72 Cheshire 



broad acres, covered in August with auburn cereals; 

 and meadows, again innumerable, threaded with those 

 pleasant old brown lines of footpath that are English- 

 men's solace, and Cheshire is before us, as if concen- 

 trated in a mirror. Except in the portions which come 

 in immediate contact with Lancashire, the county con- 

 tains few buildings devoted to manufactures ; no tall 

 chimneys lift their straight lines against the horizon, nor 

 are the waters stained by home-made refuse from print 

 and dye-works. Hence, for rural excursionists, Cheshire 

 offers peculiar advantages, and Manchester need not 

 envy any town in England. 



The railway nerves that run into Cheshire from the 

 great ganglionic centre of commerce in cotton, on the 

 one hand, connect Manchester with Bowdon and Lymm, 

 Warrington and Knutsford, and their spacious districts ; 

 on the other, with Alderley, Wrenbury, Macclesfield, 

 and the surrounding parts. At the entrance to the 

 former neighbourhood stands Dunham Park, rich in 

 lovely corridors and vistas; the latter commence witli 

 NorclhTe and Prestbury ; and almost coincident with 

 these proximate places, touching one after the other, 

 or nearly so, is the river Bollin, which, rising in the 

 high grounds at the foot of Shuttlings Lowe, runs 

 through Macclesfield to Wilmslow, thence to Cotterill 

 and Ashley, and at last, after a course of nearly twenty 

 miles, becomes an affluent of the Mersey, entering that 

 noted stream not far from Lymm. 



