button to main menu  Clarke's Survey of the Lakes, 1787

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Page 40:-
the British Empire: since his death, in 1759, the school has been much upon the decline. This school was founded in the year 1649 by D. Langbane, Provost of Queen's College, Oxon: It has since received several donations, and is now of considerable value.
  cock penny
  cock fighting

At this, and most of the other schools in Westmorland and Cumberland, it is customary for the master to give the scholars a prize to fight cocks for: the master for this receives what is called the Cock-Penny, being a present according to the ability of the scholar, and the cock-fighting is held either at Shrovetide or Easter. This custom seems to have originated in that care which was taken here to instill into youth a martial and enterprizing spirit. This farther appears from the founders having ordered matters so, that in many schools half of the Master's salary depends on the cock-pennies; and if the master refuses to give the customary prize, the scholars withhold their present. At some schools, two captains are elected by the boys, who each fight a cock for the prize; and the winner has great honours conferred upon him in the presence of all the neighbourhood, who never fail to assemble upon these occasions. When these are the practices inculcated into early youth, we need not wonder at that spirit which has so often displayed itself to the terror and destruction of all opposers. In short, in the border-counties, every amusement, from the trifling plays of children to the laborious sports of manhood, seem to have one uniform tendency; I mean a tendency to train and inure the inhabitants to war and danger, and to make them undertake with indifference and coolness the most hazardous enterprize.
Opposite to Barton school-house is a field called Dodgey-Rays, whither Mr Wilson used always to send any of his boys who were imperfect in their tasks, in order to get them better. So common and well known was this punishment, that to send a person to Dodgey-Rays is become a proverbial expression in this county.
  St Michael, Barton
The Church of Barton is an old building, and in a situation which reflects the highest disgrace on the Earl of Lonsdale, the vicar, and the owner of the rectorial tythes, who are bound to repair it. Upon the chancel there is scarcely any covering, nor one window with glass in it; nay, only a few years ago, Mr Hassel's hounds actually killed a hare in it. The patronage belongs to the Earl of Lonsdale, and is rated in the King's books at 11l. 1s. 0 ½d. Before the dissolution of the monasteries it belonged to Watre in Yorkshire: it was then given by Henry VIII. to the Earl of Rutland, who sold it to Lancelot Lancaster of Stockbridge, or Sockbridge. In the Lancaster family it continued until that family ended in a daughter, who was married to Sir Christopher Lowther, one of the ancestors of the present Earl.
  Dawes Family
On a brass plate in the chancel is the following monumental inscription of the Dawes's, an ancient and respectable family:
"Hic jacet Francisca Dawes, filia Thomae Fletcher de Strickland, armigeri, natu maxima, perquam charissima, quidam et perdilecta uxor Lancelot Dawes de Barton Kirke, generosi. Quae huic mundo spe multo melioris 23 Feb. valedixit, Anno AEtatis 23, Anno Dom. 1673.

I.
"Under this stone, reader, interr'd doth lye
Beauty and virtue's true epitomy.
At her appearance the Noon-sun
Blush'd, and shrunk in cause quite outdone.

II.
"In her concenter'd did all graces dwell:
God pluck'd my rose that he might take a smell.
I'll say no more; but, weeping, wish I may
Soon with thy dear chaste ashes come to lay.
"Sic efflevit maritus." ---
Above
gazetteer links
button -- "Dodgey Rays" -- Dodgie Raise
button -- St Michael's Church
button -- Wayside
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