Chapter VIII: The Estuary (1)

Drainage and Navigation--Dimensions of the Humber--The
Ferribys--Barton-upon-Humber--Hull--Paull--Sunk Island--Spurn
Point--Great Grimsby--Places of Call.

A glance at that part of the map where Yorkshire is separated from Lincolnshire reveals the full extent of the Humber, but while it shows a wide estuary, it conveys a poor idea of the national importance of this arm of the sea. Nor is the value of the estuary in this respect much increased by the mere statement that the Humber is formed by the confluence of the Trent and the Ouse. These two rivers have to be considered in connection with their tributary streams before a fair idea is formed, not only of what the Humber is as a channel of trade, but of the wide extent of the water-shed of which it is the basin. The Ouse brings to the Humber nearly all the running water of Yorkshire, the collection having been made over an area exceeding 4,000 square miles; while the supplies from the Trent, though less in quantity because of the lower altitudes of their origin, drain about 4,500 square miles. This makes the Humber the largest river-basin in England, the Severn coming next with a total drainage of 8,580 square miles, as compared with 9,770 in the case of the Humber, made up as follows:--Ouse, 4,100; Trent, 4,500; Humber proper, 1,170.

_Walker & Boutall sc._

THE COURSE OF THE HUMBER.]

So far as navigation is concerned, the Humber is an open way, by means of river and connecting artificial links, with the Mersey, the Thames, and the Severn, and practically, therefore, its waters are in touch with the whole country. The Humber figures also in all our histories. From the earliest period the invader found passage along it to Mercia, on the one hand, and to Northumbria on the other; and along the valleys through which its tributaries run it is not a difficult task to trace, in place-names and surnames, the settlements that took place in this part of England in the long ago as a result of the encroachments of Angle, Dane, and Norse. From the date of the withdrawal of the Romans it was always to the Humber that the Vikings steered their course, and hither they kept coming until the Norman conquest was complete, and England out of many elements became compact and strong.

At the confluence of the Ouse and Trent the Humber has a width of about a mile. From here to Paull, on the north bank--a point south-east of Hull--the width varies from a mile-and-a-quarter to two miles. From Paull south-east to Grimsby the width gradually increases to about four miles, and where the bank on the Yorkshire side curves inward like a sickle the width exceeds seven miles. Spurn Head, forming the point of the sickle, lies almost direct east from Grimsby, and here, at the mouth of the Humber, the width is about five miles. From the head of the estuary to Paull--a tolerably straight line east--the distance is 18½ miles. From Paull to Spurn the stretch is about a mile less than this, thus giving 36 miles as the full length of the Humber.

The towns on each side have from a remote period had ferry communication with each other. It is said that the Romans crossed from the Lincolnshire coast in the neighbourhood of Whitton to Brough on the north bank, and the latter town is spoken of as the Petuaria of Ptolemy. Just below Whitton, on the Lincolnshire side, is Winteringham, close to a Roman station on the route from Lincoln to York. It was to Winteringham Ethelreda came in that flight across the Humber from Egfrid, king of Northumbria. West Halton--anciently Alfham--where she obtained succour, is close by, and the church of this village still bears her name. The next place of interest on the Lincolnshire side of the Humber is South Ferriby, where there is a curious old church--at one time a much larger structure--dedicated to St. Nicholas, of whom there is an effigy over the porch. Immediately opposite, on the Yorkshire side of the Humber, is North Ferriby. Hessle, which lies some three miles further east on the north bank, is noted for its flint deposits; hence its name (from the German _kiesel_). Barton, the Lincolnshire town opposite Hessle, is a place of great antiquity. This is obvious from the tower of the old church, St. Peter's. Usually the Norman evidences in an ecclesiastical building are in the basement, but in the case of this tower they form the superstructure. The lower part is Saxon. It is short and massive, rising seventy feet, and is in three stages. There are some curious features in the church, and amongst the monumental work are effigies of the time of Edward II. St. Mary's Church, close by, is also interesting. It was originally a chapel-of-ease to St. Peter's, and is Norman and Early English. Barton figures in Domesday as Brereton. It was held by the De Gants through Gilbert, son of Baldwin de Gant, a nephew of the Conqueror, who took part in the Norman invasion, and had the land here made over to him. The town carries on a brisk trade, and is noteworthy historically for the fact that it furnished eight vessels fully manned to assist Edward III. in the invasion of Brittany.

Hull boasts not only of being the chief port on the Humber, but claims to be the third port in the kingdom, giving precedence only to London and Liverpool. There was a time when it was a mere hamlet; but it has not only outgrown the towns near it that once did a greater business--such as Hedon and Beverley--but has seen what was a much larger commercial centre than either of these places literally pass from the map. What anciently was the chief port on the Humber lay, snugly enough to all seeming, just within the bend at Spurn Head. It was known as Ravenser. It had much shipping, and in the time of Edward I. sent members to Parliament. Henry IV. landed here in 1399. Unfortunately Ravenser, with neighbouring towns, was built on unstable ground. A process of denudation is continually going on at this the extreme point of Yorkshire, and from this cause the sea had left only a fragment of Ravenser in Bolingbroke's day. In no long time after this the town was wholly absorbed by the encroaching waters. Hull began to flourish as Ravenser began to decay. Another circumstance that led to the development of this great Humber port was the difficulty the Beverley merchants had in getting their supplies by river. Hull was originally one of many wykes (the Norse name for a small creek or bay). It got the name of the river (the Hull) on which it stands in the time of Richard I., and by this name it is known everywhere, its corporate title of Kingston-upon-Hull seldom being given to it in print, and still more seldom being applied to it in speech. The royal title was conferred by Edward I., who is said to have noticed the value of the site for commercial purposes while hunting here in 1256.

The parish church (Holy Trinity) is a magnificent Decorated and Perpendicular structure, cruciform in plan, with a tower rising to a height of 150 feet. It is one of the largest parish churches in England, its length from east to west being 272 feet, and its width 96 feet; and it is claimed for it that in its chancel and transepts it possesses the earliest examples of brick masonry since the Roman epoch. Holy Trinity was founded in 1285. St. Mary, in Lowgate, also a cruciform structure, with central tower, dates from the early part of the fourteenth century. The Dock Office is a fine structure of the Venetian type; the Trinity House is Tuscan; the Town Hall is Italian; and the High Street shows a picturesque blending of Domestic styles, dating from the thirteenth or fourteenth century onwards to work of the present time. In the Market Place is a statue to William III., "our great deliverer," as he was called here. The statue has the peculiarity of being gilt, probably as a further tribute from the Hull burgesses to the worth of the Prince of Orange. In the Town Hall are statues of Edward I., the founder of the town; of Sir Michael de la Pole, the first Mayor of the borough (1376); of Andrew Marvell, poet, wit, and statesman, a native of the place. A statue of another noted statesman, also a native of Hull, William Wilberforce, the anti-slavery advocate, surmounts a Doric pillar (72 feet) close to the old Docks. The river Hull, which rises in the wolds, and has a course of about thirty miles, flows through the older parts of the town. It is the passage way to several of the Docks, and is itself thronged with shipping on each side, and bordered by warehouses.

Paull, or Paghill (anciently Pagula), is about five miles south-east from Hull, and is noteworthy as the spot near which Charles I. in 1642 reviewed his forces. The shore continues in a sharp south-east dip from here to what is known as Sunk Island--a double name, which is now a misnomer, the land being well exposed and no longer an island. It is the peculiarity of this Yorkshire peninsula that while it continually suffers from denudation, it is also being recompensed by the same agency. Sunk Island has been reclaimed from the Humber, and is an interesting example on a small scale of land nationalisation. The soil is exceedingly fertile, and is let out by the Crown, to whom the cottages and other buildings on the estate belong. About 7,000 acres are at present under cultivation, and there is every prospect that the area will go on increasing. From the end of Sunk Island to Spurn Point the Humber takes a wide bay-like sweep inward and southward, the peninsula narrowing considerably as Spurn Point is reached. The Spurn Point of six centuries ago, with the lost town of Ravenspur, lay a little to the west of the present promontory, which has been almost wholly built up afresh by natural causes since that time. There are two lighthouse towers on the Point, the larger of the two being Smeaton's work.

It is almost a direct line west across the Humber mouth from Spurn to Grimsby--Great Grimsby as it is called, to distinguish it from the smaller Grimsby, near Louth, in the same county. Here on the Lincolnshire coast the country, viewed from the sea, is flat and Dutch-like, but close at hand it is decidedly English in its bustle and trade and signs of manufacturing progress. There is fine anchorage eastward, to which Spurn Point forms a natural breakwater. Dock extension has done much for Grimsby as for Hull. Considerable trade is carried on here with the Continent, and immense quantities of fish are consigned direct from the North Sea through Grimsby to our leading markets. Some fine buildings surround the harbour. The principal street runs north and south, and is of great length, leading in a straight line to Cleethorpes, a neighbouring watering place. A Danish origin is assigned to Grimsby. Tradition speaks of it as Grim's town. Grim, we are told, was a fisherman who rescued a Danish infant from a boat adrift at sea. This infant was appropriately christened Havloch, or sea waif. He was adopted by Grim, grew up a fine boy, and was afterwards found to be a son of a Danish King. What followed may be readily surmised. Havloch was restored to his own country, and when he came to his own he did not forget his foster-father, on whom he bestowed riches, rights, and privileges, enabling him to become the founder of what is now called Grimsby. The tradition is perpetuated in the ancient common seal of the borough, which in Saxon lettering has the names Gryme and Habloc, and a design typifying the foundation of the town. British and Saxon remains in the neighbourhood show, however, that there were builders here before the somewhat mythical Grim.

While the vessels sailing from the Humber do business with every country, they have almost a monopoly of the North Sea trade. And as in the ancient era, so at the present time, this open channel into the heart of England continues to receive at its ports great numbers of Northern and Germanic peoples. The invasions of to-day are, however, chiefly of a temporary character. Hull and Grimsby are places of call for the emigrants from the Continent, who land here to find their way to Liverpool by rail, and from thence to the New World on the Atlantic Liners, or who re-ship into other vessels in the Humber and take the Channel route to New York.

W. S. CAMERON.

THE RIVERS OF THE WASH.

THE WITHAM: Grantham--Lincoln--Boston.
THE NEN: Naseby--Northampton--Earls
Barton--Castle Ashby--Wellingborough--Higham
Ferrers--Thrapston--Oundle--Castor--Peterborough. THE WELLAND:
Market Harborough--Rockingham--Stamford. THE OUSE: Bedford--St.
Neots--Huntingdon--St. Ives. THE CAM: Cambridge--"Five Miles from
Anywhere"--Ely. FENS AND FENLAND TOWNS: Wisbeach--Spalding--King's
Lynn--Crowland.

If ever a river could be reproached with not knowing its own mind it would be the WITHAM. Rising in the extreme south of Lincolnshire, it wanders northward along the western side of the county, and at one place seems almost minded to fall into the Trent, from which it is separated only by a belt of land slightly higher than the bed of either river. So slight, indeed, is the division between the present valleys of the Witham and the Trent that it has been urged by a very competent authority that the great gap traversed by the former river at Lincoln really represents the ancient channel of the Trent, which has only adopted the present course towards the Humber at a very late epoch in its geological history.[5] But the Witham at last, after submitting for a time to the influence of a limestone plateau, which rises to a considerable height on its eastern bank, suddenly alters its course, though low and level ground still continues along the same line, and cuts its way through the upland, which is severed by a fairly wide and rather deep-sided valley. Thus it gains access to the broad lowland tract between these hills and the wolds, which is here in immediate communication with the fenland, and along this it pursues a south-easterly course until it reaches the Wash.

The streams which presently unite to form the Witham traverse more than ordinarily pretty pastoral scenery--a region now shelving, now almost hilly, of meadow and pasture, cornfield and copse, where is many a mansion pleasantly situated in its wooded park, and many a comely village clustered round a church, which is often both interesting and beautiful--till we arrive at Grantham, once a quiet market town, now rapidly developing into a very important manufacturing centre. The situation of the town on gently undulating ground sloping down to the Witham is rather pretty, though its rapid increase during the last quarter of a century has not made it more acceptable to the artist. The steeple of its church is beautiful, even for a county unusually rich in fine churches. Tower and spire are almost the same height, together giving to the capstone an elevation of 273 feet. The lower part is in the Early English style, the remainder and the body of the church, which is not unworthy of the steeple, belong to the Decorated and the Perpendicular styles, but a considerable part of the spire was rebuilt, without, however, any change being made in the design, in the year 1661. The Angel Hotel is "one of the three mediæval inns remaining in England," and within its walls Richard III. signed the death-warrant of the Duke of Buckingham. Grantham once had a castle, but this has disappeared, and so has a Queen Eleanor Cross, but some traces of its religious houses yet remain.

_Walker & Boutall sc._

MAP OF THE RIVERS OF THE WASH.]

Quietly and lazily, after leaving Grantham, the Witham works its way along a broader valley, cut down into the blue clays of the lias formation, and bounded on its eastern side by the low upland plateau formed by the harder limestone beds of the lower part of the oolite, which farther to the south are noted for their stone quarries. Little, however, calls for special notice till a triple group of towers looms up against the sky, and tells of our approach to the turning point in the river course, where for many a century the cathedral and the fortress of Lincoln have kept watch and ward over the gap in the hills, through which, as already stated, the Witham finds an outlet towards the fenland and the sea.

Durham Cathedral only, of all those in England, excels that of Lincoln in the beauty of its situation, for even Ely on its island hill, overlooking the wide Cambridgeshire fens, must be content to take a lower place. Like Durham, Lincoln occupies a site which seems to be indicated by Nature for a place of defence and offence in war, for a centre of commerce and industry in peace. Thus full eighteen centuries since it was crowned by a fortified camp, and eight centuries since it was chosen as the more fitting site of the bishop's stool, in a diocese which at that time was the largest in England. Told as briefly as possible and to the barest outline, this is the history of Lincoln. On the south-western angle of the limestone plateau, guarded on the one side by the steep slope which falls down to a level plain--that which prolongs in a northerly direction the valley of the Witham--on the other by the yet steeper slope which descends to the marshes fringing its actual course through the upland, the Romans established a great fortified camp. Of this, portions of the defences both in earth and masonry remain to the present day. It has been argued with probability that in the name, given by these invaders, _Lindum Colonia_, from which the present one has descended, there is evidence that the site was already in British occupation, the first word being compounded from _Llyn_ a pool, and _dun_ a hill fortress; thus signifying the hill by the pool in the marshy expanse of the Witham. Fragments of wall and a gate, the basements of pillars, probably belonging to a great basilica, a sewer, a tesselated pavement, and sundry other relics, remain to this day as memorials of the Roman occupation. From Lincoln also radiate the lines of five main roads, constructed, where they cross the marshes, on solid causeways. Of these the most important are the Fossway and the Ermine Street, which unite just south of Lincoln, then scale the steep slope below the ancient south gate, along the line of the present High Street, and pass out northward beneath the ancient archway, which still, such is the irony of time, retains its ancient name of Newport.

After the Romans departed, the history of Lincoln for a time is a blank. Doubtless the English invaders plundered, and burnt, and slaughtered, as was their wont, but we hear little more till after the missionaries of Augustine had begun to preach the Gospel to the heathen conquerors of the land. In Lincoln there is a little modern church, a short distance south of the Newport arch, and very near the remnants of the Roman basilica. This marks the site of the first Christian church in Lincoln, the first sign of its second and peaceful conquest by the followers of the Crucified. It was founded by Paulinus, Bishop of York, and his newly-made convert Blæcca, the Governor of Lincoln. Within its walls, as Canon Venables tells us, Honorius, fourth Archbishop of Canterbury after Augustine, was consecrated by Paulinus. Doubtless the church of Paulinus--now St. Paul's--like that of St. Martin at Canterbury, was constructed of Roman materials--perhaps was a restoration of an earlier building, but of this unhappily no trace remains. The Danish invaders sorely harried Lincoln and all the region round. Indeed, in 876 the invaders parcelled out the county among themselves. "Lindsey became largely a Danish land, and Lincoln became pre-eminently a Danish city." Then for a time followed more peaceful days, till William the Norman became master of England. His eye was attracted by the natural advantages of Lincoln, so on the highest point of the plateau, at the south-western angle of the Roman _castrum_, he built a strong castle, remnants of which can still be discerned in the existing walls of that building. To secure space for its outworks he cleared away 166 houses, and in connection with this we have the first distinct notice of the lower town, which at the present day, commercially speaking, is the most important part of Lincoln. It is, however, probable that a suburb had already sprung up at the spot where the Roman road crossed the nearest channel of the Witham--obtaining from its situation the name of Wickerford or Wigford--to which the families dislodged from the upper town no doubt transferred themselves. For them--on land granted by the Conqueror--one Colswegen built some houses, and at the same time founded the churches of St. Mary-le-Wigford and St. Peter-at-Gowts. The towers, and in case of the latter some other portions, of both these churches still remain, and though built somewhere between the years 1068 and 1086 are so completely survivals of the rude style which prevailed in England before the Normans came that they are often quoted as examples of "Saxon" churches.

About the same time Remigius, a Norman monk, was consecrated to the See of Lincoln. At that time Dorchester, in Oxfordshire, was the site of the bishop's stool, but then, as now, it was a place of little importance, and inconveniently situated for the management of so vast a diocese; so he commenced the building of a cathedral at Lincoln, of which a part of the western front still remains incorporated into the grand façade of the present cathedral. The severe simplicity of this early Norman fabric was relieved by the more ornate work of a later bishop in the middle part of the twelfth century, which may still be seen in the entrance doors of the western façade and the lower parts of the two western towers. Then by degrees the remainder of the fabric was rebuilt. Most of the work from the eastern transept to the western façade dates from between the end of the twelfth and the middle of the thirteenth century, commencing with that of Bishop Hugh, afterwards St. Hugh, and ending with that of the illustrious Englishman Robert Grostête, who may be numbered with the "Reformers before the Reformation." To receive the relics of the former the famous Angel choir, or Presbytery, was built about the year 1280. The cloisters and upper part of the central tower were added some twenty years later, and certain alterations subsequently made, the most important being the upper stages of the western towers, which are assigned to the middle of the fifteenth century. Thus, while Lincoln Cathedral presents us with examples of English architecture from the very earliest Norman to the close of the so-called Gothic, and even, in its rebuilt northern cloister, of the classic Renaissance, it is in the main a specimen of the First Pointed or Early English style, from its beginning till it merged almost insensibly in the Middle Pointed or Decorated. Over its details and its history, its damage from earthquake and spoiler, the labours of St. Hugh of Avalon, and the tragedy of the little St. Hugh of Lincoln, its sieges and its narrow escape from destruction in the days of Cromwell, it is impossible to linger. Suffice it to say that the building is as beautiful as the site is commanding, and that the minster garth is girdled by ancient houses full of interest, although Lincoln was never, as the popular name would suggest, the centre of a great monastery.

We must endeavour to summarise the chief attractions of the town and the leading features of the scenery. Of the former it may be said that few towns in England are more full of relics of olden time or more fruitful in pleasant impressions. We never know what the next turn in the most unpromising street may disclose. The Roman relics have been already mentioned, but these and the cathedral do not nearly exhaust the list of its antiquities. Would you look at a wealthy burgess' residence in the earlier part of the twelfth century? You may find it in the Jews' House of the upper town, or "John of Gaunt's" stables in the lower. Would you seek for domestic architecture belonging to the later periods of Pointed work? The gate-houses of the close belong to the earlier part of the fourteenth century; "the chequer or exchequer gate with its shops in the side passage, and the Pottergate remain; several residentiary houses were erected at the same period, and are partly remaining, though much altered and disfigured." At every turn in the older parts of the town the eye falls upon some remnant of ancient days, doorway or gatehouse, window or corner of a wall; it may be merely a fragment, a little block, of mouldering masonry, or it may be an almost perfect example of mediæval architecture. But Lincoln is not only interesting in detail; the town, as a whole, when seen from the flat land by the Witham, is exceptionally attractive. True, it has lost much in recent days. It has become a manufacturing town of some importance; large foundries and other works have sprung up on the meadows by the Witham. The lowland begins to bristle up with tall chimneys, which discharge their clouds of dusky smoke. New and old are in sharp contrast. The tower of St. Mary-le-Wigford looks down on a railway, the quaint little conduit on its churchyard wall is close to a signal-box. Still, ugly as the foreground in many places has become, it cannot spoil the beauty of the town itself, as its houses and gardens climb the steep hillside to the summit of the plateau, where above all peer up the grey remnants of the ancient castle, and the vast mass of the cathedral with its lofty towers rises high above the picturesque buildings of the close and the green trees upon the slope beneath.

From the walls of Lincoln the Witham can be watched as it passes onwards to enter the fenland, into which the level valley opens out as the plateau shelves down towards the east. This part of its course is naturally monotonous, so we shall not attempt to describe it in detail, and shall pause only at the old town which forms its port. Boston, anciently Botolph's Town, is a thriving market town, which, as every lover of architecture knows, possesses one of the finest churches in the county, or indeed in the whole country. It stands in an ample churchyard close to the left bank of the Witham; the magnificent tower, crowned by an octagonal lantern, which is supported by flying buttresses, is about 300 feet high, a beacon for many a league of fen and sea. The church itself is not unworthy of the tower, and is one of the largest in England, perhaps the largest of those built on a similar plan. The style is Late Decorated and Perpendicular, though doubtless there was an earlier structure on the same site. The tradition runs that "the first stone was laid in the year 1309 by Dame Margery Tilney, and that she put five pounds upon it, as did Sir John Twesdale the vicar, and Richard Stevenson, a like sum; and that these were the greatest sums at that time given." Progress, however, must at first have been slow, for most of the building is of rather later date. The interior, though rather plain, is very fine, producing an impression which may be summed up in the word "spaciousness." Lofty aisles are connected with the nave by corresponding arches; the clerestory is comparatively small. The chancel is large, and open to the body of the church, so that there is little interruption in any direction to the view. Formerly Boston Church was exceptionally rich in brasses, but most of these have perished; two, however, one of a merchant named Peascod, whose dress is appropriately ornamented with pea-pods, and another of a priest vested in a richly-ornamented cope, still remain at the east end. Among the many minor objects of interest to be found in this grand church, which was carefully restored about thirty years since, may be mentioned the stone roof of the tower, the lower storey of which is open to the church, the chancel-stalls, and the curious Elizabethan pulpit.

Above the church is a great sluice, below it a bridge, which may be reckoned as the head of the port of Boston. Here sea-going vessels may be seen afloat at high tide, or stranded on the mud bank at low water. The sea itself is about four miles away, and the dead level of the fens extends all around the town. Except the church there is little of interest in Boston, but probably its tower is surpassed by none in the kingdom, in either its fine design or its extensive prospects.

From the table-land about Naseby, much of which lies at an elevation of some six hundred feet above the sea, flow two of the rivers which ultimately pass through the fenland into the Wash. These are a source of the Nen and the Welland. Near the springs of these rivers, on the undulating upland not far from Naseby, was the last great struggle in the field between Royalist and Roundhead; Charles and Rupert on one side, Cromwell and Fairfax on the other, "looked one another in the face." Both sides were brave enough; but on the one were rashness and incapacity, on the other discipline and skill; so that before four hours had passed the king's army was shattered before the "new model," and he became "like a hunted partridge flitting from one castle to another."

Thus the NEN has its sources quite on the western side of the county--thence each feeder flows through a pleasant rolling region, where pastures alternate with cornfields, and both with copses, broadening its valley, as it proceeds, until they join and reach the chief town of the county, by which time the water meadows bordering its banks are of considerable extent. Northampton is a town which has increased rapidly in size, and in consequence diminished rapidly in attractiveness. While it possesses some very interesting remains of ancient days, its older buildings for the most part are those of a midland market town of the last century, and these have been seldom replaced with the more imposing structures erected at the present day; thus, if we except the new Town Hall, the chief additions to Northampton are blocks of factories, and rows of small houses, monotonous wildernesses of red bricks and purple slates. The place is very old, but the politics that prevail are very modern; for some years one of its parliamentary representatives was the late Mr. Bradlaugh.

This slope above the Nen, where its course begins to bend towards the north, was a town full a thousand years ago, when it bore the shorter name of "Hamtune." For a considerable time it was in the hands of the Danes; it was burned by them in 1010, and harried by the forces of Morkere a year before the Norman Conquest. The successors of William often kept court here, for the Forest of Rockingham--which then spread over a large part of the county--was a favourite hunting ground, and many councils and parliaments were held in the castle. In its hall Becket confronted Henry II., and at a later date, the constitutions of Clarendon were ratified. Its annals have not always been peaceful. De Montford struggled for it with Prince Edward, and the Duke of York with Henry VI. Once Northampton seemed in the way to become a seat of learning, for owing to the state of feeling between "town and gown" in the year 1260 the students abandoned Oxford and settled there; their stay, however, was not long, the "town" found that a proud stomach would soon be an empty one, and made interest with the king to recall the "gown," so the Nen did not replace the Isis.

The ruins of the castle are inconspicuous, but Northampton possesses two churches of great interest, one, St. Peter's--a fine, and in some respects remarkable, example of a rather late Norman parish church--which, notwithstanding some alterations, retains in the main its original character, and is an unusually ornate example of that style--and St. Sepulchre's, one of the four churches in England which commemorate in their plan the ancient church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. This church has been much altered and added to, but the rotunda, or rather octagon, is still in fair preservation, and indicates a date rather later than that of its three companions. The Queen's Cross, on the higher ground about a mile south of Northampton, is one of the three which remain to mark the resting-places of Queen Eleanor's body and the affection of her husband. Though somewhat injured, it is still in fair preservation.

The valley of the Nen below Northampton affords scenery which, if a little monotonous, is generally pretty. There are flat water meadows by the winding stream, forming a plain a mile or so wide, bounded by slopes, rising sometimes gently, sometimes more rapidly, to a low plateau on either side, and pleasantly diversified with copses and hedgerow timber. The district is an excellent example of the ordinary Midland scenery, quiet, peaceful, seemingly fairly opulent, notwithstanding agricultural depression, but offering few subjects, so far as the scenery is concerned, for pen or pencil, though occasionally an ancient bridge and frequently an old farmhouse of grey stone will attract the artist. As we pass along we note high on the left bank the church of Earls Barton, of which the solid and curiously ornamented tower was built before the Norman Conquest, and the body retains remnants of almost every succeeding period of architecture. Indeed, all this part of the valley of the Nen, which is followed for the most part by the railway to Peterborough, if comparatively uninteresting in its scenery, is exceptionally rich in its churches. In the words of the late Canon James: "The Saxon tower of Earls Barton; the complete Early English Church of Warmington, with its wooden vaulting and exquisite capitals; the unique octagon of Stanwick; the lanterns of Lowick, Irthlingborough, and Fotheringay; the spires of Raunds, Rushden, and Irchester; Finedon, perfect in the best style; Strixton, the model of an earlier one; the fine steeple of Oundle--are but selections cut of a line of churches, some but little inferior, terminating in the grand west front and more solemn interior of Peterborough Cathedral." Besides this, opposite to Earls Barton lies Castle Ashby, the home of the Marquis of Northampton, overlooking from its terrace a great extent of the valley of the Nen, and the wooded hills on its other bank. The house, which is built round a quadrangle, replaces a castle which had disappeared by Leland's time. Three sides were built in the reign of Elizabeth, the fourth was added by Inigo Jones. A lettered balustrade, a rather favourite device in Elizabethan and Jacobean work, is to be seen here. The house contains some interesting pictures and some memorials--according to the author of the account in Murray's Guide-book--of the famous spendthrift election, when my Lord Northampton, my Lord Halifax, and my Lord Spencer all ran candidates for the borough of Northampton, and the race cost the winner a hundred thousand pounds, and each of the losers a hundred and fifty thousand pounds! Yardley Chase, a fragment of one of the old Northamptonshire forests, adjoins the park.

The Nen winds on to Wellingborough, with its chalybeate spring, a town which began to prosper when the iron ore of Northamptonshire found favour in the market. The ore, which is the oxide of iron, popularly known as "rust," occurs in a group of sands of no great thickness at the base of the lower oolites, and overlying the stiff blue lias clay. According to Horace Walpole, quoted in the Guide-book, Wellingborough was not well provided with hotels in 1763. "We lay at Wellingborough--pray never lie there--the beastliest inn upon earth is there! We were carried into a vast bed-room, which I suppose is the club-room, for it stunk of tobacco like a justice of the peace! I desired some boiling water for tea; they brought me in a sugar-dish of hot water in a pewter plate." The church is a fine one, and interesting in more respects than space allows us to enumerate. For the same reason we must pass rapidly by Higham Ferrers, with its old bridge (the best of two or three over this section of the river), and the buildings founded by Archbishop Chichele as a mark of affection for his birthplace. The grand church dates from various periods, commencing with the Early English, and ending with the first half of the seventeenth century, when the steeple was rebuilt, but on the old pattern. The church was made collegiate by Chichele in 1415, to which date belongs the woodwork of the chancel. A brass indicates the burial-place of his parents, and there are several other monuments of great interest. The school-house on the north side of the churchyard, quite close to the steeple, and the bede-house on the south, are also Chichele's work, together with the college, which stood in the main street, but is now in ruins. Probably no townlet in England possesses such a remarkable group of ecclesiastical buildings. The shafts also of two crosses remain. The castle, however, which once belonged to the Earls Ferrers, has now disappeared.

Hence the Nen flows on by bridge or mill to the little town of Thrapston, noted for its grain market. "There is a very pretty view from the bridge which crosses the Nen between Thrapston and Islip. The river sweeps round between green meadows, overhung in the foreground by masses of fine trees. Loosestrife, arrowhead, the flowering rush, and many of the rarer water plants, abound, and the tall rushes which border the stream are used here for plaiting the outer portion of horse collars and mats, and for the seats of chairs." Then comes Thorpe with its fragment of a castle and the old bridge over a tributary of the Nen, which near here for a while parts into two channels. The scenery generally in this part of the valley is attractive, especially near Lilford, where the old mansion stands on rising ground surrounded by fine trees; and near to the river are the churches and the ruined Castle of Barnwell. Then, hurrying on, Oundle is reached, with its lofty steeple and fine church, its ancient bridge over the river, and its quaint old houses. Oundle has been inhabited since the days of the Romans, and is justly noted as "one of the pleasantest towns in Northamptonshire." Cotterstock with its memories of Dryden, Tansor with its curious church, come next, then Fotheringay with its "fair builded paroche church" and its ruined castle, in the hall of which stern justice was done to Mary Stuart, overlooks the valley of the Nen. At Wansford the river sweeps round to the east, and glides slowly through a less interesting district down to Peterborough, passing on its way Castor with its interesting church and relics of a Roman station. This, Durobrivæ by name, appears to have occupied both sides of the river, and was evidently a wealthy and important settlement. It was famed also for its pottery; "kilns and great works extended round Castor and its neighbourhood for about twenty miles up and down the Nen valley. Roman potters' kilns have been found nowhere else in England so perfect or in so great numbers."

Far above the lowland, far above the fens upon which the river is now entering, rises the huge mass of the Cathedral of Peterborough. The town, once a mere appendage to the great monastery, is now an important centre of railways and of works connected therewith. Within the last forty years the population has trebled; acres and acres of land have been covered with rather commonplace dwellings; but the nucleus of the town, the houses by the Nen bridge, the picturesque market-place, the old residences of the close, and above all the Cathedral, are little changed. A few years ago it was found necessary to rebuild completely the central tower of the Cathedral, for it was on the point of falling; much underpinning and other structural work has had to be done in the choir, during which some very remarkable remnants of the older fabric have been found; and it will probably be some years before the work of restoration is completed, for the expense is great, and neither the chapter nor the diocese is rich.

At Peterborough we stand on the brink of the lowland. It is not yet actual fen; the Cathedral, the town, stand on a thin bed of rock, which overlies clay and provides a foundation. Here, about the year 655, the place being then called Medeshamstede, a monastery was founded. For more than two centuries it flourished; then the Dane swooped down on the fenland abbey, and for nearly a hundred years it was desolate. It was rebuilt about 966, and in less than a century had become so wealthy that in the days of Abbot Leofric, a great benefactor, it was called the golden burgh of Peter. The splendour for a time was dimmed when the monastery was burnt, and the church sacked, by Hereward the Wake as an English welcome to the first Norman Abbot. All of this church that was above ground has long disappeared, but considerable portions of the foundation have been discovered during the recent alterations, and will not be again buried. The grand Norman structure which still remains--one of the most complete in the kingdom--was begun about 1118, and completed, except the west front, about 1190. That--a structure perfectly unique, a gigantic portico, in the form of three huge pointed arches--is assigned to the first quarter of the thirteenth century. For boldness of design and perfection of execution it is unsurpassed by anything of this period in the kingdom. The small spires, the pinnacles, and the porch, unfortunately stuffed between the piers of the central arch, are of later date. The "new building" or lady chapel at the east end is a fine piece of Tudor work, but it has not improved the lower part of the Norman church. The Perpendicular architects have inserted poor tracery in many of the windows, and have made other alterations, seldom for the better, but less mischief has been done at Peterborough by these meddlesome blunderers than in most other Norman cathedrals.

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The WELLAND rises, as has been said, on the high ground near Naseby, but runs parallel with the outcrop of the rocks, while the stream going to the Nen descends with their slope. Thus the valley of the former widens rapidly, and before reaching Market Harborough is already trench-like in outline. This, for long a sleepy little town, seems to have been stimulated into some life by the meeting of railways. Still it possesses one or two old houses, a chapel and a church of some interest; and from it Charles led his army to the fatal field of Naseby. Below Harborough the valley of the Welland continues to broaden and flatten its bed, the slopes often rising steeply on both northern and southern sides. Though sometimes pleasantly wooded around the site of some old family mansion, they are commonly rather bare, and the scenery is on the whole less attractive than is usual in this region of England. Such churches also as are near the river are not remarkable, and it is not till we come to Rockingham that we care to pause. Here, however, high on the right bank, backed by shady woods, are the terraces, gables, and the remaining bulwarks of Rockingham Castle. The road climbs through the picturesque village to the grey old gateway, which, with other portions, dates from the thirteenth century, but the part more conspicuous from the valley is mainly of the reign of Elizabeth. "Anywhere the high site of Rockingham, backed with its avenues of limes and groups of forest trees, would be a fine one, but in Northamptonshire the wild and broken ground of the park, and the abrupt slopes and earthworks on which the castle stands, make it signally unique." The earlier kings of England not seldom used this for a hunting seat in the days when Rockingham Forest was a reality instead of a name.

The river winds on with little change in the general character of the scenery; the tower of Gretton looks down from the high scarp of the right bank, the little spire of Seaton rises among trees hardly less high on the left, the small village of Harringworth, with its grey stone houses, its interesting church, and its old cross still standing in the market-place, lies by the river side, near to which a branch of the Midland Railway crosses river and valley on a mighty viaduct of brick arches. Then Collyweston crowns the slope on the right. Here are the quarries of so-called slate, which in former days roofed all the churches and most of the mansions for miles round--a material in its slight irregularity of form and colour far more pleasing to the eye than the formal smoothness and dull tints of the slates of Wales or Westmorland, which now find favour with builders. Then near the river are more grey houses, always worth a passing glance, for they are often at least a couple of centuries old, and as stone was plentiful and good, men in those times forbore to do their work "on the cheap." But here is something more, for above them rises the steeple of Ketton church, perhaps the most graceful to be found in any village in England. High on the hills behind are the famous quarries, which for long took the place of those of Barnack, but are now in their turn becoming exhausted.

Then above the willow trees by the water, grey houses, towers, and spires, rise from the bed of the valley, climb the slope on the left, and that on the right also, till the suburb is arrested by densely massed woods. These hide from view the palatial mansion of Burghley; this is "Stamford town," once a noted halting-place on the great North Road. There is, perhaps, no town in England of the same size which is more picturesque or more interesting. Grey stone houses, often of excellent design, overhang the river, and border the streets; the steeple of St. Mary's is very similar, and hardly inferior, to that of Ketton; that of All Saints is also fine. In St. Martin's, near the gate, Burghley, the great Lord Treasurer, the founder of the houses of Exeter and Salisbury, lies buried; the Burghley Bede House, Browne's Hospital, and the ruined priory of St. Leonard's, are full of interest, and the town boasts that to it, as to Northampton, there was once a migration from Oxford.

At Stamford itself one would hardly suppose that the fens were near. The ground on either side is fairly high, the valley not notably broad, but the river, like the Witham at Lincoln, after cutting through the great limestone escarpment, passes out into the vast expanse of marsh-land that borders the Wash.

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The OUSE rises in Buckinghamshire not far from Banbury, noted among children for its cross and cakes, and wanders leisurely on by the quiet county town of Buckingham, by Newport Pagnell, and Olney, known to admirers of Cowper, its scenery for the most part opulent, but rather monotonous, till it approaches Bedford--once a town wholly agricultural, now the site of important works of agricultural implements, and evidently prospering. Sleepily the Ouse glides along by its reedy banks through the wide lowland, silently it slides by the waterside houses, the pretty gardens, and the modern bridge which has replaced an earlier and more picturesque structure. Among the fields towards the south, the massive tower of Elstow church rises above the trees, indicating the birthplace of John Bunyan, who "lighted on a den" in Bedford gaol, and there "dreamed the dream" of the "Pilgrim's Progress." Bedford Castle has disappeared, the churches are of little interest, the houses commonplace. Except for a few memorials of Bunyan, Bedford does not offer much to detain the traveller, unless he would examine its excellent schools or search for the remains of palæolithic man in the neighbouring gravels.

Below Bedford the Ouse passes on through wide meadows, near the pine-clad hills of Sandy, and the market gardens, fertile from the happy mixture of the light sand of the slopes with the mud of the river; by the old town of St. Neots, with its fine church tower; by Huntingdon with its picturesque bridge and its memories of Cromwell, where the old mansion of the Earls of Sandwich looks from its terrace over the wide and often flooded river plain; and beneath the ancient bridge of St. Ives. The valley becomes less and less definite, the scenery flat, flatter, flattest, till somewhere or other in the fens the Ouse receives the Cam, and somewhere or other at last reaches the sea. This enigmatical sentence will be presently explained; let us now turn back to notice briefly the course of the last-named river.

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The CAM is shorter than any which have been noticed, yet a stream which passes through Cambridge, and may claim to glide by Ely, may well demand a longer notice than any of them. This, however, the limitations of space forbid, so we shall pass over, as generally known, the history of Cambridge and of its University. We will merely glance at the site of the Roman camp on the low plateau and the old "Saxon" tower of St. Benet's on the plain across the Cam, indicating, as at Lincoln, an early separation of the military and the civil element. We will only mention the Round church, another memorial of the Holy Sepulchre. We will not discuss the rise and progress of the University, whether or no its founder was Sigibert, king of the East Angles, nor speak of the work of many a pious benefactor, royal, noble, and lowly born, or of its illustrious sons, its treasures of literature, its museums and colleges. We will merely trace the course of the Cam through the town, because there is no mile of river scenery in all England, or, so far as we know, in all Europe, which can be exactly compared with it.

The Cam at Cambridge results from the union of two or three streams which have stolen sluggishly down, from sources a few miles distant among the chalk hills or the yet lower undulations of the clay district, to form a river rather wider and deeper, but hardly more rapid than an ordinary canal. Meadows and osier beds end at a mill, up to which barges can come, and below the pool, at the first bridge leading into the town, the characteristic scenery may be said to begin. Close to this the buildings of Queen's College overhang the water, linked to the garden on the left bank by a picturesque wooden bridge. With tall trees to the left, with another garden on the right, we then glide beneath a single-arch bridge into the precincts of King's College. On the left bank are meadows bordered by tall trees; on the right, from smooth-shaven lawns, rise the master's lodge, the massive Fellows' Buildings, and the stately chapel, the pride of King's College. Overlooking the lawns, but parted by a garden from the river, is the single court of Clare College, an excellent example of seventeenth century domestic architecture, behind which is the group of buildings belonging to the University Library, the older part of which was erected for the students of King's College. A handsome three-arched bridge links Clare to its beautiful gardens on the opposite bank of the Cam, and almost closes the view along the stream, though beneath its arches glimpses are obtained of more gardens and yet more bridges. Rowing on, with some care for our oars, we pass beneath an arch, and glide by the gardens of Clare College and beneath the terraced wall which hides that of Trinity Hall, but not its stately chestnut trees. Then, through a single arch of iron, which carries one of the roads leading into the town, we enter the grounds of Trinity College, the largest, richest, and most aristocratic of the educational foundations of Cambridge. Before us is its bridge, interrupting the noble avenue of limes, which on the one side separates its tree-fringed meadows, on the other leads up to the gateway tower in the façade of the "New Court." There are now neither shrubs nor flowers by the river, but here and there a weeping willow overhangs the water. As we pass beneath one of the arches we obtain on the one side a clearer view of the Trinity meadows; on the other, of Wren's stately but rather ugly library adjoining the "New Court," and in front, across more meadows, and yet more aged trees, we see the grand mass of the "New Court" of St. John's College.