“Mamma was so obliging last week as to carry us to Worksop
Manor,[242] the Duke of Norfolk’s.[243] The Designs are noble
and grand, they have made great plantations. The gardener told
me he had planted last year 300,000 Forest trees, besides sowing
three score bushels of seeds. The approach to the house is fine.
I don’t like the house though it was built by Bess of Harwicke,
whose wisdom I have in great reverence: the best apartment is
up two pair of stairs, the additional offices lately built are
exceedingly good, the Dairy much prettier than that we saw at
Richmond. The servant told us the Duchess gave the chief direction
for the building, had planted those woods, had drawn the plan
for that piece of water of 120 acres. The Duke’s time is chiefly
occupied with drawing plans for Bee hives! With difficulty I kept
my countenance....
[242] Worksop was burnt down in 1761. The duke here mentioned built
500 rooms to it.
[243] Edward Howard, 16th Duke of Norfolk.
[Page heading: FRENCH ECONOMY]
“We were on Monday at Kiveton, which is by much the finest house I
ever saw, and the best furnished. The Park and views from it are very
beautiful.”
From Allerthorpe the Montagus visited Mr. Buckley[244] at Bishop’s
Dale, near which place Mr. Robinson in former days had lived in the
shooting season. Elizabeth had not been there for fifteen years. She
describes to the Duchess of Portland the country--
[244] Mr. Buckley had been a second father to the three little
Robinson boys, who spent their holidays with him.
“I had been three days upon an expedition to a wild part of the
country called the Dales, where Nature’s works are not delicate,
pretty and mignonne, but grand, sublime and magnificent. Vast
mountains, rocks and cascades, and rapid rivers make the country
beautiful and surprising. We went to a farm abounding in wonders, a
high hill with some hanging wood before it, behind it a large and
rapid river with the prospect of a huge cascade, an old Castle and
a Church. Some houses in view take from it the honour of absolute
solitude: a range of rocks appears like the ruins of an old town on
the other side of the river. In a cottage built in this charming
place, lives an old woman, who has attained to an hundred and
four years, and for this long lease of life, has not exchanged
the best comfort. She enjoys good health, tolerable strength, has
her hearing perfect, and her sight very well: is cheerful and has
not lost her reason, but answers with sense and spirit, her hair
is of a fine black: she was knitting when we went to her, and has
promised to knit me a pair of stockings in a month.
“My Father had a house in this part of the world for the summer
sports of shooting and fishing, so that the old woman and I had
been well acquainted 15 years ago, and she told me laughing she
imagined I did not expect to see her alive at this time....
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