Leading the Blind

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN ENGLAND, HOME AND BEAUTY

‘How happy and green the country looked as the chaise whirled rapidly from milestone to milestone, through neat country towns where landlords came out to welcome him with smiles and bows; by pretty roadside inns, where the signs hung on the elms, and horses and waggoners were drinking under the chequered shadow of the trees; by old halls and parks, rustic hamlets clustered around ancient grey churches — and through the charming friendly English landscape. Is there any in the world like it?’

So Thackeray summed up the feelings of English travellers coming home from Abroad, but what would be the reaction of foreigners to the country who were seeing it for the first time or, for that matter, the ex-convict returning from the Antipodes after he had made good and become rich — and possibly changed his name? The difficulty here is that guidebooks for foreigners in their own language were somewhat scarce. The guidebook in the nineteenth century was, initially, a British and a German invention, people from those countries being the first to have the money and the intellectual curiosity to travel, at least in any numbers.

Most guidebooks to England were put out in English for the use of the English, and many excellent series soon provided total coverage of Great Britain and Ireland. A. & C. Black’s of Edinburgh produced some forty-four volumes (the first one, to Scotland, appeared in 1826), and John Murray forty volumes of county and cathedral guides. Later in the century came Baddeley’s Thorough Guides of nineteen volumes, with excellent maps and plans by Bartholomew. A little later nearly ninety volumes of Ward Lock’s Red Shilling Guides went on the bookstalls, as well as fifty volumes of Methuen’s Little Guides and twenty-four volumes of the excellent Highways and Byways series. This made the British Isles an extremely well guidebooked country, with something over two hundred titles, so that anyone going on holiday to Derbyshire, for example, had at least seven good manuals to choose from.

The question is, how critical were they, or how purblind, to the conditions of the country they so meticulously described? The first Baedeker to England (though in German) did not appear until 1862, a French edition following in 1866, while the Guide Joanne: Londres Illustré came out in 1865. The foreign traveller, each of them tells us, had no need of a passport for a visit to England, though it was wise to carry one as proof of identity, and so as to have no trouble when returning to their own country.

The only thing to worry about regarding the English Customs were ‘liqueurs spiritueuses’ and cigars in excess of 250 grammes, though English books printed on the Continent could not be brought in. The Guide Joanne says that the crowds of people who besiege the traveller on his arrival at the London station offering to carry his baggage and take him to the best hotel should be ignored, since they are known in England by the name of sharks (requins) and are apt to prey on him.

The traveller should get himself into a cab as soon as possible. The foreigner who doesn’t know English will be confused on getting to London for the first time, so it would be best if he could write to a friend beforehand, and also consult a plan of London. In any case he should get quickly to a hotel that has been recommended to him as economical, and only stay the absolute minimum of time necessary in which to find lodgings in a private house.

Baedeker says that if the traveller wants information all he has to do is ask a policeman. There are seven thousand of them in London, each, according to Murray, paid eighteen shillings a week, ‘with clothing and 40lbs. of coal weekly to each married man all the year; 40lbs. weekly to each single man during six months, and 20lbs. weekly during the remainder of the year’.

The duty of the police is to control traffic and more or less guarantee the safety of people from — Baedeker tells us — the fifteen thousand pickpockets who infest the capital. ‘The number of persons taken into custody between 1844 and 1848 inclusive,’ Murray goes on, ‘amounted to 374,710. Robberies during the same period were 71,000, and the value of property stolen was £271,000 of which £55,000 was recovered.’

One is advised by Baedeker to address a passer-by only in case of absolute necessity, and not to reply to any question addressed to him on the street, especially in French or German, for it is usually the preliminary to some thievery or trick. ‘We recommend that in general the traveller should be on his guard, and above all to keep an eye constantly on his purse or watch, because London swarms with thieves, and even those who live in London do not escape their attentions.’

Murray tells us to beware of mock auctions at shops, and also not to drink the ‘unwholesome water furnished to the tanks of houses from the Thames’. Should you become ill, beware of falling into the hands of a charlatan. It is better to get the address of a good doctor from someone who lives in the same neighbourhood.

In the hotel you should lock your door on going out and, even in the best hotels, lock it also before going to sleep. Valuables are best kept secured in your trunk, because the wardrobe locks are not sufficiently solid. Anything really valuable should be left with the proprietor of the hotel — but get a receipt. In private lodgings the traveller should take particular care in this respect.

Most hotels forbid smoking in the bedrooms and dining room, though special rooms are set aside for smokers. Cigars are an item of luxury in London, the expense being somewhat reduced since one is not allowed to smoke in crowded places, as on the Continent. One can’t find cigars as cheap as in Germany or, if you can, they are usually bad, so it is better to buy them from the same place each day, where the shopkeeper will get to know you and give a good brand. Murray warns us never to listen to offers of ‘smuggled’ cigars on the streets.

As for restaurants, English cooking deserves neither the pompous praise often lavished on it, says Baedeker, nor the absolute condemnation of which it is sometimes the object. Murray’s Handbook to London, 1864 tells us that the population is 2,803,634. ‘The Metropolis is supposed to consume in one year 1,600,000 quarters of wheat, 240,000 bullocks, 1,700,000 sheep, 28,000 calves, and 35,000 pigs. One market alone (Leadenhall) supplies about 4,025,000 head of game. This, together with 3,000,000 salmon, irrespective of other fish and flesh, is washed down by 43,200,000 gallons of porter and ale, 2,000,000 gallons of spirits, and 65,000 pipes of wine. To fill its milk and cream jugs, 13,000 cows are kept. The thirsty souls of London need have no fear of becoming thirstier as long as there are upwards of 4000 public-houses and 1000 wine merchants to minister to their deathless thirst.’

In the restaurants one could have oxtail soup for eightpence, a chop for sixpence, a chicken for a shilling, or a rump steak for tenpence; for vegetables there were potatoes for a penny, cabbage for twopence, or spinach for threepence; as for dessert there was plum pudding or rice pudding for fourpence, and cheese at twopence, accompanied perhaps by a pint of stout for fourpence. ‘The wine is generally expensive and bad in England. Claret is the name given to French red wine of an inferior quality. In many dining rooms it is the custom to serve every quarter of an hour a roast joint. At a given signal an enormous platter is wheeled in and you are free to cut the part which you desire. In these sorts of establishment the meat generally leaves little to be desired.’

Baedeker says that London is growing bigger by the day, and that its ten thousand streets contain nearly four hundred thousand houses, including ‘796 boarding houses, 330 restaurants, 883 cafés, and 398 hotels’. Furthermore, ‘The census of 1861 listed 25,000 tailors, 45,000 dressmakers, and 180,000 domestic servants of both sexes.’

To light the city at night, ‘360,000 gas-lights fringe the streets, while to warm its people and to supply its factories, a fleet of a thousand sail is employed in bringing annually 3,000,000 tons of coal, exclusive of what is brought by rail. The smoke from this immense quantity of coal has often been traced as far as Reading, 32 miles distant.’

Murray tells us that the streets of the Metropolis would, if put together, ‘extend 3000 miles in length. The main thoroughfares are traversed by 1200 omnibuses, and 3500 cabs (besides private carriages and carts), employing 40,000 horses.’ The thought here occurs that if each horse deposited on the street five pounds of dung on average, the resulting hundred or so tons of overspread must have created an abominable stench, though not perhaps as piercing as that which comes from traffic today.

All books agree that the traveller could not fail to be astonished at the complicated enormity of London — the first city of the world in population and extent wherein, says Baedeker, ‘everything seems rare and even unique. Nevertheless familiarity will exercise its influence, and the stranger will soon get so used to its peculiarities that they will cease to astonish.’

We are told to remember that: ‘The English are attached with much tenacious partiality to their institutions that have been passed down to them by their ancestors; and it is true to say that Great Britain is indebted in some way to these institutions for a good part of its present grandeur.’

In the London Postal District there were eleven deliveries of letters daily, and those letters put into the box before six at night were delivered the same evening. Baedeker tells of the many marvels to be seen, but says also: ‘The numerous churches in London, with the exception of the most important, are mentioned only in passing, the majority are not worth mentioning: a single glance which the foreigner casts on one or another of these temples will be enough to prove that they are absolutely devoid of interest from the artistic point of view, and that they merit only the attention of the theologian (of whom there are many from the numerous sects which exist in London).’

Special warning is given about the strict observation of the Sabbath. Hippolyte Taine’s first Sunday in London was probably the unhappiest day in his life, since he tells us that he was prepared to ‘commit suicide after an hour’s walk past the closed shops. Everything is gloomy and sooty. Somerset House is a frightful thing, Nelson is hideous, like a rat impaled on the top of a pole’, and so forth. He quotes a fellow-countryman’s words to the effect that: ‘Here religion spoils one day out of seven, and destroys the seventh part of possible happiness.’

All shops are closed but ‘it is better to go out into the country on that day, where you may satisfy your appetite at any hour, and rest from the noise which you have had to put up with all week. You may also thus at the same time see how the middle and lower classes of English society, who make long excursions in the environs of London with all the family, including small children, lie on the grass, unwrap all sorts of toys, singing and enjoying themselves, and then going home late on the omnibus. Hampton Court is the only establishment open on Sunday: one must therefore take care to visit it in the week.’

The traveller is liable to be confused in the matter of money and coinage, for he will have to deal with such arcane rarities as guineas, pounds, sovereigns, half-sovereigns, crowns, half-crowns, florins, shillings, sixpences, fourpences, pennies, halfpennies and farthings. Possibilities for imposition must have been boundless.

Regarding public conveniences, there are: ‘Closets for ladies in all the railway stations (the Ladies’ waiting room) and at all the Pastry-cooks; then in the main stores. For men, at the stations, in the dining rooms and at public houses. If you are in doubt the best plan is to ask a policeman: “Will you tell me, please, where is the nearest place of convenience?”’

A list of the places to see followed by meticulous descriptions in the Guide Joanne include the Prison de Newgate, Hospice de Chelsea, Musée Britannique, Galérie Nationale, Musée de South-Kensington, Galérie National des Portraits, Pare de Saint-James, Jardins de Kensington, Pare de Battersea, École de Westminster, Cathédrale de Saint-Paul, Abbaye de Westminster, Le Temple, Les docks, Banque d’Angleterre, and the Tour de Londres. In the environs were such attractions as the Palais de Cristal and the Jardins de Kew. Baedeker suggests three weeks in which to see everything, but adds that much more time could profitably be spent.

The outer environs were not without interest: a steamboat from Charing Cross would take you to Woolwich, where English subjects could visit the arsenal and citadel, accompanied by an officer of the garrison, while foreigners had to obtain a letter of introduction from their ambassador. Later in the nineteenth century a service of steamers on the Thames ran as far as Oxford, daily in the summer — though not on Sundays.

The map in Baedeker showed England as already covered by a dense network of railways, so there was no difficulty in going to all the main towns, while those off the beaten track could be reached by coach. Brighton was an hour and twenty-five minutes away, though the Guide Joanne is somewhat contemptuous of Le Pavilion: ‘… un édifice du style le plus ridicule et le plus étrange: une pagode indienne ou javanaise sous un ciel moins beau que celui de l’Inde ou de Java.’ Baedeker, who knocks five minutes off the journey time, says that the Pavilion complex is a ‘grand et disgracieux édifice en style oriental …’

County and regional guidebooks in English gave no information on how foreigners should behave, and the only translated book which did so will be examined later. A curious book entitled Foreign Visitors to England, 1889, deals mostly with travellers’ impressions from a somewhat earlier age. According to Misson (1688): ‘The inhabitants of this excellent country are tall, handsome, well made, fair, active, robust, courageous, thoughtful, devout, lovers of the liberal arts, and as capable of the sciences as any people in the world.’

On the other hand, a certain Dr Gemelli-Careri (1686), perhaps knowing something of the Englishman’s opinion of his countrymen, says: ‘The commonalty are rude, cruel, addicted to thieving and robbing, faithless, headstrong, inclined to strife and mutiny, gluttonous, and superstitiously addicted to the predictions of foolish astrologers; in short, of a very extravagant temper, delighting in the noise of guns, drums, and bells, as if it were some sweet harmony.’

Returning to the nineteenth century, an American, Professor Poppin (1867), in a study of English character, says: ‘If I could chastise my own intemperate nationality, and not let it stick out offensively, I soon made friends with Englishmen who, in the end, would volunteer more in reference to their own failings than I should ever have thought of producing them to. Mutual pride prevents Englishmen and Americans from seeing each other’s good traits and positive resemblances. And all Englishmen are not disagreeable, neither are all Americans insufferable.’

In 1835 Frederick von Raumer pontificated in a book about England, as if he would rather like its inhabitants to become Prussians, that: ‘The spirit of resistance to power, which grows with rank luxuriance on the rough uncultured soil of the people, has a native life which, when trained and pruned, bears the noblest fruit, such, for instance, as heroic devotion to country.’

We will now lure our intrepid foreigner into terra incognita, to those parts of Great Britain beyond London with which many natives even today are so little familiar that it might be as well to quote Thomas Fuller on the matter: ‘Know most of the rooms of thy native country before thou goest over the threshold thereof, especially seeing England presents thee with so many observables.’

Going by the Great Western Railway, with Murray’s handbook for Wiltshire, Dorset & Somerset, 1859, and the current ABC Railway Guide, we soon reach Swindon, ‘the great central establishment of the company, the engine depot capable of accommodating 100 engines. A number of mechanics are here employed, and of their skill a curious specimen was exhibited in Hyde Park, 1851; it was a working model of a pair of non-condensing steam-engines, which stood within the compass of a shilling, and weighed three drachms.’ Murray also reminds us that the church gives character to the town, ‘and shows that this great railway company is not wholly absorbed in the worship of Mammon’.

Should the traveller break his journey and visit Laycock, he will read how the Talbots established their inheritance of the abbey. ‘The young daughter and heiress of Sir Henry Sherrington, being in love with John Talbot, contrary to her father’s wishes, and discoursing one night with him from the battlements of the abbey church, said she, “I will leap down to you.” Her sweetheart replied he would catch her then: but he did not believe she would have done it. She leapt down, and the wind, which was then high, came under her coates, and did something break the fall. Mr. Talbot caught her in his arms, but she struck him dead; she cried for help, and he was with great difficulty brought to life again. Her father thereon told her that since she had made such a leap she would e’en marrie him.’

Going down to the Dorset coast, an interest in penal establishments will take us to Portland: ‘Convict prison, erected in 1848 (but to which strangers are admitted only at the dinner-hour, 11 A.M.). It is a model building of the kind consisting of 8 wings, besides a hospital, chapel, barracks, and cottages for the warders. It accommodates a governor, deputy-governor, chaplain, 2 schoolmasters, and other officers, and about 1500 convicts, of whom the greater number are employed in quarrying stone for the breakwater. The arrangements are very perfect, the building is lighted with gas from its own gasometer, and abundantly supplied with both fresh and salt water, which are pumped into it by a steam-engine from reservoirs on the shore.’

Baddeley’s guidebook of 1914 gives the number of inmates as seven hundred. ‘The charitable address, and always used by officials, is “The Grove, Portland”.’ If we take a steep path we reach the plateau, ‘and are amidst the quarries. Away to the left is the Prison, which is best left alone; in fact, the sight of a horde of excursionists deeming it the correct thing to stand gazing and making remarks on the gangs of those who have been “found out” as they return from the Government quarries to dinner is unseemly and unkind.’

Murray, in his guide of 1887, says that Devonshire ‘has something to present to the curiosity of the traveller besides mere beauty and grandeur of scenery. It contains the greatest Naval and Military Arsenal combined, in the British Empire, planted on the shores of a harbour not to be surpassed for spaciousness, security, and scenic beauty. The sight of its docks, fitting yards, Steam factories, workshops, its palatial Barracks, gigantic Forts and Lines, gun wharfs bristling with rows of cannon, and, above all, the floating Armaments of iron and wooden war ships floating peacefully on the bosom of Hamoaze, combine to display to the fullest the power of Great Britain, and present alone a spectacle worth coming far to see.’

This refers, of course, to Plymouth and Devonport, and some indication is given of the hours of work: ‘The Dockyard (hours of admittance are the working hours of the yard: observing that the yard is closed from 12 to 1 in winter, and from 12 to ½ past 1 in summer, except on Saturdays, when the workmen remain at their work during the usual dinner-hour, and leave the yard at 3 P.M. It is then closed altogether).’

The traveller in search of tranquillity may visit Widecombe in the Moor, but ‘the only resting place is a very poor village Inn. The place is interesting, however, because: ‘In Oct. 1638, during divine service, a terrible storm burst over the village, and, after some flashes of uncommon brilliancy, a ball of fire dashed through a window of the church into the midst of the congregation. At once the pews were overturned, 4 persons were lulled and 62 wounded, many by a pinnacle of the tower which tumbled through the roof, while “the stones,” says Prince, “were thrown down from the steeple as fast as if it had been by 100 men.” The country people accounted for this awful destruction by a wild tale that “the devil, dressed in black, and mounted on a black horse, inquired his way to the church of a woman who kept a little public-house on the moor. He offered her money to become his guide, but she distrusted him on remarking that the liquor went hissing down his throat, and finally had her suspicions confirmed by the glimpse of a cloven foot which he could not conceal by his boot.”’

Crossing Dartmoor, we are told that the annual cost of maintaining each inmate in the famous prison was nearly thirty-six pounds — something like two thousand pounds in today’s money. A free man might try better accommodation at Clovelly, where the small inn will entertain him ‘with great hospitality (Inquiry as to rooms may be made by telegraph from Bideford). If it happens to be the autumn, he may regale at breakfast upon herrings which have been captured over night; for Clovelly is famed for its fishery.’ Another place at which the traveller might put up, especially if he is a writer, is Babbacombe: ‘A few years ago this pretty village was one of those romantic seclusions which have rendered the coast of Devon such a favourite with the novelist.’

Proceeding still further west, and carrying in his pocket Baddeley’s Thorough Guide to Devon and Cornwall, our traveller will no doubt take a look at the Scilly Isles, passing between the mainland and St Mary’s (the legendary Land of Lyonnesse). When he gets there: ‘The men who pester tourists on their arrival at the new quay with cards, are quite capable. But among them are some more qualified than others, and some are merely boatmen in the intervals of cobbling or gardening.’

Should fog or a storm keep the traveller in the inn he can read of how an English fleet was wrecked on the rocks of the main island in 1701. S. Baring-Gould gives a good account in his book on Cornwall but, for the sake of brevity, I will refer to Baddeley.

When Admiral Shovel was sailing across the main on his way back to England, there was on board his ship a common seaman who kept for himself a reckoning of the vessel’s course. This in itself was an unusual proceeding, very few sailors in those days possessing the necessary knowledge. The man declared that the ship’s course would take her upon the rocks of Scilly, and this conclusion was brought to the knowledge of the officers. The unfortunate man was court-martialled on a charge of inciting to mutiny, and then and there convicted and sentenced to be hanged at the yard-arm. Before execution he asked, and got leave, to read aloud a portion of the Holy Scripture. The portion he chose was the 109th Psalm. It spoke of him who ‘remembered not to show mercy, but persecuted the poor and needy man, that he might even slay the broken in heart.’ It invoked upon him, among many other woes, fewness of days, fatherless children, and a posterity cut off. In a few hours the reckoning of the unhappy man was proved to be correct: the vessel struck upon the Gilstone Rock, and was lost. The body of the admiral, still alive (it was whispered that he was murdered for the sake of a ring he wore by the tenant of Sallakey farm), was carried by the sea to Porthellick, and for a while rested on the spot of ground marked by that strip of sand, and ever since that time the grass has refused to grow there!

The conclusion by S. Baring-Gould is somewhat different: ‘The body of Sir Cloudesley Shovel was picked up by a soldier and his wife, who gave it a decent burial in the sand. It was afterwards conveyed to Westminster Abbey and laid there.’

Going out of Cornwall by railway, and then in a northeasterly direction through delectably bucolic counties, the traveller reaches the Black Country, the centre of which is Birmingham, the seat of the hardware, glass, gun, steel-pen and silver plate industries. ‘A visit to the principal manufacturing establishments, and excursions in the neighbourhood of the town, are the sole attractions for the tourist,’ Murray says.

Taking the train towards Crewe we read: ‘Gliding out of the magnificent central station and passing through the tunnel, the traveller emerges at once amongst the blackened chimneys and smutty atmosphere of manufacturing Birmingham. This is abundantly evident, not only from the physical signs of labour, but from the dense population accumulated on either side of the line, the frequent stations, and the general character of the passengers — the first class being occupied by business men, who leap in and out as though to save every moment of time, while the third are filled with grimy-faced artizans.’

After nine miles the town of Tipton, with a population of 30,000, is ‘spread over a circular area about 2m. in diameter, with coal-pits, iron-works, and dwellings, all mixed up together. In fact every inch of available ground is covered with furnaces, Tipton being celebrated for its iron as adapted for heavy works. It possesses a specialty for chain, cables, and anchors; and steam-engine boilers are also largely manufactured.’

Should the traveller decide to explore Shropshire and Cheshire he will note Mr Murray’s difficulties in compiling the handbook to those counties. ‘A list of a few good Hotels and Inns above the average is subjoined by way of help to the traveller and stimulus to hostelries below par. It is better in Shropshire, though there is still room for improvement; but in both counties it would be a proof of courtesy in the owners of “show places” and “historic houses,” which they are duly desirous to find mentioned in Country Handbooks such as “Murray’s,” if they would make known at the chief Hotels and leading bookseller’s shops of their nearest town, whether, when, and after what preliminary steps, visitors, presenting their cards, can be admitted. In one or two instances the Editor has been subjected to discourtesy, though it was the exception, not the rule.’

Ironbridge in Shropshire will be found ‘terribly spoilt by the forges and foundries, the banks of slag and refuse that run down to the water’s edge. Tiers of dirty cottages rise on the hill-side, which is very steep. Very near the station the Severn is crossed by an iron bridge of one arch, of 120 ft. span, being the first iron bridge on record.’

If our traveller in Crewe has to wait while changing trains he might look in at the nearby works, where steel ingots ‘are made here by Bessemer’s process, and it is one of the most beautiful sights in the world to see the blast put on to the huge converter. After a blow of 18 minutes, the spiegeleisen is added, and the whole fiery mass is then decanted out of the converter into a mould, a magnificent exhibition of fireworks and white heat.’

Tired of this spectacular industrial might, the traveller could pass a week at Matlock, having read Byron’s encomium in his Murray: ‘I can assure you there are things in Derbyshire as noble as Greece or Switzerland.’

The hotels are said to be ‘very comfortable’, and ‘agreeable walks have been carried up the steep heights on both sides of the valley; but, being for the most part private property and leased out, they are accessible only on paying toll. Indeed, the tourist will soon find with what ingenuity the people of Matlock manage to make him pay “backsheesh,” enough to exhaust a good amount of small change, for the privilege of beholding their charming landscapes. Nevertheless, he should on no account omit to ascend the Heights of Abraham.’

‘I have never seen anywhere else,’ wrote Nathaniel Hawthorne, ‘such exquisite scenery as surrounds the village of Matlock.’ the author of Highways and Byways in Derbyshire (J. B. Firth), however, bewails its spoiled condition, because ‘the railway companies let loose daily in the summer-time among its sylvan beauties a horde of callous rowdies, who envy Attila his destructive secret, whereby the grass never grew again where once his feet had been planted. The debasing influence of the day tripper is everywhere visible in Matlock. His trail is unmistakable. His litter is omnipresent. He has tastes which must be catered for. The shops deck themselves out with vulgarities and banalities to please their patron. His ear is so accustomed to the roar of machinery and the din of streets that there must be a bawling salesman on the pavement to shout crude invitations to buy. It is these shops, these refreshment bars, these permanent preparations for the coming of the tripper, which ruin the place, and, once begun, the descent to Avernus becomes a veritable glissade.’

Ruskin inveighs against the ‘civilization’ which ‘enterprised a railroad through the valley — you blasted its rocks away, heaped thousands of tons of shale into its lovely stream. The valley is gone, and the Gods with it.’

Or perhaps instead of Matlock our traveller might call at Chester on his way to Wales. Murray says: ‘Few, if any towns attract so many visitors of all classes and tastes as does this ancient city.’ During the races 25,000 people a day pass through it. Dr Johnson had previously observed to Miss Barnston: ‘I have come to Chester, Madam, I cannot tell how; and far less can I tell how to get away from it.’

Henry James, in English Hours, 1872, says: ‘… if the picturesque be measured by its hostility to our modern notions of convenience, Chester is probably the most romantic city in the world … it is so rare and complete a specimen of the antique town …’ If he stayed at one of the two first-class hotels he would have learned from his Murray that both were expensive.

From Chester it is a mere twenty-four miles to Llangollen where, Murray says, the Hand Hotel is ‘one of the best in Britain, a pleasant house, thoroughly comfortable, and very moderate, kind landlady, Mrs. Edwards.’ He then leads us on a ten-minute walk above the church to a ‘small cottage ornée, once the retreat of two maiden ladies, Lady Eleanor Butler, and the Hon. Miss Ponsonby. In 1799 they came hither together in the heyday of their youth and charms, influenced only by a romantic attachment to each other, which never was sundered, and a fancied desire to retire from the world. Here they set up their tent and lived together amidst their books and flowers. An assiduous correspondence carried on with their literary and fashionable friends kept them always au courant of the latest gossip and scandal of the outer world, and as their hermitage lay on the Holyhead mail road, it allowed many a passing friend to drop in upon them, such as young Arthur Wellesley on his way to embark for Spain, in 1808. The costume which they adopted, though it seemed singular to strangers, was only that of the Welsh peasant woman, — a man’s hat, a blue cloth gown or riding habit, with short hair, uncurled and grey (undyed). After a happy friendship of 50 years Miss Butler died, 1829, aged 90, and Miss Ponsonby in 1830 at the age of 78. Their house is now converted into a sort of Museum. Visitors pay a fee of 6d., which goes to some local charity.’

The Gossiping Guide to Wales, 1905 gives more details of the association, calling them ‘two queer old souls who, when they were young, vowed, as violently attached ladies do vow, for celibacy and a cottage, only with this difference — they fulfilled their vows. They were Irish, and they fled from matrimony as from a pestilence, and found in Llangollen a haven of rest, where, for more than half a century, they lived, and where their remains now repose under a tombstone in the churchyard near the church door. Mathews the Elder describes them as they first burst on his astonished vision in the Oswestry Theatre, which is now, by the way, a malthouse. “Oh, such curiosities! I was nearly convulsed. I could scarcely get on for the first ten minutes after my eye caught them. As they are seated, there is not one point to distinguish them from men: the dressing and powdering of the hair; their well starched neck-clothes; the upper part of their habits, which they always wear even at a dinner party, made precisely like men’s coats; and regular beaver black hats. They looked exactly like two respectable superannuated old clergymen.”’

Any distinguished visitor who passed that way a second time was expected to bring a present of carved oak. ‘The Duke of Wellington was here in 1814; and Wordsworth, who called on his tour through North Wales in 1824, composed a poem in the grounds, in which he called the house a “low-roofed cot,” greatly to the annoyance of the Ladies, who declared they could have written better poetry themselves! Amongst other visitors were Madame de Genlis, with the young Mademoiselle d’Orléans, in 1791, and Sir Walter Scott in 1825.’

Baddeley’s North Wales adds this intriguing detail: ‘In one of the bedrooms is a double secret cupboard containing authentic copies of the garments worn by the romantic pair.’ A French guidebook of 1914 gave the two ladies some philanthropic credit by remarking that ‘well before the beginning of the feminist movement they established in the district a refuge for young girls seeking to escape the deceits and wiles of men’.

For more upland scenery the traveller would go to Snowdon where, on its peak: ‘The visitor will be much mistaken if he comes prepared for mountain solitude, for in the season it is one of the most crowded spots in Wales. The guides have erected 2 or 3 huts on the highest point, where refreshments, such as eggs, cheese, tea, and bottled beer, may be obtained at tolerably reasonable prices, considering the labour of getting them up. In foggy or wet weather it is no slight relief to find a dry room and blazing fire. A charge of 6s. is made for bed and breakfast, to those who wish to see the sun rise.’ By 1914 the price had risen to ten shillings.

After a flying visit to Aberystwyth (‘the Biarritz of Wales’) we may track our way north again, to Liverpool. Hawthorne, the American consul for four years from 1853, said about the people, and the English in general: ‘I had been struck on my arrival by the very rough aspect of these John Bulls in their morning garb, their coarse frock-coats, gray hats, checked trousers, and stout shoes. At dinner-table it was not at first easy to recognise the same individuals in their white waistcoats, muslin cravats, thin black coats, with silk facings perhaps. But after a while you see the same rough figure through all the finery, and become sensible that John Bull cannot make himself fine, whatever he may put on. He is a rough animal, and his female is well adapted to him.’

Liverpool’s prosperity was founded, Black’s guidebook relates, on slaves and cotton. In 1874, it had a population of 500,000, and was the second city in the kingdom. Large scale manufactures included ‘sugar refineries, chemical works, foundries, wood and iron ship-building yards, steel works, anchor and chain cable foundries, and roperies’. Though the city’s five public parks had cost an immense amount of money the site of Liverpool was, from some unaccountable cause, ‘unhealthy. But between 1786 and 1868 upwards of three hundred million pounds have been expended in improving the town, in the formation of new streets, purchasing old obnoxious property, and in carrying out stringent sanitary improvements.’

W. H. Davies tells in his Autobiography of a Super Tramp how in the 1890s he lands at Liverpool after working his passage from the United States. The men who came with him intend to live by begging during their few days ashore: ‘They are an idle lot, but, coming from a land of plenty, they never allow themselves to feel the pangs of hunger until they land on the shores of England, when courage for begging is cooled by the sight of a greater poverty. Having kind hearts, they are soon rendered penniless by the importunities of beggars.’

Murray’s Yorkshire gives grim pictures of its industrial cities. ‘Sheffield is beyond all question the blackest, dirtiest, and least agreeable of towns. It is indeed impossible to walk through the streets without suffering from the dense clouds of smoke constantly pouring from great open furnaces in and around the town.’

As for a particular industry, we are treated to an account of saw manufacturing, ‘in which the grinder, holding the steel plate cut into the shape of a saw with both hands outstretched and nearly prostrate, leans his whole weight upon the grinding-stone, balancing himself on the points of his toes, and pressing the plate against the stone with his knees. There is a risk of being whirled over by the grindstone if he loses his balance.’

Guidebooks of thirty or forty years later give the same picture of pollution, which in any case lasted well into the present century. A tragedy which did not find an account in any guidebook comes from The Professional Papers of the Corps of Royal Engineers, 1883, telling of the collapse of a stone chimney at the Ripley Mills in Bradford on 28 December 1882. The structure, 255 feet high, was built over old coal workings. The only witness who saw the fall of the chimney reported that a few minutes after eight o’clock in the morning, ‘during a heavy gust of wind it burst out suddenly, at a considerable height above the ground, then the upper portion just settled down vertically, and finally seemed to turn slightly on its heel and fall, cutting down the Newland Mill, a four-storeyed building occupied by three different firms of worsted spinners and wool-top makers’.

The greater part of the building was razed to the ground, and some fifty-four people killed, in addition to many injured. ‘Had the chimney fallen but a few minutes sooner, the loss of life would have been far greater; fortunately it happened when most of the hands had left for breakfast. The failure of this chimney was undoubtedly due to the operation of straightening. The only wonder is that it survived that operation for twenty years.’

On our somewhat zig-zag way to the Lake District we will pass through Durham and Northumberland, with Murray’s handbook for 1890. Scenic beauty both counties have, but some of the route from Newcastle to Berwick is ‘blackened by the smoke of its innumerable coal-pits, and the unprotected plains in the upper part are blasted and parched by the fierce winds which sweep across them from the North Sea’. Now and then, however, as the traveller is hurried across the bridges, ‘he will catch glimpses of lovely valleys, with rich green meadows or deep woods’. An interesting break in the scenery might come at Haws Peel where a murderer was hanged in chains in 1792, ‘within sight of his victim’s abode, where a gibbet, a modern erection, but on the site of the original, still exists, with a wooden head (painted to imitate a dead man’s face) hanging from it’.

If the traveller wishes to stay at a hotel in the Tyneside area those in Gateshead are ‘hardly to be recommended: sleep at Newcastle’. The same remark is made regarding Jarrow.

As for the industrial workers, they are ‘now comparatively sober, and very peaceable, but very immoral, as is attested by the large proportion of illegitimate children. This is partly owing to the barbarous nature of their courtships, but more so to the infamous condition of their cottages, large families being crowded together into little cottages of a single room, by which overcrowding all natural sentiments of modesty are sapped. Among the great faults of the inhabitants are suspicion and an utter inability to forgive. They brood over an insult for years, and over wrongs that are quite imaginary. On the other hand, they are as firm friends as they are unforgiving enemies. Kind-hearted and charitable, their hospitality is simply patriarchal. In every house you are offered bread, cake, cheese, whisky, or milk, according to the means of the owner. From constant intermarrying there is a good deal of tendency to madness among the people.’

The lead miners are considered to be rather special, much influenced by the barren and secluded moorlands in which they live, ‘but beneath a rough exterior they have great kindness of heart and much natural intelligence. There is little poverty among them, for the lead miner, who works only 8 hrs. a day, and works only 5 days in the week, obtains from 15s. to 20s., and as a rule they have small plots of ground to assist in their maintenance. There is little intemperance; but bastardy is still very rife, though generally followed by marriage. Excellent schools have been built, and a library for the use of miners has been opened at Newhouse. In the books chosen from the latter, the great popularity of mathematics is evident. The miners of Coal-cleugh have published a selection of poems, and four of them conjointly have written a pamphlet illustrating the benefit to be derived from well-conducted Friendly Societies.’

Nevertheless, regarding the County of Durham’s ancient customs: ‘There is a general belief that bread baked on Good Friday is a cure for most disorders. Waifs or waffs of dying persons are seen by their neighbours, and many persons even see their own waifs. Garlands are occasionally carried before the coffins of virgins. Salt is placed upon a corpse after death, and is supposed to prevent the body from swelling; and the looking-glass in the death-chamber is covered with white, from fear of the spirits which might be reflected in it. The straw used to be taken out of the bed in which a person had died, and burnt in front of the house; then search was made in the ashes for a footprint, which would be found to correspond with the foot of the person to whom the summons would come next.’

The most noticeable characteristic of the middle and eastern parts of the country is its dirt, ‘for the smoke of the collieries, which envelops these parts, injures vegetation, scatters black ashes over the fields, and hangs in a thick cloud overhead’. We are told of a terrible accident at Heaton Main Colliery on 30 April 1815. ‘There were 95 persons in the pit: 30 escaped on the first alarm, but 41 men and 34 boys perished. Of these 56 had gained a point which was not reached by the water, and perished from want of air. Their corpses were found within a space of 30 yards of each other; their positions and altitudes were various; several appeared to have fallen forwards from off an inequality, or rather step, in the coal on which they had been sitting; others, from their hands being clasped together, seemed to have expired while addressing themselves to the protection of the Deity; two, who were recognised as brothers, had died in the act of taking a last farewell by grasping each other’s hand; and one poor little boy reposed in his father’s arms.’

We will end our visit to the area on a less pathetic note, on reading that the villages belonging to the Duke of Northumberland had had almost all their cottages rebuilt within the last few years. ‘The village of Denwick is perhaps one of the best examples of the improved condition of labourers’ dwelling-houses. The inhabitants, however, still cling to their ancient customs of sleeping in box-beds, which occupy one wall of the common sitting-room, being generally placed opposite the fire, for the sake of warmth, and being closed all day by shutters, which are opened at night. It is still almost impossible to persuade a Northumbrian peasant to do anything so “uncanny” as sleeping upstairs. The dwellings have generally a great appearance of prosperity and plenty, which is obtained as much from abundance and cheapness of coals as from the high rate of wages. The chief peculiarity of dress among the peasantry is the high buckled shoe, which is almost universally worn by the women and children.’

The traveller to Westmorland and Cumberland could supplement his Murray with Wordsworth’s Guide Through the District of the Lakes in the North of England, with a Description of the Scenery, &c. For the Use of Tourists and Residents, using the fifth edition of 1835: ‘In human life there are moments worth ages. In a more subdued tone of sympathy we may affirm, that in the climate of England there are, for the lover of nature, days which are worth whole months, — I might say — even years.’

Such a guidebook emphasizes pedestrianism as the ideal (and expected) mode of locomotion, for then the traveller is able to see everything, and has time to reflect on what scenery he passes through. The often idiosyncratic style provides a calm and healing read while catching breath among the Fells, or after a hunger-slaking meal by the fireside of inn or hotel in the evening. It is not a guide in the Baedeker or even the Murray sense, for Wordsworth was too singular for that, and in any case he would have despised guidebooks which brought the undiscriminating horde to his favourite haunts. He sees the landscape with the eye of a poetic geographer, to whom the coming of the railway was little short of an assault on his soul. His guide awakens one to subtle combinations of sky and landscape, predating Ruskin’s monograph Storm Cloud of the Nineteenth Century — a classic of meteorological description.

The author of A. & C. Black’s later guide, however, attempts to put Wordsworth in his place. ‘Till about the middle of the eighteenth century, indeed, the rest of England took much the same Philistine view of Lakeland. Mountains in those days meant bad roads, poor inns or none, the fear of robbers, and the chance of losing one’s way. But it is a mistake that, as commonly supposed, Wordsworth and Southey made the Lakes, from the tourist point of view. An older admirer, one of the first who taught our prosaic forefathers to look for less tame models of the picturesque, was the poet Gray. The journal of his tour may still be read with interest and amusement. One well-known guide-book was fifty years old when Wordsworth wrote his hand-book; and both he and Southey complain of the crowds of holiday “Lakers” who every summer invaded Grasmere and Keswick.’

Another Victorian guidebook to the Lakes was that of Harriet Martineau, who lived in the area after 1850. She is more down to earth and systematic, though writes for a somewhat simpler traveller than either Murray or Wordsworth: ‘There is one thing more the stranger must do before he goes into Cumberland. He must spend a day on the Mountains: and if alone, so much the better. If he knows what it is to spend a day so far above the every-day world, (unless there is danger in the case); and, if he is a novice, let him try whether it be not so. Let him go forth early, with a stout stick in his hand, provision for the day in his knapsack or his pocket; and, if he chooses, a book: but we do not think he will read today. A map is essential, to explain to him what he sees: and it is very well to have a pocket compass, in case of sudden fog, or any awkward doubt about the way. In case of an ascent of a formidable mountain, like Scawfell or Helvellyn, it is rash to go without a guide: but our tourist shall undertake something more moderate, and reasonably safe, for a beginning.’

Her tone is rather like a nanny telling the infant what to do, but she is very sensible about the perils of boating on Lake Windermere. ‘The stranger should be warned against two dangers which it is rash to encounter. Nothing should induce him to sail on Windermere, or on any lake surrounded by mountains. There is no calculating on, or accounting for, the gusts that come down between the hills; and no skill and practice obtained by boating on rivers or the waters of a flat country are any sure protection here. And nothing should induce him to go out in one of the little skiffs which are too easily obtainable here, and too tempting, from the ease of rowing them. The surface may become rough at any minute, and those skiffs are unsafe in all states of the water but the calmest. The long list of deaths occasioned in this way, — deaths both of residents and strangers, — should have put an end to the use of these light skiffs, long ago.’

There is no such warning in Black’s English Lakes, 1905, so one can assume that the matter was put right. However, we are told by Black’s that it was not always easy to find your way about. ‘The lake roads, and even the mountain paths, are well off for guide-posts, sometimes better represented by stone tablets, since foolish tourists, in exuberance of spirits, have been known to set the arms of a post awry, so as to deceive those coming after them, a most mischievous trick that deserves a tour on the treadmill.’