button to main menu  Camden's Britannia, edn 1789

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Page 131:-
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  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 54�B0; 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
button -- "Carthmell" -- Cartmel
button -- "Duddensand" -- Duddon Sands
button -- "Forness Fels" -- Furness Fells
button -- "Foreness" -- Furness
button -- "Hornby Castle" -- Hornby Castle
button -- "Kentsand" -- Lancaster Sands
button -- "Loncaster" -- Lancaster
button -- "Lac, River" -- Leck Beck
button -- "Lone, River" -- Lune, River
button -- "Over Burrow" -- Over Burrow
button -- "Thurland Castle" -- Thurland Castle
button -- "Levensand" -- Ulverston Sands
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