Pendle Hill in history and literature

Front matter

PENDLE HILL IN HISTORY AND LITERATURE. Pendle Hill and Penigant, And little Ingleborough, Are three such hills as you'll not find By searching England thorough. BY JAMES McKAY, F.R.H.S., AUTHOR OF The British Camp ox the Herefordshire Beacon ;" " History of Malvern Priory "Historical Associations of a Rl'hal Parish Church;'' " Lancashire Landscapes ;" &c. " I love Pendle Hill, anil from whatever siple I view it, whether from W hiplley, where I see it from einl to eml, from its lowest point to its highest : from P.p.iiham. where it frowns nipon me ; from Clitheroe where it smiles ; or from Downham, where it rises lip full majesty before me -from all points anpl under all aspects, whether robed with mist or radiant with sunshine, I delight in U."-Hakhison AINSWORTH. £cmi>cm : Published by Henry Davies & Co., 52, Fleet Street ; and Herald Office, Fisiiergate, Preston.

And by J. & A. Lupton, Manchester Road, Bvrnley, t THIS VOLUME ON PENDLE HILL IN HISTORY AND LITERATURE |I6 glcbtcnteb to tljc Rev. ARTHUR TOWN LEY PARKER, M.A. Rector and Rural Dean of Burnley, and Honorary Canon of Manchester Cathedral, in grateful remembrance of the kindly interest which. AFTER THE MANNER OF THE TYPICAL ENGLISH CLERGYMAN, HE HAS QUIETLY AND UNOBTRUSIVELY SHOWN IN THE AUTHOR FROM THE TIME HE WAS A PUPIL IN ST. PETER'S NATIONAL SCHOOL, BURNLEY.

Preface

. "As Ancient as Pendle Hill" is a popular simile in North Lancashire, and conveys the impression that the particular subject under consideration is by no means new. Pendle Hill in History and Literature is, nevertheless, quite novel as an attempt to group together, in a connected form, all that has been sung and said about the most prominent physical feature of the Blackburn Hundred, in combination with reflections and speculations for which the Author is alone responsible. The usage of previous annalists has been to assume that Pendle had no history, and was nothing but an unknown wilderness right down to the era of the Norman Conquest. In the pages which follow an effort will be made to show that the names of the great prominent landmarks all round Pendle are testimony against every such supposition, and evidence that, on and around Pendle, patriot Britons governed, and worshipped, and fought for independence long before Paulinus or any Saxon Monk, much less any follower of William the Conqueror, set foot upon these shores.

We have never forgotten, when adventuring our own interpretations of the strange and marvellous stories often hidden even in Lancashire place-names, that Etymology, like Political Economy and Geology, is still in such an unsettled state that theories are continually changing, and that therefore the disciples of no one school are entitled to assume themselves infallible. While there are, for instance, those who affect to no longer believe in the derivation from Bel or Baal of the name of the Beltein fires kindled on Pendle and Parlick on Teanla night, it is to be borne in mind that the weight of evidence is still very greatly against them. Our hope is, however, that this volume will prove a com panionable book, and for that reason we have kept as far aloof as possible from those controversial matters which are always fatal to pleasant companionship.

The Author designed the several chapters of which the work consists for serial publication, in the first instance, in the Preston Herald, and he attributed the satisfaction the chapters so published gave, not so much to his acquaintance with the district as to his acquaintance with the able men who have incidentally written of it at different times. The late Alderman T. T. Wilkinson, F.R.A.S., the laborious pioneer of PR El ACE. local archæology ; the late William Dobson, author of the everdelightful Rambles by the Ribble ; the late Dr. Spencer T. Hall, who, not content with his early laurels as "The Sherwood Forester," essayed a work on Pendle Hill ;— like Mr. T. Bell, Mr. Alfred Strange, Mr. Tattersall Wilkinson, the explorer of the Burnley Moors, and Mr. Henry Houlding, to whose inspiration the following pages owe so much — are or were personal friends ; and while we do not dare to claim the learned and erudite Dr. Grosart, of Blackburn, or Mr. W. A. Waddington, whose name is already enshrined in the Notes to the later editions of Whitaker's History of Whalley, or Mr. John Arthur Waddington, as being in the same category, we can make some claim to their acquaintance, and a very strong claim to be amongst the warmest of the admirers of their contributions to local literature.

To the Author, the greatest charm of Pendle in History and Literature will always be that it will preserve for him, in a form readier of access than the phonograph, the words, and thoughts, and happy companionship of the gentlemen just named. Nor is this all. The announcement of this Book has brought the Author expressions of goodwill in his task from quite unexpected sources. We cannot do less than frankly acknowledge in this connection how much we are indebted to Mr. E. Whitaker Heaton, of Toxteth Park, who has the glory of being able to count himself of the stock of that Dr. William Whitaker of Holme, and of those two brothers from Read, Dean Nowell of St. Paul's and Dean Nowell of Lichfield, of whom, as the pages to follow will show, England had reason to be very proud in the golden age of Queen Elizabeth, when the intellectual firmament of England was bright with a galaxy of great men, the equals of whom the world has never since seen as contemporaries in any one country.

To Mr. P. G. Hamerton, the great art critic, the Author is also deeply indebted ; and further, our grateful thanks are due to Mr. W. Bowness-Burton, whose artistic handiwork forms an effective frontispiece to this volume. In at last giving Pendle Hill in History and Literature to the public, we are gratifying an old ambition, for our knowledge of, and love and liking for, Pendle Hill and Pendle Forest run back to boyhood, when, to slightly vary the words of the Author's illustrious countryman, Robert Burns, the wish now gratified was formed : — E'en then a wish — I mind its power — A wish that till my latest hour "Will strongly heave my breast : That I, for grand old Pendle's sake, Some useful plan or Book could make, Or sing a song at least. JAMES McKAY. 12, Regent Street Preston, 30T11 Nov., iSSS.

PENDLE HILL. CONT ENTS . Chapter I. PENDLE PROSPECTS. Pendle Hill — The Ascent — The Prospect — Mount and Stream and Sea — Minster and Abbey — Forest and Fell — Castle and Keep — Town and Hamlet — Moorland and Meadow— Sunshine and Shade— Past and Present — Mill and Quarry — An Artist's Estimate. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... Pige I Chapter II. PENDLE BEACON RUMINATIONS. The Pendle Beacon — The Jubilee Bonfires — Old Time Danger Signals —Reverie . about the Pendle Beacon — Baal Fires — Lancashire May Day Customs— The Ciilder — Apronful Hall. ... ... ... ... ... ... Page n Chapter III. PENDLE OVERAWED BY THE ROMANS. Roman Ribchester — The Epoch of its Rise and Fall— Its Extent and Defences- Its Military Occupants — Its Roads and Where They Led to — Pendle Encompassed with Camps — The Altars and the Uods of Roman Ribchester — Its Domestic Life — Its Husbandry. ... ... ... ... ... ...

Page 27 Chapter IV. PENDLE PREHISTORIC PATRIOTS. The Sacking of Ribchester— The Hill of the Angry Patriots— The Conqueror of the Brigantes — Caractacus — Celtic Independence Around Pendle — The Roman With drawal — King Arthur at Bashall Brook— Whalley a Fastness of Celtic Sti.tngers — Welsh Whittle— Angleztrgh— Ingleborough — Ingleton— Settle— Ingol — Ingle white — Moorland Celtic Graves in Lancashire. ... ... ... Page 60 Chapter V. PENDLE PAGANISM. Pendle the Hill of Idols— The Force of CelticPlace Names— Waddington, Grindleton and Grimsargh — Suggestions of Pagan Rites — Moon Worship on the Ribble — Tootall Heights — Tutanes the Celtic Deity —Roman Altars and Oracles at Ribchester—Balder stone and Thorsilen— Primeval Hero Worship— Goosnargh— Goosnargh Cakes- Demon Worship— Boyd Dawkins on the Cavo Men. ... ...

Page 93 Chapter VI. PENDLE PIONEERS OF CHRISTIANITY. Dawn of Roman Christianity — The Long Causeway — Transition Crosses— Roman Ribchester and Christianity — Early Christian Missionaries Practical Men— Old Celtic Kils— Bryn's Kil and Kil Gr imel— Admer's Kil in Pendle —Who was Admer — Admer's Parish -King Arthur and St. Admer identical— Rem;irkable Association of the sainted Hero-King of the Britons with Pend_6 — The Whalley Crosses — Paulinus— St. Oswald the King and Martyr. ... ... ... Page CONTEXTS. CllAPTKIt VII. PENDLE ECCLESIASTICAL DEDICATIONS. The Pendle Landscape Includes a Multitude of Churches— The Instruetiveness of Ecclesiastical Dedications— Whalley, Penwortham, Blackburn, Clitheroe, Goosnargh Dedications— Devotion to the Virgin— The Normans and St. Michael— St.. Michael a Militant Saint- St. Michael in Castro— St. Michael's-on-Wyre -St. Wilfrid and Ribchester, Stydd, Preston, and Standish— St. Chad, Chatburn, and Chaigley— St. Oswald.

St. Peter, St. Leonard, and the Pendle Country— Ecclesiastical Memoranda. ... ... ... ... ••■ ■•■ "ilge !53 Chapter VIII. PENDLE MONKS AND MYSTICS. Paulinus and His Contemporaries — St. Wilfrid— The Founding of Salley Abbey — The Cistercian Monks— Sir William De Rymington of Salley, the Opponent of Wycliffe Sir Robert De Clyderhow, the Parson of Wigan— The First Abbot of 'Whalley —Robert De Topcliffe, the Whalley Monk Builder— Abbot Paslew - The Pilgrimage of Grace— The Suppression of Whalley Abbey and Salley Abbey — The Grindletonians — Their Yearnings for Zion-The Soul's Freedom — The Vision of George Fox on Pendle— His Nobility of Soul. ... Page 1S0 CnAPTER IX. PENDLE CHURCHES. Lay Sermons in Empty Churches — Whalley Church — Its Picturesque Situation — Its Monuments — The Proud Dames of Whalley —Mitton Church — The Sherburne Sculptured Effiges — Ribchester Church — Stydd Chapel — Martial Monks — Clitheroe Castle Parish — Downham Church —Bolton-by-Bowland Church -The Pudsay Tomb — Stonyhurst — The Churches of the Forest of Pendle. ... ...

Page 216 Chapter X. PENDLE HISTORICAL EPISODES. Military Associations of the Pendle Country — The Revolt of Wada— Wada and Waddow — Langho the Undoubted Scene of a Sanguinary Conflict— The Saxon Chroniclers — The Battle of Brunanburh — Probably Fought East of Pendle — Scotch Invaders at Eddisford Bridge — The Betrayal of King Henry VI. — Pendle Cavaliers and Roundheads— Clitheroe Castle Dismantled — Pendle Jacobites -Fall of the Stuarts and Disappearance of the Fairies. ... ... ... Page 246 Chapter XI. PENDLE PATRICIANS The De Lacies —Companions of the Conqueror— Later Lords of the Honor of Clitheroe— The Towneleys of Towneley — The Sherburnes of Mitton — The Asshetons of Downham — The Whitakers and Nowells —The Starkies of Huntroyd — The Shuttleworths of Gawthorpe — The Parkers of Browsholme. ...

Page 277 Chapter XII. PENDLE HALLS. Dr. Whitaker on Domestic Architecture Round Pendle— Towneley Hall— Gawthorpe Hall -Mitton Hall— Old Halls Round Burnley— Old Halls on Western Slopes of Pendle — Wiswell Hall— Coldcoates— Pendleton— Great and Little Mearley Worston. ... ... ... ... . . ... ... page CONTENTS. Chapter XIII. PENDLE LEGENDS AND FOLKLORE. The Bells of Ashendean Clough— Peg o' Nell's Well— The Dule upo' Dun— The Pemlle Witches— Jeppe Knave's Grave— Bits of Tendle Folk-Lore -Charms, Spells, and Superstitions. ... ... ... ... .. ... Page 337 Chapter XIV. PENDLE WITCHES. Demonology and Witchcraft — Rise and Development of the Belief in Witches -The First Curse of Pendle- Potts the Witchfinder — The Trial at Lancaster — The Second Curse of Pendle — The Imposture Unmasked— The Colne Wizard — The Surrey (Whalley) Demoniac. ... ... ... ... ...

Page 354 PENDLE, SPENSER, AND ROSALIND. Chapter XV. Edmund Spenser the Prince of Poets — the Royal Commissioner on the Towneley Manuscripts — A Great Literary Discovery — The Nowell Spenser Bequests — The Spensers of Hurstwood— The Spensers of Pendle Forest — The Poet Boy's Pendle Holiday — The Shepherd's Calendar— The Pendle Dialect — The Poet in Love — The Widow's Daughter of the Glen — Rosalind Rejects Spenser — Spenser Immortalises Rosalind — Spenser's Pendle Scenic Reminiscenses — Who was Rosalind? — Drayton Compliments Her on her Old Lover — Rose Dineley — Who Won Rose Dineley ? — .Spenser's Life-long Worship of Rosalind — Spenser's Sneer at her Husband — Spenser Wedded — His Marriage Present — Verses in Lieu of Many Ornaments. Page 383 Chapter XVI. PENDLE IN SONG AND STORY. The Pendle Contingents at Flodden —Pendle Forest and the Faerie Queen— The Annals of Witchcraft — John Webster and Witchcraft — Pendle the English Apennines— Pendle Witches and Lancashire Fair Women — Pendle in Polyolbion — An Old Parson Longs to Climb up Pendle— Pendle Proverbial Rhymes— The Historian of Whalley — Wordsworth's Glimpse of Pendle — Canon Parkinson's Pendle Huntsman — Harrison Ainsworth's Pendle Praises —Pendle Pictures by Sir J. Kay-pShuttleworth and Philip Gilbert Hamerton — Pendle Tributes from William and Mary Howitt — Dr. Spencer T. Hall — Dobson's "Rambles by the Ribble "- Dr. A. B. Grosart. ... ... ... ... ... ..

Page 408 Chapter XVII PENDLE POEMS Henry Houlding the Pendle Laureate — Malkin Tower, a Legend of Pendle Forest — Friar Evelyn of Whalley and the Pendle Witches— The White Witch— The Enchantress — Pendle Primroses — Pendle Under the Snow — Pendle in Winter. Page 447 Chapter XVIII PENDLE PLAYS John Webster of Clitheroe — Parson— Puritan — Wanderer — Dramatist — Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft — Pendle Studies by Heywood and Broome — The Late Lancashire Witches— Alice Nutter Prototype of the Wife of Mr. Generous— Pendle in Shadwell's Play — The Incantation- The Lancashire Dialect Attempted— Slater's Pendle Witches. ... ... ... ... — .. Page CONTENTS. CiurTER XIX. PENDLE FOREST. Pendle Forest — Its Extent — Ightonhill Park — The Parkers and Foresters of Pendle — The Forest Laws — The Deans of Whalley as Huntsmen — Ralph, Abbot of Whalley, Protests Against Encroachments at Pendle Cross— Pendle Forest Agistments and Assart Lands — Royal Exactions in Pendle Forest — Pendle Vaccaries, Booths, and Launds — Newchurch-in-Pendle — Pendle Forest Noncon formity — A Stroll Through Pendle Forest — The Forest Court at Higham — Past and Present Blending in Pendle Forest. ... ... ...

Page 502 Chapter XX. PENDLE NATURAL HISTORY. Pendle Sunset Glories— Pendle Haunts of Naturalists — Pendle Flowers —Pendle Birds — Pendle Forest Geology — How Pendle Brasted Itself — Pendle Limestone — Pendle Diamonds —Pendle Quarries — Conclusion. ... ... Page g?*nMe $}v06\y£ct&* PENDLE HILL THE ASCENT THE PROSPECT MOUNT AND STREAM AND SEA MINSTER AND ABBEY FOREST AND FELL CASTLE AND KEEP TOWN AND HAMLET MOORLAND AND MEADOW — QUARRY AND MILL SUNSHINE AND SHADE PAST AND PRESENT AN ARTISTIC ESTIMATE. How glorious, from the loopholes of retreat, To peep at such a world : to feel the stir Of the great Babel and not see the crowd ! Cbwper. .|Vji ;7J >m E love Pendle, and have loved it ever since childhood ! \wj£«|« • Passing the Well Springs just now, and remembering 'S^JFi) our *^rst ascent °f terrific rise from Sabden, the huge mass of Pendle straightway became hallowed ground to us.

The love of Pendle, kindled within us in early boyhood, has grown with our growth and strengthened with our strength unto this day. When the roving desire natural to all lads began to warm in our bosom — when we yearned with Solomon to go forth into the fields and lodge in the villages, to see and to taste the fruits which the world had in store for us, it was towards Pendle that we oftenest turned our face. Fate and Fortune, however, conspired to render that favourite mountain to us most difficult of access, which cost us many a secret sigh in youth and early manhood ; and though we were wont to console ourselves as best we could with easier forays into Pendle Forest, and solitary rambles by Pendle Water, if ever we grudged comrades of enjoyments denied to ourselves, it was when they went forth to scale Pendle while we remained behind.

But everything comes to him who knows how to wait ! Since those PEKDLE IN ART CRITICISM. fast receding days it has been our privilege, our pleasure, and our pride to ascend Pendle from all sides, in all seasons, and at pretty well all hours of the day. We have stood upon it, at one point or another, in all moods ; in health and sickness, in adversity and joy. Thus has Pendle come to be to us something more than a topographical name. " Nature never did betray the heart that loved her !" Where the Ribble forms the boundary line between Lanca shire and Yorkshire — where the Red Rose and the White Rose blend over that famous river — Pendle rises from the plain, the unchallenged monarch of the hill country that surrounds it. Form ing of itself a more primitive mass, geologically speaking, than the Pennine Range, from which it stands slightly apart, it occupies a broad rocky base between the Ribble on the west and the Calder, with its feeder Pendle Water, on the east.

The rise from these streams is gradual for about a mile or two, at different points, and then the massive form and noble brow of Pendle rear themselves abruptly and with picturesque effect to a height of 1,831 feet above the level of the sea. We are glad to bow in homage to the authority of Mr. Philip Gilbert Hamerton, the worthy compeer of Ruskin in art criticism, when he writes from the severely artistic point of view. He has appraised the value of Pendle, in his capacity as an art critic, in his great work on " Landscape." What Mr. Hamerton says is this : — " Now, for a contrast, let me take the reader to one of our northern hills, my old friend Pendle. It is much lower than the Beuvray, lower by about nine hundred feet : but there are no groves upon it for shade or shelter. The cold winds blow from one end to the other unimpeded ; nothing except a cloud ever relieves the severe monotony of its outline.

Some hills give the idea of being erect ; but Pendle is a flat, recumbent mass, something like a sphinx, and the wind blows all along its back ; a desolate range of wild and dreary moorland. One end of it (the breast of the sphinx) is exceedingly steep, but not an inaccessible precipice ; the other slopes down to the level of a mere undulation of the land. Seen from the top of Pendle, the surface PENDLE AN EMINENCE OF NOTE. 3 of Lancashire presents the appearance, not of a country tossed into crested waves, but of a country with a long ground swell rising and falling in flat spaces and with slow curves, not without a certain severe beauty of outline, yet which cannot be described as picturesque. On the Yorkshire side the forms of Penigant and Ingleborough are more decided, and to the north in clear weather may be seen the mountains of the Lake district, whilst a long line of silvery sea glistens under the afternoon sun.

This is interesting as a view, but what an immense difference has been produced in the pleasantness of elevated ground, in its adaptability to the needs of man, by the six and a half degrees of latitude that separate Pendle from the Beuvray ! The southern mount has shady groves, like Ida, and like Ida is ' many fountained ' ; the northern is bare and bleak, recalling no classic association. I fear it must be admitted that Pendle is unfortunate in having neither southern richness nor the full and stern sublimity of the north." Well, let it be so ! Even then, distinguished by its sterility, at least in eyes accustomed to the higher cultivation that prevails in the warmer and sunnier south, and neither equal in height nor in beauty to some other of our English hills, Pendle is still an eminence of note, and the central object in a reach of country that need yield precedence to no other equal area in the kingdom in respect of modern industrial wealth, or the stirring historical associations of bygone times.

It towers sublime over the subject pikes and fells of lower Ribblesdale, which below Downham, where Pendle attains its greatest height, widens out, as if to allow more ample room for the extended base of the majestic hill, and so give superior effect to its sovereign pretensions. On its western slopes are the limestone hillocks so dear to the heart of the geologist, the botanist, and the antiquarian ; and at its foot, on the opposite side, is the small but rich coalfield of Burnley ; while between these limits stands many an ancient pile famous in song and story. Desiring to humour the prejudices of those who cannot be reasonably expected to enthusiastically endorse the Laureate's description of the North as " dark and true and tender " in any but an uncomplimentary sense, we PENDLE FROM WHALLEY NAB. 4 referred just now to Pendle as being distinguished by its sterility.

Nevertheless, it most certainly is not the treeless waste we are sometimes told the whole region round Pendle is. The banks of the Ribble where it flows under the shadow of Pendle are here and there decked with ornamental timber of no recent growth ; while Longridge and Whalley Nab, in common with the more distant Cliviger, have been planted in modern times with great success. No mean authority on scenic beauty has declared that where the shadow of Pendle falls upon the Ribble there are scenes which are very beautiful, and bold, and which overlook noble distances. As you draw near to the base of Pendle coming from Preston, Stony hurst is passed — princely Stonyhurst, taking among the creations of man in this fine district the rank which Pendle holds among the works of the Almighty. Taken on a summer day, the journey over the very few miles between Stonyhurst and Pendle is a pleasure never to be forgotten.

Yes — there are narrow lanes with tall, thick tangled hedges ; while the moss-grown trees, the deep-coloured vegetation, the luxuriant fields of corn, are truly as sweet as any thing in southern England. You shall not even miss in your sojourn the old, narrow, steep, ivy-covered bridge, the homely cottage, the rustic wain, the heavy horse — all friends of poetic boyhood in the heart of " Merrie England." The hill country between Padiham and Sabden — the same cultured and artistic observer admits — is cold to look at, and the vegetation of that slope of Pendle poor, " but before you reach Whalley you descend into the warm bosom of the earth." Try the effect of a ramble up Whalley Nab, to look thence at grand old Pendle. If the mist is luckily lifted, you will see his hunchback, and further to the left his brawny nose.

And while at Whalley, before setting out to scale Pendle, if you will, from Wiswell, the imagination runs riot. Monks in their cowls, barons in their armour, all the pomp and pride of chivalry, and all the gorgeous ceremonial of the old religion in its palmy state, pass in review before us, image succeeding image till we seem to live again in the press and bustle of the olden time. What changes has old Pendle witnessed, himself unchanged ! What joyous shows PENDLE PROSPECTS FROM THE OUTLAW'S GRAVE. 5 and sad arrays : "knights fair and ladies gay," splendid retinues of gallant cavaliers on hawking bent ; country gentlemen, well fed, well clothed, well horsed, pursuing sport ; the cowl and the crown, the bridal festivity and the passing bell, horse dashed against horse and man breasting against man.

" So passes the glory of the world away " — but, let it be observed, it was glory. We must not attempt further just now the story of what old Pendle has seen, for standing at the Outlaw's Grave, high up the mountain's side, and looking round us on so-called " sterile " Pendle, we notice with keen pleasure, even here, How Nature hangs her mantle green On every blooming tree. And spreads her sheets o' daisies white Out o'er the grassy lea. Again look back on the plain we are leaving behind us. A finer champagne country, hills with nobler sweeps, objects of deeper interest, are rarely to be seen. Scattered around are types of almost all the states of civilisation that our country has passed through down to the present time. Paulinus trudged these Pendle pathways when our forefathers worshipped stocks and stones : Saxon church, ruined shrine, Norman abbey, Roman road, feudal castle — all these lie spread before us, or only just hidden from our view, as we climb up higher and higher towards the summit of Pendle.

But, while we still have the chance, let us follow the windings of the streams that encircle Pendle — none of them unknown to fame. Both the Ribble and the Hodder are dear to the angling brotherhood, and the Calder, which ceases its separate existence hard by Whalley, by reason of the Cistercian ruins on its banks, has attained, through the genius of Dr. Thomas Dunham Whitaker, to a classic niche in English literature. The Calder has its fountain head in the wild gorge of Cliviger, a few miles beyond Burnley, and at a point a little below that town receives into itself the stream generally known as Pendle Water, which, in itself, rises in the dreary moorland of Barley, in the heart of Pendle Forest. The Ribble has its source in Yorkshire, in the uplands that lie between Settle and Hawes, and between Whernside and Penigant.

PENDLE VIEWS OF RIBBLESDALE. Entering the county of Lancaster here, at the foot of the western declivity of Pendle, a little above the famous old town of Clitheroe, it receives within a short walk of the centre of that town the waters of the Hodder gathered from the slopes of Parlick Pike and of the fells of Bowland ; and at Whalley the Calder is swallowed up in the Ribble, which then continues its gentle and peaceful course, bounding rather than flowing, through a succession of the most beautiful scenery, to Preston, and thence forward to the sea. Though, as yet, not eminently serviceable as a navigable stream, it is highly ornamental to the country through which it passes, possessing every variety of wooded banks and of open verdant lawns, and gently swelling knolls enriched with corn and pasture lands, and here and there an orchard.

Looking, therefore, westward from Pendle, right across Ribblesdale, the country is bright in summer with pastoral wealth and grazing herds, the undulating scenery here and there changing into boldness of contour, and being marked everywhere along the opposing fell sides with rich greenerie. There is thus produced in this particular Pendle prospect a blending of the gentle and noble in landscape which constitutes a peculiar charm to men and women whose lives are mainly spent in the teeming murky hives of busy Lancashire — Forest and fell and hill and dale appear With all the shapes upon their surface spread. Whoever slowly makes his way to the summit of Pendle, ascending the gentlest of its slopes — that towards Sabden — will easily realise with Dr. Whitaker that "it is an enormous mass of matter, extending in a long ridge from N.E. to S.W., and on the S.E. side forming a noble boundary to Pendle Forest, which stretches in a long but interrupted descent of nearly five miles to the Water of Pendle The whole extent of it cannot be estimated at less than 25 miles, or 15,000 statute acres."

Elsewhere the same great authority says :—" The most distinguished and well-known feature of the whole district is Pendle, which, though it wants the bold conical form of its northern rivals, Penigant and Ingle borough, and is, in fact, nothing more than a longitudinal ridge, THE BIG END OF PENDLE. 7 like its immediate neighbours, yet from its superior height and bulk, as well as insulated situation, presents on every side, and especially on the north, a bold and striking figure." Observation, while the ascent from Sabden is being made, soon proves all this true. Burnley, hidden at first by a shoulder of the hill, soon comes into view ; but in the meantime the eye takes in at one sweep the plain of Whalley, a glimpse of Accrington, and the more distant asphaltean clouds of Blackburn. Soon the highlands that shelter Padiham are overlooked on our upward course on Pendle, and even the formidable barrier of Hambledon Hill quickly ceases to present any obstacle to the range of vision, and the delighted spectator looks right over it into the Forest of Rossendale, and to his astonishment not only sees Holcombe Hill, but, if the day be clear, the monument to Sir Robert Peel that stands upon it.

At length, after traversing the wide plateau into which Pendle spreads towards its summit, its highest point is reached, marked by a cairn erected by the gentlemen of the Ordnance Survey. " Here we feel amends, the breath of heaven fresh-blowing pure and sweet." The prospect from this elevation is in every sense truly magnificent, some professing to take in, under favourable atmospheric conditions, objects so far apart as York Minster on the one hand and Lancaster Castle on the other. The Big End of Pendle is, of course, a favourite resort for all the sightseers of East Lancashire ; and, in truth, he who has once accomplished the ascent, and gazed with intelligent admiration on the scene which opens before his astonished and enraptured gaze, is not likely to forget the glorious spectacle. What ennobled views of the magnificent performances of Nature, anyone, not being a veritable clod of the valley, must have on seeing for the first time, from the crest of Pendle, the giant mass of Ingleborough with the equally giant masses of Whernside on the one hand and Penigant on the other.