| Show WAKEMANS wanderings LONDON april 3 1893 it is no wonder that the cockles cackles of a britons heart be he irishman scotchman or en englishman Ills binan thrill with fadeless affection g tio n as he recalls in any foreign ian land d the immediate environment of the home that gave hi him ri birth were he but spot cotters child and knew in his a hours only the fierce and hurtful stings of penury there is still an untenable untellable charm in the backward vista centering in in the lowliest british home it it is because rural england and it is almost equally true of rural scotland anda and ireland in nearly every square acre is so endearing in its age association and natural winsomeness that those who possess it or those who have left fit it and for the absence hold it more intensely close and precious will justly brook no belittlement any anymore more than you would let some smart stranger come into your home and sneer at your sweetest and most cherished if sim simple p I 1 e belongings beautified b by effort ho hollowed r by time and use even more tenderly I 1 oved loved for your own errors and sho shortcomings rt comings without pitching both him and his airs incontinently into the hi highway hway ift it is such a beautiful country such a well kept and delicious old garden such a sm shilling illing land in sunshine and sn snug and comfortable one in storm an and withal gives to the stranger within it such a sense of constant interest coupled with close hum human an companionship and sympathies sy mathies that cynic and prig and incapable of interest in any land but his own though one be he cannot now and then 0 repress a kindling enthusiasm be here and there pricked into secret admiration in this place an and d that find tender and associative interest in less than three hours journey on an english day in maytime may time what innumerable scenes of inte interest rest of stirring quality and of restfulness and repose flash bash upon you from your carriage win dowl still more gratefully are t things one wallsee will bee and feel as innumerable hamlets and halls are passed glorious old manor houses flash ash from parks and demesne forests thatcher roofs of village homes yellow with lichen are varied here and there by red tiling avenues of ancient elms beech and limes give tempting vistas above broad roads tess elated with lights and shades and as gray and smooth as some old cathedral floor cropped hedges with trim tiny fields give place here and there to downs rolling away in billowy hills of heather spangled with the golden asphodel or wide meadows and tiny marshes where flames the yellow marigold or where the forget me nots bots are so dense and blue that their surface seems like a breeze rippled pool hawthorne lanes are white above and beneath as bankson banks of driven snow great masses of honeysuckle trail from copse and hedge and in around and above all this maytime may time nature heaven thrushes and blackbirds high above the roaring of your train flood all the day with song in the tremendous object lesson and historic reminder which each tiny bit of the face of england affords there is a no more impressive study than that of english villages and their folk these villages are the most delightful ot all objects in every panoramic rural scene closer study reveals countless hidden beauty for even age and decay here possess a mournful beauty and charm to the artistic and vagrant mind and their quaint quiet folk of whom I 1 shall particularly speak in in another article though regarded as dumb and sodden by many still provide one of the most interesting sociologic studies to be found in any land although many cha characteristics of english villages differ in different shires or in different parts of the same shire they all leave the same typical facture fic picture ture in the memory when con considered considene as a part of the landscape I 1 never yet came to an english village and I 1 have visited hundreds on foot that it had not the same general massing or picturesque effects as all others this too whatever its relative topographical situation it was just the same whether nestled in an avon derwent or tamar vale clumped upon a breezy southern down half hidden in the shadows of a midland hill or peak toppling along the edgett edge ot ragged chine or flowery burn or wedged into the stone face of some dreary northern moor there it stood ever a distinct and characteristic picture in itself A rift of low outlying cottages tiny splotches sp latches of white and gray and red at either side became lost towards the center in luxurious shrubbery then a lew few gables gaint quaint and old then another mass of foliage denser and of darker hue then a jumbled mass of higher gray and red roofs and tings of more pretentious structures and finally the highest mass of foliage dominated by perhaps a battlemented roof above which always rises a huge square centuries old tower that tells of the english parish church from lands end to the misty cheviot hills I 1 sometimes think wonderful and compact a Ao storehouse of historic relics of garnered art and of splendor in cathedral castle hall and monastic ru ruin in i as old england truly is that after all the sweetest part of ones on es wanderings wandering is experienced anav from the beaten lines nes of travel among these gray old nests which the centuries have softened ened and beautified even in their age and decay come with me then vagrantly into a few of these lovely old home spots ot of rural england not far to the north of damp and grimy liverpool is is pretty prett ormskirk Orm it is half village and haff town for the spindles are hun humming aiming iming here as almost everywhere in lancashire and yorkshire two huge white roads leading from green fields which were impassable mosses in olden times rising to a gentle eminence intersect the place and the verdure growth of four hundred years almost hides from view the nestling ancient homes the quaint old shops the sleepy restful inns and the historic church itself the old church looming above the red tiles of the cottage roofs is curiously surmounted by separate tower and steeple the pile so gray mellow and ivy massed as to involuntarily suggest a gi gigantic antic tree lopped off in its lower trunk where huge battlemented tower stops out of whose edge where the steeple rises has sprouted a second slender tree the tradition goes that two capricious maiden sisters desirous of raising some sacred memorial agreed upon erecting upon kirk a tower and steeple yet disagreeing as to uniting and connecting their work they finally expended all their wealth and ene energies rg ies upon both each independent of the other the earliest of the renowned derbys and stanleys Stan leys are buried here mossy slumberous grave the entire place is a wondrous picture of tender repose and is but one of scores of winsome winsome lancashire villages blending low lying and hushed in the pleasant landscape between the thunderous towns of mills what precious old bits bit s of grey and sunshine and green are the half deserted villages of cockermouth Coc kermouth and hawkshead up here in the english lake region the former in cumberland and the latter just inside lancashire where that county pushes a rugged arm up among the scars fells and pikes of the english englis alps kermouth cockermouth Coc itself where wordsworth was born is but one of the man many K quaint old cambrian villages which seem as ancient any mossy as the rocks out of which they were hewn it is a sweet dim did dreamful and old spot for the derwent river sweeps melodiously by and the cocker river rom which the village derives its name is is emptied into the derwent at the village side Word I 1 father ather john words worth was an attorney here and law agents to sir james lowther afterwards the earl of lonsdale the house where the poet was born is a long two storied hipped roof structure standing at a corner of main street and a recessed alley and must have been regarded as a stately affair in its time A tier of nine windows in the second and eight in the first story face the street which is is shut off by a massive stone wall with wide coping and monumental projections at regular intervals and at the corners in the area between the street wall and the houses are several pertly trimmed shade trees and the am ample ae 14 garden in the rear extends to the 91 banks aks of the lovely derwent hawkshead lies midway between the queen of the english lakes windermere and coniston water n near ear which be found the home of john ruskin may beautiful fui beautiful and nestles prettily beside the water it is by far the most antique village e in the lake country the old schoolhouse is standing just worth left it it is no more than a tiny stone dungeon with wide low windows a single broad low door and a whitewashed schoolroom interior where a tall man would be in in danger of bumping the ceiling beams with his head the schoolboy wordsworth cut his name into his desk and the scarred old plank is accordingly prized as a precious relic every one will remember the good old dame clame anne tyson with whom wordsworth lived and who was so much a mother to him during his boy hoods days at hawkshead her cottage is still standing and the snow white church upon the hill made famous in the prelude stands as then in a near field around it the sheep and lambs are grazing but the old life went out ot of hawkshead with the handlooms hand looms you will never find more than a score of worshipers at service within it and the incumbency is so reduced that the village rector himself rings the chimes of bells which calls the dim old folk that remain to this all but deserted shrine here again are types of villages one in the north and another in in the west riding of yorkshire neither like the scores of anny hamlets in in tinder ander yorkshire Y vales but standing grimly and stoutly against the shuddering moors defiant of change and the tempests of centuries ome with me over dreary Stane moors wilds and look down there upon dead old bowes there lies the sinuous shell of the ancient village a winding cobbled grass grown street of haly half a mile in bength nath flanked by ruined houses half of whose thatched roofs have fallen in far to the east the eye catches a of the classic domain of roke glimpse V to the north the dells and fells k where flows the river tees to the south the glen ot of greta where that river tumbles and sings that huge lone batone structure the first at bowes from the greta bridge way weird and ghostly under huge sycamores amores was f formerly another Dothe boys hall richard cobden once owned it and made it his home then the unicorn inn inn with its acres of out buildings empty and moss grown opposite another silent inn the rose and crown then facing westward a little norman church near it the ruins of a norman castle behind these ruins the ancient roman station salvatrae Sava trae where are remains of baths and an acque duct then roofed and unroofed hovels on either side to the westward where you will see still standing just as dickens described a veritable Dothe boys hall in his nicholas a long cold looking house on one story high with a few straggling out buildings behind and a barn bam and stable adjoining the other is haworth seen at a distance it seems a half defined line of ray gray above which is the lofty dreary haworth haworth moor there is but a single street closes sometimes extend for a house length to the right and left the yard wide pavements are series of stone stairs and platforms beneath the latter are shadowy shops and living rooms all stand open but few inhabitants are to be seen up up up for a half mile you plod and at last reach a tiny open space the houses are set around it closely quaint shops and ancient inns crowd it at all sorts of curious angles this is the head of the village topographically in habitations and in aristocracy not for its attractiveness but because it seems an outlet to somewhere you pass into a little court behind the black bull inn it is a maze of angles and suddenly another tiny open space confronts you here are an old oblong two storied stone house with a few yards of grassplot grass plot at its side a btttle stone church attached to rather than blended with a grim norman tower a graveyard grave yard cluttered with crumbling stone the whole barely covering an acre of ground these were haworth parsonage arso nage church and churchyard Z the earthly and final home of the arontes Br and their living eyes ever rested on haworth moor which rises immediately above the churchyard church yard like a wall of rounded stone come to such as these in the summer time only then fleecy clouds straggle over and between the hills as if shadowy hosts were marshalling behind the horizon here and there splotches sp latches of color lie against old walls and house fronts the heather blushes from the undulant green of the moors and one can then easily imagine bits of pastoral scenery here in the shepherds and their flocks like cameo on beds of dazzling emerald with a perspective of billowy lines and misty clouds over here in Northampton shire just at the edge of the garden shire of warwick ar is ancient moss grown crick sleeping under its thatches beside street most famous of roman roads I 1 here are both rest and delight in old old crick rest because it is one of those english villages which stands just as it always stood where the roar of the workaday worlds activities never comes where the old parish church the graveyard grave yard the decayed manor houses the huge stone dovecotes dove cotes which house soo families of doves the thatched farm laborers cottages the ivies and mossy walls and the simple village folk all invite to quiet and repose not ten miles away you suddenly come upon the daintiest daintie st and most flower spangled village in england it is a tiny collection of dependencies upon the manor of ashby st ledgers but there can nowhere else be found such flower embowered empowered ered homes just at the northern edge of this the whole forming a s biking background to the side brol ot of one of the finest wide high overarch ings of ancient ash trees I 1 have ever seen first appears a huge wall high thick ivy hung and mossy surmounting this is a wonderfully picturesque old gatehouse with two stories of chambers and an attic the veritable meeting room of the conspirators in the noted guy fawkes gunpowder plot of 1605 over a capacious archway which formed the ancient sole entrance to the domain behind this are other venerable outbuildings buildings out half a thousand years old and in perfect maze to the right and higher shows a grim square norman tower and the mossy roof of the parish church behind and above all are the many massive gables of this most splendidly fantastic lanta manor house within the england midland shires how glorious an historic romance could be wrought within ashby st ledgers grim and ghostly old walls in the western and western midland shires of england are scores of ancient villages of restfulness and beauty hidden coy from the globe trotters lorg bettes in the sunny hollows of the ver dant hills old broadway Bradwe ia ial it once was from the shepherds cottes on the mounted wolds down to the most fruitful vales of evesham everham Ev esham is a lovely type of them ail all its houses are picturesque indeed here is one of the few ancient stone built villages of olden england left precisely as its makers built it all the way from to soo years ago on every side are high pitched gab agdie gabled d roofs with wonderful stone and iron fi nials mullioned ned windows and bays leaded casements containing the original glass and huge tall stone chimney stacks all weathered to most beautiful colors low stone walls in front enclose little old world gardens with clipped and fanciful shaped yew trees its quaintest quain test of hostelries |
