Page:A tour through the northern counties of England, and the borders of Scotland - Volume I.djvu/295

 Dar, occasionally shewing itself to the right, accompanied us to the town, which receives its name from this stream; a place irregular in plan, and only remarkable for its beautiful and elegantly simple church. The population of the town is calculated to be between six and seven thousand, who are chiefly supported by fading manufactures, of diapers, huckabacks, and stuffs; not employing at present a tenth part of the hands which worked at them previously to the war.

The magnificent inn, a solitary house at Rushford, built by Sir John Haydon, in the neighbourhood, of his noble seat at Windleston, afforded us such excellent accommodation and kindness of attention as deserve recollection and remark; indeed it was almost the only pleasing spot we saw for a dozen miles, in a country rather flat and uniform. But this character alters as we approach Durham, six miles from which, on the summit of Fairy-hill, a fine view of that city and a vast tract, of circumjacent country, bounded on each side by hills, are at once unfolded. But the detail of the scenery in the neighbourhood of Durham is not made out till we get near its walls, when the singularity and beauty of it at once surprise and delight. A lofty circular hill, rising abruptly from the river Wear, which leads his waters round its rocky banks,