For instance, before reaching Penkridge we pass--on the right hand, Moseley
Court, where the ancestors of the proprietors, the Whitgreaves, concealed
Charles II. after the Battle of Worcester,--on the left, Wrottesley Hall, the
seat of the scientific nobleman of that name, and Chellington Park, the
residence of the ancient Roman Catholic family of the Giffords, where an
avenue of oaks, the growth of centuries, with a magnificent domain stocked
with deer and game, afford the admirers of English scenery delicious vistas
of wood, water, and rich undulating pasture.

The contrast between the murky atmosphere and continued roar of the
ironmaking country, and the silence of the deer-haunted green glades is most
striking, and most grateful to eye and ear.

As we rush along the valley of the Penk, too rapidly to drink in its full
beauties; on the right, Teddesley Hall, the mansion of Lord Hatherton, rising
above the tops of the trees, reminds us that the noble lord's farms are well
worth a visit from any one taking an interest in agriculture. Poor land has
been rendered comparatively fertile, and by a complete system of drainage,
mere marshy rush-growing meadows have been made capable of carrying capital
root and wheat crops, while the waste water has been carried to a head, and
then by a large overshot water wheel, working below the surface of the
ground, made useful for thrashing, chaff and root cutting, and other
operations of the farm.

At Penkridge, a rural village of considerable antiquity, ten miles from
Wolverhampton, adorned by a Gothic Church, and several picturesque houses of
the Elizabethan style of domestic architecture, it will be convenient to
descend, if an expedition is intended, over Cannock Chase to Beaudesert, the
seat of the Marquis of Anglesey.

[THE RAILWAY NEAR PENKRIDGE: ill17.jpg]

This Cannock Chase completes the singular variations of soil and occupation
to be found in Staffordshire. From the densely-populated iron districts, and
the model agriculture of disciples of the same school as Lord Hatherton, we
can turn our faces to a vast moorland, forty miles square, stretching from
where it is first seen on the banks of the railway to the banks of the Trent,
as wild as any part of Wales or Scotland, intersected by steep hills, by deep
valleys, covered with gorse and broom, dotted with peat marshes, tenanted by
wild deer and feathered game, and fed over by the famous "Kenk" sheep, nearly
as wild as