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hill between Gosforth (the reddest of villages) and Calder
Bridge. Far off at sea rises the outline of its mountains;
and when the wind is east, we have repeatedly seen the
shadows filling the hollows of its hills. From this
eminence, the road descends through a (sic) avenue of beech,
ash, and other trees, to Calder Bridge.
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Here the travellers will leave the carriage, which will meet
them within an hour at Captain Irwin's gate, on their
quitting the Abbey. They must now step into the inn garden
at the bridge, and see how beautifully the brown waters
swirl away under the red bridge and its ivied banks, while
the waving ferns incessantly checker the sunshine. It is a
mile to the Abbey, through the churchyard, and along the
bank of the Calder, where again the most beautiful tricks of
light are seen, with brown water and its white foam, red
precipitous banks, and the greenest vegetation, with a wood
crowning all. The scene is thoroughly monastic. There is no
sound at noonday besides the gushing water, but the
woodman's axe and the shock of a falling tree, or the whirr
of the magpie, or the pipe of the thrush: but at night the
rooks on their return to roost fill the air with their din.
The ruins are presently seen, springing sheer from the
greenest turf. Relics from the abbey are now placed beside
the way; and the modern house appears at hand. The ruins
should be approached from the front, so that the lofty
pointed arches may best disclose the long perspective behind
of grassy lawn and sombre woods. The Abbey is built of red
sandstone of the neighbourhood, now sobered down by time (it
was founded in A.D. 1134.) into the richest
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