Hackthorpe Hall, a farm-house, is contiguous, and was the birth-place of John, first Viscount Lonsdale.  Shap (anciently Heppe), a long straggling village in the vicinity, and near which is a station on the Preston and Carlisle Railway, has derived some note from the elevated moors close by, known by the name of Shap Fells.  Shap Spa, in the midst of the moors, attracts crowds of visitors during the summer season.  The spring is said to yield medicinal waters similar to those of Leamington.

Inns.—­Greyhound, and King’s Arms.

In closing this rapid sketch of the Lake District we may add, that the leading mountains in Cumberland and Westmoreland are thirty-five in number; the passes, five; the lakes, eighteen; and the waterfalls, twelve.  “Wanderings among the lakes,” a companion volume to this, now in preparation, will form a useful illustrated guide to their most remarkable features.

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Following that plan of contrasts which travellers generally find most agreeable, we should advise that tourists, taking their route southward, will avail themselves of the North Staffordshire lines to visit two of the most beautiful mansions, if they were foreign we should say palaces, in England—­Alton Towers, the seat of the Earl of Shrewsbury, and Trentham Hall, the seat of the Duke of Sutherland, and conclude by investigating the Porcelain Manufactories, which, founded by Wedgwood, are carried on with excellent spirit and taste by a number of potters, among whom Alderman Copeland and Mr. Herbert Minton are pre-eminent.

Alton Towers stand near Cheadle, on the Churnet Valley Line; Trentham Hall not far from Stoke.

A day may be pleasantly spent in examining the elaborate gardens of Alton, which are a magnificent specimen of the artificial style of landscape gardening.  Mr. Loudon gives a very elaborate description of them in his large work on the subject of gardens to great houses.

At Cheadle the Earl of Shrewsbury has erected at his own expense, Mr. Pugin being his architect, a small Roman Catholic Church, which is a magnificent specimen of that gentleman’s taste in the “decorated” style.  “Heraldic emblazonments, and religious emblems, painting and gilding, stained glass, and curiously-wrought metal work, imageries and inscriptions, rood loft and reredos, stone altar and sedilia, metal screenwork, encaustic paving, make up the gorgeous spectacle.”

The doors of the principal entrance are painted red, and have gilt hinges fashioned in the shape of rampant lions spreading over nearly their entire surface.

In one of the canopied niches is a figure, representing the present Earl of Shrewsbury kneeling, with a model of the church in his hand as the founder, with his “patron,” St. John the Baptist, standing behind him.