Roads. 521 



of the most perfect ease, and, with reference to the display of 

 the surrounding scenery, of the greatest degree of beauty. 

 We may refer to the road from Newby Bridge to Grasmere, 

 and to that from High Hesketh to Wetherall. The country 

 through which the latter road passes has been enclosed since 

 we last saw it, and therefore there can be no sufficient excuse 

 for its present line of direction. In some other places the 

 roads are not only hilly, circuitous, and badly made, but too 

 narrow. As an example, we may refer to the road from 

 Farley to the Ashbourne road, and also to the roads about 

 Grasmere. One of the greatest defects in roadmaking is the 

 manner in which steep hills are ascended or descended, always 

 abruptly proceeding in a direct line up or down, instead of 

 skilfully taking an oblique direction, and so advancing by an 

 easy slope, without reference to its length. For want of 

 attending to this principle, there are some county and parish 

 roads that we could mention, which, if they were described to 

 an enquirer who had never been far from London, would be 

 considered as imaginary. When we descended from the Dog 

 and Partridge public-house, in the neighbourhood of Ash- 

 bourne, to Illam in Dove Dale, and saw the splendid Gothic 

 mansion of Illam Hall, lately erected in the bottom, we con- 

 cluded that we were on a country road, that could not possibly 

 be used as one of the main approaches to the house. On 

 arriving at the entrance lodge, after descending between two 

 and three miles, we were not a little surprised at being in- 

 formed that the road by which we had come was one of the 

 only two public roads, both equally bad, of which that country 

 could boast. We are not surprised to meet with such roads 

 in a country without gentlemen's seats ; but what enjoyment 

 a proprietor can have in setting down a splendid mansion in 

 the midst of such bars to all general improvement, we cannot 

 imderstand. The first step towards amelioration in a wild 

 country should always be to facilitate the means of communica- 

 tion between one point and another. The roads to, through, 

 and from Dove Dale might, with the greatest ease, and with 

 very little expense, owing to the excellence of the materials 

 every where at hand, be reduced to a slope, which, in the 

 steepest parts, should not exceed two inches in six feet. 



The roads of Britain, as it appears to us, ought to be 

 placed on a system of formation and management different 

 from the present. National roads ought to be under the 

 immediate control of government, county roads under the 

 control of counties, and parish roads under the control of 

 parishes. There ought to be one general law applicable to 

 all these roads, determining the maximum degree of slope. 



