the walls. A DERBYSHIRE DAY 37 I I The church, the churchyard, with flowers and yews, and the ancient home, are all well maintained. The road to the station below is short but steep. remembered that a train had left on the previous Saturday at a certain time, so we caught it again, booking to Stockport. As the train was moving a porter said we were going the wrong way. I thought I knew better, and off we went. At Ashbourne they cried out, "All change here," and said the train went no farther. When I told them that only on the previous Saturday we had gone by that same train to Stockport, their answer was, "Oh, that was Saturday, this is Thursday; trains go different ways round on different days; you'll have to go back and go by Rocester and Leek." So we dawdled round for three hours: got to Stockport, wearied and jaded, taking the bikes home on a cab. Another Derbyshire Day! CARDEN I N the south of Cheshire, on the lower range of the little towns of Holt and Farndon on the river Dee, and the high village of Harthill on the hill of Bickerton, there stands in charming scenery another of the black-and-white houses for which that country is famous. On one of our first pilgrimages we had seen Carden from the road, and had rested and photographed in the very quaint, old-fashioned inn known as The Cock at Barnton, which is near to it. Now we asked for leave to visit the Park, and certainly the approach up a long avenue of well-grown trees, with glistening mere on one side and craggy hills on the other, is very fine. It is a case of disenchantment as we draw nearer to the large house at the end of the grand trees to find it is rather a painted sham; but the other side is genuinely timber-built, level with a garden and wide lawn, where again the trees show health and vigour, as if the soil and climate both were good. The first syllable of the name shows its Celtic origin. It has been spelt in many ways. One family has held the place or part of it for nearly five hundred years. For the last of the Cardens left his estates to his four daughters, and Elenor married a Leche, who was probably a son of the Leech or Surgeon to King Edward the Third, who granted him £10 a year out of the mills on the Dee. John le Leche succeeded John, until the pedigrees say there were fourteen Johns and only one William, whose elder brother John had died without succeeding. There seems little to note in the history of the house or family, but from Malbon's diary of the Civil War I make the following interesting extract : "On Saturdaye, the x. of June, 1643, some Companyes marched furthe to Carden and sett upon Mr. Leeche's howse (a Com'issioner of Arraye), whoe did oppose theim. But in the end they gott the howse; apprehended him; broughte him with theim prsonr; plu'dred his howse; kild a servant maid with shootinge att the howse, and broughte with him some others and some horses alsoe to Namptwiche." Some time before there had been a bear bait at Carden, when one "Phillip Cappur, of Clutton, dyd suddenly at that disordered Sport. Malbon's diary is one of those invaluable histories that shortfully and truthfully give us, in old-fashioned language and spelling, a good insight into what was really done, and what folk and their homes of the time were like. The better known diary of Burghall is merely an altered plagiarism of it. Malbon was a lawyer of Nantwich, and steward to the Crewe estates. He would probably be descended from Malbedeng, Baron of Wich Malbank, as Nantwich was formerly named. One of the last of the family, who was a connection of my own, changed his name to Melbourne, but the country folk still pronounced it Morbon. Malbon's own spelling is interesting to me, for it shows the local pronunciation of names was the same then as it is now. For instance, Shrewsbury is always Shrowesbury, Cholmondeley is Cholmley, Ruthin is Wrythen, Levison is Lewson. "Upon Saturdaye mornynge, the xxii. of ffebruary, 1644(5). Colonell Mytton and Colonell Boyer on the p'liamt side with aboute fyfteene hundred horse and foote did very secretlie and cuninglie enter into Shrowesbury, |