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

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Page 45:-

BOOK SECOND.


book 2
  chapter 1

  Penrith to Keswick
ROAD to KESWICK.


CHAP. I.

Stainton, -- Remarkable Family, -- Old Sepulchral Remains, -- Singular Antique, -- Sketch of the History of the Knights Templars, -- View of Greystock Castle, -- Account of the Noble Family of Howard, -- Penruddock, -- Motherby, -- Roman Antiquities, -- Head of the River Petterel, -- Stone-Carron, -- Ancient Diversions, -- Specimen of the Language, -- Mell-Fell, -- Funeral Customs, -- Strange Phaenomenon, -- Terrible Inundation, -- Saddleback-Fell, -- Threlkeld, -- An Eccentric Clergyman, -- Druids Temple, -- Castles, -- River Greata, -- Remains of Buildings on the Banks of the River.
  Stainton
  Bristo Family

HAVING seen every thing worthy of notice in the environs of Ulswater, we next proceed towards Keswick, and its neighbouring Lakes. Setting out from Penrith, we pass the Castle, and a small road that turns off towards Greystock, (one of the seats of the Duke of Norfolk,) and arrive at the pleasant village of Stainton: here we see rural wealth and tranquillity displayed in the liveliest colours; the houses are remarkably clean and well built; and if incomes more than adequate to the expenditure of the possessors can be called riches, the inhabitants of Stainton may be styled wealthy. The lands belonging to this village are so remarkable for their fertility, that in the Spring of the year 1785, having occasion to go to London, I did not see any where, (either in Durham, Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, or Essex,) the corn in such forwardness as it was here. There is now living in Stainton one John Bristo, an healthy man, of the great age of ninety-four; eight years ago his family stood as follows:
The Master of the family,aged 86
The Mistress,85
A female servant,79
An Horse,33
A Dog,17
Total,300
His wife lived to the age of eighty-eight, and his servant died two years ago, aged eighty-six, after serving him sixty-four years. It is further remarkable, that after the first four years of her service, she gave him notice that she intended to leave him, and continued to do so regularly every half years afterwards; at length she actually did leave him, and died within two months after her departure.
This venerable villager is remarkably strong built and boney, and has always enjoyed so good a state of health, that he never paid any thing to either surgeon or physician: he is, farther, remarkable for his pacific disposition; never having paid, or caused any one to pay any thing for law. Though naturally silent and diffident, he is, to this day, an eminent promoter of mirth; and will take his glass regularly among chearful company till a moderate hour, when he always retires. He never wore a coat, or any other article of dress, which was not spun in his own family, and the cloth manufactured by a neighbour: his cloathes were also made of the wool of his own sheep, and were either dyed by a neighbour, or what is here called Skiddow-Gras[s] [Skiddow-Grey], viz. black and white wool mixed. His wife was every way his counterpart; and he
has
erratum from p.194
for Skiddow-Grass, read Skiddow-Grey.
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