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St Kentigern's Church, Great
Crosthwaite
CROSTHWAITE CHURCH, CUMBERLAND,
THE BURIAL-PLACE OF SOUTHEY.
Something in this aspiring world we need
To keep our spirits lowly,
To set within our hearts sweet thoughts and holy.
'Tis for this they stand,
The old grey churches of our native land.
- MARY HOWITT.
THE town of Keswick, in the parish of Crosthwaite, is
situated in one of the largest and most beautiful vales in
Cumberland, at the northern extremity of the lake district,
on the high road, and nearly midway between the towns of
Ambleside, Cockermouth, and Penrith. It is so well known, on
account of the many scenes of picturesque loveliness with
which its immediate neighbourhood abounds, heightened as
they are by the romance which encircles the name of
Derwentwater, and the glory reflected from the laurels that
grace the tomb of Southey, that any further description is
unnecessary. It will only be added, that, on the authority
of one who knew the place about a century ago, it has been
"more considerable formerly than now." The aspect of the
country around has also undergone much change since that
time, and many of the vestiges of its earlier years have
almost wholly passed away. The translucent lakes and the
majestic hills, in all their imposing durability of feature,
are still as of old; but the wide amd magnificent forests,
which, within a century, covered the land between the town
and the lake, have long since fallen beneath the ruthless
axe, which has caused so many of the finest woods in this
country to disappear without leaving a trace behind. "Ah!"
exclaims Walker the philosopher, a native of this alpine
district, in his Tour from London to the Lakes in 1791, "how
fallen is the scenery around the lake and vale of Keswick
since I saw it in the year 1749, when Crow Park, Friar's
Crag, Lord's Island, and indeed all the shores and islands
of this beautiful lake, were covered with tall oaks. The
view must have been striking when a child of ten years old,
as I was then, had such an impression made by it as not to
be erased for forty years, - nay, I think I could draw it
from memory at this hour, if I had time. The wood was so
even at top, each tree being about eighteen yards high and
very thick, that it looked like a field, and the branches so
interwoven, that boys could have gone from tree to tree like
squirrels." We must not, however, dwell with lengthened
regret on that which in the wisdom of the present day, may
we deemed an unwise lament for the extinction of the ancient
sylvan glories of the scene, but hasten to the immediate
subject of this sketch.
In the second volume of "Sir Thomas More, or Colloquies on
the Progress and Prospects of Society," its learned author,
whose residence in this charming vale has so strongly
connected it with every classic remembrance of his age, in a
brief notice of the church of Crosthwaite, assigns it an
antiquity as far back as Norman times; and, in the story of
its patron saint, he exhibits one of those fanciful
creations of monastic romance which formerly received the
meed of universal credence. "Alice de Romeli," says Southey,
"heiress of Egremont and Skipton, who, in the reign of
Stephen or his successor, married the Lord of Allerdale, is
supposed to have been the person by whom it was founded and
endowed, and who subsequently gave it to Fountains Abbey. It
was soon after appropriated to that monastery, the collation
being reserved to the Bishops of Carlisle. Wiliam Fitz
Duncan, the husband of this Alice, was son to the Earl of
Murray, and brother to David, King of Scotland; and this may
perhaps explain why the church was dedicated to the Scotch
saint, Kentigern, Bishop of Glasgow, and patron saint of
that cathedral, a personage once high among the saints of
that age, though now utterly forgotten here, in the parish
where, during so many generations, his festival used to be
celebrated on the thirteenth of January. Here followeth his
legend, which hagiologists have related without scruple, and
which
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