It is mounted on four pilasters, and is of such dimensions that baptism by immersion is possible in it. The font is circular and perpendicular, and is ornamented at the capitals of three of the pilasters by boars*

heads, the badge of the Percys, to whom Kettlewell is supposed to have belonged about the eleventh or twelfth century. There is a curious inscription on one of the tombstones in the churchyard here which is worthy of notice :

CAMDEN'S DESCRIPTION OF THE WHARFE

Here lyeth the body of Helen Motley, late wife of Henry Motley, Minr. of this church, daughter to Thomas Crosthwaite, rector of Spennithorne, and grand-daughter to Marmaduke Wyvill, of Burton Constable, Knight and Baronet, who died 17th, and was buried 20th of June, 1625, anno ætatis 49. From 49 it was decreed A jubilee should then succeed. Posuit amoris ergo dolens maritus. H.M.

201

From Kettlewell the Wharfe winds into a lonely and sparsely-populated region, and the traveller begins to recognise the force of Camden's descrip

tion of it and its surroundings-" He runneth with a swifte and speedy streame, making a great noise as he goeth, as if he were froward, stubborne, and angry; and is made more fell and hearty with a number of stones lying. in his chanell, which he rolleth and tumbleth before him in such sort that it is a wonder to see the manner of it, but especially when hee swelleth high in winter. And verily it is a troublesome river and dangerous even in summer time also which I myself had experience of, not without some perill of mine own, when I first travailed over this country." But wild as the surroundings of the Wharfe are, and tumultuous as its course is near the scene of its birth, there are many places and matters in the dales around it which are full of beauty and interest. A little way beyond Kettlewell, going. northward, is a great cavern named Douk Cave, which has been explored for more than a mile under Great Whernside, and through which flows a

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stream that culminates in a waterfall. At Starbotton, a mile or two further along the river, there are some picturesque old houses which were probably standing when the flood of 1686 nearly swept the village and its neighbour of Kettlewell out of existence. Round about Buckden and in Buckden itself, there are numerous bits and glimpses which appeal to the lover of the picturesque, and at Hubberholme, at the entrance to the final stretches of the river, there is a church of singularly interesting architecture. It dates from the thirteenth century, when it probably replaced a Saxon edifice. In it there is a very fine oak rood-loft, built in 1558, and a septangular font of the fourteenth century. Here at one time officiated an old-fashioned parson named Thomas Lindley, who also held the living of Halton Gill, and who used to walk six miles, including a climb of over 1900 feet, every Sunday, in order to perform the services at Hubberholme. It was near here, on the slopes of Cam Fell, that Hutton, Archbishop of York (1595–1606), once knelt down to pray, on the very spot where, when he was a poor lad, travelling across these hills in search of his fortune, he had set up a cow from her rest in order that he might derive some comfort from the warmth she had left in the heather.

CHAPTER XXXV

The Lower Nidd and its Surroundings

CHARACTER AND COURSE OF THE RIVER NIDD-THE LOWER NIDD-KIRK HAMMERTON-CATTAL MAGNA AND ITS ROMAN ANTIQUITIES-HUNSINGORE-WALSHFORD-A STRETCH OF THE GREAT NORTH ROADALLERTON MAULEVERER-COWTHORPE AND ITS OAK-KIRK DEIGHTON AND NORTH DEIGHTON-SPOFFORTH AND ITS CASTLE-SPOFFORTH CHURCH-PLUMPTON-RIBSTON AND THE KNIGHTS-TEMPLARS-ORIGIN OF THE RIBSTON PIPPIN GOLDSBOROUGH AND THE CRUSADERS.

HE river Nidd, which runs a course of fifty-five miles from its source on the eastern slopes of Great Whernside to its junction with the Ouse at Nun Monkton, is one of the most remarkable rivers in Yorkshire, so far as concerns the extraordinary variety of the scenery which encloses it. At some points of its career the Nidd is surrounded by the wildest of scenes: at others, by the tamest; all along its banks the traveller finds a constantly changing panorama of mountain, valley, rock, wood, and meadowland. Round about the scene of its birth, there is a wilderness of moor, mountain, and fell, with solitudes as great as those which surround the source of the Wharfe. From the slopes of Black Fell to Pateley Bridge, the valley of the Nidd has one aspect; from Pateley Bridge to Knaresborough another; from Knaresborough to Nun Monkton, a third. It is at first wild, lonely, and rocky as a Swiss valley; in its second stage it assumes a romantic and fairylike character; in its third it winds through a land as level as that intersected by the Ouse, and partakes very largely of the somewhat sluggish nature of the greater river. In travelling along its banks, then, the explorer passes with little delay from one aspect to another, and is never wearied by a continual succession of the same species of scene. Nor are the associations which cling around it less. remarkable for variety and interest than the continually changing character of its course and surroundings. Here and there along its banks are towns, villages, or houses, of note in history, associated with the names of great men, or the story of stirring deeds, or with the doings of some eccentric personage

whose oddities made him famous, or of some hero of romance whose fame sprang chiefly from his crimes. At Ribston the traveller hears of the Knights Templars and their deeds of piety and charity; at Spofforth he sees the grave of Blind Jack, the sightless man who made roads and highways; at Knaresborough he is surrounded by associations of the dark and romantic figure of Eugene Aram. Natural curiosities, again, abound along the banks of the Nidd. No other river in Yorkshire, or indeed in England, can boast the possession of such curious phenomena as the rocks at Brimham and the dropping-well at Knaresborough, or the remarkable strata at Plumpton. Thus a journey along its banks is chiefly characterised by variety, and is rendered doubly interesting by the fact that so much of that variety, with its romance, its poetry, and its association, is compressed within comparatively small limits. The entire valley of the Nidd is full of charm at any period of the year, but an exploration of it during the first weeks of summer, or when the autumn tints are in their full glory, is a delight which every lover of the beautiful will appreciate to the full.

I

The immediate environments of the meeting of the Nidd with the Ouse are as flat and uneventful, in the matter of remarkable or conspicuous objects in the surrounding scenery, as those which characterise the junction of every Yorkshire river with the great central waterway of the county. On either side the banks of each river the land lies in long, level lines, rich enough in fertility and in flocks and herds, but with little to relieve its plain-like character. Yet the interest of the Nidd begins at once, from the point where the traveller turns along its sedge-lined banks towards the more romantic stretches going westward. The first two villages which he meets, Nun Monkton and Moor Monkton, belong rather to the Ouse than to the Nidd, and the land lying around Marston Moor has more affinity with the belongings of the greater than with those of the lesser river. But no appreciable distance has been traversed from Ouse-side along the Nidd ere historical associations are encountered. At a little distance from Nun Monkton, and lying between that village and the site of the battle of Marston Moor, is Skip Bridge, a structure which carries the highroad from York to Boroughbridge and the north over the river. From this point there used to run—presumably along the line of the present highway-a pavement or causeway which connected the country hereabouts with York. Leland speaks of seeing it when he was in the neighbourhood, and observes of it that it was built by one Blake, who was twice Mayor of York, and had no less than nineteen arches or bridges in its length between that city and Skip Bridge, which arches were for carrying it over the small streams and rivulets draining the surrounding moorland. At the inn at Skip Bridge, one of the most remarkable of the old election-expenses bills was run up