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Page 26:-
objects and stile. On one side is the lake; on another a
beautiful and cultivated scene, composed of water, wood, and
hills; on another, high, rugged, and broken rocks,
interspersed with here and there a green shrub; and on the
other is a beautiful view up the lake, including the rugged
and varied hills on the opposite side, together with
Helveylin and its craggy inferiors.
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echoes
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Here fire a gun or two to rouse the echoes from the hills;
the traveller will be astonished to hear them like repeated
peals of thunder, some linger, some shorter, now seeming
like the crash of worlds, now reverberating only in hollow
murmurs. The effect of martial music is inconceivable, more
particularly when joined to the reports of the guns. Every
note is re-echoed in ten thousand varied tones; sometimes
the ear fancies it perceives something of a regular strain,
then again all relapses into such a mixture of wildness and
harmony as is beyond the reach of art; whilst that savage
uproar which the guns occasion, disturbs at intervals the
softer harmony, and impresses the mind with ideas awfully
pleasing.
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Old Church
Gowbarrow
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About a mile further up is Old Church, so called from a
church or chapel formerly situated there: This seems to have
been pretty large, for the present house stands upon part of
the ruins of an old building. It is said, but I think
without reason, to have been standing in the reign of Edward
the III. I am in possession of an admission of Anthony
Rumney as tenant of two tenements at Gowbarrow-Hall, and
part of a tenement at Old Church: this admission farther
sets forth, that the parochial chapel and the burying-ground
was then at Gowbarrow-Hall; and as it is dated in 1474, we
must naturally conclude that the destruction of the church
at this hamlet must have long preceded the reign of Edward
the III.
The chapel at Gowbarrow being destroyed by the Scots, this
place was without any place of worship till some years
afterwards, when a chapel was built about a mile from the
water: this was consecrated in the year 1558, (as appears
from a memorandum in an old Bible,) by Bishop Oglethorpe
when on his road to crown Queen Elizabeth. There is a
tradition that this chapel served both sides of the water,
and that they passed over in boats.
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anecdote of a clergyman
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An anecdote took its rise at this chapel, which is so
whimsical that I cannot help relating it. At a little
distance from the chapel is an hill, commonly known by the
name of the Priests Cragg: it was formerly covered
with wood of different kinds, and was about 120 years ago
the common resort of the country people for hunting,
gathering nuts, and other diversions: these they put in
practice on the Sunday, to the great disturbance of the
congregation, as their shouting, swearing, and squalling,
were very distinctly heard in the chapel. This roused the
pious wrath of the minister, Mr Dawson, who accordingly one
Sunday reproved and threatned (sic) them in these words: "O
ye wicked of Water-Millock, and ye perverse of New Kirk, ye
go a whoring, a hunting, a roving, and a nutting on the
Sabbath-day, but on my soul if you go any more I'll go with
you!" The parson was a keen hunter, and his expression of,
I'll go with you, (which in this county's dialect is
a mere threatning phrase,) striking some of the more waggish
of his hearers in a double sense, the sermon and its author
made such a noise, that it came to the ears of Rainbow
Bishop of Carlisle. The Bishop upon this, with concurrence
of the Duke of Norfolk, ordered the wood to be cut down:
this put an end to the profanations there carried on, but
the appelation of the wicked of Water-Millock sticks
to the inhabitants of that place till this day.
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echoes
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Next sail past Skelly-Neb, towards the mountain
Hallin, and at or near Geordy Crag fire your
guns, taking notice to point them towards Gowbarrow-Hall, or
a little above it. The echo here much surpasses that at
Water-Millock, both in the loudness and frequency of its
returns: the most astonishing circumstance is this, every
peal seems to pass over the tops of the mountains in a
whistling tone, as if embodied sound was flying from
place to place in the air. After very numerous repetitions,
various both in
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length
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gazetteer links
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-- All Saints Church
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-- Gowbarrow chapel
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-- "Geordy Neb" -- Geordie's Crag
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-- "Old Church" -- Oldchurch
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-- "Priests Cragg" -- Priest's Crag
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-- "Water Millock" -- Watermillock
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