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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.
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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.
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