Gents Mag 1849 part 2 p.137

Gents Mag 1849 part 2 p.137




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	list, 2nd qtr 19th century

	Gentleman's Magazine 1849 part 2 p.137
Calgarth Hall
	Calgarth Hall CALGARTH HALL, WESTMORLAND. And is not this a haunted hall? Are not the spells of time Still lingering round its hoary walls With eloquence sublime? THE tourist, or in the older fashioned phraseology of the dalesman the laker, who in his light skiff glides o'er the azure depths of the wide clear waters of Windermere, when at the close of day the rays of the westering Sun glorify with the witchery of eventide the whole of the eastern shore, cannot fail at such an hour of surpassing loveliness to have had his attention drawn to the remains of an old manor house, situate on the side I speak of, about midway between the head of the lake and the pretty-looking village of Bowness. Should the beholder be one of who "in thir present days," as Edie Ochiltree says, "when things o' the auld warld sort are na keepit in mind round winter fire-sides as they used to be," has a feeling for old names and events, he perchance may find his fondness for the spirit of by-gone ages gratified by a visit to the mansion in question, and his inquiries after the family who once owned it not unattended with a portion of that interest which the examination of the fading things of a remote era always more or less excites. Landing in the nearest of the tiny bays that indent the margin of this lovely lake, the stranger may proceed along a plain until the gables and round buttressed chimneys of the mansion, overgrown by ivy of the richest foliage (and which, by the way, I may observe grows in more luxuriant profusion in Westmerland than in most other parts of England, verifying the saying in the sweet old ballad, that - - the oak, the ash, and the bonnie ivy tree, That flourish best at home in the north countrie.) attract observation to where the Hall of Calgarth, rearing those lofty remnants of its former state, amidst still more stately trees, stands in the glittering flood of sunshine a ruined monument of times that are no more. The situation of the house, whose history belongs to the world of shadows, but whose ruins still form an object of interest, is within a short distance of the water, upon the narrowest part of the small and pleasant plain; and I know of but few spots in the neighbourhood where the lover of picturesque antiquity could so lose himself in dreams of the past as in contemplating this dilapidated fabric. Of old, the country around was comprised within a park belonging to the crown; and here and there may yet be met with, thinly scattered in hoary magnificence, the trunks of massive trees, whose giant forms bear testimony to the dignity of the primaeval forest, of which they are alone the solitary remains. Centuries have gone by since it was disparked, and, from being the lair and covert of the wild animals which erstwhile were almost its only tenants, its inhabitancy by man has long converted it to more benficial purposes. Alas! for the woodland glories of Windermere; like the forest shades of Rydal, where but a score or so survive of those old dwellers of the woods which saw its earliest lords, the Norman de Lancasters, they will soon have no existence, save in the recorded recollections of some enthusiast who, like me, has loved their green retreats, and feelingly laments their indiscriminate destruction. The changeful utilitarianism of the age has invaded and much altered the landscape around since the days of the original owners of Calgarth. The Dryads of its forests have forsaken their desecrated abodes, and the lake country, no longer what it was, even but a quarter of a century ago, is fast surrendereing the remaining vestiges of its ancient picturesque appearance. It is true it is environed by the mountains and valleys with which past generations were familiar; but those indestructible features, the majestic fells, do not present the same alluring garb upon which our forefathers loved to look. In losing the wilder and more untrimmed

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	gazetteer links
	-- Calgarth Hall
	-- Calgarth Park

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