Part 10

[35] 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, for local service, occurs at Entwistle, near Turton.

The eastern slopes of the Rivington range descend into the spacious valley which, beginning 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 recesses, 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 proceed, for variety, to Whalley, the Mecca of the local archæologist; 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 summer's evening. Inconsiderable in comparison with some of its neighbours, this favoured eminence gives testimony once again to the advantages conferred by situation and surroundings, when the 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 Calder. Whalley Nab has been planted very liberally with trees. How easy it is for good taste to confer embellishment!

Pendle, the most distinguished and prominent 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 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 superficial 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 foras_, or outside the lands deemed valuable for domestic purposes, 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 proportion larger than in Lancashire, where many of the ancient "forests" still retain their primitive appellation, and are peculiarly interesting in the marked survival among the inhabitants 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 forbidden 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 nobleness. 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-_hill_ is incorrect, seeing that the sense of "hill" is already conveyed, as in Penmanmawr and Penyghent. "Nab's Hill" would seem to involve a corresponding repetition, "nab" being a form of the Scandinavian _nebbé_ 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 picturesque; 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, heedlessly 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 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 Manchester. The waters at Lymm and Taxal belong respectively to Cheshire and Derbyshire. 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. Hollingworth 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 conspicuous; and adorning the lofty general outline may be seen--best, perhaps, from near "Middleton Junction"--another mamelon--this one 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, 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 extremities 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,[36] and entering Yorkshire. The valley is noted for its scenery, new combinations 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 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 1799, 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 province,--

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

[36] 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.

For introduction to these choice bits it is needful, of course, to leave the main thoroughfares 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 delightful influence upon the mind. Their interest is heightened by the portions which are vividly 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 childhood, then parting for ever. Similarly, in Cliviger Dean the two Calders issue from the same fragment of watery waste, destined immediately 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 Westmoreland. 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 Lancashire river scenery, they are soon found, pertaining to streams not really its own--the Lune, approaching from Westmoreland by way of Kirby Lonsdale, to which place it gives name; and the Ribble, descending from the high moorlands of Craven, first passing Ingleborough, 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,"[37]--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,[38] 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 Lune. 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 beginnings 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 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 imaginable, presenting as they go, green, smooth faces fit for pasture; then, through the unexpected changefulness which is always so much more congenial to the fancy than repetition, 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 Lancashire, the channel is somewhat shallow. Here, after a busy and romantic course of its own, the Hodder 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 continually shift with high tides, so that navigation is hazardous, and vessels of light draught can alone attempt the passage.

[37] It 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 Leck, 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.

[38] The river immortalised by Milton, alluding to the conflict of 17th August 1648:

"And Darwen stream with blood of Scots imbrued."

The very interesting portion of the scenery on the banks of the Lune, so far as concerns 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 Cæsars. 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 Blackstone Edge road has in addition the special interest which attaches to features not found anywhere else, at all events nowhere else in England. The roads in question were designed not more to 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 Ribchester were the two most important strongholds 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 to perhaps fourteen. The stones have in most places disappeared--made use of, no doubt, by after-comers for building purposes; as exemplified 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 rigid. The Blackstone Edge 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 having a continuous longitudinal groove, obviously the work of the chisel. This groove, or "trough," evidently extended down the entire roadway where steep, beginning 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 downflow 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 examples 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 palpably 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