Newton-le-Willows, a place of more names than any other in the county, being also called Newton Bridge, and Newton-in-Makerfield, and by sporting men simply Newton, all these superseding the ancient "Rokeden," gives access to interesting places both right and left. The town itself has its attractions, consisting of little more than the one old original broad street, with plenty of archæological curiosities, which preserves the primitive idea of a rural English village. Some very pleasant walks, partly sylvan, invite us to the northern side, where also will be found a large and picturesque sheet of water. Like Taxal and Rudyard it is artificial, having been formed by barricading the outlets of two small streams--the Dene and the Sankey--which previously occupied little independent valleys of their own, so that the outline of the "lake" so called, is most agreeably irregular. In parts it is abundantly flowered with water-lilies, so easy is it for good taste to confer a pure and lasting ornament. On the southern side of the line the specialty consists in the very ancient and interesting village of Winwick, with its celebrated church and innumerable antiquities, including a runic cross in the graveyard. Thence, by permission, there is a charming walk towards Warrington, first along the old lane in front of the church, then through the grounds and shrubberies attached to Winwick Hall, after leaving which the path becomes public. The rhododendrons at Winwick Hall are probably the oldest, as they are certainly the largest and finest in the district. They give one a perfect idea of the stalwart vitality of this inestimable flowering shrub, and place it before us, in all likelihood, just as developed in its native valleys upon the borders of the Euxine, all these very large and venerable rhododendrons, wherever seen, being the original _Ponticum_. While the original "anemone" was the flower we now call the cistus, the original "rhododendron" was after all, not our universal garden favourite so named, but a totally different thing--the shrub, originally from Palestine, cherished in greenhouses as the "oleander." Such, at least, was the application of the name in the times immediately preceding those when Pliny wrote. On the extreme south-western margin of the county, where the simple rustic streams we found near Marple, the Goyt and the Etherowe, after uniting their strength, and receiving the waters of the Tame, the Irwell, and the Bollin, at length become glorious as the estuary of the Mersey, there remain for us, in conclusion, two of the most interesting places in Lancashire. These are Speke Hall, near Garston, and the village of Hale; the latter possessed of some fine archæological fragments, with, close by, the park and gardens appertaining to the residence of Colonel Blackburne.