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To this sinuous and picturesque line of houses, the streams with their rocky and precipitous banks will have served in olden times as a natural defensive moat (indeed it is noticeable that old Manchester kept pretty much within the angle of its rivers), and in 1799, from one end of Millgate to the other, the dwellers by the waterside looked across the stream on green and undulating uplands, intersected by luxuriant hedgerows, a bleachery at Walker’s Croft, and a short terrace of houses near Scotland Bridge, denominated Scotland, being the sole breaks in the verdure.

Between the tannery and Scotland Bridge, the river makes a sharp bend; and here, at the elbow, another mill, with its corresponding dam, was situated. The current of the Irk, if not deep, is strong at all times, though kept by its high banks within narrow compass. But when, as is not unseldom the case, there is a sudden flushing of water from the hill-country, it rises, rises, rises, stealthily, though swiftly, till the stream overtops its banks, washes over low-lying bleach-crofts, fields, and gardens, mounts foot by foot over the fertile slopes, invades the houses, and, like a mountain-robber sweeping from his fastness on a peaceful vale, carries his spoil with him, and leaves desolation and wailing behind.