To The Right Honourable Lord Edward Geo. Fitzalan Howard of Glossop Hall, This Historical and Descriptive Sketch of Longdendale is inscribed by his obedient and devoted servant, the author.

PROLEGOMENA

Beautiful Longdendale, with its wild lofty moorlands, its verdant valleys, its silvery rivulets, its meads and thickets, thronged in Summer with wild flowers! though its natives have ever loved it, and strangers admired it, little has hitherto been known of its history. The following pages are an attempt to weave into agreeable narrative, along with descriptive sketches, particulars about it, found only in ancient documents, or scattered over the voluminous works of antiquarians, and its beautiful and characteristic traditions - snatched, as it were, from the hand of Oblivion. To the natives and inhabitants my little work, I doubt not, will be highly acceptable. There are others who are in the habit of occasionally visiting it, or who, like Felix Folio, come on visits of excursion; to them it will serve as an handbook, in viewing the beauties, or exploring the antiquities of Longdendale.
R. B. R.
Glossop, Aug. 12th, 1863.