Beeston Castle. 95 



half an hour, is again by lanes and fields. Lancaster 

 Castle, excepting its incomparable gateway-tower, and 

 a small portion inside, has been so much altered in order 

 to adapt it for modern uses, that the past is lost in 

 the present. Clitheroe Castle is all gone, excepting the 

 keep. Beeston, happily, though itself only a relic, has 

 suffered nothing at the hands of the modern architect. 

 Even time seems to look on it leniently. As a memorial 

 of the feudal ages, it is in our own part of England 

 supreme and uncontested, and in any case one of the 

 most charming resorts within the distance for all in 

 Manchester who care for the majestic, the antique, and 

 the picturesque. This famous and far-seen ruin is seated 

 upon the brow of a mighty rock, which, rising out of the 

 meadows on the eastern side by a regular and at first 

 easy, but afterwards somewhat steep incline, terminates, 

 on the western side, in an abrupt and absolutely vertical 

 precipice, the brink of which is three hundred and sixty- 

 six feet above the level of the base, or of almost precisely 

 the elevation of the High Tor at Matlock, and of the 

 loftier parts of St. Vincent's. Hence, in the distance, 

 viewed sideways, as for example, from Alderley Edge, 

 the outline is exactly that of a cone-shaped mountain 

 toppled over and lying prostrate. The broad green 

 slope, dry and velvety, furnishes an unsurpassed natural 

 lawn for rest and pic-nic. Mounting it to the summit, 

 the ruins, which now consist chiefly of ivied bastions, 

 tower above our heads with an inexpressible and mourn- 

 ful grandeur that recalls the story of Caractacus in the 



