Mar pie Ridge. 125 





Marple Ridge.* Here the prospect becomes wider and 

 more varied still : filling one also with astonishment that 

 so much can be commanded at the cost of so little 

 labour. The fact is that the railway does half the climb- 

 ing for us, the line from Hazel Grove to Disley being 

 almost a slope. Standing with our backs to Disley 

 village, on the right towers the great green pyramid 

 called Cobden Edge; then come the hills that rise 

 above Whaley Bridge and Taxal, Kinder Scout resting 

 upon their shoulders. In front are hills again, Werneth 

 Low, always identified by the sky-line fringe of trees; 

 Stirrup-benches and Charlesworth Coombs, and the three- 

 hill-churches always remembered by their corresponding 

 initial, Marple, Mellor, and Mottram, with Chadkirk 

 and Compstall in the valley. Southwards, Lyme Cage 

 and Lyme Hall, the latter half-hidden among its trees, 

 are discoverable; and due west is the great plain 

 now familiar, that one which includes Vale Royal, and 

 reaches to Chester. Let all who make a pilgrimage 

 hither remember, as when they visit Gawsworth, to bring 

 their opera-glasses, which however useful when there is 

 curiosity as to a cantatrice, have nowhere a more excel- 

 lent use than on the mountain-side. Cobden Edge, 

 from its greatly superior altitude, overlooks even Marple 

 Ridge! To reach it, after leaving Disley station, cross 

 the wood a little beyond the hotel, and go down a steep 



* It may be permitted here to note that when on Jackson Edge 

 we are close to the home of the accomplished authoress of the well- 

 known and always welcome letters "From the Lyme hills," 



