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former Times, but now much decay'd, and inhabited chiefly by
Miners, who have their smelting Houses here for the Black lead.
It is 218 Miles computed. and 283 measured from London.
The Market here is on Saturdays, and the Fair on the
22d of July. The Black Lead Mines near this Place
are the only Mines of the same Kind in Britain. On the
N.E. of Keswick, lies
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Penrith, or, as it is usually call'd Perith, which,
in the British Language, is a Red Hill, or Head, because
the Ground hereabouts, and the Stone of which it is built, are
both reddish. It is a large well built Town, and esteem'd the
second in the County for Trade and Wealth. The Market-House,
which is a great Convenience to the People resorting thither to
sell their Goods, is a large Building, beautify'd with Bears
climbing up a ragged Staff, the Devise of the Earls of
Warwick.
The W. Side of this Town was fortify'd with a Castle now in
Ruins. The Church is an handsome spacious Edifice, but hath
nothing further remarkable but an Inscription in rude Characters,
set up for a Monument to Posterity, upon the N. Outside of the
Vestry Wall: Fuit Pestis, &c. i.e. There was a Plague in
this County in 1598, whereof died at Kendal, 2500; at
Richmond, 2200; at Penrith, 2266; and at
Carlisle, 1196: Which Relation is the more observable, and
worth our Notice, because we have no Account of this Accident in
any of our Histories. In King Henry VIII's Days, it was
honour'd with the Title of a Suffragen Bishop.
In the Church Yard of this Place, on the N. Side of the Church
are two large pyramidal Pillars, erected about four Yards high
each of them, and about five Yards distant from one another:
These, it is said, were set up in Memory of one Sir Owen
Caesar, Knight, in old Time, a famous Warrior of great
Strength and Stature, who lived in these Parts, and kill'd wild
Boars in the Parish of Englewood, which much infested the
Country: He was bury'd here, and, as Tradition reports, was of
that prodigious Stature, as to reach from one Pillar to the
other; to which it farther adds, That the rude Figures of Boars,
which are wrought in the Stone, and placed on each Side of his
Grave, are in
Memory
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