button to main menu  Martineau's Complete Guide to the English Lakes, 1855

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Page 22:-
[Amble]side, at Troutbeck Bridge, and at Staveley. But the charcoal-burning goes on still, we believe, with some activity in these southern parts of the district. The one the traveller has just passed was the scene of the life of two brothers whose name and fame will not be let die. Their name was Dodgson; and they lived in Cartmel Fell above a century ago. They were so intent on their wood-cutting that they spent Sunday in cooking their food for the whole week. They ate little but oatmeal porridge; and, when that fell short, they tried Friar Tuck's ostensible diet of dried peas and hard beans. As they grew old, they began to feel the need of domestic help. Said the one to the other, "Thou mun out and tait a wife." "Yes!" was the reply; "if thear be a hard job, thou olus sets yan tult." The thing was accomplished, however; and when the old fellows were still chopping away at upwards of eighty, rain or shine, ill or well, there was the wife in the dwelling, and children to help. The brothers left considerable property; but it went the way of miser's money; and there are no Dodgson's now in Cartmel Fell.
  charcoal burning
All the way to Furness, there are specimens of roads and lanes which are locally called Ore gates (ways,) from their being constructed from the slag and refuse of the iron-ore formerly brought into the peninsula to be smelted, on account of the abundance of charcoal there. There are few objects more picturesque, to this day, than the huts of the woodcutters, who remain on a particular spot till their work is done. Upon piled stems of trees heather is heaped, to make a shaggy
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