button to main menu  Camden's Britannia, edn 1789

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Page 132:-
  Windermere lake
which William Marescall the elder, earl of Pembroke, built and endowed a priory. If we read with some copies of Ptolemy SETANTIORUM λιμεν and not SETANTIORUM λνμεν I would venture to affirm that these Britans were named SETANTII. For among these hills is the largest lake in England, called Winander mere, Saxon [WinBF;adre-mer - Anglo Saxon], probably from its windings on a bed of almost one stone continued for near ten miles with crooked banks, and, according to the reports of the inhabitants of an immense depth, abounding with a species of fish peculiar to itself, called by the people thereabouts chare. It has a small village of its own name on it, where A.D. 792, Eathred king of Northumberland slew the sons of king Elfwold, whom he had forced from York to establish himself on the throne by his own wickedness and their blood [s].
  Walney island. Pile of Fouldrey.
  Walney Island
  Piel Castle

Between this lake and the river Dudden runs out the point commonly called Fornesse, to which is opposed for a long way as a kind of breast-work Walney island, divided from it by a narrow channel, the entrance to which is guarded by the Pile of Fouldrey as it is called, built by one of the abbots of Fornesse on a rock in the midst of the sea 1 Edward III.
  Fornesse abbey. Aldingham. The Harringtons. Ulverston. Lords of Gynes.
  Furness Abbey
  Aldingham
  Ulverston

On the point itself nothing is to be seen but the walls of Fornesse abbey, built A.D. 1127, by Stephen earl of Boulogne, afterwards king of England, in a place formerly called Bekensgill, or rather transferred from Tulket in Andernesse [A;]. Out of the monks of this abbey, and from no other (as they themselves have said) the bishops of the isle of Man, which lies overagainst it, used to be chosen by antient custom: it being as it were the mother of many monasteries in Man and Ireland. More to the east is Aldingham, the antient estate of the family of Harrington, to whom it came from the Flemings by the Cancefelds, and their estate passed by a daughter to William Bonvill [t] in Devonshire [u], and at length by him to the Greys marquisses of Dorset. A little higher up is Ulverston, memorable for the grant of a moiety of it by Edward III. to John Coupland, a gallant soldier, whom he advanced to the rank of banneret for taking David II. king of Scots prisoner at the battle of Durham. But after his death the same king bestowed it with other estates in this county, and the title of earl of Bedford on Ingelram lord Coucy [x], who had married his daughter Isabell, and whose ancestors had great possessions in England in right of Christiana de Lindesay.
... ... ... ...
The rest of Lancashire is not transcribed; until the Additions.
132.[A;]   Furness register.
[s] Hist. of Mailros, p.139. ed. Gale.
[t] Somersetshire. Holland.
[u] Dugd. Bar. II. 236.
[x] Dugdale Bar. I. 760.
gazetteer links
button -- "Aldingham" -- Aldingham
button -- "Carthmell" -- Cartmel
button -- "Fornesse Abbey" -- Furness Abbey
button -- "Forness Fels" -- Furness Fells
button -- "Pile of Fouldrey" -- Piel Castle
button -- "Ulverston" -- Ulverston
button -- "Walney Island" -- Walney Island
button -- "Winander Mere" -- Windermere lake
button -- "Winander Mere" -- Windermere
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