S. OLDKNOW, ESQ.

209

river, calls it the Mersey, with one exception only, and where this occurs he says, "The Etherow flows into the Goyt near Chadkirk thence the river is continued under the name of the Goyt to Stockport, where it takes the name of the Mersey."

A pleasant walk of about a mile on the banks of the Goyt brought us to Marple Bridge. The views about this little village are not of a common character. The river is an ample and impetuous stream; its banks are lofty, rocky, and precipitous, and but a few weeks previously to our visit they were every where profusely wooded; but we saw the axe employed, and this beautiful river despoiled of some of its finest ornaments. The Derbyshire side of the stream, from Marple Bridge to Mellor Mill, which a short time before waved with the most luxuriant foliage, was entirely denuded. The proprietor, we were informed, had been extending his purchases, and his trees were cut down to be bartered away for acres. As we passed along this now-naked bank, we came to a high point of ground, where the prospect is rich even to magnificence. From the situation where we stood, we could trace the course of the river for several miles, winding amongst woods through a deep and narrow valley, full of picturesque beauty. The residence of S. Oldknow, Esq. which is a neat but not a large mansion, is so embowered in trees as to be nearly obscured by them; and the few buildings that are scattered over the other parts of this fine landscape, with the exception of the mill, are almost lost in surrounding wood. This is one of the noblest scenes on this romantic river.

Mr. OLDKNOW was one of the earliest manufacturing settlers in this vicinity, and he is now regarded as the father of the district. He found a busy river coursing its way through a deep dell, and he saw the many advantages which so powerful a stream presented for manufacturing purposes; he therefore established himself near Mellor; and his example and success in business soon procured him many neighbours, until the banks of the Goyt and the Etherow became the busy scenes of industry, and the resort of enterprising men and mechanical talent.

Mr. Oldknow has always been an active man in public life, and many improvements made in the vicinity of his residence have been indebted, not only to his example, but to his personal exertions. The Peak Forest Canal originated chiefly with him; and, though not hitherto a profitable spe

210

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culation to the proprietors, it has been productive of considerable advantages through the line of its operations, and ultimately it may be more successful. Mr. Öldknow is now declining into years, but he is yet full of spirit and activity; and, if he can only feel that "nothing has been done, while any thing remains to do," and prevail upon his neighbours and others to extend the Peak Forest Canal from the vicinity of Chapel-en-le-Frith to the eastern boundary of Derbyshire, he may yet be remunerated for his exertions. This gentleman is at present less occupied with manufacturing than agricultural pursuits, and this department is under the best regulated management imaginable. He keeps a great number of cattle, and they are housed and fed in buildings that have been erected at a great expence, where every possible attention is paid to their welfare and convenience. There is a contrivance and a neatness about the whole of Mr. Oldknow's farming establishment, that are but seldom attended to where the accumulation of profit is a primary consideration.

From Mellor Mill we perambulated the banks of the Goyt, amongst scenes as truly romantic, and as replete with beauty, as any in Derbyshire, until we came to a part of the valley where the hills and woods are thrown farther from each other, and some lovely meadows interpose between. Here we left the margin of the river, for the purpose of obtaining a more extended view from the elevated grounds. The landscape we now beheld was essentially different from what we had seen in the dell below, where the eye dwelt upon the characteristic features of the various objects that composed the picture, and was delighted with the detail: here every thing was on a scale of magnitude, that pleased by its vastness. No part of the prospect was distinctly marked, with the exception of the foreground, and even there the subordinate parts were lost, in the contemplation of the whole. The river below us was a mirror of sunny light; but the sparkling breaks, the interrupted rushings, and the playful eddies, which had charmed us while loitering on its banks, were now seen with indifference. The characters and forms of trees, the graceful branches of the ash, and the gnarled ramifications of the oak, we had observed with pleasure, when they were prominent features in the circumscribed scenes that we had so recently left; but now our horizon included a more ample circumference, and individual objects were lost in the aggregate. Hills and woods, and verdant meadows, made up the

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picture; and the light-blue haze of a hot summer's day harmonized the whole into loveliness.

Having explored the course of the Goyt to the vicinity of a pleasant village called New Mills, which is most romantically situated on one of the tributary streams of the river, we returned to Mellor Mill, and from thence retraced our steps to Glossop, where we spent the remainder of the day.

SECTION VI.

Return from Glossop. - Peak Forest. - Eldon Hole. -Bagshaw Cavern. Small Dale. Lime-kiln Fires. -Night Scene. Morning in Hope Dale. - Hope-Brough. - The river Derwent.

WE had been much gratified with our excursion to Glossop,

and we left it with a wish to revisit it on some future occasion. Nine miles of tedious road, which we had travelled over only a few days before, lay between us and Chapel-en-le-Frith; and, as we did not anticipate much pleasure in passing a second time over so uninteresting a district, we were secure against disappointment. This road, like many others both in Derbyshire and elsewhere, has been made in despite of both hill and dale. Hardly any set of people commit greater blunders than the projectors and makers of public roads. If a valley interferes in the line of their operations, they shew their utter contempt of the accommodation it offers, and their talent at surmounting difficulties, by clambering up and down every hill that nature has interposed between them and the point of their destination.

We again passed by Chapel-en-le-Frith, and shortly afterwards we made another pause at the ebbing and flowing well; but, during the short time we remained near it, no sensible alteration took place in this extraordinary phenomenon; nor were there any appearances about it which indicated that the water had very recently either ebbed or flowed. Some few years before I observed the rising and sinking of this well twice in the short space of half an hour.

A little beyond this celebrated well we left the Castleton road by a sharp turn on our right, and proceeded to Peak Forest, a little village, surrounded by an extensive tract of land, to which the same name is applied. This forest was anciently called De alto Pecco; and the parishes of Castleton, Hope, Chapel, Glossop, and Mottram in Longdendale, are said to have been once included in it. Within half a mile

of the village is ELDON HOLE, another of the reputed wonders of the Peak of Derbyshire. Unassisted by fable, and the babbling of the credulous gossip tradition, there is nothing either vast or astonishing in this fissure in the limestone strata: it is a deep yawning chasm, entirely devoid of any pleasing appendages, and altogether as uninteresting as any hole in a rock can possibly be.

Many and marvellous are the stories that have been told of Eldon Hole. Cotton has celebrated it in English verse, and Hobbes in Latin hexameters. Cotton, it appears, endeavoured to ascertain the depth of this fathomless pit; but, according to his own account, he did not succeed: he says,

"But I myself, with half the Peake surrounded,
Eight hundred four-score and four yards have sounded;
And though of these four-score returned back wet,
The plummet drew, and found no bottom yet;
Though when I went to make a new essay,

I could not get the lead down half the way."

There is nothing like a tale of wonder; and this tremendous, gulph, which is about twenty yards long, seven wide, and sixty deep, has often excited both terror and amazement. So early as the reign of Elizabeth, the Earl of Leicester is reported to have hired a man to go down into Eldon Hole to observe its form, and ascertain its depth. The account of this experiment says, "He was let down about two hundred ells, and after he had remained at the length of the rope awhile, he was pulled up again, with great expectation of some discoveries; but when he came up he was senseless, and dyed within eight days of a phrensy." This circumstance is alluded to by Cotton in the following lines :

"Once a mercenary fool, 'tis said, exposed
His life for gold, to find what lies inclosed
In this obscure vacuity, and tell

Of stranger sights than Theseus saw in hell;
But the poor wretch paid for his thirst of gain-
For, being craned up with a distempered brain,
A faultering tongue, and a wild staring look,

He lived eight days, and then the world forsook."

About forty years ago, a Mr. Loyd descended into this gloomy abyss, explored the depths, and the capacity of its interior recesses, and removed the mystery which until then