SECTION IX.

Recurrence to a former Visit to Belper.- Bridge Hill.-View of Belper from the Road to Heage. - Pentrich. - Revolu tionists of 1817.- Roman Station on Pentrich Common. Alfreton. Hardwick Park. - Hardwick Hall and Picture Gallery.

I

HAD been at Belper on a former occasion: it was the most southern point of my excursions, and the last place I visited within the mountainous districts of Derbyshire. I shall, therefore, in my present detail, follow the route I then pursued, and bring my various rambles in this interesting county to a speedy termination. My remaining observations will therefore be brief. Belper is one of the most flourishing towns in Derbyshire; the old part of it, although not actually hidden amongst better and more modern erections, is but a very insignificant portion of the whole place. New buildings, with neat exteriors, flower gardens, orchards, and plantations, are fast spreading along the rising grounds on one side of the Derwent; on the other is Bridge Hill, the residence of G. B. Strutt, Esq. most delightfully situated on an eminence that swells gracefully from the margin of the river, and commands an uninterrupted view of the many lovely spots and comfortable habitations that are scattered around his dwelling. When he arises in the morning, looks across the vale before him, contemplates the moral improvement, the rapid increase, and the present consequence of Belper, he may with fervent and honest exultation say, "Blessed be the memory of my father; he has brought order and beauty out of rude and chaotic materials, and given richness and fertility to a once-neglected and barren waste."

From Belper, my companion and myself had a long tract of country to traverse before we reached Alfreton, the next place where we intended to make a pause. We ascended the

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hill towards Heage, and having attained the summit, we turned to gaze upon the scene we were leaving, before we proceeded on our journey. On our right, and on our left, lay a long range of lofty eminences; before us, hills of great altitude and steep acclivity rose from the margin of the Derwent, which was seen winding through the valley far below. I remember to have passed these hills when they were nearly barren from their base to their highest elevations; I now beheld their lofty slopes every where cultivated, and the dales between beautifully wooded and adorned with buildings. What was once a little village only had now become a populous town. The capacious valley in which Belper is situated is the seat of great mechanical skill and commercial enterprise; a spirit of industry has moved over the face of it, and orchards and gardens, villas and plantations, have succeeded, and a wilderness of naked hills has been transformed into a paradise of beauty. Beholding such a scene as this, and contemplating the power that called its beautiful adornments into existence, I could bless the spirit of trade, and almost forget the consequences that result from the erection of immense factories, and the hardship of peopling them with children of both sexes as soon as they have passed the years of infancy, and making their pliant sinews and tender hands perform the work of adults, at a time when they should be either running wild about the fields, like nature's heirlings, or receiving lessons that might prepare them for the society of their fellow creatures, and have a beneficial influence on their future lives.

About four miles from Belper we passed through Pentrich, a small village, but of some note in the local history of this district. During the wars between King Charles the First and the parliamentary forces of that period, Pentrich Common was the theatre of military operations; and in the year 1817 it was the scene of one of the most silly and absurd attempts that ever entered into the contemplation of men. Here, in the month of June, an infatuated rabble, nearly without arms and destitute of a leader, assembled together for the purpose, as they avowed, of overturning the government of the country. Such conduct would really excite contempt, were not the consequences frequently of too serious a character to admit of such a feeling. These misguided men entertained the idea of progressively increasing their number by terror. As they proceeded, they demanded arms and men at every dwelling; and being denied admittance at a house in the vicinity of

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ANTIQUITY OF ALFRETON.

Pentrich Common, Brandreth, the reputed captain of this "set of lawless resolutes," shot a man who refused to accompany him in this mad expedition. More outrageous conduct never characterised the proceedings of any body of men, however hardened and atrocious they had previously been. The scheme ended, as all such attempts generally do, in the speedy dispersion of the force collected, and the consequent punishment of the most active. About forty of these revolutionists were convicted at the ensuing Derby assizes. Brandreth, the murderer of the man at Mrs. Hepworth's house, was executed, as he richly deserved; two of his less culpable associates shared the same fate, and the greater part of the others, who had pleaded guilty, were transported.

It is impossible to think of this transaction without reverting to the generally disturbed state of the country when the South Winfield and Pentrich men undertook their hazardous expedition, and the means that were resorted to to organize disaffection and foment disturbances. The agents in this wicked business were far more reprehensible than the men whom they misled; they were labouring under many privations, their sufferings had made them desperate, and prepared them for the commission of crime and outrage. Under such circumstances, it was worse than cruel to send spies and informers among them, to make them rebels, that they might be punished for being so.

Ön Pentrich Common, the scene of a Roman encampment may be traced its form is nearly square, and the indications of a double vallum, by which it is distinguished, are not yet entirely obliterated. This is supposed to have been the first Roman station north of Little Chester, from whence it is only twelve miles distant. The Rev. Mr. Pegge, the antiquary, in his observations on the Roman roads in Derbyshire, has fixed the intermediate establishment between Little Chester and Chesterfield at, or near to, Higham; but this supposition divides the distance very unequally: it is therefore more probable, that Pentrich Common was the site of this middle station, and the present remains there favour the opinion.

Another two miles walk brought us to ALFRETON, a small market town, said to have been founded by Alfred the Great, and originally called ALFRED-Town, a tradition which is countenanced by Camden himself. It is indeed pretended that King Alfred once resided here; and some individuals, fond of making discoveries, are ingenious enough to point out

the place where the palace of this monarch once stood. This probably is all idle and groundless conjecture, but that it is a town of great antiquity can hardly be doubted. In the Doomsday record it is called Elstretune, and it made a part of the extensive possessions originally bestowed upon Roger de Busli, a Norman chieftain who accompanied William the Conqueror on his successful expedition to this country. Subsequently it belonged to Ranulph, Lord of Alfreton, whose son Robert was the founder of Beauchief Abbey; afterwards it became the property of a family of the name of Latham. The Chaworths, the Babingtons of Dethick, and the Zouches of Codnor Castle, it successively belonged to, from the latter of whom it was purchased by the Moorewoods, who have now possessed it for nearly two centuries. The family mansion stands upon a hill finely embosomed amongst majestic trees, the growth of many a century. The church occupies a pleasant situation near the house. It is an ancient, and in some respects a rude structure; but its embattled tower, surmounted with knotted pinnacles, rising out of the mass of wood by which it is nearly surrounded, has a pleasing and even picturesque effect from many situations in the vicinity of Alfreton. The town contains about two hundred houses; there is a good inn and post-house in it, and stockings and a common brown earthen-ware are manufactured in the place.

From Alfreton we left South Normanton and Blackwell on our right, and passed through Tibshelf to Hardwick, one of the principal objects which had induced us to cross this part of the country. Approaching the hall, we traversed an extensive park well stocked with deer, and clothed with trees, whose knarled trunks and broad-spreading foliage bespoke them the monarchs of the scene, in the midst of which they had flourished for ages. Symptoms of decay were seen in some of their scathed and weather-beaten ramifications, and their appearance excited a feeling of regret that their sylvan honours were on the wane, and that the ravages of time had desolated any of their branches. Pensive emotions are always excited by a contemplation of the dilapidating march of this mighty destroyer, but the objects that exhibit the deepest impress of his frequent footsteps are rendered more truly venerable by the change. The man whose brow is furrowed with age, the oak of the forest that has stood the pelting of many pityless winters, and whose boughs are scantily covered with foliage, and nearly sapless, the ancient hall or

castle, mouldering away and sinking into ruins, are infinitely more picturesque to the eye, and more interesting to the mind, than mere beauty of form and fulness of perfection can possibly be.

Hardwick was built by Elizabeth, the celebrated Countess of Shrewsbury; and the parapets, that, like a light and graceful coronet, crest the structure, exhibit some rich carved openwork in stone, where the letters E. S., the initials of the countess, repeatedly occur. Hardwick is a magnificent oldfashioned edifice, and its four towers, when seen at a distance, amongst the woods by which they are encompassed, have a grand and imposing effect, but when nearly beheld, they lose their consequence. This place, which is now the property of the Devonshire family, and occasionally the residence of the present duke, was built about the middle of the sixteenth century. It is certainly a stately mansion, but rather singular than beautiful: a long connected series of large windows inserted in huge stone frames, with comparatively but little space between, the whole arranged in regular divisions, and formed into spacious bays that project from within, with intervening recesses without, constitute the whole of Hardwick; which, in its general character and appearance, may not inaptly be compared to an immense but magnificent lantern. This house, indeed, seems to have been designed as an experiment, to ascertain how little of stone and how much of glass might possibly be combined together in the formation of a splendid edifice. A flood of light is admitted into all the apartments at Hardwick, and a person seated within them has an ample and almost uninterrupted view of the scenery without. The rooms are lofty and spacious, some of them enormous, and, where they are not wainscotted half way from the floor, they are hung with loose tapestry, now strangely faded, and never good. Above, the walls are filled with figures and designs in plaster, uncouthly formed, and very indifferently executed. A profusion of ornament, made up of miserable relievos in stucco, covers the ceilings; but such was the taste of the age when this costly mansion was erected; and altogether it affords a good specimen of the architecture and the style of decoration that prevailed in the days of Elizabeth.

The gallery at Hardwick is an immense apartment, every where hung with pictures, chiefly portraits, but many of them are placed at so great a height from the eye that their excellence, if they have any, cannot be felt. There is however