button to main menu   Ford's Description of the Lakes, 1839/1843

button title page
button previous page button next page
Page 76:-
[pro]bably built by William de Meschiens, first lord of the barony of Copeland, to which he was presented by his brother Ranulph, who held Cumberland and Westmorland under William the Conqueror. Little of it remains at present. The principal part is the keep. The arch of the gate-way is the horse-shoe arch, and its groining is by plain cross-springers. The outward wall has, from its base upwards, ten courses of herring-boned work. The other arches which remain are three in number, pointed and covered with ivy. But within these few years, this building has suffered more from wanton spoliation than from the ravages of time. There is nothing worth notice in the town; it is small, neat, and clean; the houses adjoining the market-place have many of them rude colonnades of wood in front, under which the corn is exposed for sale during rainy weather. The church, dedicated to Saint Mary, has been much modernized; the east end is circular in its centre, with flat wings, each containing two pointed windows, ornamented by a single shaft. The name of Egremont signifies the 'Mount of sorrow:' but it must not be confounded with Wotobank, which is two miles from the castle.
  St Bees
From Egremont it is four miles to Saint Bees; which is a long village reaching down the side of a ridge into a deep, contracted vale, which embraces in a semi-circular sweep the bold bluff heads. It is chiefly celebrated for its grammar-school, and for its abbey.
gazetteer links
button -- Egremont Castle
button -- "Egremont" -- Egremont
button -- "St Bees" -- St Bees
button -- St Mary and St Michael's Church
button -- "Wotobank" -- Wodow Bank
button next page

button to main menu Lakes Guides menu.