Gents Mag 1849 part 2 p.585

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	list, 2nd qtr 19th century
	Gentleman's Magazine 1849 part 2 p.585
St Martin's Church   Bowness-on-Windermere
	St Martin's Church, Bowness-on-Windermere WINDERMERE, OR BOWNESS, CHURCH, WESTMERLAND. IT was one of those variable days so characteristic of the early spring, that, in furtherance of my object of collecting information respecting the old family of the Philipsons who in feudal state formerly owned the adjoining hall of Calgarth, I made an excursion to the parish church of Windermere, to examine the monument it was understood to contain, commemorative of an individual of that extinct house. The weather was bitingly cold, with frequent showers of snow and hail, which for moments totally obscured the face of the country. The gale whitened the dark waters of the lake, and caused their tiny billows to lash the sounding shores with the mimic fury of an ocean tempest; yet, immediately succeeding these violent gusts, the vernal sun shining in the blue heavens, would again light up the wide-spreading landscape with a brilliancy the more remarkable by its contrast to the gloom of the hurricane, which soon had swept afar. Much and often as I had admired the scenery of the justly-celebrated lake, which has become almost a proverb for its attractions, I never beheld its glorious expanse to greater perfection than from the road which, branching from the highway to Kendal, leads along an undulating elevation to Bowness; and never did the appearance of its upper reach so strongly impress me with its resemblance to the luxuriant glory of those Italian lakes, which have been so exquisitely rendered by the pencil of that glowing transcriber of nature - our English Stanfield. The church of Windermere, a venerable and spacious erection, dedicated to St. Martin, is in the centre of the small and somewhat foreign-looking village of Bowness. It is the only relic remaining of our forefathers in this pleasing spot, though Bowness can lay claim to a considerable antiquity, it having been known as a town or village in Saxon times; and in the Melrose Chronicle it is mentioned as the place where, in 791, Eldred, a thane of that race, slew Elf and Edwin, the sons of Elfwald. Seen from the lake, in the brightness of summer's eventide, its sunlit tower, rising among trees, Gothic gables, and the campaniles of tasteful buildings, "Like one that seeketh, through the years gone by, For some lost hope that was surpassing fair," has a beautiful and picturesque effect. It stands almost on the margin of the water, on the edge of what was once the village green, and within a burial ground, whose verdant sward is nearly surrounded by the sombre foliage of a number of flourishing yew trees, under whose shade the sumptuous tombs, which human pride has erected over its kindred dust, are glaringly contrasted with the numerous grassy hillocks that mark the resting places of the simple forefathers of this pretty hamlet. Few of those lowly graves are distinguished by head-stones or other sepulchral memorials, yet on one that is to be met with, the following inscription, calculated from the quaintness of its conclusion to attract attention, is perhaps worth transcribing:- In memory of Thomas Ullock, who died 19 October, 1791, aged 71 years. Poor Tom! came here to lie from battles of Dettingen and Fontenay in 1743 and 1745. Of the date when the church was founded there are not, it is supposed, any records in existence that speak with certainty. In ages long ago, the parish, like that of Grasmere, was a chapelry only, within the parish of Kendal; but through the length of time, and little or no communication with the mother church, by reason of the distance, it acquired the reputation of a distinct parochial division. It is nevertheless stated that in token of subjection to the mother church, the rector of Windermere pays to this day an annual pension of 13s. 4d. to the vicar of Kendal. At the appropriation of the church of Kendal to the abbey of St. Mary, in York, by Ivo de Tailbois, first baron of Kendal after the Conquest, the patronage of Wynandermere chapel, as it was called, was excepted. In Edward the Third's time the patronage was in Ingelram de
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	-- Bowness-on-Windermere
	-- St Martin's Church
	-- (St Martin, Bowness-on-Windermere (MEMLinc))

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