Sidebilder
PDF
ePub

Parrs, another of the Stricklands; the third is the proper choir of the church, and the fourth of the Bellinghams, a family now extinct. There is an altar-tomb of one of them dated 1577, with a flat brass, arms and quarterings; and in the window their arms alone, arg. a hunting-horn, sab. strung gules. In the Stricklands' chapel several modern monuments, and another old altar-tomb, not belonging to the family: on the side of it a fess dancetty between ten billets, Deincourt. In the Parrs' chapel is a third altar-tomb in the corner, no figure or inscription, but on the side, cut in stone, an escutcheon of Roos of Kendal (three water-budgets), quartering Parr (two bars in a bordure engrailed); 2dly, an escutcheon, vaire, a fess for Marmion; 3dly, an escutcheon, three chevronels braced, and a chief (which I take for Fitzhugh): at the foot is an escutcheon, surrounded with the garter, bearing Roos and Parr quarterly, quartering the other two before-mentioned. I have no books to look in, therefore cannot say whether this is the Lord Parr of Kendal, Queen Catharine's father, or her brother the Marquis of Northampton: perhaps it is a cenotaph for the latter, who was buried at Warwick in. 1571. The remains of the castle are seated on a fine hill on the side of the river opposite the town: almost the whole enclosure of the walls remains, with four towers, two square and two round, but their upper part and embattlements are demolished: it is of rough stone and cement, without ornament or arms, round, enclosing a court of like form, and surrounded by a moat; nor ever could it have been larger than it is, for there are no traces of outworks. There is a good view of the town and river, with a fertile open valley through which it winds.

After dinner I went along the Milthrop turnpike, four miles, to see the falls, or force, of the river Kont; came to Sizergh (pronounced Siser), and turned down a

lane to the left. This seat of the Stricklands, an old catholic family, is an ancient hall-house, with a very large tower embattled; the rest of the buildings added to it are of later date, but all is white, and seen to advantage on a back ground of old trees; there is a small park also well wooded. Opposite to this, turning to the left, I soon came to the river; it works its way in a narrow and deep rocky channel overhung with trees. The calmness and brightness of the evening, the roar of the waters, and the thumping of huge hammers at an iron-forge not far distant, made it a singular walk but as to the falls (for there are two) they are not four feet high. I went on, down to the forge, and saw the demons at work by the light of their own fires: the iron is brought in pigs to Milthrop by sea from Scotland, &c. and is here beat into bars and plates. Two miles further, at Levens, is the seat of Lord Suffolk, where he sometimes passes the summer: it was a favourite place of his late Countess; but this I did not see.

Oct. 10. I proceeded by Burton to Lancaster, twentytwo miles; very good country, well enclosed and wooded, with some common interspersed. Passed at the foot of Farlton-knot, a high fell four miles north of Lancaster; on a rising ground called Boulton (pronounced Bouton) we had a full view of Cartmell-sands, with here and there a passenger riding over them (it being low water; the points of Furness shooting far into the sea, and lofty mountains, partly covered with clouds, extending north of them. Lancaster also appeared very conspicuous and fine; for its most distinguished features, the castle and church, mounted on a green eminence, were all that could be seen. Woe is me! when I got thither, it was the second day of their fair; the inn, in the principal street, was a great old gloomy house full of people; but I found tolerable quarters, and even slept two nights in peace.

[ocr errors]

F

In a fine afternoon I ascended the castle-hill; it takes up the higher top of the eminence on which it stands, and is irregularly round, encompassed with a deep moat: in front, towards the town, is a magnificent gothic gateway, lofty and huge; the over hanging battlements are supported by a triple range of corbels, the intervals pierced through, and shewing the day from above. On its top rise light watch-towers of small height. It opens below with a grand pointed arch; over this is a wrought tabernacle, doubtless once containing its founder's figure; on one side a shield of France semi-quartered with England; on the other the same, with a label, ermine, for John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster. This opens to a court within, which I did not much care to enter, being the county-gaol, and full of prisoners, both criminals and debtors. From this gateway the walls continue and join it to a vast square tower of great height, the lower part at least of remote antiquity; for it has small round-headed lights with plain short pillars on each side of them: there is a third tower, also square and of less dimensions. This is all the castle. Near it, and but little lower, stands the church, a large and plain gothic fabric; the high square tower at the west end has been rebuilt of late years, but nearly in the same style; there are no ornaments of arms, &c. any where to be seen; within, it is lightsome and spacious, but not one monument of antiquity, or piece of painted glass, is left. From the churchyard there is an extensive seaview (for now the tide had almost covered the sands, and filled the river), and besides the greatest part of Furness, I could distinguish Peel-castle on the isle of Fowdrey, which lies off its southern extremity. The town is built on the slope, and at the foot of the castlehill, more than twice the bigness of Aukland, with many neat buildings of white stone, but a little disorderly in their position, and ad libitum, like Kendal: many also

X

extend below on the quays by the river-side, where a number of ships were moored, some of them threemasted vessels decked out with their colours in honour of the fair. Here is a good bridge of four arches over the Lune, that runs, when the tide is out, in two streams divided by a bed of gravel, which is not covered but in spring-tides; below the town it widens to near the breadth of the Thames at London, and meets the sea at five or six miles' distance to south-west.

Oct. 11. I crossed the river and walked over a peninsula, three miles, to the village of Pooton, which stands on the beach. An old fisherman mending his nets (while I inquired about the danger of passing those sands) told me, in his dialect, a moving story; how a brother of the trade, a cockler, as he styled him, driving a little cart with two daughters (women grown) in it, and his wife on horseback following, set out one day to pass the seven-mile sands, as they had frequently been used to do (for nobody in the village knew them better than the old man did); when they were about half-way over, a thick fog rose, and as they advanced they found the water much deeper than they expected the old man was puzzled; he stopped, and said he would go a little way to find some mark he was acquainted with; they staid a while for him; but in vain they called aloud, but no reply: at last the young women pressed their mother to think where they were, and go on: she would not leave the place; she wandered about forlorn and amazed; she would not quit her horse and get into the cart with them: they determined, after much time wasted, to turn back, and give themselves up to the guidance of their horses. The old woman was soon washed off, and perished; the poor girls clung close to their cart, and the horse, sometimes wading and sometimes swimming, brought them back to land alive, but senseless with terror and distress,

and unable for many days to give any account of themselves. The bodies of their parents were found next ebb; that of the father a very few paces distant from the spot where he had left them.

In the afternoon I wandered about the town, and by the quay, till it grew dark.

Oct. 12. I set out for Settle by a fine turnpike-road, twenty-nine miles, through a rich and beautiful enclosed country, diversified with frequent villages and churches, very unequal ground; and on the left the river Lune winding in a deep valley, its hanging banks clothed with fine woods, through which you catch long reaches of the water, as the road winds about at a considerable height above it. In the most picturesque part of the way, I passed the park belonging to the Hon. Mr. Clifford, a catholic. The grounds between him and the river are indeed charming;* the house is ordinary, and the park nothing but a rocky fell scattered over with ancient hawthorns. Next I came to Hornby, a little town on the river Wanning, over which a handsome bridge is now building; the castle, in a lordly situation, attracted me, so I walked up the hill to it: first presents itself a large white ordinary sashed gentleman's house, and behind it rises the ancient Keep, built by Edward Stanley, Lord Monteagle. He died about 1529, in King Henry the Eighth's time. It is now only a shell, the rafters are laid within it as for flooring. I went up a winding stone stair-case in one corner to the leads, and at the angle is a single hexagon watchtower, rising some feet higher, fitted up in the taste of

This scene opens just three miles from Lancaster, on what is called the Queen's Road. To see the view in perfection, you must go into a field on the left. Here Ingleborough, behind a variety of lesser mountains, makes the background of the prospect: on each hand of the middle distance, rise two sloping hills; the left clothed with thick woods, the right with variegated rock and herbage: between them, in the richest of valleys, the Lune serpentizes for many a mile, and comes forth ample and clear, through a well-wooded and richly pastured foreground. Every feature, which constitutes a perfect landscape of the extensive sort, is here not only boldly marked, but also in its best position.

« ForrigeFortsett »