Page:A tour through the northern counties of England, and the borders of Scotland - Volume I.djvu/167

 Soon after quitting Chatsworth, we crossed the Derwent, and entered upon a country still more wild and uninteresting than that we had already passed. A large cotton-mill to the right pointed out the nature of the manufactories of the district. Stoney-Middleton, a small town chiefly inhabited by limestone-workers and lead-miners, offers nothing remarkable, but its modern octagon church attached to an old square Gothic tower; and we pursued our road through this forlorn country to Middleton-Dale, reputed one of the wonders of Derbyshire, but undeserving this distinction, from a total absence both of beauty and sublimity. Rocks, unadorned with trees or other verdant covering, exclude the picturesque; whilst their clumsy heavy round forms preclude the idea of grandeur. A lively fancy may indeed paint to itself something resembling castellated buildings or rude fortresses in the perpendicular crags, which rise to the height of four hundred feet in some places; and the turnings of the Dale are so sharp, as occasionally to give the idea of all further progress being prevented by the opposition of an insurmountable barrier of precipitous rock. Its character, therefore, is rather singularity, than magnificence or loveliness.

Six miles beyond this place is Tideswell, a miserable market-town, planted in a bottom, which