Mobberley. 3 5 



Mersey does honour at last to the British Tyre. Drayton 

 notices it in the Poly-olbion (1622) 



From hence he getteth Goyte down from her Peakish spring, 

 And Bollen, that along doth nimbler Birkin bring.* 



The church, as would be anticipated, presents much 

 that is interesting to the ecclesiologist. Near the chancel 

 stands the accustomed and here undilapidated old village 

 graveyard yew, emblem of immortality, life triumphing 

 over death, therefore so suitable, this particular one at 

 Mobberley the largest and most symmetrical within a 

 circuit of many miles. Across the road, hard by, an ash- 

 tree presents a singularly fine example of the habit of 

 growth called "weeping," not the ordinary tent-form 

 seen upon lawns, but lofty, and composed chiefly of 

 graceful self-woven ringlets, a cupola of green tresses, 

 beautiful at all seasons, and supplying, before the leaves 

 are out, a capital hint to every one desirous of learning 

 trees as they deserve to be learned. For to this end 

 trees must be contemplated almost every month in the 

 year, when leafless as well as leafy. A grand tree is like 

 a great poem not a thing to be glanced at with a 

 thoughtless "I have read it," but to be studied, and with 

 remembrance of what once happened on the summit of 

 mount Ida. 



On the Cotterill side of Mobberley, or Alderley way, 



* Song the eleventh, p. 171, facing which is a map of Cheshire, 

 showing the rivers, out of every one of which rises a sort of tutelary 

 nymph, in design droll beyond imagination. Vide the Chetham 

 Library copy. 



