Country Rambles, and Manchester Walks and Wild Flowers. Leo H. Grindon

      THE following pages consist, in part, of a reprint of the little volume published in 1858 under the title of Manchester Walks and Wild–Flowers;—in part, of brief excerpta from the author’s accounts of trips made by the Field Naturalists’ Society, as given in their Annual Reports, 1860–1881. A very considerable amount of new matter will also be found.

      Giving descriptions in a novel and welcome manner, of pretty places in the neighbourhood previously unknown to people in general, and indicating in various ways the pleasure to be derived from rambles in the country, the little volume spoken of is believed to have assisted, in no slight measure, to awaken and foster the present widespread local taste for rural scenes, and for recreation in the pursuit of practical natural history. It is in the hope that similar results may ensue among the present generation that the book is now partially republished. It has long been unprocurable, and is constantly enquired for. The reprinting presents also a curious and interesting picture of many local conditions now effaced.

      The preface to the original work of 1858 contained the following passages:—“No grown–up person who has resided in Manchester even twenty years, is unacquainted with the mighty changes that have passed over its suburbs during that period; while those who have lived here thirty, forty, and fifty years tell us of circumstances and conditions almost incredible. Neighbourhoods once familiar as delightful rural solitudes, are now covered with houses, and densely crowded with population; the pleasant field–paths we trod in our youth have disappeared, and in their stead are long lines of pavement, lighted with gas, and paced by the policeman. In a few years it is not improbable that places described in the following pages as rustic and sylvan will have shared the same fate, and be as purely historical as Garratt Wood and Ordsall Clough. The Botany of the district will to a certain extent be similarly affected. No longer than fifteen years ago (i.e. in 1840) the fields by St. George’s Church, in the Chester Road, were blue every March and April with the spring crocus, and on the very spot where Platt Church now lifts its tall and graceful spire, there was a large pond filled with the Stratiotes, or water–aloe. If the past be a prognostic of the future, it is easy to guess what will happen to other things, and to understand how in half a century hence our present ‘Walks’ will have become as obsolete as their author, and the entire subject require a new and livelier treatment. A descriptive history of the suburbs of Manchester as they were fifty years ago, would be a most interesting and valuable item of our local literature. It would be as curious to the lover of bygones as this book of to–day may perhaps appear to the Manchester people of A.D. 1900. How extraordinary would be the facts may be judged from the following