Publisher's Synopsis
Anna sat in the bay-window of the front parlour, her accustomed place on Sunday evenings insummer, and watched Mr. Tellwright and Agnes disappear down the slope of Trafalgar Road ontheir way to chapel. Trafalgar Road is the long thoroughfare which, under many aliases, runs throughthe Five Towns from end to end, uniting them as a river might unite them. Ephraim Tellwrightcould remember the time when this part of it was a country lane, flanked by meadows and marketgardens. Now it was a street of houses up to and beyond Bleakridge, where the Tellwrights lived; onthe other side of the hill the houses came only in patches until the far-stretching borders ofHanbridge were reached. Within the municipal limits Bleakridge was the pleasantest quarter ofBursley-Hillport, abode of the highest fashion, had its own government and authority-and toreside 'at the top of Trafalgar Road' was still the final ambition of many citizens, though the naturalgrowth of the town had robbed Bleakridge of some of that exclusive distinction which it oncepossessed. Trafalgar Road, in its journey to Bleakridge from the centre of the town, underwentcertain changes of character. First came a succession of manufactories and small shops; then, at thebeginning of the rise, a quarter of a mile of superior cottages; and lastly, on the brow, occurred thehouses of the comfortable-detached, semi-detached, and in terraces, with rentals from 25l. to 60l. ayear. The Tellwrights lived in Manor Terrace (the name being a last reminder of the great farmsteadwhich formerly occupied the western hill side): their house, of light yellow brick, was two-storied, with a long narrow garden behind, and the rent 30l. Exactly opposite was an antique red mansion, standing back in its own ground-home of the Mynors family for two generations, but now aschool, the Mynors family being extinct in the district save for one member. Somewhat higher up, still on the opposite side to Manor Terrace, came an imposing row of four new houses, said to bethe best planned and best built in the town, each erected separately and occupied by its owner. Thenearest of these four was Councillor Sutton's, valued at 60l. a year. Lower down, below ManorTerrace and on the same side, lived the Wesleyan superintendent minister, the vicar of St. Luke'sChurch, an alderman, and a doct