The Rivers of Great Britain, Descriptive, Historical, Pictorial: Rivers of the East CoastVarious
History
The Rivers of Great Britain, Descriptive, Historical, Pictorial: Rivers of the East Coast
Various
Great Britain -- Description and travel; Rivers -- Great Britain
But the history of Burton Town goes back earlier than that of Burton
Bridge, even if this, as some have asserted, dated from the reign of
William the Norman. Full a thousand years ago there dwelt at Bureton,
or Buryton, a noted lady of Irish birth, Modwena by name, who, for
curing Alfred, son of Ethelwolfe, of some disease, received a grant of
land. Her home for some years was the island between the two branches
of the Trent, and the well from which she had been wont to drink
sympathetically retained healing virtues, being in repute, as Plot
tells us, with those who suffered from the "king's evil." A monastery
was afterwards founded by Ulfric Spot, Earl of Mercia, to which her
body was translated, and which endured till the suppression of such
institutions. The church which was attached to it has been rebuilt, and
only some fragments of the conventual buildings remain about the house,
which still bears the name of Burton Abbey.
The arms of the Trent unite below Burton, and the right bank of the
river affords some varied and pleasant scenery, the ground sloping
rapidly down to the level water-meadows, with scattered houses,
hamlets, and groves of trees. A castellated mansion of pretentious
aspect stands on the hill above fine old trees; beyond, on lower
ground, embosomed in yet larger and not less ancient groves, is Newton
Hall, near the village, called for distinction Newton Solney, which
stands nearly opposite to the junction of the Dove with the Trent.
T. G. BONNEY.
[Illustration: DOVE HEAD.]
THE HUMBER AND ITS TRIBUTARIES.
CHAPTER II.
THE DOVE.
What's in the Name--Axe Edge and Dove Head--The Monogram--Glutton
Mill--Hartington--Beresford Dale--Pike Pool--Izaak Walton
and Charles Cotton--Beresford Hall--Dove Dale--Its
Associations--Ilam--The Manifold--Ashbourne--Doveridge--
Uttoxeter--Sudbury--Tutbury--The Confluence.
There are two rivers bearing the beautiful name of the Dove--a name
derived from "the shimmering gleam of water, corresponding to the
lustre of the dove's white wing." There are also two Dove Dales. In
Longfellow's "Poems of Places," Wordsworth's tender verses beginning--
"She dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,"
are often ascribed to the Derbyshire river, which is more than worthy
of such a dedication. But the Dove which the venerable recluse of Rydal
Mount referred to is the wayward mountain streamlet of his own beloved
Lakeland; and the Dove Dale of that district, in its romantic beauty
and historic associations, is but a wayside dell in comparison with
the enchanting glen where Izaak Walton discoursed upon philanthropy
and fishing, and the gallant Charles Cotton alternately entertained
the ancient angler, and hid himself in caves to escape the polite
attentions of unpleasant creditors. The phrase, however--
"A violet by a mossy stone
Half hidden from the eye,"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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