144 Country Rambles. 



On the contrary side are the Glossop moors ; within the 

 valley, the thriving town after which they are named; and 

 the remarkably beautiful cone, covered with trees, called 

 Shire Hill, an isolated mound that looks as if it might 

 have been tossed there in pastime by the Titans. 

 Glossop, as every one knows, has a station of its own, 

 which should be remembered not only for the sake of 

 Shire Hill, but for Lees-hall Dingle, Ramsley Clough, 

 Chunal Clough, Melandra Castle, and Whiteley Nab, the 

 climb to the brows of which last is no doubt somewhat 

 arduous, but well repaid. On summer Sunday mornings, 

 very early, when the smoke has had time to dissolve, the 

 Glossop people say they can distinguish even Chester 

 and the sea. Ramsley Clough, a romantic defile, 

 apparently under the special protection of the deities 

 of the fountains, and the stream down which would be 

 more fitly designated a thousand little waterfalls, is 

 remarkably prolific in mosses and other green crypto- 

 gamous plants. "Melandra Castle" an old rampart, 

 with a vast quantity of stones dug out or still embedded, 

 is supposed, on the showing of some fragments of Roman 

 tiles, to date from not later than A.D. 500. 



Mottram-in-Longdendale, like Charles worth, abounds 

 in bold and romantic scenery, though the elevation is 

 much less, the height of Mottram church above the sea 

 being only about four hundred and fifty feet. Tintwistle 

 and the neighbourhood also furnish endless recreation, 

 as, indeed, does the whole country as far as Woodhead. 

 The railway runs up the valley of the Etherowe, which 



