SECTION II.

Abbey Dale.-Autumnal Morning.- Beauchief Abbey. - East Moor. View into Hope Dale. Froggat Edge.

PARTLY from a conviction that the scenery of Derbyshire may be best explored on foot, and partly from a predilection for walking, the following excursions have been chiefly pedestrian. Sometimes they have been performed alone; but more frequently the tediousness of a solitary journey has been relieved by the presence of a friend. Occasionally they were attended by one whom the author once anticipated would have been the companion of the whole; who was the sweetener of many a happy hour, and the delight of many of his rambles; whose pencil could pourtray with fidelity the various features of the landscape, and sometimes arrest an evanescent beauty; but who has been removed from her native home by one of the most important events in the life of a female. The sweet dales of the Derwent and the Wye she has now exchanged for the more magnificent scenery of Sicily, and a residence in the midst of the "Golden Shell* of the Italian poets.'

In the detail of excursions so performed, the author trusts he may be permitted to speak as if none of them were undertaken alone; unless when an individual feeling or opinion is intended to be expressed on such occasions, personal responsibility may perhaps soften the egotism that attaches to the self-important pronoun I, and tolerate a mode of expression which he knows not how to avoid.

In undertaking the following excursions, which have been chiefly, though not entirely, made for the purpose of picturesque observation, it was my intention to travel through the mountainous parts of Derbyshire, and visit every place worthy of notice in the high and low PEAK, especially those sequestered spots which lie within the Dales that determine the course of

* The name given by the poets of Italy to the Vale of Palermo.

the three principal rivers, the WYE, the DERWENT, and the Dove.

The investigation of the scenery of the Wye was my first object; we therefore bent our way towards the source of that river in the neighbourhood of BUXTON, by the way of STOKE, MIDDLETON, EYAM, and Tideswell.

Approaching the partition line that separates Derbyshire from Yorkshire, and skirting a part of its northern extremity through Abbey Dale, we crossed the river Sheaf, near Beauchief. Independently of the lovely valley through which our road lay, this monastic ruin was the first object that claimed our attention in our progress to the PEAK.

The hills in the vicinity of Beauchief are singularly graceful in form, and the long line of luxuriant wood with which they are adorned gives them an air of grandeur. It was a calm autumnal morning as we passed through Abbey Dale. The sun had just ascended above the horizon; his slant lines of light played through the leafy branches of the woody acclivity on the left, and illuminated the tops of the trees; the smoke, from the cottage chimneys on the side of the hill, slowly curling from out the surrounding foliage, enlivened the landscape with a beautiful incident. The whole was a delightful morning picture; every feeling acknowledged its influence, and paid an involuntary tribute to the sweet scenery of Abbey Dale. thin misty veil, exquisitely soft and tender, was thrown over the principal part of the scene; the surrounding objects, enveloped in the haziness that prevailed, were blended harmoniously together, and they assumed a magnitude, from the medium through which they were beheld, that strongly evinced how nearly allied obscurity is to grandeur. Shortly, the sun shone out in all its splendour, the mists disappeared, and the charm dissolved. Its existence, though lovely, was fugitive. A new picture succeeded, extremely unlike the one which had passed away every object it contained was clearly defined; fresh in colouring, and glowing with light, it came upon the eye like an island slowly emerging from a sea of vapour, and gradually unfolding its rich variety of parts. I know not that I ever beheld a more pleasing and beautiful effect than the transition presented.

In a part of this valley, near the foot of the hill, on which Beauchief House stands, are the remains of a once magnificent abbey, founded by Robert Fitz-Ranulph, Lord of Alfreton; as an expiation for the part he is said to have acted in the mur

RUINS OF BEAUCHIEF ABBEY.

13

der of Thomas à Becket. The late Dr. Pegge, the learned antiquary of Whittington, discountenances this tradition. His arguments, however, which are chiefly founded on the circumstance of the brother of Robert Fitz-Ranulph being afterwards in great favour with Henry the Second, do not appear conclusive; particularly when opposed to the authority of Dugdale, Fuller, Bishop Tanner, and others who have written on the subject.

Dugdale says "Robert Fitz-Ranulph, Lord of Alfreton, Norton, and Marnham, was one of the four knights who martyred the blessed Thomas à Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury; and afterwards founded the monastery of Beauchief, by way of expiating his crime, in the reign of Henry the Second."

Bishop Tanner writes" Beauchief, an abbey of Premonstratensian, or White Canons, founded A. D. 1183, by Robert Fitz-Ranulph, Lord of Alfreton, one of the executioners of Thomas à Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury; to whom canonized, this monastery was dedicated."

The walls of this abbey, with the exception of the west end of the chapel, where parochial service is still performed, have long since either been removed, or have mouldered into dust; and nothing now remains to point out the original form of this once extensive pile of building.

The exterior architecture of the chapel is so extremely plain, that with the exception of the reeded windows, and the double buttress at the angles, it is almost destitute of ornament. The elevation of the tower is said to have been "curtailed of its fair proportion;" but the parapet with which it is surmounted is, in my opinion, an existing evidence against the correctness of such a supposition.

On the east side, two angular lines mark the connection which the chapel had with the other buildings, and a part of the ground-plan may be traced by an old adjoining wall, in which are the remains of two circular Gothic arches, very little impaired by time or accident. A wreath of ivy which falls from the top of the tower, and nearly invests one side of it, breaks the dull monotony of its outline, and produces a tolerably good effect; in other respects, it is not strikingly attractive as a picturesque object. The Abbey of BelloCapite will ever be dear to the antiquary, who will visit it with veneration and delight; nor will the artist pass it by unnoticed. The magnificent woods, and the beautiful hills that

environ the Abbey of Beauchief, amply compensate for any deficiency of grandeur in the subordinate adornments of so rich a scene.

This monastery, though once a considerable structure, was never wealthy. At the time of its dissolution, in the reign of Henry the Eighth, the whole of its revenues were estimated at only one hundred and fifty-seven pounds.

On the summit of the wood-crowned hill of Beauchief, a mansion has been erected of the materials furnished by the demolition of the abbey: it is built in that broken style of architecture which was introduced in the reign of Elizabeth, and was regarded as the standard of excellence in the beginning of the seventeenth century. Of this peculiar style of building many splendid examples yet remain in different parts of the kingdom. The principal entrance to the best front of the house is through a gateway formed by two heavy stone pillars, surmounted with busts, which are now completely enveloped in ivy. I remember visiting Beauchief before this parasitical plant had become so luxuriant: it had then aspired to the height of one of the busts; a branch of it had climbed obliquely across the breast, and threw a light mantle of verdure gracefully over the right shoulder. It was one of the little sports of nature that pleased by its elegance.

Beauchief House was built by the descendants of Sir William Shelly, to whom the estate was given by Henry the Eighth, in the twenty-eighth year of his reign. It is now the residence of B. Steade, Esq.

When the Romans, after invading Britain, had made themselves masters of its coasts, and extended their conquests into this remote part of the kingdom, (the northern extremity of the ancient CORITANI,) the smelting of lead, and the manufacturing of iron, were alike essential to the permanent possession of the country which their valour had acquired. Hence it is that we find scattered over every district, where iron ore abounds, the remains of furnaces and forges where they have ceased to exist for centuries. That they once prevailed in Abbey Dale, is indisputable: large mounds of cinders, evidently produced from the smelting of iron ore, have been recently broken up in this valley; and others, of still greater dimensions, yet remain. Dr. Whittaker, in his History of Manchester, remarks, that "the manufactory of iron must have been undoubtedly enlarged, and the forges must have been multiplied by the Romans. One forge, perhaps,"

ANCIENT IRONWORKS.

TOTLEY.

15

he adds, "was erected in the vicinity of every station; and within the West Riding of Yorkshire, in the neighbourhood of North Brierly, amid many beds of cinders, heaped up in the adjacent fields, some years ago was found a quantity of Roman coins carefully deposited in one of them."

The Romans, the Anglo-Saxons, and their successors in the sovereignty of this island, appear to have separated both lead and iron from their native ores by a process extremely simple: they erected their furnaces sometimes in narrow valleys, sometimes on hills; and they were always so situated as to be exposed to the free operation of the most prevailing winds.

We now passed the village of Totley, which stands at the foot of that immense range of mountains that takes its rise in the vicinity of Ashover, and is continued thence through the Peak of Derbyshire, Westmoreland, and Cumberland, into Scotland; and which has been dignified, by Camden and others, with the appellation of the English Appenines.

[To enumerate the many beautiful pictures which occur in the first six miles of this delightful road, would require a pause almost at every step: the hills and the woods, the cottages embosomed in trees, and the water sparkling with light, present a continued succession of objects rich in picturesque beauty, and sometimes very tastefully combined.]

Leaving Totley, the transition from cultivation to barrenness is forcibly impressed upon the mind. All before us was now naked and unadorned; while in the immediate neighbourhood of Sheffield, the hills, with a few exceptions only, are thickly wooded, and fringed with foliage from the summits to the river's brink, and the fields and the meadows are in the highest state of culture.

Near the Toll-Bar-House, which is built on the side of the East Moor, about a mile and a half from Totley, we had a vast retrospective view of the country we had passed. Minutely to describe the scene here presented would perhaps be tedious: all its features are ample and agreeably varied, both in form and colour. The foreground is well broken; sometimes thrown up into rugged knolls, and sometimes sinking, with an easy sweeping line, into gentle declivities, which are every where adorned with fern, and heath, and verdure. A long slope of hill succeeds, which declines into, and forms one side of, Abbey Dale: the other, extremely beautiful in outline, and clothed with magnificent wood, rises more ab