CHAPTER VIII. 



THE REDDISH VALLEY AND ARDEN (OR HARDEN) HALL. 



What exhibitions various hath the world 



Witness'd of mutability in all 



That we account most durable below ! 



Change is the diet on which all subsist, 



Created changeable, and change at last 



Destroys them. COWPER. 



T speaks not a little for the vigorous and 

 buoyant life of the immediate neighbourhood 

 of our town that so few examples are to be 

 met with of decay and ruin. Turn whichever 

 way we will, we find new houses, new factories, 

 new enterprises, but scarcely an instance of 

 wasting away and dilapidation. The nearest important 

 relic of the feudal times is Beeston Castle, just described; 

 and the nearest memorial and sepulchre of those brave, 

 good men who, while the rulers of our country were 

 fighting and oppressing, conserved within the convent 

 walls learning, religion, charity, and a hundred other 

 things that kept the national civilisation moving until the 



