button to main menu   Ford's Description of the Lakes, 1839/1843

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Page viii:-
  settlements
The Cottages stand either clustered or scattered in groups, or singly up and down the valleys. Their forms and colours generally harmonise with their situations. The dwelling-houses, originally white, but stained and weather-beaten, present the grotesque appearance of such various additions as the necessities or caprices of successive owners have suggested. They may be seen placed on knolls, or up the hill-sides, beyond the reach of floods, and their doors protected from wintry blasts, by porches of slate. Above the rough slated roofs (the abode of lichens, mosses, and ferns) rise the low chimnies, consisting sometimes of four upright little pillars, with a slate at the top and a stone to keep it steady, sometimes of a square base, surmounted by a tall cylinder. The garden is near, with its flowers and pot-herbs and shed for bees; and not far off is the mountain rill, falling into a rude trough of slate, or trickling through a wooden spout.
  bridges
The numerous Bridges, once models of simple elegance in the structure of the arches, have many of them been swept away by the
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