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start of Cumberland |
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Page 183:-
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Cockermuth.
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Cockermouth
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"Cokermuth, a market town, standing on the west side
of Darwent, four or five miles from the se shore and 20 from
Carluel [h]." It is a large borough town with broad streets,
washed by the Derwent, and divided by the Cocker, at whose
mouth it stands; the inhabitants amount to 3 or 4000; the
manufactory is shalloons, worsted stockings and hats. The
castle, built by Waltheof first lord of Allendale, and son
of Gospatrick earl of Northumberland t. Conq. or by William
de Meschines lord of the honor of Cockermouth, stands on an
artificial hill, is square, and has several towers. On each
side the second gate two spacious dungeons. It was burnt in
the civil war [i]. The town gives title of viscount to the
earl of Egremont, to whom the castle came by the Percies as
to them from the Lucies and Pipards [k].
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Pap castle.
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roman fort, Papcastle
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Pap castle, perhaps contracted from Pipard its
owner, is said to have been demolished, and the materials
employed to build Cockermouth castle [l]. It is in Bridekirk
parish, which is a large one.
Mr. Routh thus describes the ruins discovered at Pap castle,
Jan. 16, 174½ (sic) [m].
"I made particular enquiry of the man in whose grounds they
were discovered and of some of the neighbours present at the
discovery. The close in which they lay is a little to the
south of the fort, on the declivity of the hill to the
river, and bounded on the west by a narrow lane, probably
the Via militaris continued, and is usually shewn to
strangers as the most remarkable here for finding Roman
coins.
"These are the largest ruins ever known to be discovered in
these parts: for they met with three walls besides the
pavement; the first lay east and west and was covered with
earth near a foot high: parallel to it at seven yards they
found a second, and between these two about two yards deep
(the height of the walls, which were six yards broad and
strongly cemented), they came to a pavement curiously laid
with large flags three-quarters of a yard square and two or
three inches thick, as I measured them: but imagining there
must be money under it, they covered it up till night, and
then tore it all up. It was composed of flags of different
thickness: under the thinner was a coarse strong cement
which caused them to be broken in taking up, but the thicker
are pretty entire. Part of the wall stood on the floor, and
the edge was secured by a fine red cement two inches thick,
supposed to be intended to keep the floor dry. They imagined
themselves at the corner of the building, the third wall
standing at right angles with the first, and the second
parallel to the stoney lane, on which was an old hedge. On
the floor they found a stone trough or rather base of a
pillar about a foot high, and the hollowed part square and
two inches deep.
"They likewise found a small earthen patera, which I
procured, of the fine red clay, beautifully smooth, with
letter impressed on the bottom, but so defaced as not to be
intelligible. Some years ago, the man's father who found
these ruins dug up a conduit. The owner had no coins nor
knew of any. One of his neighbours shewed me a large brass
one defaced."
Mr. Routh in another letter to Mr. Gale [n] April 13, 1743,
describes a fibula, a coin of Trajan, ... IANO AVG. ... P.
M. Rev. the emperor seated on a pile of arms, a trophy
before him, S.P.Q.R. OPTI ... S. C. and two oaken pieces of
the adjoining timber of a house which appeared to have been
burnt, in the garden of Jerom Tully, esq; of Carlisle. The
earth as far as they dug was artificial, and antiquities are
only found at a considerable depth.
Dr. Stukeley [o] says the Roman castrum lies on the top of
the hill above the village, and he traced its whole
circumference, a bit of the Roman wall by the river side
going to Wigton, and there the ditch is plainly visible,
though half filled up with the rubbish of the wall. A
subterraneous vault, floored with large slabs of freestone,
was found in the pasture of the south-east angle. The name
of Boroughs includes both closes where it stood, and
they find stones and slates with iron pins in them, coins,
&c. on the whole spot below it towards the water side.
It was a beautiful and well-chosen plan, on the south-west
side of a hill, a noble river running under, and pretty good
country about it. Coins of Claudius, Adrian, and a silver
Geta, PONT. rev. PRINCEPS IVVENTVTIS. He supposes its
antient name DERVENTIO derived from the Derwent.
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Eglesfield.
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Eaglesfield
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Eglesfield gave name to the antient family, lords of
the manor, of whom was Robert Eglesfield, rector of Brough
c. Westmorland, and founder of Queen's college, Oxford [p].
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Bridekirk.
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Bridekirk, font
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The font at Bridekirk was copied for the late bishop
Lyttelton, and engraved in Archaeol. II. p.131. It exhibits
in rude relief the expulsion of Adam and Eve out of
Paradise, and the baptism of Christ, over which may perhaps
be the serpent with the forbidden fruit. The other two sides
are charged with grotesques and foliage, and on the south is
the inscription in Runic characters on a scroll. Bishop
Nicolson in a long and learned letter to sir William Dugdale
1685, reads it Er Ekard men egroten & to dis men red
wer Taner men brogten; which he explains, Here Ekard
was converted, and to this man's example were the Danes
brought. He considers the characters a mixture of Runic
and Saxon, and the language made up of Danish and Saxon.
Bishop Lyttelton imagines the font older than the event here
commemorated, and the inscription added at the time it
happened, though he justly doubted its being found at Pap
castle, as it could have no connection with that station.
Ekard might give the font after his conversion. Wormius gave
a very different explanation in a letter to Spelman 1634.
Haraldus cumulum fecit & lapides erexit in memoriam
matris amp; Mabroki; which gives the letters from
Camden's copy so different from bishop Nicolson that one
would doubt if they had ever been truly copied. Camden's
letters are certainly incorrect to a degree, and Wormius had
no other copy; whereas bishop Nicolson professes to have
exactly written them out from the stone. Dr, Hickes in a
letter to bishop Nicolson says, the letters seem to be
Dano-Saxonic, consequently neither good Danish nor good
Saxon. On comparing the three copies of Camden, Wormius, and
Nicolson, it appears that Camden gives 36, Nicolson 34
(omitting the 30th and 31st, which in the Archaeologia copy
by Mr. Ainsley
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[h]
Lel. VII. 71.
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[i]
Pennant, 41. Grose.
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[k]
Grose. Buck. Stukeley, II. 48. Burn, II. 65.
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[l]
Pennant.
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[m]
Letter to Mr. Gale. Reliq. Gal. p.445.
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[n]
Ib. p.446.
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[o]
It. II. 51.
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[p]
Burn, II. 60.
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are
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gazetteer links
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-- Cockermouth Castle
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-- "Cokermuth" -- Cockermouth
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-- "Eglesfield" -- Eaglesfield
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-- "Pap Castle" -- Pap Castle
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-- "Derventio" -- (roman fort, Papcastle)
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-- St Bridget's Church
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