This great work of art cost L6,000, and was exhibited in London for some
time before it was placed in the small church of Hafod. It was said to
have made Chantrey's fortune.
[Illustration: THE CHANTREY MONUMENT IN HAFOD CHURCH.]
Beauchief Abbey, we were informed, was built by the murderers of Thomas
a Becket in expiation of their sin, but only a few fragments of the
buildings now remained. We halted for rest and refreshments at the "Fox
House Inn," which stood at a junction of roads and was formerly the
hunting-box of the Duke of Rutland.
We had by this time left the county of York and penetrated about four
miles into Derbyshire, a county we may safely describe as being peculiar
to itself, for limestone abounded in the greater part of its area. Even
the roads were made with it, and the glare of their white surfaces under
a brilliant sun, together with the accumulation of a white dust which
rose with the wind, or the dangerous slippery mud which formed on them
after rain or snow or frost, were all alike disagreeable to wayfarers.
But in later times, if the worthy writer who ventured into that county
on one occasion, had placed his fashionable length on the limy road when
in a more favourable condition than that of wet limy mud, he might have
written Derbyshire up instead of writing it down, and describing it as
the county beginning with a "Big D.
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