place for the Barlow
arms, not inserted — shows on the dexter side
those of Edward Stanley, third Earl of Derby,
in seventeen quarterings — Stanley, Lathom,
the Isle of Man, Harrington, Whalley Abbey,
Hooton, and eleven others. The date of this,
as of the sundial, is 1574.

The country immediately around Liverpool

The Old Halls — Continued 321

is deficient in old halls of the kind so abundant
near Bolton and Manchester. This perhaps is
in no degree surprising when we consider how
thinly that part of Lancashire was inhabited
when the manufacturing south-east corner was
already populous. Speke is the only perfect
example thereabouts of its particular class, the
black-and-white ; and of a first-class contem-
poraneous baronial mansion, the remains of the
Hutte, near Hale, furnish an almost solitary
memorial. The transom of the lower window,
the upper smaller windows, the stack of kitchen
chimneys, the antique mantelpiece, the moat,
still untouched, with its drawbridge, combine to
show how important this place must have been
in the bygones, while the residence of the
Irelands. It was quitted in 1674, when the
comparatively new " Hale Hall " was erected,
a solid and commodious building of the in-
definite style. Liverpool as a district is corre-
spondingly deficient in palatial modern resi-
dences, though there are many of considerable
magnitude. Knowsley, the seat of the Earl of
Derby, is eminently miscellaneous, a mixture of
Gothic and classical, and of various periods,
beginning with temp. Henry VI. The front
was built in 1702, the back in 1805. Croxteth
Hall, the Earl of Sefton's, is a stone building of
the neqritive character indicative of the time of

322 Illustrations of Lancashire

Queen Anne and George I. Child wall Abbey,
a mansion belonging to the Marquis of Salis-
bury, is Gothic of the kind which is recom-
mended neither by taste nor by fidelity to
exact principles. Lathom, on the other hand,
is consistent, though opinions vary as to the
amount of genius displayed in the detail — the
very part in which genius is always declared.
Would that there existed, were it ever so tiny,
a fragment of the original Lathom House, that
noble first home of the Stanleys, which had no
fewer than eighteen towers, without reckoning
the lofty " Eagle" in the centre — its outer walls
protected by a fosse of eight yards in width,
and its gateway one that in nobleness would
satisfy kings. Henry VII. came here in
1495, the occasion when "to the women that
songe before the Kinge and the Ouene," as
appears in the entertaining Privy Purse Ex-
penses of the royal progress that pleasant
summer, there was given "in reward, 6s. 8d."
So thorough was the demolition of the old place
that now there is no certain knowledge even of
the site. The present mansion was built during
the ten years succeeding 1724. It has a rustic
basement, with double flight of steps, above
which are rows of Ionic columns. The length
of the northern or principal front, including the
wings, is 320 feet; the south front overlooks

The Old Halls — Continued 323

the garden, and an abundantly wooded park.
An Italian architect, Giacomo Leoni, was en-
trusted with the decoration of the interior,
which upon the whole is deservedly admired.

I nee Blundell is distinguished, not so much
for its architecture, as for the collection of
works of art contained in the entrance-hall, a
model, one-third size, of the Pantheon. The
sculptures, of various kinds, above 550 in
number, are chiefly illustrative of the later
period of Roman art, though including some
gems of ancient Greek conception ; the paint-
ings include works of high repute in all
the principal continental schools, as well as
English, the former representing, among others,
Paul Veronese, Andrea del Sarto, and Jan Van
Eyck. The I nee Blundell collection is certainly
without equal in Lancashire, and is pronounced
by connoisseurs one of the finest of its kind in
the country.

The neighbourhood of Blackburn is enviable
in the possession of Hoghton Tower, five and
a half miles to the W.S.W., a building sur-
passed in its various interest only by Lancaster
Castle and the abbeys ; in beauty of situation
little inferior to Stirling Castle, and as a speci-
men of old baronial architecture well worthy of
comparison with Haddon Hall. The estate
was in the possession of the Hoghton family

324 Illustrations of Lancashire

as early as temp. Henry II., when the orig-
inal manor-house, superseded by the Tower,
stood at the foot of the hill, by the river-
side. The existing edifice dates from the reign
of Elizabeth, having been erected by the
Thomas Hoghton whose departure from "Merry
England" is the theme of the pathetic old
ballad, " The Blessed Conscience." He was
one of the "obstinate" people who, having
been educated in the Catholic faith, refused
to conform to the requirements of the
new Protestant powers, and was obliged
in consequence to take refuge in a foreign
country, dying an exile at Liege, 3d June
1580. '

" Oh ! Hoghton high, which is a bower

Of sports and lordly pleasure,
I wept, and left that lordly tower

Which was my chiefest treasure.
To save my soul, and lose the rest,

It was my true pretence ;
Like frighted bird, I left my nest,

To keep my conscience.

" Fair England ! now ten times adieu !

And friends that therein dwell ;
Farewell, my brother Richard true,

Whom I did love so well —
Farewell, farewell, good people all,

And learn experience ;
Love not too much the golden ball,

But keep your conscience."

w
o

—

The Old Halls — Continued 327

The " Tower," so called, occupies the summit
of a lofty ridge, on its eastern side bold and
rugged, steep and difficult of access, though to
the north and west sloping gently. Below the
declivity meanders the Darwen, in parts smooth
and noiseless ; but in the " Orr," so named from
the sound, tumbling over huge heaps of rock
loosened from the opposite bank, where the
wall of stone is almost vertical. In the time of
its pride the hill was almost entirely clothed
with trees, but now it is chiefly turf, and the
extent of the prospect, which includes the
village of Walton-le-Dale, down in the valley of
the Ribble, is enjoyed perfectly. The ground-
plan of the building presents two capacious
courts, the wall with three square towers in
front, the middle one protecting the gateway.
The outer court is large enough for the easy
movement of 600 men ; the inner one is ap-
proached by a noble flight of steps. The
portion designed for the abode of the family
contains noble staircases, branching out into
long galleries, which lead, in turn, to the many
chambers. One of the rooms, called James the
First's, is wainscoted. The stay of his Majesty
at Hoghton for a few days in August, 161 7,
has already been referred to. It is this which
has been so admirably commemorated in
Cattermole's best painting. With a view to

28 Illustrations of Lancashire

rendering his picture, containing some fifty
figures, as historically correct as might be
possible, the artist was assisted with all the
records and portraits in existence, so that the
imagination has little place in it beyond the
marshalling. Regarded as a semi-ruin, Hoghton
Tower is a national monument, a treasure
which belongs not more to the distinguished
baronet by whom it has lately been in some
degree restored after the neglect of generations,
than, as said above, like all others of its kind,
to the people of England, who, in course of
time, it is to be hoped, will rightly estimate the
value of their heirlooms.

Stonyhurst, now the principal English Jesuit
College, was originally the home of the Sher-
burne family, one of whom attended Queen
Philippa at Calais, while upon another, two
centuries later, Elizabeth looked so graciously
that, although a Catholic, she allowed him to
retain his private chapel and domestic priest. It
was under the latter that the existing edifice

took the place of one more ancient, though the
builder did not live to complete his work. The
completion, in truth, may be said to be yet
barely effected, so many additions, all in
thorough keeping, have been projected. Not
that they interfere with the design of the
stately original, its lofty and battlemented

C/2

i|| •

The Old Halls — Continued 331

centre, and noble cupolas. The new is in
perfect harmony with the old, and the general
effect, we may be sure, is no less imposing to-
day than it was three hundred years ago. The
interior corresponds ; the galleries and apart-
ments leave nothing to be desired : they are
stored, moreover, with works of art, and with
archaeological and historical curiosities ; so
richly, indeed, that whatever the value of the
museums in some of the Lancashire large
towns, in the entire county there is no collection
of the kind that can take precedence of Stony-
hurst. The house was converted to its present
purpose in 1794, when the founders of the
College, driven from Liege by the terrors of
the French Revolution, obtained possession of
it. They brought with them all they could
that was specially valuable, and hence, in large
measure, the varied interest of what it contains.
In the philosophical apparatus room there is a
Descent from the Cross, by Annibale Caracci.
Elsewhere there are some carvings in ivory,
and a Crucifixion, by Michel Angelo, with
ancient missals, a copy of the Office of the
Virgin which belonged to Mary, Queen of
Scots, and antiques of miscellaneous character
innumerable, those of the Christian ages sup-
plemented by a Roman altar from Ribchester,
A curious circumstance connected with Stony-

Illustrations of Lancashire

oj-

hurst is, that the house and grounds occupy, as
nearly as possible, the same area as that of the
famous city which once adorned the banks of
the Ribble.

A pilgrimage to the neighbourhood of
Stonyhurst is rewarded by the sight of old
fashioned manor-houses scarcely inferior in
manifold interest to those left behind in the
southern part of the county. Little Mitton
Hall (so named in order to distinguish it from
Great Mitton, on the Yorkshire side of the
stream) supplies an example of the architecture
of the time of Henry VII. The basement is
of stone, the upper storey of wood; the presence-
chamber, with its embayed window-screen and
gallery above, and the roof ceiled with oak in
wrought compartments, are alike curious and
interesting. Salesbury Hall, partly stone and
partly wood, once possessed of a quadrangular
court, now a farmhouse, was originally the seat
of the Talbots, one of whom, in 1580, was
Keeper of the Records in the Tower of London.
Salmesbury, monographed by Mr. James
Croston, dates from the close of the fourteenth
century. This is a truly fascinating old place,
the inner doors all without either panel or lock,
and opened, like those of cottages, with a latch
and a string. Townley Hall, near Burnley,
one of the most ancient seats in the county, is

The Old Halls — Continued t,t>3

rich in personal history. The banks of the
Lune in turn supply examples of the ancient
mansion such as befit a valley picturesque in
every winding, Hornby Castle and Borwick
Hall counting as chief among them.

The list of Lancashire remains of this char-
acter could be considerably enlarged. Scaris-
brick and Rufford, near Ormskirk ; Yealand
Redmayne, nine miles north of Lancaster ;
Swarthmoor, Extwistle, and many others,
present features of various interest, and in the
aggregate supply materials for one of the most
delightful chapters still to be written for the
history not only of Lancashire but of England.
But here we must desist.

XII

THE NATURAL HISTORY AND THE FOSSILS

An extended account of the flora of Lanca-
shire, or of its fauna, or of the organic remains
preserved in the rocks and the coal strata, is
impossible in the space now at command : it is
not demanded either by pages which profess to
supply no more than general hints as to where
to look for what is worthy or curious. A bird's-
eye view of Lancashire, its contents and char-
acteristics, would nevertheless be incomplete
without some notice, however brief, of the in-
digenous trees and plants, the birds ordinarily
met with, and the fossils. The zest with which
natural history has been followed in Lanca-
shire, for over a century, has resulted in so
accurate a discrimination of all the principal
forms of life, that the numbers, and the degree
of diffusion of the various species, can now
be spoken of without fear of error. In those
departments alone which require the use of

The Flora 335

the microscope is there much remaining to be
done, and these, in truth, are practically inex-
haustible.

Being so varied in its geology, and possessed
of a hundred miles of coast, Lancashire pre-
sents a very good average flora, though want-
ing many of the pretty plants which deck the
meadows and waysides of most of the southern
counties. The wild clematis which at Clifton
festoons every old thorn is sought in vain. In
Lancashire no cornfield is ever flooded as in
Surrey with scarlet poppies ; the sweet-briar
and the scented violet are scarcely known,
except, of course, in gardens ; even the mallow
is a curiosity. Many flowers, on the other
hand, occur in plenty, which, though not con-
fined to Lancashire, are in the south seldom
seen, and which in beauty compare with the
best. Mr. Bentham, in his Handbook of the
British Flora, describes 1232 native flowering
plants, and 53 of the cryptogamia — the ferns
and their allies — or a total of 1285. Of these
the present writer has personally observed in
Lancashire more than 500. In the remoter
corners another score or two, without doubt,
await the finding. In any case, the proportion
borne by the Lancashire flora to that of the
entire island is, in reality, much higher than the
figures seem to indicate, since quite a sixth

336 J /lustrations of Lancashire

part of the 12S5 consists of plants confined to
three or four localities, and thus not entitled
to count with the general vegetation of the
country. It is not, after all, the multitude or
the variety of the species found in a given spot
that renders it enviable. The excellent things
of the world are not the rare and costly ones,
but those which give joy to the largest number
of intelligent human beings ; and assuredly
more delight has arisen to mankind from the
primrose, the anemone, and the forget-me-not,
than from all the botanist's prizes put together.
Better, moreover, at any time, than the posses-
sion of mere quantity, the ceaseless pleasure
that comes of watching manners and customs,
or a life-history — such, for example, as that of
the Parnassia. Not to mention all that pre-
cedes and follows, how beautiful the spectacle
of the milk-white cups when newly open, the
golden anthers kneeling round the lilac ovary ;
then, after a while, in succession rising up,
bestowing a kiss, and retiring, so that at last
they form a five - rayed star, the ovary now
impurpled. In connection with the dethrone-
ment of the natural beauty of the streams in
the cotton manufacturing districts, it is interest-
ing to note that, while the primroses, the
anemones, and the forget-me-nots, that once
grew in profusion, here and there, along the

The Flora 337

margins, have disappeared, the " azured hare-
bell " * holds its own. Even when the white-
thorn stands dismayed, the harebell still sheets
many a slope and shelving bank with its deep-
dyed blue.

On the great hills along the eastern side of
the county, and especially in the moorland
parts, the flora is meagre in the extreme.
Acres innumerable produce little besides
heather and whortle- berry. When the latter
decreases, it is to make room for the empe-
trum, or the Vitis Iclsea, " the grape of Mount
Ida" — a name enough in itself to fling poetry
over the solitude. Harsh and wiry grasses and
obdurate rushes fill the interspaces, except
where green with the hard-fern. Occasionally,
as upon Foledge, the parsley-fern and the club-
moss tell of the altitude, as upon Pendle the
pinguicula and the cloud - berry. The hills
behind Grange are in part densely covered
with juniper, and the characteristic grass is the
beautiful blue sesleria, the colour contrasting
singularly with that of the hay-field grasses.
The choicest of the English green -flowered
plants, the trulove, Paris quadrifo/ia, is plen-
tiful in the woods close by, and extends to
those upon the banks of the Duddon. Every-
where north of Morecambe Bay, as these

1 Usually miscalled "blue bell," vide "The Shakspere Flora."

33S Illustrations of Lancashire

names go far to indicate, the flora is more
diversified than to the south ; here, too, par-
ticular kinds of flowers occur in far greater
plenty. At Grange the meadows teem with
cowslips, in many parts of Lancashire almost
unknown. Crimson orchises — Ophelia's " long-
purples," the tway-blade, the fly -orchis, the
Lady's tresses, the butterfly-orchis, that smells
only after twilight, add their charms to this
beautiful neighbourhood, which, save for Birk-
dale, would seem the Lancashire orchids'
patrimony. The total number of orchideous
plants occurring wild in the county is fourteen ;
and of these Birkdale lays very special claim
to two — the marsh epipactis and the Orchis
lati folia. In the moist hollows among the
sand-hills, called the "slacks," they grow in
profusion, occurring also in similar habitats
beyond the Ribble. The abundance is easily
accounted for ; the seeds of the orchids, of
every kind, are innumerable as the motes that
glisten i' the sunbeam, and when discharged,
the wind scatters them in all directions. The
orchids' Birkdale home is that also of the par-
nassia, which springs up less frequently alone
than in clusters of from six or eight to twenty
or thirty. Here, too, grows that particular
form of the pyrola, hitherto unnoticed else-
where, which counts as the Lancashire botani-

The Flora 339

cal specialty, looking when in bloom like the
lily of the valley, though different in leaf, and
emulating not only the fashion but the odour.
It would much better deserve the epithet of
"Lancashire" than the asphodel so called, for
the latter is found in bogs wherever they
occur. Never mind ; it is more than enough
that there is whisper in it of the " yellow
meads," and that in high summer it shows its
bright gold, arriving just when the cotton-grass
is beginning to waft away, and the sundews
are displaying their diamonds, albeit so
treacherously, for in another week or two
every leaf will be dotted with corpses. No
little creature of tender wins: ever touches a
sundew except under penalty of death. Only
two other English counties — York and Corn-
wall— lend their name to a wild-Mower, so that
Lancashire may still be proud of its classic
asphodel.

No single kind of wild- flower occurs in
Lancashire so abundantly as to give character
to the county, nor is it marked by any par-
ticular kind of fern. The most general, per-
haps, is the broad -leaved sylvan shield -fern
(Lastrea dilatata), though in some parts super-
seded by the amber - spangled polypody.
Neither is any one kind of tree more con-
spicuous than another, unless it be the syca-

^4-0 Illustrations of Lancashire

more. Fair dimensions are attained by the
wych-elm, which in Lancashire holds the place
given south of Birmingham to that princely
exotic, the campestris — the "ancestral elm" of
the poet, and chief home of the sable rook —
a tree of comparative rarity, and in Lancashire
never majestic. The wild cherry is often
remarkable also for its fine development, especi-
ally north of the sands. The abele, on the other
hand, the maple, and the silver willow, are
seldom seen ; and of the spindle - tree, the
wayfaring - tree, and the dogwood, there is
scarcely an example. They do not blend in
Lancashire, as in the south, with the crimson
pea and the pencilled wood-vetch. When a
climber of the summer, after the bindweed,
ascends the hedge, it is the Tamus, that
charming plant which never seems so much to
have risen out of the earth as to be a cataract
of foliage tumbling from some hidden fount
above. Wood-nuts are plentiful in the northern
parts of the county ; and in the southern wild
raspberries, these equal in flavour and frag-
rance to those of garden growth, wanting only
in size. Bistort makes pink islands amid hay
grass that waits the scythe. Foxgloves as tall
as a man adorn all dry and shady groves.
The golden - rod, the water septfoil, and the
Lady's mantle, require no searching for. At

The Birds 341

Blackpool the sea-rocket blooms again towards
Christmas. On the extremest verge of the
county, where a leap across the streamlet
would plant the feet in Westmoreland, the
banks are dotted for many miles with the
bird's-eye primula.

THE BIRDS1

With the Lancashire birds, as with the
botany, it is not the exhaustive catalogue that
possesses the prime interest. This lies in the
habits, the odd and pretty ways, the instincts,
the songs, the migrations, that lift birds, in
their endless variety, so near to our own per-
sonal human nature.

Adding to the list of birds known to be
permanent residents in Great Britain, the
names of those which visit our islands periodi-
cally, either in summer or winter, the total
approaches 250. Besides the regular immi-
grants, about a hundred others come occasion-
ally ; some, perchance, by force of accident, as
when, after heavy weather at sea, the Stormy
Petrel is blown ashore. In Lancashire there
appear to be, of the first-class, about seventy :

1 Condensed in part from the chapter on Lancashire Birds in Man-
chester Walks and Wild-flowers, 1S5S, long since out of print.

342 Illustrations of Lancashire

the summer visitors average about thirty ; and
of winter visitors there have been noticed
about a score, the aggregate being thus, as
nearly as possible, one - half of the proper
ornithology of the country. The parts of the
county richest in species are naturally those
which abound in woods and well - cultivated
land, as near Windermere, and where there
are orchards and plenty of market-gardens, as
on the broad plain south-west of Manchester,
which is inviting also in the pleasant character
of the climate. Here, with the first dawn of
spring, when the catkins hang on the hazels,
the song-thrush begins to pipe. The missel-
thrush in the same district is also very early,
and is often, like the chief musician, remark-
able for size, plumage, and power of song.
Upon the seaside sand-hills it is interesting
to observe how ingeniously the throstle deals
with the snails. Every here and there in the
sand a large pebble is lodged, and against this
the bird breaks the shells, so that at last the
stone becomes the centre of a heap of frag-
ments that recall the tales of the giants and
their bone-strewed caverns. This, too, where
the peaceful ness is so profound, and where
never a thought of slaughter and rapine, save
for the deeds of the thrushes, would enter the
mind. The snails are persecuted also by the

The Birds 343

blackbirds — in gardens more inveterately even
than on the sand-hills — in the former to such
a degree that none can refuse forgiveness of
the havoc wrought among the strawberries and
ripening cherries. Both thrush and blackbird
have their own cruel enemy — the cunning and
inexorable sparrow-hawk. When captured, the
unfortunate minstrel is conveyed to an emi-
nence, sometimes an old nest, if one can be
near, and there devoured. In almost all parts
of Lancashire where there are gardens, that
cheerful little creature, the hedge-sparrow or
dunnock, lifts up its voice. Birds commence
their song at very various hours. The dun-
nock usually begins towards sunset, first
mounting to the loftiest twig it can discover
that will bear its weight. The sweet and
simple note, if one would hear it to perfection,
must be caught just at that moment. The
song is one of those that seem to be a varied
utterance of the words of men. Listen at-
tentively, and the lay is as nearly as may be —
" Home, home, sweet, sweet home ; my work's
done, so's yours ; good night, all's well."
Heard in mild seasons as early as January, the
little dunnock sings as late as August. It rears
a second brood while the summer is in progress,
building a nest of moss, lining it with hair,
and depositing five immaculate blue eggs. The

344 Illustrations of Lancashire

robin, plentiful everywhere in the rural dis-
tricts, and always equal to the production of
a delightful song, never hesitates to visit
the suburbs even of large and noisy towns,
singing throughout the year, though not
so much noticed in spring and summer,
because of the chorus of other birds. The
country lads still call it by the old Shaksperean
name :

. . . " The ruddock would,
With charitable bill (O bill, sore-shaming
Those rich-left heirs that let their fathers lie
Without a monument !) bring thee all this ;
Yea, and furr'd moss besides." — Cymbeline, iv. 2.

The great titmouse is almost as generally
distributed as the robin, and in gardens never
a stranger, being busy most of its time looking
for insects. Were coincidences in nature rare
and phenomenal, instead of, to the contem-
plative, matter of everyday delight, we should
think more of its note as the token of the time of
blooming of the daffodils. Making the oddest
of noises, as if trying to imitate other birds,
poor innocent, it only too often gets shot for its
pains, the sportsman wondering what queer
thing can this be now ? The blue titmouse,
like the great, would seem to be very generally
diffused. Exquisite in plumage, it attracts
attention still more particularly while build-

The Birds 345

ing, both the male and the female working so
hard. The meadow pipit, or titling, loves the
peat-mosses (those decked with the asphodel),
upon which the nests are often plentiful, a
circumstance the cuckoos, when they arrive,
are swift to take advantage of. No bird that
builds on the ground has more work to do for
the "herald of summer." From the end of
April onwards — the cuckoo arriving in the
third week — the titlings, whether they like it
or not, get no respite. The young cuckoos
are always hungry, and never in the least
anxious to go away. How exemplary the
fondness of the cuckoo for its mate ! Though
apparently void of affection for its offspring, no
bird, not even the turtle-dove, is more strongly
attached to the one it has taken " for better
for worse." Where either of the pair is seen,
the other is sure never to be far away. Green-
finches and chaffinches are plentiful, the song
of the former sweet, though monotonous, the
the latter rendered liberally, and always wel-
come. The chaffinch becomes interesting
through choice of materials so very curious
for its nest. One has been found — where but
in Lancashire could it occur ? — constructed
entirely of raw cotton. The nest-building and
the choice of abode constitute, in truth, a
chapter in bird-life more charming even than the

346 I /lustrations of Lancashire

various outflow of the melody. The pied wag-
tail goes to the very localities that most other
birds dislike — rough and stony places, near the
water and under bridges ; the tree -sparrow
resorts to aged and hollow oaks, rarely build-
ing elsewhere ; the long-tailed titmouse con-
structs a beautiful little nest not unlike a
beehive, using moss, lichens, and feathers ;
while the redpole prefers dead roots of
herbaceous plants, tying the fibres together
with the bark of last year's withered nettle-
stalks, and lining the cavity with the glossy
white pappus of the coltsfoot, just ripe to its
hand, and softer than silk. The common wren,
— a frequent Lancashire bird, — a lovely little
creature, sometimes with wings entirely white,
and not infrequently with a few scattered
feathers of that colour, is one of the birds that
prefigure character in man. When the time
for building arrives the hen commences a nest
on her own private account, goes on with it,
and completes it. Her consort meantime be-
gins two or three in succession, but tires, and
never finishes anything. Among the Lanca-
shire permanent residents, and birds only par-
tially periodical, may also be named, as birds
of singular attractiveness in their ways, —
though not perhaps always tuneful, or grace-
ful in form, or gay in plumage, — the skylark

The Birds 347

that "at heaven's gate sings"; the common
linnet, a bird of the heaths and hedgerows,
captured, whenever possible, for the cage ; the
magpie, the common bunting, the yellow-
ammer, the peewit, and the starling or shep-
ster. The starlings travel in companies, and
lively parties they always seem. The ''close
order" flight of the peewit is well known ; that
of the starling is, if possible, even more won-
derful. The sudden move to the right or left
of thousands perfectly close together upon the
wing ; the rise, at a given signal, like a cloud,
from the pastures where they have been feed-
ing, is a spectacle almost unique in its singu-
larity. Near the sea the list is augmented by
the marsh bunting, the curlew, and gulls of dif-
ferent kinds, including the kittiwake. In very
tempestuous seasons gulls are often blown
inland, as far as Manchester, falling when
exhausted in the fields. They also come of
their own accord, and may be seen feeding
upon the mosses. Upon the sand-hills a
curious and frequent sight is that of the
hovering of the kestrel over its intended
prey, which here consists very generally of
young rabbits. The kestrel has little skill in
building. Talents differ as much in birds as
in mankind. Seldom its own architect, it
selects and repairs an old and deserted

348 Must rat 'ions of Lancashire

crow's or magpie's nest, or any other it can
find sufficiently capacious for its needs.

The history of the Lancashire summer
visitants is crowded with interest of equal
variety. The nightingale stays away. She
has come now and then to the edge of
Cheshire, but no farther. Very often, how-
ever, she is thought to have ventured at last,
the midnioht note of the sedo-e-warbler beinof
in some respects not unlike that of Philomel
herself. The earliest to arrive, often pre-
ceding the swallows, appear to be the wheat-
ear and the willow-wren. The sand-martin is
also a very early comer. It cannot afford, in
truth, to be dilatory, the nest being constructed
in a gallery first made in some soft cliff, usually
sandstone. While building it never alights
upon the ground, collecting the green blades
of grass used for the outer part, and the
feathers for the lining, while still on the wing.
The advent of the cuckoo has already been
mentioned. In the middle of May comes the
spotted fly -catcher, an unobtrusive and con-
fiding little creature ; and about the same time
the various "warblers" make their appearance.
The males usually precede the females by a
week or two ; the black-cap going, like the
hedge-sparrow, to the highest pinnacle it can
find, and singing till joined by the hen ; while

The Birds 349

the garden-warbler keeps to the bushes and
gardens, and is silent till she arrives. The
whinchat, the yellow wagtail, and the stone-
chat, haunter of the open wastes where gorse
grows freely, never forget. Neither do the
dotterel and the ring-ouzel, the latter in song
so mellow, both moving on speedily into the
hilly districts. To many the voice of the corn-
crake, though harsh and tuneless, becomes a
genuine pleasure, for she is heard best during
those balmy summer evening hours while,
though still too light for the stars, the planets
peer forth in their beautiful lustre, clear and
young as when first noted by the Chaldean
shepherds, bryony in bloom in the hedge-
rows, "listening wheat" on either hand.

The winter visitants comprehend chiefly the
fieldfare and the redwing. In October and
November these birds, breeding in Norway
and Sweden, appear in immense flocks.
Winging its way to the vicinity of farms
and orchards, the one piercing cry of the
redwing may be heard overhead any still
night, no matter how dark. Siskins come
at uncertain intervals ; and in very severe
seasons the snow-bunting is sometimes noticed.

Such are the ornithological facts which in
Lancashire give new attraction to the quiet
and rewarding study of wild nature. The few

350 Illustrations of Lancashire

that have been mentioned — for they are not
the hundredth part of what might be cited
were the subject dealt witli in extenso — do not
pretend to be in the slightest degree novel.
They may serve, nevertheless, to indicate
that in Lancashire there is lifelong pastime
for the lover of birds no less than for the
botanist.

THE FOSSILS1

Although the new red sandstone, so
general in the southern parts, offers scarcely
any attractions to the palaeontologist, Lanca-
shire is still a rich locality in regard to fossils.
The coal-fields and the mountain limestone, the
latter so abundant near Clitheroe, make amends.
The organic remains found in the mountain
limestone almost invariably have their forms
preserved perfectly as regards clearness and
sharpness of outline. The history of this rock
begins in that of primeval sea ; the quantity of
remains which it entombs is beyond the power
of fancy to conceive, large masses owing their
existence to the myriads, once alive, of a single
species of creature. A third characteristic is
that, notwithstanding the general hardness, the

1 One or two paragraphs condensed from the seventh chapter of
Summer Rambles, 1S66. Long since out of print.

The Fossils 3 5 1

surface wears away under the influence of
the carbonic acid brought down by the rain,
so that the fossils become liberated, and may
often be gathered up as easily as shells from
the wet wrinkles of the sands. Access to
the mountain limestone is thus peculiarly
favourable to the pursuits of the student who
makes researches into the history of the life
of the globe on which we dwell. How much
can be done towards it was shown forty or
fifty years ago by the Preston apothecary,
William Gilbertson, whose collection — trans-
ferred after his death to the British Museum —
was pronounced by Professor Phillips in the
Geology of Yorkshire at that moment "un-
rivalled." Gilbertson's specimens were chiefly
collected in the small district of Bolland, upon
Longridge, where also at considerable heights
marine shells of the same species as those
which lie upon our existing shores may be
found, showing that the elevation of the land
has taken place since their first appearance
upon the face of the earth.

The quarries near Clitheroe and Chatburn
supply specimens quite as abundantly as those
of Longridge. Innumerable terebratulae, the
beautiful broad - hinged and deeply - striated
spirifers, and the euomphalos, reward a very
slight amount of labour. Here, too, are

35 - I Illustrations of Lancashire

countless specimens of the petrified relics of
the lovely creatures called, from their re-
semblance to an expanded lily-blossom and
its long peduncle, the crinoidea, a race now
nearly extinct. A very curious circumstance
connected with these at Clitheroe is that of
some of the species, as of the Platycrinus
triacoutadactylos, or the " thirty-rayed," there
are myriads of fossilised heads but no bodies.
The presumed explanation of this singular fact
is, that at the time when the creatures were in
the quiet enjoyment of their innocent lives,
great floods swept the shores upon which they
were seated, breaking off, washing away, and
piling up the tender and rlowerlike upper
portions, just as at the present day the petals
of the pear-tree exposed to the tempest are
torn down and heaped like a snowdrift by the
wayside, the pillar-like stems remaining fast
to the ground. There is no need to con-
jecture where the bodies of the creatures may
be. At Castleton, in Derbyshire, where the
encrinital limestone is also well exhibited, there
are innumerable specimens of these, and few
or no examples of heads. The bodies of other
species are plentiful at Clitheroe, where the
actinocrinus is also extremely abundant, and
may be detected, like the generality of these
beautiful fossils, in nearly every one of the

The Fossils

JD3

great fiat stones set up edgeways in place of
stiles between the fields that lie adjacent to the
quarries.

The oroanic remains found in the coal strata
rival those of the mountain limestone both in
abundance and exquisite lineaments. In some
parts there are incalculable quantities of relics
of fossil fishes, scales of fishes, and shells re-
sembling mussels. The glory of these wonder-
ful subterranean museums consists, however,
in the infinite numbers and the inexpressible
beauty of the impressions of fern-leaves, and
of fragments of the stems — well known under
the names of calamites, sigillaria, and lepido-
dendra — of the great plants which in the pre-
Adamite times composed the woods and
groves. In some of the mines — the Robin
Hood, for instance, at Clifton, five miles from
Manchester — the roof declares, in its flattened
sculptures, the ancient existence hereabouts
of a vast forest of these plants. At Dixon-
fold, close by, when the railway was in course
of construction, there were found the lower
portions of the fossilised trunks of half a dozen
noble trees, one of the stone pillars eleven feet
high, with a circumference at the base of over
fifteen feet, and at the top, where the trunk was
snapped when the tree was destroyed, of more
than seven feet. These marvellous Dixon-

2 A

354 Illustrations of Lancashire

fold relics have been carefully preserved by
roofing over, and are shown to any one passing
that way who cares to inquire for them.
Beneath the coal which lies in the plane of
the roots, enclosed in nodules of clay, there
are countless lepidostrobi, the fossilised fruits,
it is supposed, of one or other of the coal-strata
trees. Two miles beyond, at Halliwell, they
occur in equal profusion ; and here, too, un-
fiattened trunks occur, by the miners aptly
designated " fossil reeds." Leaves of palms are
also met with. The locality which in wealth
of this class of fossils excels all others in South
Lancashire would appear to be Peel Delph.
In it are found calamites varying from the
thickness of a straw to a diameter of two or
three feet, and as round as when swayed by
the wind of untold ages ago. The markings
upon the lepidodendra are as clear as the im-
press of an engraver's seal. In another part
there is a stratum of some four feet in depth,
consisting apparently of nothing besides the
fossil fruits called trigonocarpa and the sandy
material in which they are lodged. With these
curious triangular nuts, no stems, or leaves, or
plant-remains of any description have as yet
been found associated. All that can be said of
them is that they resemble the fruits of the
many-sided Japanese tree called the salisburia.

T/ic Fossils 355

At Peel Delph again a stratum of argillaceous
shale, five or six feet in thickness, contains
innumerable impressions of the primeval ferns,
the dark tint thrown forward most elegantly by
the yellow of the surface upon which they re-
pose. The neighbourhood of Bolton in general
is rich in fossil ferns, though Ashton-under-
Lyne claims perhaps an equal place, and in
diversity of species is possibly superior.

Thus whether considered in regard to its
magnificent modern developments in art, science,
literature, and useful industries, its scenery and
natural productions, or its wealth in the mar-
vellous relics which talk of an immemorial past,
Lancashire appeals to every sentiment of
curiosity and admiration.

THE END

Printed by R. & R. Clark, Edinburgh

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