This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself Unto our gentle senses. This guest of summer, The temple-haunting martlet, doth approve By his lov'd mansionry, that the heavens' breath Smells wooingly here.
When for our country pleasure an entire day can be commanded, Crewe, ten or twelve miles from Chelford, and thirty-one from Manchester, marks the way to Combermere Abbey and Beeston Castle--places alike of singular interest, though of totally different character. To reach Combermere, it is needful to continue a little distance along the line which diverges from Crewe for Shrewsbury, booking to and alighting at Wrenbury. Two or three different routes may be taken thence, in any case by pleasant fields and lanes not difficult to discover. The shortest way is to go first across Mr. Wilson's broad acres of model farm-land, cereals right and left; then along a lane with a mill-pond upon the left; then through a corridor of trees upon the right, the floor, green as their boughs, bordered like a missal, shortly after issuing from which we arrive at the beautiful water referred to in the Abbey name. More than a mile in length, covering one hundred and thirty-two acres, and much too irregular in outline to be seen at once in its full extent, Combermere, with its adjacent woods, yields as a picture only to Rostherne. The paths in every direction are full of landscape. Though the country is flat, we do not perceive it to be so, and what may be wanting in grandeur, is found in tranquillity and repose. The mansion, of which there is an admirable view across the mere, occupies the site of the ancient monastery--a Benedictine, founded in 1133. Strictly modern, plain and substantial, there is nothing about the exterior to preserve the memory of monastic times; inside, however, old and new are let shake hands, the library being an adaptation of the ancient refectory. The walls, the galleries, and the principal apartments contain great store of Indian trophies and curiosities, brought home by the renowned Sir Stapleton-Cotton, whose bravery in the Peninsular War, and afterwards at the siege and capture of Bhurtpore, gained for him the title first of Baron, and then of Viscount, now held by the Lord Combermere, his son.