button to main menu  Description of Sixty Studies, pp.80-81
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page 80:-
from Rosthwaite, is a mill, which has furnished a subject for the smaller series of engravings, published in 1809, and the birch trees are not much higher than the mill.

  Stockley Bridge
No. 45.


STOCKLEY BRIDGE.

This is the last bridge in Borrrowdale on the road from Rosthwaite to Wastdale Head; and is over a Gill, tumbling down the southern side of the mountain Sprinkling, which mountain is the back-ground of this scene.
From Stockley Bridge, the road, which is only for foot and horse people, is up the northern side of Sprinkling, and passing Sty Head Tarn to Sty Head, displays a most stupendous view of the Wastdale mountains, having the steep and rugged sides of Lingmell and Great Gable as screens.
The road descends precipitately on
page 81:-
the side of Gable, though not in a line tolerably straight, but bearing occasionally to every point of the compass; and many a traveller will be affrighted with the prospect of rocks, which, wildly projecting from the surface of the mountain, seem ready to hurl destruction on him; at last he meets with ground somewhat less perpendicular, and more polished than that he has left, for it is of soft turf; and, travelling a mile or two, arrives among the peaceful inhabitants at Wastdale Head.
At Wastdale Head are six dwellings: In this dale the wood is scanty, but as it thrives well, it is a pity the shepherds do not plant more; for, by so doing, they would make this sequestered region a pastoral Paradise: From the highest house in the valley it is scarcely two miles to the head of Wast Water.
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