|
|
|
|
|
|
|
title page |
|
|
|
|
|
previous page
next page |
|
|
|
|
|
start of Lancashire |
|
|
|
Page 131:-
... ... ... ...
|
New way of making salt.
Quicksands.
|
|
|
salt
salt roads
|
|
In many places on this coast one sees heaps of sand, on
which they pour water till they contract a saltness, which
they afterwards boil over turf fires to white salt [o] Here
are likewise some quicksands as they are called, so
dangerous to travellers, who take the shortest way when the
tide is out, that they ought to be particularly careful that
they do not suffer ship-wreck at land, as Sidonius [p]
expresses it: but particularly about the mouth of the
Cocar, where as it were in a land of quicksands
stands Cockersand abbey, a house of Cluniacs,
formerly founded by Ranulphus de Meschines, but
exposed to the violence of the winds between the mouths of
the Cocar and Lune or Lone, and having
an extensive command of the Irish sea.
|
Lune r. Salmon.
Lac r. Over Burrow. BREMETONACUM.
|
|
|
Lune, River
Over Burrow
Bremetonacum
|
|
This river Lone or Lune rising in Westmoreland
hills runs southward between craggy banks and an unequal
channel, inriching those who live on it in the summer months
with a fine salmon fishery; which fish delighting in clear
streams and sandy flats come in shoals to this and other
rivers on this coast. As soon as it visits Lancashire the
little river Lac unites its waters with it from the
east, where now is Over Burrow, a mean country
village, which the inhabitants told us was a great city, and
occupied large fields between the Lac and Lone, and suffered
all the miseries of famine before it surrendered, according
to the tradition handed down to them from their forefathers.
Certain it is that this place asserts its antiquity by
various monuments of antient date, as stones with
inscriptions, tesselated pavements, Roman coins, and this
new name which points out to us a burgh. It must owe
the recovery of the name to others not to me, though I have
sought it with unwearied diligence; nor is the reader to
expect that I should point out the name of every town in
Britain mentioned by Ptolemy, Antoninus, the Notitia, and
the classic authors. If, however, I might be allowed to
conjecture, I should readily suppose it from the distance
from Coccium or Riblechester to be BREMETONACUM, which
Hieronymus Surita the Spaniard has justly in his notes on
Antoninus distinguished from BREMENTURACUM.
|
Thurland c.
Kernellare what? Hornby c. Baron Mont
Eagle. Gunpowder Plot.?
|
|
|
Thurland Castle
Hornby Castle
Gunpowder Plot
|
|
From this Burgh the river Lone passes by Thurland, a
castle of the Tunstalls, built by Thomas Tunstall,
knight of the garter, t. Henry IV. when the king had given
him leave "to fortify and kernell, i.e. embattle his
house:" and Hornby, a noble castle, founded by N. de
Mont Begon, and owned by the Harringtons and
Stanleys, barons Mont Eagle, descended from
Thomas Stanley first earl of Derby [q]. The 3d and last of
them William Stanley left Elizabeth his only daughter and
heiress wife of Edward Parker lord Morley, mother of William
Parker, whom king James invested with his grandfather's
title of Mont Eagle, and we and our posterity must
acknowledge to have been born for the good of the whole
kingdom. For, from an obscure letter privately sent to him,
and by him most opportunely produced, the wickedest plot
which the most accomplished villainy could contrive, was
detected when the kingdom was on the eve of destruction,
when certain wretches, under the cursed mask of religion,
lodged a great quantity of gunpowder under the
parliament-house, and waited to fire it and blow up their
king and country in a moment.
|
Lancaster.
LONGOVICUM.
|
|
|
Lancaster
|
|
|
Longovicum
Romans
|
|
The Lone proceeding a few miles further, sees on its south
bank the chief town of the county, called more properly by
the natives Loncaster, as also by the Scots, who gave
it the name of Loncastell from the river Lone. Both
the name and the river running by it prove it to be
LONGOVICUM, where under the Dux Britaniarum, according to
the Notitia, was stationed the Numerus
Longovicariorum, who took their name from the place.
Though it be at present but thinly peopled, and all the
inhabitants farmers (the country about it being cultivated,
open, flourishing and not bare of wood,) in proof of its
Roman antiquity they sometimes find coins of emperors,
especially at the friery. For that is said to be the site of
the antient city, which the Scots burnt, after laying waste
all before them in a sudden inroad A.D. 1322. From that time
they began to build nearer the green hill on the river, on
which stands a castle of no great size or antiquity, but
handsome and strong: and by it on the same hill is the only
church where formerly some alien monks had a house [r].
Below this at the beautiful bridge over the Lone on the
steep of the hill hangs a piece of very old wall of Roman
work, called the Wery wall, from the later British
name of this town as it should seem. For the Britans called
this town Caer Werid or the Green City,
perhaps from that green hill; but this I leave to others.
John lord of Moriton and Lancaster, afterwards king of
England, "confirmed to his burgesses of Lancaster by charter
all the liberties that he had granted to the burgesses of
Bristol;" and Edward III. a.r. 36, "granted to the mayor and
baillifs of the town of Lancaster that the pleas and
sessions should be holden no where else." Lancaster stands
in N. latitude 54B0; 5′ and in W longitude
20° 48′.
|
Forness Forness
fels. Carthmell.
|
|
|
sands
Furness
Cartmel
|
|
While I was looking round from this hill for the mouth of
the Lone which empties itself not much below,
Forness, the other part of this county, almost torn
off by the sea, presented itself to my view. For the shore
here running out a great way to the west, the sea, as if
enraged at it, lashes it more furiously, and, in high tides.
has even devoured the shore, and made three large bays, viz.
Kentsand, into which the river Ken empties
itself, Levensand and Duddensand, between
which the land projects in such a manner that it has its
name thence, Foreness and Foreland signifying
the same with us as Promontorium anterius in Latin.
This whole tract, except on the coast, rises in high hills
and vast piles of rocks called Forness fels, among
which the Britans found a secure retreat, trusting to these
natural fortresses, though nothing was inaccessible to the
victorious Saxons. For we find the Britans settled here 228
years after the arrival of the Saxons, because at that time
Egfrid, king of Northumberland, gave St. Cuthbert the land
called Carthmell, and all the Britans in it, as is
related in his life. It is well known that Carthmell
is a part of this tract near Kentsand, and the same name is
retained in a little town there, in
|
|
[o]
See Ray's Northern words, p.209. G. and West's Furness,
p.191.
|
|
[p]
[blank]
|
|
[q]
and advanced to that title by Henry VIII. H.
|
|
[r]
founded by Roger of Poitiers. H.
|
|
which
|
|
|
|
gazetteer links
|
|
-- "Carthmell" -- Cartmel
|
|
-- "Duddensand" -- Duddon Sands
|
|
-- "Forness Fels" -- Furness Fells
|
|
-- "Foreness" -- Furness
|
|
-- "Hornby Castle" -- Hornby Castle
|
|
-- "Kentsand" -- Lancaster Sands
|
|
-- "Loncaster" -- Lancaster
|
|
-- "Lac, River" -- Leck Beck
|
|
-- "Lone, River" -- Lune, River
|
|
-- "Over Burrow" -- Over Burrow
|
|
-- "Thurland Castle" -- Thurland Castle
|
|
-- "Levensand" -- Ulverston Sands
|
|
|
|
|
|
next page |
|
|
|
|
|
|