" The roads at that time were very rough,
macadamised surfaces being unknown, and a very steep hill leading into
the Ashbourne and Derby Road was called _bete noire_ by the French,
about which Canning, who was an occasional passenger, wrote the
following lines:
So down the hill, romantic Ashbourne, glides
The Derby Dilly, carrying three insides;
One in each corner sits and lolls at ease,
With folded arms, propt back and outstretched knees;
While the pressed bodkin, pinched and squeezed to death,
Sweats in the midmost place and scolds and pants for breath.
We were now at the end of the last spur of the Pennine Range of hills
and in the last town in Derbyshire. As if to own allegiance to its own
county, the spire of the parish church, which was 212 feet high, claimed
to be the "Pride of the Peak." In the thirteenth-century church beneath
it, dedicated to St. Oswald, there were many fine tombs of the former
owners of the Old Hall at Ashbourne, those belonging to the Cockayne
family being splendid examples of the sculptor's art. We noted that one
member of the family was killed at the Battle of Shrewsbury in 1404,
while another had been knighted by King Henry VII at the siege of
Tournay.
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