THE NORTH RIDING PROJECT

For lovers, these green retreats have always been held in especial favour.  Highways are too public, wood walks too secluded.  But the soft, mosey, grassy, violet-shaded, primrose-covered, hawthorne-scented green lanes, bordering on the small town or rural village, these form a lovely and delightful solitude, not too deep nor too distant, but within the hum of human life, and open at the same time to all the softer and sublimer influences of nature.

Ord/Sketches, 1845