Sunderland Bridge. 287 



the seats of the landed gentry. The hands of men, at 

 all events of all fruit-cultivating men, are against this 

 brotherhood; yet they survive, insist on being his neigh- 

 bours, and fain would conciliate him by the sweetest 

 of songs at mid-day, and at eventide, after most other 

 day songsters have ceased their song. 



Sunderland Bridge is one of those old-fashioned 

 structures, with angular recesses at its sides, V-shaped ; 

 and when anything is going on, parties of anglers 

 starting up the stream for instance, each of these at 

 the sharp point will be found occupied by an interested 

 rural spectator, unwilling that anything should escape 

 him. And often there is a good deal going on here, 

 for it is a very favourite spot for parties of anglers 

 making a start for fishing on the Wear. And no 

 wonder. You have only to pause for a moment, like 

 the rustics, and lean over at the sharp point of one of 

 these angular recesses, and you will get assurance of 

 this. Just below the bridge the water passes foaming 

 over and between the breaks of a high strata of big 

 flat boulders, and then trots smartly down into a fine 

 pool where big fish must sometimes lie. Immediately 

 above the bridge is the spacious railway viaduct, with 

 many spans. 



At the furthest end of the bridge on the height is 

 the village of Sunderland Bridge, with its church so 

 nicely and picturesquely set on the hill amid its screen 

 of trees, like a picture. We may note, in passing, that 

 the houses represented in our illustration are not in 

 Sunderland Bridge village at all, but are really in 

 Spitz Hall parish ; but that will not probably be of 

 much consequence or interest to the traveller, who will 

 be more concerned to know that Mrs. Mortimer at the 

 Inn, whose signboard you see in the print, can supply 



