Gents Mag 1849 part 2 p.249
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introduction | ||
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list, 2nd qtr 19th century | ||
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continued from | ||
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Gentleman's Magazine 1849 part 2 p.249
(Continued from page 143) THE history of this ancient hall is soon told. Like many other houses of its class throughout Westmerland, it was once the residence of a true-hearted race of cavaliers, who in those days of civil strife when in the hearts of the majority of the nation "loyalty was a creed" were, like the Stricklands of Sizergh, the Laybournes of Cunswick, the Rawlinsons of Cark, the Prestons of the Abbey, the Kirkby's of Kirkby, the Flemings of Rydal, and most of the other families of ancient descent in the county, distinguished in all their branches for a proud faithfulness to the royal standard through the baleful commotions of those evil times. Their cause, however, overthrown, ruin pressed hard upon them, and the survivors suffered severely in their estates from the fines and sequestrations imposed by the predominant party, in revenge for their unsubdued loyalty, or, as the ruling powers were pleased to term it, "their former delinquencies," in consequence of which they had been declining ever since the period of those unhappy broils. their descendants in the male line are now extinct; and their cherished home, where their ancestors had lived, and been memorable for their hospitality, has, like them, undergone ruinous changes also. "Its old hearths have grown cold," and passed into other hands; it alone remains a scathed and ivy-grown memorial of the direful ravages and harsh realities of intestine warfare. The family to whom in the days of its early pride this old hall on the sunny banks of Windermere belonged were of a race whose genealogy had been counted back for centuries. They owned not only it and extensive demesnes, which reached some miles along the shores of the lake from Low Wood to Rayrigg, consisting of beautiful woods and rich pasture grounds, but also Crooke and Holling Halls, with much of the surrounding country. The local historians tell us it has a traditionary account in their almost forgotten story that they derived their descent from Philip a younger son of the ancient Northumbrian house of De Thirlwall, who settled in Westmerland in the reign of Henry the Fourth, and whose heir from his father took the name Philipson, it being about that period that the termination "son," at the end of a Christian name, began to be first used, and hence arose their surname. More recent research through ancient archives has nenertheless ascertained that the family was settled in Westmerland at least so far back as the reign of Edward the Third; for, in an inquisition relative to the possessions of the chantry of St. Mary Holme, taken in 1355, the name of John Philipson is mentioned as the holder of certain lands belonging to that foundation. In the course of time their alliances connected them with most of the chief families in the county; and, having become possessed of large estates, they fixed the principal places of their residence at Holling, and Crooke or Thwatterden Halls, which latter abode in the time of Queen Elizabeth again became the seat of a younger branch of the house of Calgarth. The learned historian whom I have before cited says:- "The two branches long retained a considerable rank in the county of Westmerland. It was, however, long a matter of dispute which of the houses belonging to the Philipsons was the ancientest; some say the ancientest house was Holling Hall, about half-way between Kendal and Bowness, on the right of the road leading from the latter place, near Strickland Ketel; others affirmed that Thwatterden, or Crooke Hall, not very far from Holling Hall, but on the left-hand side of the same road nearer to Bowness, was the ancienter house of the two, though it was afterwards given to a younger brother."Be this as it may, in Edward the Fourth's reign Rowland Philipson, of Holling Hall, was the head of his race. His family consisted of two sons, Edmund and Robert, by his wife Katharine, the daughter of Richard Carus of Astwaite. Contiguous to the Philip- |
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