button to main menu  Otley's Guide 1823 (8th edn 1849)

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Page 200:-
as it was always surmised, to be Dr. Southey - that we cannot help quoting him:- 'A hermit who could wish his grave to be as quiet as his cell, could find no better resting-place. On three sides there was an irregular low stone wall, rather to mark the limits of the sacred ground, than to enclose it; on the fourth it was bounded by a brook, whose waters proceed by a subterranean channel from Weathercote Cave. Two or three alders and rowan trees hung over the brook, and shed their leaves and seeds into the stream. Some bushy hazels grew at intervals along the lines of the walls, and a few ash trees as the wind had sown them. To the east and west some fields adjoined it, in that state of half-cultivation which gives a human character to solitude; to the south, on the other side of the brook, the common, with its limestone rocks peering everywhere above ground, extended to the foot of Ingleborough. A craggy hill, feathered with birch, sheltered it from the north. The turf was as soft and fine as that of the adjoining hills; it was seldom broken, so scanty was the population to which it was appropriated; scarcely a thistle or a nettle deformed it, and a few tomb-stones which had been placed there, were now themselves half buried. The sheep came over the wall when they listed, and sometimes took shelter in the porch from the storm. Their voices, and the cry of the kite wheeling above, were the only sounds which were heard there, except when the single bell, which hung in its niche over the entrance, tinkled for service on the Sabbath-day, or, with a slower tongue, gave notice that one of the children of the soil was returning to the earth from whence he sprung.'
  Gatekirk Cave
GATEKIRK CAVE.- This beautiful cavern is about a mile and a half north of Weathercote. It has two en-
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