which inspired admiration for wonderfully strange shapes, and the great size of some of the rocks. In this vein a poem by F.C.S. appeared in the Leeds Intelligencer of 1826, describing a "momentary view" of the place. The following is an extract: Suddenly, on the horizon's distant line, Uprising, as by call of magic power The farewell sunbeams on the sky define Black shapes of battlement, and spire and tower. Higher, and higher still, the turrets rise - Wider, and wider, the long ramparts spread - Darkly depicted on the glowing skies Behold a mighty city rear its head! By the early 19th century, Romanticism was encouraging imagination and storytelling here. Both the Sublime and Romanticism are reflected in this 1843 report of an autumn ramble at Brimham Rocks: During the 19th century the Yorkshire Union of Mechanics' Institutes used to hold its annual conference at Ripon. One of the regular highlights following the procedures was an excursion to Studley Royal, Fountains Abbey and Brimham Rocks. On Wednesday 14 June 1848, the large party arrived with guides John Richard Walbran and Mr Harrison of Ripon, who brought not just "antiquarian and topographical knowledge," but also "taste." At Brimham rocks, after an "excellent repast," the party "rambled among the stupendous and fantastic rocks, observing the wonders of nature, and speculating on the extent to which the rude art of our earliest British ancestors might have aided the operations of water and air in producing the present extraordinary forms of the rocks." At this point they were not only joined by the memberships of local Mechanics' Institutes, but also (the event having been heralded in the newspapers) by hundreds of local working people who expected a lecture and received one: a twenty-minute talk on how to form their own mechanics' institutes. The Manchester Courier commented that, "The motley group listened with interest and intelligence; and possibly even this handful of corn on the top of the mountain may be the seed of new institutes, which may train up yet unborn communities in the paths of knowledge and virtue." Tourist transport By the Harrogate spa Season of 1838, the summer tourists were arriving in hired carriages, and this was a business opportunity for postmaster Christopher Deighton. However he neglected, not for the first time, to pay the excise duty on the hire of a horse and phaeton in February of that year, and