Echoes of Old LancashireAxon, William E. A. (William Edward Armytage)
History
Echoes of Old Lancashire
Axon, William E. A. (William Edward Armytage)
Lancashire (England) -- History
very clever, and takes a most active part amongst the patients of both
sexes. They attend once a week at Rochdale, where they have a public
open shop, and it is wonderful, though dreadful, to see the business
they go through.”
The neighbourhood of Stand delighted her, and she has a good word for
the Rector of Prestwich and for the Earl of Wilton. “What an edifying
example does my Lord Wilton set by attending this church every Sunday,
not only with the whole of his noble family, but also in being followed
by the men and women of his household, who all conduct themselves with
the most becoming reverence! This noble example of his Lordship tends
to assemble a very numerous and respectable congregation, even from
distant parts.” Some of our readers will remember that at a later date
Fanny Kemble drew an interesting picture of the household at Heaton
Park. She was impressed in the same manner as was Miss Spence, but she
does not give expression to it in quite the same manner.
“Adjoining to the mansion of Stand Hall,” observes Miss Spence, “is a
barn, which was once a chapel. It has a fine Gothic roof of English
oak, and it is a singular fact, no one ever saw a spider’s web upon it;
and it always looks as if it had just been swept down. Mr. J—— informed
me no person he had ever met with could account for it, although all
other barns are covered with spiders’ webs.”
Of Manchester she says, “It is a very large town, but the streets, for
the most part, are inconveniently narrow, with very few noble buildings
or handsome houses. The population is immense, and the traffic
considerable; and it has acquired great celebrity from its extensive
manufactories, so productive, all over the kingdom.” We need only make
one more quotation. “I wish I could tell your Ladyship,” she says,
“that the peasantry were possessed of that native simplicity we expect
to find two hundred miles from the Metropolis; their manners accord
with their rude and uncultivated appearance, and their demeanour is
remarkably forbidding; but this, I understand, is often the case near
manufacturing towns, though it is the first time I have had the
opportunity of observing it.” Evidently Manchester, even ninety years
ago, was some distance from Arcadia.
How the First Spinning Machinery was taken to Belgium.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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