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

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page xxxviii:-
within these last 20 years. Plumpton was first disparked by Henry VIII. and rendered an habitation of men; it was afterwards made a manor, and given by James I. to the Lord Maxwell of Scotland: moreover, the word Thwaite, Moor, Wood, &c. which make a part of the names of so many villages, evidence their situation in former times. Omitting, however, further extracts from the accounts which are furnished by manuscripts, or are printed, I shall just quote the relation of the first settlement of Caldbeck and its neighbouring places. A high way, or beaten street (the vestiges of which are yet to be seen) extended from Westmoreland along the mountain called High-Street into the eastern side of Cumberland, and thence westward through Caldbeck; a passage than which one more ugly, crooked, uneven, or dangerous, cannot easily be conceived. Caldbeck was, long after the conquest, a savage waste, untamed by human industry; and the rest of this road lay through grounds still wilder in their nature, and for the most part utterly devoid to this day of improvement, of which indeed they are not capable. Robbers, therefore, who haunted the woods and mountains through which it passed, made it exceedingly dangerous; on which account Randolph Engaine, chief forester of Englewood, allowed the Prior of Carlisle to erect an hospital for the relief of such passengers as might happen to be assaulted, and stripped or wounded by those robbers, or stopped in their journey by the snows and storms of Winter. The Prior had also leave to inclose a part where the church now stands, and this inclosure became afterwards a portion of the church-glebe; but the forester would not grant to this establishment the right of the soil, because large deer lodged in the woods of the mountains around it, and the whole district was then used as a park or forest; besides, the right of the soil belonged properly to the heirs of the Barons of Allerdale, of the state of which family at this a time a pretty regular account is given. After the foundation of the hospital a church was also built in honour of St Mungo and Caldbeck; Uppiton (Uppertown) became fully inhabited; Hesket next, and Halt-Cleugh (or High-Cliff, from the rock above it) were tilled, being likely for producing corn, and called Caldbeck Underfell. The Priors of Carlisle were, by William de Vescy and Burga his wife, and by dame Alice Romeley lady of Allerdale, made patrons of the rectory; upon which, about the reign of King John, they dissolved the hospital, and endowed the church with the lands belonging to it. In the reign of Henry III. one John Francigena, or French, kinsman of Gilbert François, or French, Lord of Routhcliff, was parson of Caldbeck, and procured a large inclosure upon the adjoining hill, which is called Warnel-Fell; but the Monks of Holm-Cultram now interfered, and raised such a litigation with respect to his right to this parcel, that he was glad, for the sake of peace, to consign half of it to them. As memorials of these affairs, there still remain several names of places in and about Caldbeck, such as that of Friar-Hall, and of Parson-Park, or of the inclosure upon Warnell-Fell that has already been mentioned.
So much of the soil and its first cultivation. It will probably be said, that in such circumstances agriculture must be in a state much inferior to that of the other counties of England; nor is this wholly without foundation: but the last twenty years have introduced a mighty change; and the present spirit of improvement and industry bids fair for obliterating every such distinction, at least as far as the nature of the country will allow.
  winds
  weather

I pass next to some observations on the winds and weather of the vicinity of these Lakes; with respect to which, though nothing may offer different from what may be found in other mountainous parts of Britain, yet, as I said before, I do not consider them on that account less worthy of notice. I do not mean by winds such as blow from particular quarters, as if any such prevailed here more than elsewhere, but those agitations of the air, or of something else, which are know by the names of Bottom-Wind, Bosom-Wind, and Helm-Wind.
  Bottom Wind
The Bottom-Wind has its name from being supposed formerly, by the country people, to arise from the bottom of those lakes which are situated amongst the mountains, for I know of none in a level country troubled with it. It is indeed puzzling enough to
conceive
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button -- (woods, Cumbria (CL13inc)2)
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