The Harpurs, who settled at Swarkestone in the fifteenth century, came originally from Warwickshire, and flourished here exceedingly, as their monuments in the church, hard by, prove. One, Sir Richard Harpur, 1577, lies in effigy, robed as Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and his son, Sir John Harpur, near by. Their old mansion is in ruins close by the church, but in a meadow, still called the “Balcony Field,” remains a curious Jacobean pavilion that would appear to have been the spot whence the ladies of the family and their guests safely watched the sports: the bull-and bear-baiting and other vanished pastimes of a brutal era. XXVI [Sidenote: _CAVENDISH BRIDGE_] Returning to Cavendish Bridge, and crossing it, we enter Derbyshire, whose people have long been unjustly made the subject of the old folk-rhyme: Derbyshire born, Derbyshire bred, Strong i’ th’ arm, An’ thick i’ th’ ’ead. The tolls levied at Cavendish Bridge long remained at an almost prohibitive figure. The crossing of the Trent, before the bridge was completed in 1771 at a cost of £3,333, was by means of a ferry-barge, large enough to take vehicles, and the fare for a post-chaise was half-a-crown, which remained the charge for the bridge, as Bray in his tour of 1776 notes. [Illustration: CAVENDISH BRIDGE.] Although the bridge was long since freed, the toll-house stands, and on it may still be seen the old notice-board which it seems to have been nobody’s business, in particular, to remove. I am grateful for the fact, for it enables the following particulars to be gleaned: Tolls taken at this BRIDGE by Virtue of an Act of Parliament being the fame that were taken at the Ferry, viz.:— _s._ _d._ Coaches, Chariots, Landaus, etc., with 4 wheels, each 2 6 Chaise, Chair, etc.; with 2 wheels 1 0 Waggon, Wain, etc.; with 4 wheels 1 6 Horse, Mule, or Ass, not drawing 0 1 And so forth, through the various classes of traffic, ending with: _d._ Foot passengers 1 Soldiers (favour’d) 1/2 The Trent, broad and strong, borders the road for the half-mile between the bridge and the village of Shardlow, where the Trent and Mersey Canal runs across the way, and the “Holden Arms,” a church built in the unsatisfactory Gothic of 1838, the “Navigation,” the “Dog and Duck,” and the “Old Crown” inns are huddled; together with a fine old red-brick mansion dated 1686, and bearing the initials R.B.L. [Sidenote: _APPROACH TO DERBY_]