The path to the Ashley meadows offers the best point of departure also for far-famed Rostherne, for although the distance is somewhat less from the "Ashley" station, the old route past Bowdon vicarage remains the most enjoyable. Going behind it, through a little plantation, we proceed, with many curves, yet without perplexity, into the lane which looks down upon the eastern extremity of the mere; then, crossing the fields, into the immediate presence, as rejoiced in at the margin of the graveyard of the church, which last is without question one of the most charmingly placed in England, and in its site excites no wonder that it was chosen for the ancient Saxon consecration, as declared in the primitive name, Rodestorne, "the lake (or tarn) of the Holy Cross." The peculiar charm of Rostherne Mere, compared with most other Cheshire waters of similar character, comes of its lying so much in a hollow, after the manner of many of the most delicious lakes of Westmoreland, Cumberland, and the romantic parts of Scotland; the area of the surface being at the same time so considerable that there is no suggestion, as sometimes with smaller meres when lying in hollows, of the gradual gathering there of the produce of rain-torrents, or even of the outcome of natural springs. At Rostherne one learns not only what calmness means, and what a broken fringe of diverse trees can do for still water. Contemplating it from the graveyard, we seem to have a fragment of the scenery of our beautiful world as it showed,--begging pardon of the geologists and the evolutionists,--"When the morning-stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy." The depth of the water is remarkable. About a third of the distance across, from near the summer-house, it is over a hundred feet, thus as nearly as possible two-thirds of the depth of the English Channel at the Straits of Dover, where the lead sinks lowest; and a third of what it is anywhere between Dover and the Eddystone lighthouse, so that our lovely Rostherne Mere may well assert its claim to be of almost maritime profundity. The area of the surface is one hundred and fifteen statute acres. In the church there is a monument which it is worth all the journey to see,--Westmacott's sculptured marble in memory of Miss Beatrix Egerton.