Drake's Road Book of the Grand Junction Railway: from Birmingham to Liverpool and Manchester — John Shaqi
Drake's Road Book of the Grand Junction Railway: from Birmingham to Liverpool and ManchesterDrake, James, active 1825
History
Drake's Road Book of the Grand Junction Railway: from Birmingham to Liverpool and Manchester
Drake, James, active 1825
Grand Junction Railway Company (Great Britain) -- Guidebooks; Railroad travel -- Great Britain -- Guidebooks
BOSTOCK HALL, seat of James France France, Esq., and Wharton, _would_ be
seen E. from the railroad after leaving the station, but that the line
enters a shallow cutting; the banks of which hide the view “just at the
very time when they should not.” An opening gives a glimpse of the woods
about the house, and that is all. The next peep is westward again, at
Moulson: and after passing another cutting (this word _cutting_ is an
inelegant term, which does not fall into our prose with ease; but we
cannot avoid it, belonging, as it does, to railroad phraseology) we gain
a view of Vale Royal Park and New Park on the W., the pleasant woodland
glades of which are soon shut out by another cutting which takes us
through Eaton, and by Eaton Hall, seat of Sir E. Antrobus. We now
approach one of the most magnificent parts of the railway, and of the
scenery skirting it; the Vale Royal Viaduct, over which the line passes
for five hundred feet, and beneath which the river Weaver winds through
the vale in graceful sweeps, girt with verdant meadows; on the E. it is
crossed by the simple old bridge, now looking very humble, in the
presence of its magnificent neighbour. The viaduct consists of five
arches of immense span, it is built of a reddish stone, and is a noble
erection. The traveller will do well to be alert and on the “look out”
in this part, or the view will escape him. Westward lies Vale Royal
Park, rich in the grandeur of its ancient woods, and nearly hidden among
them is Delamere Abbey, the old and venerable seat of Lord Delamere.
Little remains now of the ancient building, which was not, as described
by Warton in his Elegy, seen “high o’er the trackless heath,” but was
seated in a deep valley on the banks of the river Weaver. The present
mansion consists of a centre and two wings of red stone. The great hall
is a magnificent apartment.
[Picture: Vale Royal Viaduct]
The marvellous enlightenment of the 19th century, great as we deem
it, has not yet penetrated those holes and corners of prejudice and
credulity, which serve for the hiding places of superstition, for
even in the eye of the Railroad itself are those living who speak
with awe of the so-called prophecies, said to be made by the poor
driveller Robert Nixon, the Cheshire sage. It so happens, very
oddly, that predictions are sometimes remembered _when_ verified, and
not before. So was the curious and very oracular one of the past
year, so often quoted,—
“A summer without a spring,
And an autumn without a king,”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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