A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain III

A TOUR THROUGH THE WHOLE ISLAND OF GREAT BRITAIN III

the whole street of houses on the city side of the bridge, as it did those beyond it.

There is also a very noble building here, called the Exchange: And as the wall of the town runs parallel from it with the river, leaving a spacious piece of ground before it between the water and the wall, that ground, being well wharf’d up, and fac’d with free-stone, makes the longest and largest key for landing and lading goods that is to be seen in England, except that at Yarmouth in Norfolk, and much longer than that at Bristol.

Here is a large hospital built by contribution of the keel men, by way of friendly society, for the maintenance of the poor of their fraternity, and which, had it not met with discouragements from those who ought rather to have assisted so good a work, might have been a noble provision for that numerous and laborious people. The keel men are those who manage the lighters, which they call keels; by which the coals are taken from the steaths or wharfs, and carryed on board the ships, to load them for London.

Here are several large publick buildings also, as particularly a house of state for the mayor of the town (for the time being) to remove to, and dwell in during his year: Also here is a hall for the surgeons, where they meet, where they have two skeletons of humane bodies, one a man and the other a woman, and some other rarities.

The situation of the town to the landward is exceeding unpleasant, and the buildings very close and old, standing on the declivity of two exceeding high hills, which, together with the smoke of the coals, makes it not the pleasantest place in

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the world to live in; but it is made amends abundantly by the goodness of the river, which runs between the two hills, and which, as I said, bringing ships up to the very keys, and fetching the coals down from the country, makes it a place of very great business. Here are also two articles of trade which are particularly occasioned by the coals, and these are glasshouses and salt pans; the first are at the town it self, the last are at Shields, seven miles below the town; but their coals are brought chiefly from the town. It is a prodigious quantity of coals which those salt works consume; and the fires make such a smoke, that we saw it ascend in clouds over the hills, four miles before we came to Durham, which is at least sixteen miles from the place.

Here I met with a remark which was quite new to me, and will be so, I suppose, to those that hear it. You well know, we receive at London every year a great quantity of salmon pickled or cured, and sent up in the pickle in kits or tubs, which we call Newcastle salmon; now when I came to Newcastle, I expected to see a mighty plenty of salmon there, but was surprized to find, on the contrary, that there was no great quantity, and that a good large fresh salmon was not to be had under five or six shillings. Upon enquiry I found, that really this salmon, that we call Newcastle salmon, is taken as far off as the Tweed, which is three-score miles, and is brought by land on horses to Shields, where it is cur’d, pickl’d, and sent to London, as above; so that it ought to be called Berwick salmon, not Newcastle.

There are five or six churches in Newcastle, I mean on the town side, being north by Tine, besides meeting-hous- es, of which, I was told, there are also five or six, (including

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the Quakers) some of which are throng’d with multitudes of people, the place, as has been said, being exceeding populous. It is not only enriched by the coal trade; but there are also very considerable merchants in it, who carry on foreign trade to divers parts of the world, especially to Holland, Hamburgh, Norway, and the Baltick.

They build ships here to perfection, I mean as to strength, and firmness, and to bear the sea; and as the coal trade occasions a demand for such strong ships, a great many are built here. This gives an addition to the merchants business, in requiring a supply of all sorts of naval stores to fit out those ships.

Here is also a considerable manufacture of hard ware, or wrought iron, lately erected after the manner of Sheffield, which is very helpful for employing the poor, of which this town has always a prodigious number.

West of this town lies the town of Hexham, a pass upon the Tine, famous, or indeed infamous, for having the first blood drawn at it, in the war against their prince by the Scots in King Charles the First’s time, and where a strong detachment of English, tho’ advantageously posted, were scandalously defeated by the Scots. Whether the commanders were in fault, or the men, I know not, but they gave way to an inferior number of Scots, who gain’d the pass, fought through the river, and killed about four hundred men, the rest basely running away; after which, the town of Newcastle was as easily quitted also, without striking a stroke; the country round this town is vulgarly call’d Hexamshire.

I was tempted greatly here to trace the famous Picts Wall, built by the Romans, or rather rebuilt by them, from hence to

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Carlisle; of the particulars of which, and the remains of antiquity seen upon it, all our histories are so full; and I did go to several places in the fields thro’ which it passed, where I saw the remains of it, some almost lost, some plain to be seen. But antiquity not being my business in this work, I omitted the journey, and went on for the north.

Northumberland is a long coasting county, lying chiefly on the sea to the east, and bounded by the mountains of Stainmore and Cheviot on the west, which are in some places inaccessible in many unpassable. Here is abundant business for an antiquary every place shews you ruin’d castles, Roman altars, inscriptions monuments of battles, of heroes killed, and armies routed, and the like: The towns of Morpeth, Alnwick, Warkworth, Tickill and many others, shew their old castles, and some of them still in tolerable repair, as Alnwick in particular, and Warkworth; others, as Bambrough, Norham, Chillingham, Horton, Dunstar, Wark, and innumerable more, are sunk in their own ruins, by the meer length of time.

We had Cheviot Hills so plain in view, that we could not but enquire of the good old women every where, whether they had heard of the fight at Chevy Chace: They not only told us they had heard of it, but had all the account of it at their fingers end; and, taking a guide at Wooller to shew us the road, he pointed out distinctly to us the very spot where the engagement was, here, he said Earl Piercy was killed, and there Earl Douglas, here Sir William Withington fought upon his stumps, here the Englishmen that were slain were buried, and there the Scots.

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A little way off of this, north, he shewed us the field of battle, called Flodden Field, upon the banks of the Till, where James IV. King of Scotland, desperately fighting, was killed, and his whole army overthrown by the English, under the noble and gallant Earl of Surrey, in the reign of King Henry VIII. upon their perfidiously invading England, while the king was absent on his wars in France.

I must not quit Northumberland without taking notice, that the natives of this country, of the antient original race or families, are distinguished by a shibboleth upon their tongues, namely, a difficulty in pronouncing the letter r, which they cannot deliver from their tongues without a hollow jarring in the throat, by which they are plainly known, as a foreigner is, in pronouncing the th: This they call the Northumbrian r, and the natives value themselves upon that imperfection, because, forsooth, it shews the antiquity of their blood.

From hence lay a road into Scotland, by the town of Kelso, which I after pass’d thro’, but at present not willing to omit seeing Berwick upon Tweed, we turn’d to the east, and visited that old frontier, where indeed there is one thing very fine, and that is, the bridge over the Tweed, built by Queen Elizabeth, a noble, stately work, consisting of sixteen arches, and joining, as may be said, the two kingdoms. As for the town it self, it is old, decay’d, and neither populous nor rich; the chief trade I found here was in corn and salmon.

I am now on the borders of Scotland, and must either enter upon it now, and so mix it with other parts of England, or take up short, and call to mind that I have not yet taken the west-

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ern coast of England in my way, I mean, the three north west counties of Lancaster, Westmoreland and Cumberland.

I cannot but say, that since I entred upon the view of these northern counties, I have many times repented that I so early resolved to decline the delightful view of antiquity, here being so great and so surprizing a variety, and every day more and more discovered; and abundance since the tour which the learned Mr. Cambden made this way, nay, many since his learned continuator; for as the trophies, the buildings, the religious, as well as military remains, as well of the Britains, as of the Romans, Saxons, and Normans, are but, as we may say, like wounds hastily healed up, the calous spread over them being remov’d, they appear presently; and though the earth, which naturally eats into the strongest stones, metals, or whatever substance, simple or compound, is or can be by art or nature prepared to endure it, has defaced the surface, the figures and inscriptions upon most of these things, yet they are beautiful, even in their decay, and the venerable face of antiquity has some thing so pleasing, so surprizing, so satisfactory in it, especially to those who have with any attention read the histories of pass’d ages, that I know nothing renders travelling more pleasant and more agreeable.

But I have condemn’d my self (unhappily) to silence upon this head, and therefore, resolving however to pay this homage to the dust of gallant men and glorious nations, I say therefore, I must submit and go on; and as I resolve once more to travel through all these northern countries upon this very errand, and to please, nay, satiate my self with a strict search into every thing that is curious in nature and antiquity. I mortify

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LETTER X

Lancashire, Westmorland and Cumberland

SIR,-Having thus finished my account of the east side of the north division of England, I put a stop here, that I may observe the exact course of my travels; for as I do not write you these letters from the observations of one single journey, so I describe things as my journies lead me, having no less than five times travelled through the north of England, and almost every time by a different rout; purposely that I might see every thing that was to be seen, and, if possible, know every thing that is to be known, though not (at least till the last general journey) knowing or resolving upon writing these accounts to you. Now as by my exact observations on all these several traverses of the country, I hope I am not the less able, so I am sure I am much the better furnished, as well to tell you wherein others have ignorantly or superficially represented things, as to give you such other and fuller accounts, as in your own intended travels you will find confirmed, and by which you will be able the better to guide your farther equines.

I entred Lancashire at the remotest western point of that county, having been at West-Chester upon a particular occasion, and from thence ferry’d over from the Cestrian Cher-

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sonesus, as I have already call’d it, to Liverpoole. This narrow slip of land, rich, fertile and full of inhabitants, tho’ formerly, as authors say, a meer waste and desolate forest, is called Wirall, or by some Wirehall. Here is a ferry over the Mersee, which, at full sea, is more than two miles over. We land on the flat shore on the other side, and are contented to ride through the water for some length, not on horseback but on the shoulders of some honest Lancashire clown, who comes knee deep to the boat side, to truss you up, and then runs away with you, as nimbly as you desire to ride, unless his trot were easier; for I was shaken by him that I had the luck to be carry’d by more than I car’d for, and much worse than a hard trotting horse would have shaken me.

Liverpoole is one of the wonders of Britain, and that more, in my opinion, than any of the wonders of the Peak; the town was, at my first visiting it, about the year 1680, a large, handsome, well built and encreasing or thriving town; at my second visit, anno 1690, it was much bigger than at my first seeing it, and, by the report of the inhabitants, more than twice as big as it was twenty years before that; but, I think, I may safely say at this my third seeing it, for I was surpriz’d at the view, it was more than double what it was at the second; and, I am told, that it still visibly encreases both in wealth, people, business and buildings: What it may grow to in time, I know not.

There are no fortifications either to landward or seaward, the inhabitants resting secure under the protection of the general peace; though when the late northern insurrection spread down their way, and came to Preston, they could have been glad of walls and gates; and indeed, had the rebel party had

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time to have advanced to Warrington, seized the pass there, and taken Manchester, as they would certainly have done in three days more, it would have fared but very ill with Liverpoole; who could have made but little resistance against an arm’d and desperate body of men, such as they appeared to be, and by that time would have been: Besides, the invaders would here have found not the sweets of plunder only, but arms, ammunition, powder and lead, all which they extreamly wanted; they would have had ships also to have facilitated a communication with their fellows in Ireland, who would have throng’d over upon the least view of their success, if it had been only in hopes of plunder.

But heaven had Liverpoole in its particular protection, as well as the whole kingdom; the rebels were met with, fought and defeated, before they gat leave to get so far, or to make any offer that way. The story of which, as it does not belong to this work, so it is too recent in memory, to need any account of it here, other than in general.

The town has now an opulent, flourishing and encreasing trade, not rivalling Bristol, in the trade to Virginia, and the English island colonies in America only, but is in a fair way to exceed and eclipse it, by encreasing every way in wealth and shipping. They trade round the whole island, send ships to Norway, to Hamburgh, and to the Baltick, as also to Holland and Flanders; so that, in a word, they are almost become like the Londoners, universal merchants.

The trade of Liverpoole is not my particular province, so I shall be short in that part; it consists not only in merchandizing and correspondencies beyond seas; but as they import

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