In other manufacturing centres, if the contrast is not so marked, yet there is a similar accessibility to many a sequestered and lovely scene. The nearness of the wildest and grandest Derbyshire scenery to busy, unromantic Manchester has been pointed out in a previous chapter; and the neighbourhood of the great Yorkshire centres of industry is full of picturesque beauty. A little way out of Leeds, for instance, where the Liverpool Canal passes over an embankment near to the river Aire, may be found the scene of one of Turner's most charming sketches; and though the locality bears evident marks of the great industrial invasion, much of the beauty still remains. In the same valley, not far off, are the stately ruins of Kirkstall Abbey, while the broad reach of river that encloses it, and the green meadows on the bank, with the low wooded heights on either side of the valley, suggest the memories of a day when the surroundings of the old ecclesiastical building were such as the monks most dearly loved; while Esholt Hall, some few miles higher up the river, at the extremity of a noble avenue of elm trees, was, in its time, a nunnery on low-lying ground, circled by an amphitheatre of hills, in a vale even now rich and beautiful, and which once must have seemed the very abode of tranquillity and peace. It is, indeed, no small boon to the artizans of Leeds, Bradford, and many other crowded hives of industry in this part of England, that they are within so easy a distance of scenes which, in natural beauty, may vie with almost any in the land. Ivirkstall, as we have said, is close by the former town; and its grounds are thronged on every holiday by busy workers, who, whether intent or not on learning the appropriate lesson from the mouldering walls and tower, are at least fully alive to the advantages of fresh air, and of wide scope and range for healthful amusement. The like may be said of other places, lying only a little further off. There is Roundhay Park, for instance, one of the most splendid domains in England, now, through the wise liberality of the Leeds Corporation, the property of the people; while the public parks of many other towns, as Bradford, Halifax, Barnsley, with Manchester, Liverpool, Blackburn, gratify not only the instinct for recreation, but the desire for beauty. [Illustration: 0197] Or again, our traveller, in his pause at Leeds, may take the opportunity of visiting Ilkley, with its fine open moorland, where the brain-wearied worker may range at will. Then, a little way beyond Ilkley, lie the fair woods and noble heights encircling Bolton Abbey, where the Wharfe comes down, as yet unpolluted, from the moorland beyond; while the form of the White Doe of Rylstone, or the memory of the ill-fated heir of Egremont, seems yet to haunt the scene.