Ridge Road

“ Bear Creek Cañon has less of the practical and more of the picturesque about it. A very charming brook runs down the center, and there are two or three small but very delightful falls.
The Ridge Road is a species of boulevard recently constructed for the use of visitors to Manitou. At places the grade is so abrupt that timid ladies do not care to drive down it. Otherwise it is a very pleasing thoroughfare, with fresh surprises and delights awaiting the tourist every time he passes along it. The view in every direction is most charming and extensive. ”

“ To me the only pleasure connected with it is the sense of escape with which one emerges and finds oneself beneath the beeches at Vinny Ridge, after two miles of drear and dusty formality. For the roadway, instead of being left, like the grassy and well-trodden bridle-paths of the forest, to Nature’s keeping, has been ploughed up and cleared of the binding roots and turf without being made into a proper road. Pony-cart or bicycle has to plod its weary way through a foot or two of loose sand in summer, thick mud in winter. ”

“ Its one long street crawls along a ridge of the Downs, and from the lower level of the road that skirts this ridge and meanders among fat farms and luscious meadows, with an old Norman church here and there embowered in immemorial elms and granges mentioned in Domesday Book, steep lanes of old houses climb to the business street. ”

“ The Ridge Road followed pretty closely the route afterward taken by the Illinois Central Railroad; but the railroad takes the easiest grades, while the Ridge Road kept to the high ground; so that at some places it lay a long way north or south of the railway route on which trains were running as far as Manchester within about two years. It veered off toward the head waters of White Water Creek on that first day's journey; and near a new farm, where they kept a tavern, we stopped because there was water in the well, and hay and firewood for sale. ”

“ If you’re a-goin' fer business you’ll take the Ridge Road, but if you’re just out joy ridin' and don’t care where you go, you can go by the lake. The Ridge Road’s the business man’s road. There hain’t no good road along the lake at this time o' year, with all the rain we’ve been havin'.”
Franklin, I am sure, was inclined to heed his advice at first, whereas I, having listened to similar bits of misinformation all the way out from New York, was inclined to be skeptical and even angry, and besides the car wasn’t mine. ”

“ Whilst I remained in this neighborhood, no colored person ever traveled this road alone after night-fall; and many white men would have ridden ten miles round the country to avoid the passage of the ridge road, after dark. ”

“ But if the five miles of Providence Road had been a delight, as Redwheels and I ran along it, the dirt lane that led to The Briers was an intoxicating joy. The wet earth, the drenched cedars, the oak buds, the spongy moss, the reddening blackberry-bushes, and the sprouting grain, all mingled in a queer creation odor that went right through the pores of my skin into my vitals and made me feel as strong as an ox, or rather, as Sam's new mule. ”

“ A mile out of Guildford the road is well upon the back, and for five or six miles it runs straight, yet not too straight, with slight change of altitude, yet never flat, and for the most part upon the very ridge—the topmost bristles—of the Hog’s Back. The ridge, in fact, has in some parts only just breadth enough to carry the road, and the land sinks away rapidly on both hands, giving the traveller the sensation of going on the crest of a stout wall, surveying his immense possessions northward and southward. ”

“ Running along the crest of the ridge lies the one metalled road, the main artery of the place, bordering which stand the various European dwellings. These are few and far apart towards the western extremity, but increase in number as the road runs on eastward, till finally they merge into the town itself, a heterogeneous mass of shops, Government buildings, and native bazaar. ”

“ The road has a further advantage that would be great whatever its position, but on this ridge is incalculable. It is bordered, not by a hedge, but by uneven and in places bushy wastes, often as wide as a field. The wastes, of course, are divided from the cultivated slopes below by hedges, but either these are low, as on the right, or they are irregularly expanded into thickets of yew and blackthorn, and even into beech plantations, as on the left. Whoever cares to rides or walks here instead of on the dust. ”

“ Both the Way and the pilgrims' track would join on the line of yews on Box Hill, and from Box Hill to Reigate there is a succession of yew road-marks and hedges, with here and there the whole face of the downs bitten out by a chalk pit; gradually the road climbs, until the track above Reigate lies almost on the highest point of the ridge. At Reigate the old Way carries on, crossing the hill-road which was from the town north to London. The slope of the modern road has been eased by cutting into the hill, and the ancient Way now is joined, on Reigate Hill, by a suspension bridge. ”

“ No road leads to this ridge except the Cartersville road, that ascends the ridge by a winding ascent, and enters the works, passing within a few feet of the main redoubt, under its guns, and then runs on the crest of the ridge for two hundred and fifty yards to where it passes out through the fortifications. So the guide directed us through the dark woods and up the steep, rugged, rocky hills, and down into deep valleys until we were lost, and the guide acknowledged that he could not find the way. ”

“ Then, too, the highways often follow a narrow ridge, or deep valley, where there would be but little room for building. The indication of a near residence is a path leading off from the road, or possibly you may see a corn-field on a distant hill-side. ”

“ It stood on the ancient British track, the "Way" which runs east and west across the country. Its place on the Way was within reach of the Roman road, the Stone Street that ran from Chichester to London. Its possessor held the strongest strategic position between London and the coastline, or between Canterbury and Winchester, and when there was any fighting forward the lord of the highway cross roads, the ridge gate, was the first person to be taken into account. The curious thing is that there [Pg 345] was so little fighting along the ridge. Reigate Castle never saw a pitched battle. ”

“ On the top of the hill we pass a cross road which runs for many miles right and left without coming to anything in the shape of a village; and naturally so, for the road like the Roman streets in the Lake District, keeps sturdily along the highest ground, and who would care to live on a wind-swept ridge?
TATHWELL
To the right the Wold runs up to nearly 500 feet, but our road only crosses it, and after little more than a mile we see the level of the marsh and the tall spire of Louth five miles ahead of us. ”

“ On the 25th of November, we set out for Charlotteville, thirty-two miles distant, passing over the Blue Ridge. The road is through a country little cultivated, and without a single village; and the number of separate houses could scarcely be more than a dozen. After we had gone about five miles, we arrived at the western base of the Blue Ridge, which affords an agreeable view, being overgrown with wood up to the top. Then we entered a narrow valley, and when the road began to ascend, we alighted and walked over the mountains. ”

“ The best example I know of an approach to this excellent sort of vitality in roads is the Ridgeway of the North Berkshire Downs. Join it at Streatley, the point where it crosses the Thames; at once it strikes you out and away from the habitable world in a splendid, purposeful manner, running along the highest ridge of the Downs a broad green ribbon of turf, with but a shade of difference from the neighbouring grass, yet distinct for all that. No villages nor homesteads tempt it aside or modify its course for a yard ”

“ It is a broad mountain highway following the crest of the Blue Ridge, invading a world that was remote and known only to mountain folk. Today over its smooth, paved surface cars climb quickly to airy heights from which may be viewed innumerable vistas of the Piedmont plateau and 292 the Shenandoah Valley. At strategic points parking overlooks have been constructed, from which are seen tumbling waterfalls, deep and narrow canyons, cool shady forests, open meadows, and wild flowers of every shade and hue throughout the summer. ”

“ Fairy cobwebs, gemmed with glistening dewdrops, sparkle in every hedgerow as we mount slowly up the steep, ruddy flank of the Ridgeway. Bowling merrily along the smooth, well-kept road that traverses its breezy summit, we are in all probability following the course of some primitive trackway, used from the earliest times when enemies lurked in the lowlands.
Ever wider grows the outlook as we jaunt along; the glory of the scene culminating as we clamber up the last of these steep 'pinches,' and call a halt, near a farm called the Rising Sun, to scan the summer landscape spread around. ”

“ What with good roads, the radio, and better schools and more of them the scene is rapidly changing in the Blue Ridge Country.
The little one-room log school is almost a thing of the past. Only in remote sections can it be found. No longer is the mountain child retarded by the bridgeless stream, for good roads have come to the mountains and with them the catwalk—an improvised bridge of barrel hoops strung together with cables—spanning the creek has passed. The mountain mother’s warning is heard no longer. ”

“ Its decay and resulting ruin were due to ages of neglect.
Beginning at Ryde, four miles north of Newport, we followed the coast, passing a succession of resort towns. Ryde is situated on a hillside sloping toward the sea, and its water front with drives and gardens, is one of the most charming we know of. The road from Ryde to Ventnor is crooked, narrow, and highly dangerous in places. At times it runs through closely bordering forests; again along the edge of an almost precipitous incline; then it climbs a long, terribly steep hill, but is never more than a few hundred yards from the coast. ”

“ But in the Ridgeway all was strong light and deep shadow. The asphalt roadway gleamed dazzlingly white under the sun, and the sidewalks, overhung with heavy lime-trees, were avenues of green twilight. Along them men’s sunburnt faces seemed strangely brown and handsome, and the sweat that disfigured the noses and foreheads of girls no longer glistened. Even a hawker bearing with an easy hand a monstrous cloud of multicoloured balloons for sale on the High Road seemed rather to lend a grotesque charm than a positive disfigurement. ”

“ There is an old-fashioned country roadhouse, such as we knew before the landscape gardener and the boulevard fiend were turned loose upon our rural towns. To follow their windings is heaven enough for me. A fringe of buttercups to fence the way, thickets of underbrush to darken the near distance, constant little ups and downs where the road slips into hollow to follow the call of a romping brook or climb a hill to watch for the sea. Wintergreen berries and russet patches everywhere, and the [14] snow of blackberry bushes in bloom far as the eye can travel. ”

“ One pleasant evening I was sitting on my porch with my dog sleeping near me, and Harriet not far away rocking and sewing, and as I looked out across the quiet fields I could see in the distance a curving bit of the town road. I could see the valley below it and the green hill beyond, and my mind went out swiftly along the country road which I had so recently travelled on foot, and I thought with deep satisfaction of all the people I had met on my pilgrimages—the Country Minister with his problems, the buoyant Stanleys, Bill Hahn the Socialist, the Vedders in their garden, the Brush Peddler. ”

“ It lay out of the beaten track, and any one wanting to visit it must needs climb the long winding road that led from the plain beneath, through olive groves and sheepfields, up to the city gate—a steep, difficult road, leading nowhere but to the little town itself. ”

“ As one passes along the magnificent avenue, or allée, of trees, through flower-bedecked fields, and with the fresh air from off the river and mountains perfumed by the carpet of blossoms which lies stretched on either side of the road, one is able to realize to the full the rural charm which surrounds the historic and busy town just left behind. ”

“ One small street, the Rue Pié, appears to have lost all control over itself, for it dives insanely under another street—houses, road and all—and then rushes down hill in the dark to apparent destruction. There is one lane that is especially picturesque. ”

“ Today Skyline Highway—U. S. 25 and 58—leads from the saddle of the historic Gap to the top of Pinnacle Mountain, commanding a view of six states, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama.
And the scene has changed.
Spring has come to the Blue Ridge. The hum of industry echoes along once lonely creeks, through quiet hollows. We see no more the oxcart lumbering, creaking laboriously along, higher and higher up the rugged mountain side. The latest model motor glides swiftly over the smooth surface, winding its way upward and upward. ”

“ If one will take the trouble to climb the almost perpendicular ridge that rises two thousand feet behind the old tumble-down buildings, long, low cook-houses and superintendent's vine-covered cottage, along that narrow, half-destroyed trail that follows the rusty tracks and cogs and cable of an old railroad, up to the first and then on further to the second tunnel, where a few deserted ore-cars stand waiting the trains that never come, on still higher to the narrow ridge that separates the south fork from the north fork of the Merced River, he is rewarded with a view worth a long trip to see. ”