great convulsion of nature; opening "its ponderous and marble jaws," on the right and left, and forming a ravine, over the rugged bosom of which flows a considerable stream.

"The sensation of horror is increased by the projection of either side from its base, so that the two conivent rocks, though considerably distant at the bottom, admit only a narrow line of day-light from above. At the very entrance you turn a little to the right, and are struck by a yawning mouth, in the face of the opposite crag, whence the torrent, pent up beyond, suddenly forced a passage, within the memory of man, which at every swell continues to spout out one of the boldest, and most beautiful ca taracts that can be conceived. Wherever a cleft in the rock, or a lodgment of earth appears, the yewtree indigenous in such situations, contrasts its deep and glossy green with the pale grey of the limestone."-History of Craven.

Dr. Whitaker adds in a note that Bishop Pocock, who had seen all that was great and striking in the rocks of Arabia and Judea, declared to a medical gentleman yet alive that he had never seen any thing comparable to this place.

The opening in the rocks, which gives passage to the stream, is said to have been caused by the force of a great body of water, which collected in a sudden thunder-storm, sometime about the year 1730. About five miles from Settle, is LONG PRESTON, a large village, at least a mile in length upon the road. Great quantities of calico are made, and the inhabitants have a respectable and cheerful appear

ance.

A Church was erected here very early in the Saxon times. It contained a chantry, dedicated to our Lady and St. Anne; founded by Richard Hammerton, Knt. according to the return of chantries, made by Archbishop Holgate, and valued at 51. 6s. 8d. per annum. This was the south choir of the church,

F-3

still

still the property of the family. There was also a chapel of St. Michael, which Dr. Whitaker suspects to have stood near the entrance of the church-yard, where a floor of painted tiles is met with, in digging

graves.

The present church contains no remains of the original structure, excepting at the east end of the middle aisle. The rest was probably rebuilt about the year 1445, the time of the erection of Hammerton's chapel.

Within the steeple, and at considerable height above ground, is a strong vaulted chamber, about six feet by four, the use of which is not known.

The population of the parish of Long Preston, according to the returns under the act of parliament,

The mansion house at Hellifield is a curious castellated building, fortified and embattled by Laurence Hammerton, in the reign of Henry VI. It still remains a square compact building, very strong; but of too narrow dimensions to accomodate the family, in the splendid stile they then lived, and therefore must have served rather as a place of retreat in case of alarm. It has been modernized by the present owner James Hammerton, Esq.

The next place we pass through, on our road to Skipton, is CONISTON COLD, a small township, in the parish of Gargrave. On Stuling Hill, an high round knoll, above this village, commanding one of the most central and extensive views in Craven, is an elliptical encampment, 522 feet in circumference; it is supposed to be Danish. On the north-west side of Conistone Moor, is a place called Sweet Gap,

where

where tradition reports that the inhabitants of Gar grave, making a stand against a party of Scotch invaders, were cut off almost to a inan. Gargrave, according to the same tradition, had then seven churches, six of which these destroyers burnt, and spared the seventh for the merit of being dedicated to their own national saint Andrew.

The parish of Gargrave may be considered as the central parish of the district called Craven, as well as the warmest and most fertile. It consists of the townships of Gargrave, Coniston Cold, Cald Newton, since called Bank Newton, Stainton, Eshton, Hasby, and Winterburne. It is partly within the fee of Clifford and partly within that of Percy, which are divided by the river Air.

GARGRAVE is situated upon the road, about four miles from Skipton, and close to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, upon which it has extensive wares houses. The principal business of the place is the cotton manufacture.

A court for the recovery of small debts is held here under the Duke of Devonshire.

The town is divided by the river Air, which abounds with fish, "and has such a winding course (says Camden), through the Ings between this and Skipton, and sports so in meanders from its very source, as if it were undetermined almost whether to run to the sea, or hack to its source; for I was forced to cross it, in my direct road, no less than seven times in half an hour." Gargrave is a place of yearly rendezvous of the gentlemen of Yorkshire, and the adjacent counties, for the hunting-season.

"About half a mile beneath the town, on a fertile plain, are the buried remains of a Roman villa, ca led Kirk Sink, from a tradition that some great ecclesiastical edifice had there been swallowed up. The stones of which this building had been composed have gradually been removed, probably to build the present church; but the irregularities upon the sure

face

face, prove it to be a parallelogram, about 300 feet long, and 180 feet wide. In modern times it was dug up about 70 years ago, and the source of a tesselated pavement discovered at that time induced Dr. Whitaker to apply for permission to open the ground again. But the walls had been so completely grubbed up to the foundation that though it was just possible to ascertain the size of the apartments, which had been very small, no masses of cohering pavement could be taken up, and the whole lay in heaps mingled with mortar, consisting of cubes of various colours, some an inch others not more than half an inch in diameter, together with floor-tiles of about three inches square."-History of Craven.

SKIPTON

Is a small market town, of very respectable appearance, situated in a valley, with the hills rising boldly round it. It principally consists of one long street of well-built houses, terminated by the church, and the castle on an eminence.

Skipton, the capital and mart of Craven, had anciently by prescription the following fairs and markets, viz, a market every Saturday, and two fairs, one on the feast of St. Martin, the other of St. John in winter. Also on the eve of Palm-sunday, on Monday in Whitsun-week, and on St. Luke's day; and besides these a charter was obtained by George Earl of Cumberland, in the 38th of Queen Elizabeth, for a fair to be held every second Wednesday from Easter to Christmas.

The present church of Skipton is a spacious and handsome building of different stiles of architecture perhaps no part of the original structure remains, but four stone seats with pointed arches, and cylindrical columns, in the south wall of the nave, may be referred to the earlier part of the 13th century.

The church. received considerable repairs in the time of Richard III. but the roof cannot be older than the reign of Henry the VIIIth. It is very handsome,

handsome, flat, but with light flying springers. At the east end are the arms of the priory of Bolton.

The screen is inscribed:

Anno D’ni milessimo quingentissinio trícessimo tertis et regni Regis Hen. viii. dicessimo quinto.

Beneath the altar, which is unusually elevated on that account, is the vault of the Cliffords, the place of their interment, from the dissolution of Bolton Priory to the death of the last Earl of Cumberland. Dr. Whitaker examined this vault, March 29, 1803, after it had been closed many years, and found "that the original vault, intended only for the first earl and his second lady, had undergone two enlargements; and the bodies having been depɔsited in chronological order, first, and immediately under his tomb, lay Henry, the first earl, whose lead coffin was much corroded, and exhibited the skeleton of a short and very stout man, with a long head of flaxen hair, gathered in a knot behind the scull. The coffin had been closely fitted to the body, and proved him to have been very corpulent, as well as muscular. Next lay the remains of Margaret Percy, his second countess, whose coffin was still entire. She must have been a slender and diminutive woman. The third was "the Lady Ellinor's grave, whose coffin was much decayed, and exhibited the skeleton (as might be expected in a daughter of Charles Brandon, and the sister of Henry VIII.) of a tall and large-limbed female. At her right hand was Henry the second earl, a very tall and rather slender man, whose thin envelope of lead, really resembled a winding sheet, and folded, like coarse drapery, over the limbs. The head was beaten to the left side; something of the shape of the face might be distinguished, and a long prominent nose was very conspicuous. Next lay Francis, Lord Clifford, a boy. At his right hand was his father George, the third earl, whose lead coffin precisely resembled the outer case of an Egyptian

mummey,