Page images
PDF
EPUB

near to commercial and populous towns; the rents of course were considerably higher; the meadows on the banks of Severn, and water meadows in other districts, letting for four or five pounds per acre. Now, however, even these rents are raised in many instances in a proportion of one-third. It must indeed be allowed, that in numberless instances throughout the kingdom, the raising of rents has produced a better system of husbandry, and elicited a spirit of attentive industry that had long lain dormant; and we will acknowledge that where there are many competitors at every sale, who will give almost any price for it, it is not surprising that landholders will raise their rents in proportion: but there must be bounds to every thing, and the land-owners will find, when perhaps too late, that a nominal increase in their rent roll does not make them richer, as the consequent rise upon all other articles, in proportion as corn rises, together with the increase of poors' rates, will always counterbalance this nominal advantage. Whilst rents are thus rapidly and improvidently raised, the price of corn cannot be expected to fall, even in a plentiful harvest; but this subject would carry us far beyond our limits; the editor of these sheets must confess, however,' that these considerations prevented any surprize on his part, when he heard the farmers in Worcestershire complain that corn was too cheap, and that at a time when the public were suffering under high prices, and calling out for a stoppage of the distillation from grain.

The Tenures in this county are various; there is much freehold land; copyholds also are frequent, with the usual heriots, or fines; church and corporate leaseholds too are numerous, with small reserved rents, but considerable fines in renewing dropped lives, and calculated on the same scale of increase, with the advanced rents in other instances.

Having thus slightly noticed the surface of the county, it may be expected that we should pay some attention to its

MINERALOGY.

Much indeed cannot be said on this subject, for (as in all the other fertile counties of England,) little is to be found under the

surface

surface, where the external produce is so luxuriant. Yet if Wor cestershire cannot boast its mines of lead or iron ore, it is not deficient in a variety of subterranean strata, which may in some measure be considered as equally useful. There is no scarcity of clay fit for brick; nor of lime-stone in the hills,* where considerable quantities of it might be burnt for use, if coal could be more conveniently brought to the spot, the want of which prevents it being more used as a manure. Some coal, however, is raised in the north-western district, particularly about Mamble, where there is a railway leading to the Leominster canal, as will be more particularly noticed in another place; at Pensax also there are coal mines, much used for coke for the hop kilns; and some of this finds its way to Whitley and Abberley for the lime-pits. At present, however, there is very little prospect of these mines be coming of any great value to the county, for the vein is little more than two feet in thickness, and that too at a depth of twenty yards, from whence the water must be raised by manual labour in buckets as the mines will not afford the expense of a steam engine. Worcestershire therefore is obliged principally to depend on the Staffordshire mines, whose produce is brought down the Severn but such is the want of fuel in many parts of the county, that even in the vale of Evesham, the poor are glad to burn the bean stubble, which the farmers are willing to give them, considering it as injurious to the ground if plowed in.

Quartz which is a silicious, and by some considered as an aboriginal production, is found in great plenty in the Malvern hills, as will be more fully noticed hereafter; and much of it may be traced in the Lickey near Bromsgrove.

Freestone fit for building, is found in different parts. In Cleeve Prior parisht are quarries of very good stone, fit for barn-floors and other uses; some of it bears a fine polish like Derbyshire marble, and not inferior to it. The beds lie from four to twelve, or four

Pitt's Agricultural Survey.

+ Nash's Survey.

teen

teen feet below the surface. By means of the Avon navigation, large quantities from these quarries are sent to various parts in the neighbourhood of the county, which have for some time opened a branch of business of some importance, as affording employment to many who might otherwise have been in idleness. A reddish stone is to be found also in extensive quarries on the Broadway hills.

The Limestone quarries about Dudley are very extensive, and extremely curious as excavations, particularly under the castle; but as that is considered as belonging properly to Staffordshire, whilst the town of Dudley stands in this county, some apology may be considered as necessary for introducing in this place a description of them, for which we are in a great measure indebted to Mr. Warner in his Northern Tour. He describes his route, in quitting Stourbridge for Dudley, in which in fact he crossed part of Staffordshire, as leaving the sandy soil which he had passed over for several miles, and entering upon a stiff clay, the external covering to those productive mines of coals, and that peculiar nodulated iron, which abound in that district, being partly in Worcestershire, but principally in Staffordshire. After some observations drawn from that very scientific mineralogical paper of Mr. Keir, which is to be met with in the County History of Staf fordshire, he notices a curious fact, well worthy the observation of those who are too much in the habit of forming general theories, that the locality of ore and coal in these parts is somewhat singular, since they only extend to the distance of about six miles round Dudley, and are then lost and succeeded by sand. Speaking of the situation of Dudley, he observes that it may be considered as forming the centre of two ranges of hills, of which one runs towards the north, consisting of limestone, whilst the other takes a southerly course, and forms the Rowley hills, consisting chiefly of basalt. In this part of his mineralogical description, we must however differ from him, as what he calls basalt, is in fact nothing more than the trapp of Swedish mineralogists, and the toadstone of the English miners, so frequent in Derbyshire. VOL. XV.

C

On

On the southernmost point of the limestone chain, stood the Castle of Dudley, now in ruins, and part of the town; and these are completely undermined by stupendous quarries in the rock, the entrance being about half a mile to the northward of the castle. Here, exclaims Mr. W. a prodigious scene of subterraneous excavation discovers itself, consisting of several limestone mines and tunnels worked into the rock, one of which perforates it entirely, and opens again into day, at the distance of nearly two miles from its entrance. This is thirteen feet high, and nine wide, and at one point, sixty-four feet below the surface of the earth. The caverns are truly august, being of great extent, and considerable height; their roof supported by vast rude square pillars of limestone, left for that purpose. Various marine productions are found in this mass of rock, such as echini, cornua ammonis, and other common fossils; but the rarest production of this sort is the pediculus marinus, or sea louse, (the entimolithus paradoxus monoculi deperditi of Linneus,) but called in the homely naturalist's vocabulary of the place where it is found, the Dudley locust. In form it resembles the common wood louse, except that it is not trilobated, and exceeds it considerably in size, some specimens being nearly five inches long, and few so small as the insect it is compared to. Being discovered only at Dudley, and one other place in the kingdom, the fossil is the more valuable, a circumstance not unknown to the venders of these productions. To enter further upon the mineralogy of this district, would trench upon the bounds of another county, we shall therefore merely observe that Limestone, as before mentioned, is found in the Witley and Abberley hills; and also that it forms the understratum of a considerable part of the vale of Evesham.

In the parishes of the Littletons, also, are some considerable quarries of calcareous flag-stone; which answers extremely well for flooring of barns, or even halls and kitchens, and these form a source of industry for the neighbourhood.

The salt-springs of Droitwich being as closely connected with the political economy of that town and neighbourhood, as with

the

the mineralogy of the county, will be more fully noticed under their proper head; it is sufficient, therefore, to mention here, that the talc,* gypsum, or alabaster found above these springs, is rather of a peculiar species, being a shining, squamose, fossile stone, of a whitish color, composed of a gypseous earth, which does not ferment with acids. It readily falls to powder in the fire. If burnt without being red hot, its powder soon concretes with water, into a hard mass; hence its utility for making images, floors for houses and barns, &c. It is so hard, that the workmen never sink the salt-pits their whole diameter through it, but content themselves with boring a hole, four inches in diameter, through which the brine always rises with great rapidity. It is at present, indeed, unnecessary to sink any new pits, as some of the old ones are, singly, sufficient to supply the whole kingdom.

Mineral Springs will be more fully noticed under their respective heads; it is only necessary to observe here, that besides the wells at Malvern, there are several useful chalybeates in Kidderminster parish, of which that at Sandbourne is the strongest; at the Roundhill also, in the same parish, is one powerful in removing obstructions, and in strengthening and assisting digestion. On Burlish common is a well, called the dropping well, which is also considered as excellent for the cure of sore eyes, and several cases are well attested of its successful application.

Here also a general notice of the

FORESTS

is in some measure necessary. Worcestershire, indeed, in the earliest times, was completely covered with trees, but about the time of the conquest it was considered as having five forests, Feckenham, Ombersley, Horewell, Malvern, and Wyre of the latter, however, at the present day, but a small part lies in this county, though, as we have before hinted, it is not impossible that it may have extended over great part of it, and perhaps given it a name.

:

Feckenham was very extensive, as it appears by an old perambulation in the reign of Edward I. that it commenced at the Fore

[blocks in formation]
« PreviousContinue »