Gents Mag 1848 part 1 p.369
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introduction | ||
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list, 2nd qtr 19th century | ||
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Gentleman's Magazine 1848 part 1 p.369
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Brougham Hall
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Visit to Brougham
Hall
... A VISIT TO BROUGHAM HALL, In a letter addressed to James Dearden, Esq. of the Orchard and Handle Hall, Lancashire. MY DEAR DEARDEN - You ask me for some account of the old embattled mansion of Brougham Hall, the seat of the ex-Chancellor Lord Brougham, and which through the kindness of his lordship I visited last autumn. The domain is in Westmorland, though upon the extreme border and nigh unto Cumberland, and is situated amid a succession of gradually diminishing woody hills and green headlands, which connect the open country with the mighty mountainous chain surrounding the lakes. The nearest town is Penrith, and from hence a pleasant walk of a mile or so on the Shap road brings you to the gate, after passing through a succession of inclosures sprinkled with old gabled cottages and farm-houses, clothed in a most luxuriant garb of wild rose and honeysuckle, intermingled with the darker ivy. The first distinct view from the road is immediately after passing the old British remain "King Arthur's round table," and before ascending the celebrated and no less picturesque bridge of Lowther, so well known as the spot where Cluny Macpherson engaged the advanced guard of the Duke of Cumberland in 1745, and brought off the artillery belonging to the Highland army. From this place the old hall assumes a very imposing appearance. Grey, venerable, and massive, it crowns the summit of a precipitous bank, and from its resemblance has been not inaptly termed the Windsor of the North. The principal feature from this point of view is a huge square tower, embrasured and machicolated, rising above and connecting itself with various masses of embattled buildings, and grouping in the most pictorial fashion with the aged trees which feather the steep descent to the river. Nothing could be more picturesque than it was as I first saw it, sometimes for a moment reposing its darkened and shadowy mass of battlements and towers upon the white, driving, fleecy clouds, and the next standing out in high relief upon a back-ground of deep blue sky or deeper cloud, with all its small irrregular and diamond-paned casements sparkling and glittering in the sun. Crossing Lowther Bridge, the vsitor leaves the main road through the park gate, and passing for a short distance through the wood, finds himself beneath the terrace immediately in front of the great tower, which seems to have been constructed, from the situation and direction of the machicolations, with the intention of defending this part of the approach. The road now winds round the base of the buildings, splayed down and but- |
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gazetteer links
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-- Brougham Hall | ||
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-- Lowther Bridge | ||
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