Leading the Blind (36 page)

Ironbridge in Shropshire will be found ‘terribly spoilt by the forges and foundries, the banks of slag and refuse that run down to the water's edge. Tiers of dirty cottages rise on the hill-side, which is very steep. Very near the station the Severn is crossed by an
iron bridge
of one arch, of 120 ft. span, being the first iron bridge on record.'

If our traveller in Crewe has to wait while changing trains he might look in at the nearby works, where steel ingots ‘are made here by Bessemer's process, and it is one of the most beautiful sights in the world to see the blast put on to the huge converter. After a blow of 18 minutes, the spiegeleisen is added, and the whole fiery mass is then decanted out of the converter into a mould, a magnificent exhibition of fireworks and white heat.'

Tired of this spectacular industrial might, the traveller could pass a week at Matlock, having read Byron's encomium in his Murray: ‘I can assure you there are things in Derbyshire as noble as Greece or Switzerland.'

The hotels are said to be ‘very comfortable', and ‘agreeable walks have been carried up the steep heights on both sides of the valley; but, being for the most part private property and leased out, they are accessible only on paying toll. Indeed, the tourist will soon find with what ingenuity the people of Matlock manage to make him pay “backsheesh,” enough to exhaust a good amount of small change, for the privilege of beholding their charming landscapes. Nevertheless, he should on no account omit to ascend the Heights of Abraham.'

‘I have never seen anywhere else,' wrote Nathaniel Hawthorne, ‘such exquisite scenery as surrounds the village of Matlock.' the author of
Highways and Byways in Derbyshire
(J. B. Firth), however, bewails its spoiled condition, because ‘the railway companies let loose daily in the summer-time among its sylvan beauties a horde of callous rowdies, who envy Attila his destructive secret, whereby the grass never grew again where once his feet had been planted. The debasing influence of the day tripper is everywhere visible in Matlock. His trail is unmistakable. His litter is omnipresent. He has tastes which must be catered for. The shops deck themselves out with vulgarities and banalities to please their patron. His ear is so accustomed to the roar of machinery and the din of streets that there must be a bawling salesman on the pavement to shout crude invitations to buy. It is these shops, these refreshment bars, these permanent preparations for the coming of the tripper, which ruin the place, and, once begun, the descent to Avernus becomes a veritable glissade.'

Ruskin inveighs against the ‘civilization' which ‘enterprised a railroad through the valley – you blasted its rocks away, heaped thousands of tons of shale into its lovely stream. The valley is gone, and the Gods with it.'

Or perhaps instead of Matlock our traveller might call at Chester on his way to Wales. Murray says: ‘Few, if any towns attract so many visitors of all classes and tastes as does this ancient city.' During the races 25,000 people a day pass through it. Dr Johnson had previously observed to Miss Barnston: ‘I have come to Chester, Madam, I cannot tell how; and far less can I tell how to get away from it.'

Henry James, in
English Hours
, 1872, says: ‘… if the picturesque be measured by its hostility to our modern notions of convenience, Chester is probably the most romantic city in the world … it is so rare and complete a specimen of the antique town …' If he stayed at one of the two first-class hotels he would have learned from his Murray that both were expensive.

From Chester it is a mere twenty-four miles to Llangollen where, Murray says, the Hand Hotel is ‘one of the best in Britain, a pleasant house, thoroughly comfortable, and very moderate, kind landlady, Mrs. Edwards.' He then leads us on a ten-minute walk above the church to a ‘small cottage ornée, once the retreat of two maiden ladies, Lady Eleanor Butler, and the Hon. Miss Ponsonby. In 1799 they came hither together in the heyday of their youth and charms, influenced only by a romantic attachment to each other, which never was sundered, and a fancied desire to retire from the world. Here they set up their tent and lived together amidst their books and flowers. An assiduous correspondence carried on with their literary and fashionable friends kept them always
au courant
of the latest gossip and scandal of the outer world, and as their hermitage lay on the Holyhead mail road, it allowed many a passing friend to drop in upon them, such as young Arthur Wellesley on his way to embark for Spain, in 1808. The costume which they adopted, though it seemed singular to strangers, was only that of the Welsh peasant woman, – a man's hat, a blue cloth gown or riding habit, with short hair, uncurled and grey (undyed). After a happy friendship of 50 years Miss Butler died, 1829, aged 90, and Miss Ponsonby in 1830 at the age of 78. Their house is now converted into a sort of Museum. Visitors pay a fee of 6d., which goes to some local charity.'

The
Gossiping Guide to Wales
, 1905 gives more details of the association, calling them ‘two queer old souls who, when they were young, vowed, as violently attached ladies do vow, for celibacy and a cottage, only with this difference – they fulfilled their vows. They were Irish, and they fled from matrimony as from a pestilence, and found in Llangollen a haven of rest, where, for more than half a century, they lived, and where their remains now repose under a tombstone in the churchyard near the church door. Mathews the Elder describes them as they first burst on his astonished vision in the Oswestry Theatre, which is now, by the way, a malthouse. “Oh, such curiosities! I was nearly convulsed. I could scarcely get on for the first ten minutes after my eye caught them. As they are seated, there is not one point to distinguish them from men: the dressing and powdering of the hair; their well starched neck-clothes; the upper part of their habits, which they always wear even at a dinner party, made precisely like men's coats; and regular beaver black hats. They looked exactly like two respectable superannuated old clergymen.”'

Any distinguished visitor who passed that way a second time was expected to bring a present of carved oak. ‘The Duke of Wellington was here in 1814; and Wordsworth, who called on his tour through North Wales in 1824, composed a poem in the grounds, in which he called the house a “low-roofed cot,” greatly to the annoyance of the Ladies, who declared they could have written better poetry themselves! Amongst other visitors were Madame de Genlis, with the young Mademoiselle d'Orléans, in 1791, and Sir Walter Scott in 1825.'

Baddeley's
North Wales
adds this intriguing detail: ‘In one of the bedrooms is a double secret cupboard containing authentic copies of the garments worn by the romantic pair.' A French guidebook of 1914 gave the two ladies some philanthropic credit by remarking that ‘well before the beginning of the feminist movement they established in the district a refuge for young girls seeking to escape the deceits and wiles of men'.

For more upland scenery the traveller would go to Snowdon where, on its peak: ‘The visitor will be much mistaken if he comes prepared for mountain solitude, for in the season it is one of the most crowded spots in Wales. The guides have erected 2 or 3 huts on the highest point, where refreshments, such as eggs, cheese, tea, and bottled beer, may be obtained at tolerably reasonable prices, considering the labour of getting them up. In foggy or wet weather it is no slight relief to find a dry room and blazing fire. A charge of 6s. is made for bed and breakfast, to those who wish to see the sun rise.' By 1914 the price had risen to ten shillings.

After a flying visit to Aberystwyth (‘the Biarritz of Wales') we may track our way north again, to Liverpool. Hawthorne, the American consul for four years from 1853, said about the people, and the English in general: ‘I had been struck on my arrival by the very rough aspect of these John Bulls in their morning garb, their coarse frock-coats, gray hats, checked trousers, and stout shoes. At dinner-table it was not at first easy to recognise the same individuals in their white waistcoats, muslin cravats, thin black coats, with silk facings perhaps. But after a while you see the same rough figure through all the finery, and become sensible that John Bull cannot make himself fine, whatever he may put on. He is a rough animal, and his female is well adapted to him.'

Liverpool's prosperity was founded, Black's guidebook relates, on slaves and cotton. In 1874, it had a population of 500,000, and was the second city in the kingdom. Large scale manufactures included ‘sugar refineries, chemical works, foundries, wood and iron ship-building yards, steel works, anchor and chain cable foundries, and roperies'. Though the city's five public parks had cost an immense amount of money the site of Liverpool was, from some unaccountable cause, ‘unhealthy. But between 1786 and 1868 upwards of three hundred million pounds have been expended in improving the town, in the formation of new streets, purchasing old obnoxious property, and in carrying out stringent sanitary improvements.'

W. H. Davies tells in his
Autobiography of a Super Tramp
how in the 1890s he lands at Liverpool after working his passage from the United States. The men who came with him intend to live by begging during their few days ashore: ‘They are an idle lot, but, coming from a land of plenty, they never allow themselves to feel the pangs of hunger until they land on the shores of England, when courage for begging is cooled by the sight of a greater poverty. Having kind hearts, they are soon rendered penniless by the importunities of beggars.'

Murray's
Yorkshire
gives grim pictures of its industrial cities. ‘Sheffield is beyond all question the blackest, dirtiest, and least agreeable of towns. It is indeed impossible to walk through the streets without suffering from the dense clouds of smoke constantly pouring from great open furnaces in and around the town.'

As for a particular industry, we are treated to an account of saw manufacturing, ‘in which the grinder, holding the steel plate cut into the shape of a saw with both hands outstretched and nearly prostrate, leans his whole weight upon the grinding-stone, balancing himself on the points of his toes, and pressing the plate against the stone with his knees. There is a risk of being whirled over by the grindstone if he loses his balance.'

Guidebooks of thirty or forty years later give the same picture of pollution, which in any case lasted well into the present century. A tragedy which did not find an account in any guidebook comes from
The Professional Papers of the Corps of Royal Engineers
, 1883, telling of the collapse of a stone chimney at the Ripley Mills in Bradford on 28 December 1882. The structure, 255 feet high, was built over old coal workings. The only witness who saw the fall of the chimney reported that a few minutes after eight o'clock in the morning, ‘during a heavy gust of wind it burst out suddenly, at a considerable height above the ground, then the upper portion just settled down vertically, and finally seemed to turn slightly on its heel and fall, cutting down the Newland Mill, a four-storeyed building occupied by three different firms of worsted spinners and wool-top makers'.

The greater part of the building was razed to the ground, and some fifty-four people killed, in addition to many injured. ‘Had the chimney fallen but a few minutes sooner, the loss of life would have been far greater; fortunately it happened when most of the hands had left for breakfast. The failure of this chimney was undoubtedly due to the operation of straightening. The only wonder is that it survived that operation for twenty years.'

On our somewhat zig-zag way to the Lake District we will pass through Durham and Northumberland, with Murray's handbook for 1890. Scenic beauty both counties have, but some of the route from Newcastle to Berwick is ‘blackened by the smoke of its innumerable coal-pits, and the unprotected plains in the upper part are blasted and parched by the fierce winds which sweep across them from the North Sea'. Now and then, however, as the traveller is hurried across the bridges, ‘he will catch glimpses of lovely valleys, with rich green meadows or deep woods'. An interesting break in the scenery might come at Haws Peel where a murderer was hanged in chains in 1792, ‘within sight of his victim's abode, where a gibbet, a modern erection, but on the site of the original, still exists, with a wooden head (painted to imitate a dead man's face) hanging from it'.

If the traveller wishes to stay at a hotel in the Tyneside area those in Gateshead are ‘hardly to be recommended: sleep at Newcastle'. The same remark is made regarding Jarrow.

As for the industrial workers, they are ‘now comparatively sober, and very peaceable, but very immoral, as is attested by the large proportion of illegitimate children. This is partly owing to the barbarous nature of their courtships, but more so to the infamous condition of their cottages, large families being crowded together into little cottages of a single room, by which overcrowding all natural sentiments of modesty are sapped. Among the great faults of the inhabitants are suspicion and an utter inability to forgive. They brood over an insult for years, and over wrongs that are quite imaginary. On the other hand, they are as firm friends as they are unforgiving enemies. Kind-hearted and charitable, their hospitality is simply patriarchal. In every house you are offered bread, cake, cheese, whisky, or milk, according to the means of the owner. From constant intermarrying there is a good deal of tendency to madness among the people.'

The lead miners are considered to be rather special, much influenced by the barren and secluded moorlands in which they live, ‘but beneath a rough exterior they have great kindness of heart and much natural intelligence. There is little poverty among them, for the lead miner, who works only 8 hrs. a day, and works only 5 days in the week, obtains from 15s. to 20s., and as a rule they have small plots of ground to assist in their maintenance. There is little intemperance; but bastardy is still very rife, though generally followed by marriage. Excellent schools have been built, and a library for the use of miners has been opened at Newhouse. In the books chosen from the latter, the great popularity of mathematics is evident. The miners of Coal-cleugh have published a selection of poems, and four of them conjointly have written a pamphlet illustrating the benefit to be derived from well-conducted Friendly Societies.'