32 Country Rambles. 



"the lake (or tarn) of the Holy Cross." The peculiar 

 charm of Rostherne Mere, compared with most other 

 Cheshire waters of similar character, comes of its lying so 

 much in a hollow, after the manner of many of the most 

 delicious lakes of Westmoreland, Cumberland, and the 

 romantic parts of Scotland; the area of the surface being 

 at the same time so considerable that there is no 

 suggestion, as sometimes with smaller meres when lying 

 in hollows, of the gradual gathering there of the produce 

 of rain-torrents, or even of the outcome of natural springs. 

 At Rostherne one learns not only what calmness means, 

 and what a broken fringe of diverse trees can do for still 

 water. Contemplating it from the graveyard, we seem to 

 have a fragment of the scenery of our beautiful world as 

 it showed, begging pardon of the geologists and the 

 evolutionists, "When the morning-stars sang together, 

 and all the sons of God shouted for joy." The depth of 

 the water is remarkable. About a third of the distance 

 across, from near the summer-house, it is over a hundred 

 feet, thus as nearly as possible two-thirds of the depth of 

 the English Channel at the Straits of Dover, where the 

 lead sinks lowest; and a third of what it is anywhere 

 between Dover and the Eddystone lighthouse, so that 

 our lovely Rostherne Mere may well assert its claim to be 

 of almost maritime profundity. The area of the surface 

 is one hundred and fifteen statute acres. In the church 

 there is a monument which it is worth all the journey to 

 see, Westmacott's sculptured marble in memory of 

 Miss Beatrix Egerton. 



