Gents Mag 1868 part 1 p.641

---

	introduction
	list, 3rd qtr 19th century
	previous page next page
	Gentleman's Magazine 1868 part 1 p.641 after by gregarious tourists, the greater portion of the country remained unvisited, few people being aware of the mines of interest contained in the provinces. In fact, Murray's Handbooks to the British Isles are the popular and portable exponents of county histories, which from their size and dryness have been confined to the libraries of antiquaries and book-collectors. Now, however, their contents have been ransacked by indefatigable editors, and offered up in a compact and readable form, as an epitome of all that is worth visiting in the historic and scenic features of the country, and forming moreover a valuable addition to the standard works of reference. If the price of each volume is somewhat high, it must be remembered that their matter is sterling, and not ephemeral; and that they appeal to the most polished and educated section of English travellers, which is naturally the smallest in point of number. Armed with a "Murray" in one pocket, and an Ordnance map in the other, the tourist, whether by rail, carriage, or on foot, may go through the whole of the land without asking a single question, or at least will be able to do so when both maps and guide-books are completed in their respective series. On the "Survey," in itself a national work which cannot be too highly valued, England and Wales are finished, so is Ireland, with the exception that the mountains are not projected; and although they are correctness itself, it requires a good deal of imagination to realise the physical features of the country. Scotland is completed as far as the borders of Perthshire, but the difficulties are very great, and it will be a long time before the corries and peaks of the Highland ranges are in the engraver's hands. The counties hitherto published by Mr. Murray are Devon, Cornwall, Dorset, Wilts, Somerset, Hants, Surrey, Sussex, Kent, Bucks, Oxford, Berks, Gloucester, Hereford, Worcester, Yorkshire, Durham, Northumberland, Cumberland, Westmoreland, and the Lake District, North Wales, South Wales, and Monmouthshire, the whole of Ireland and Scotland. The remaining nineteen counties are more or less advanced in preparation. Probably the first thought that occurs in glancing over these volumes is the extraordinary extension of the railway system, and the changes it has produced in the outward appearance of the land. Highways, such as the Great North road or the Holyhead road, which once teemed with traffic, and swarmed with coaches, might now have grass growing on them so far as the traffic is concerned. Villages situated on these roads, which contained coaching-inns of repute, are comparatively deserted, and the inns shut up. But the balance of compensation is seen in the creation of entirely new centres of habitation - such as Swindon on the Great Western, Wolverton and Crewe on the London and North-Western railways. Indeed, the latter place is so utterly a mushroom of the last twenty-five years, that it was some time before a name could be found for it; the proper parochial name of Monk's Coppenhall being judged too long for a station which was intended to receive half the travelling population of England. From the same cause, monster hotels have sprung up, in some cases without any apparent object but to make a railway to them, and thus attract a residential population; while our towns and cities are inhabited by a daily ebbing and flowing crowd, which for the most part shuns them at night as though they were infected with a plague. Whether the beau-
	next page
	gazetteer links
	-- Lakes, The
	-- (railways, Cumbria)

Lakes Guides menu.

---