44 Report of Meetings for 1 887. By J. Hardy. 



" There is a Barley Mill and a Font near some rock-work in front of the 

 gardener's cottage, which stands on a piece of ground, sloping up from 

 the avenue. The Barley Mill is about 18 inches high, and about 12 inches 

 across. It is not very old. The old Font was given to my father, when 

 making the rock-work in front of the cottage, by the late P. F. Clennell, 

 Esq. Mr Clennell never said what it was, or how it was got. This font is 

 about -i inches deep, and about 6* inches across. [From a sketch this 

 appears to be of old workmanship ; but is too small for a font; a holy water 

 vat ?] 



The late Mr Gideon Pitloh, who died about 1S71 or 1872, and whose age 

 was over 9(J years, could remember when the piece of ground in front, and 

 S.E. of the cottage was called ' the Kirk Knowe.' He described it as a 

 piece. of bare ground with the exception of a few trees. Here, when the 

 workmen were laying water-pipes to the Hall, about 1871, they dug up a 

 skeleton about 2 feet from the surface ; it was found with the feet pointing 

 to the East, showing that it had received Christian burial. The place was 

 about 4 feet from the wall, and at the foot of rising ground on the South 

 side of the Avenue. It is all trees and shrubs now. 



Thomas Charlton, joiner, who lived opposite the gardener's cottage ) 

 when digging a foundation for a shed beside his house came upon an old 

 Sun-dial. Mr Clennell saw it and bought it from him, and kept it some 

 years in his work-shop, but one day when the gardeners were clearing the 

 rock-work, N.E. from the front-door of the Hall, where a favourite dog was 

 buried, Mr C. brought it out and gave it to them to put on the rock-work. 

 It is very much defaced, about a foot high, and 3 inches thick." Old dials 

 arc always worth looking after. 



The policy is screened with, tall trees : the Hall or Castle is a 

 commodious and comfortable mansion of hewn white-sandstone, 

 standing amidst a wide grassy area. The New Hall of the 

 mansion was offered by the proprietor to the Club to dine in, had 

 the inn at Alwinton proved to be insufficient to accommodate the 

 company. 



In the open space behind the village, are several small grass 

 fields, or compartments under culture, none of them particularly 

 thriving, for they lie on a stony moor edge, which has not the 

 richness of an oasis. Above them we look up to the heights 

 roughened with piled up boulders, and crowned with castle-like 

 crags, with ferny stripes and clusters in the deep hollows ; broken 

 lesser crags crossing the concave steeps ; full-leafed and full- 

 branched mountain ashes rising in solitary glory in the ravines 

 and brown patches of heath sprinkled over the barer eminences 

 all combined in one wild and rugged picture of savage grandeur 

 When visited in the end of May 1886, a patch of snow remained 

 unmelted in one of the fissures, and snow-teeth glittered like 



