button to main menu  Clarke's Survey of the Lakes, 1787

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page xxxvii:-
fastnesses in which their enemies took shelter; which may be very true, and the effects of this industry very general, and yet enough may be found for future ages to do, from a renewal of those very causes, and that of the wildness against which the Romans had combated. I have heard also, that King John was very intent on destroying the forests in the North of England, and caused a great quantity of ground to be cleared; but neither of these causes affect much the disforesting of which we now speak, of which the effects are at this day so visible, and which, at least in my opinion, was the work of many ages, and undertaken on very different occasions. Great roads generally carry a degree of cultivation into the particular district through which they pass, and the less important ones, or by-ways, may be supposed to have a similar effect; though we find that in some places of Cumberland those effects were often, nay, for the most part interrupted by the ruggedness of the country, and the robbers that infested such ways. The neighbourhood also of towns and fortified places furnished occasion by the shelter which such places gave to small towns; as was and yet is the case with respect to Carlisle and its adjacent villages, together with many others scattered up and down the country near the ruins of fortresses; others again owe their origin to the collections of sheds and booths under which those lodged who watched the cattle, or the ford of rivers. Of these I have made mention before; but those districts have for the most part been cultivated at a later period than the rest, where the houses stand distinct from one another, each in their own portion of land, and with its own name; for such were inclosed, or at least marked out all at once, and every man fixed his residence in the portion allotted to him, as is at present not uncommon on the inclosure of pasture-grounds. But this implies a security not much experienced in the former times; and of such a kind of regular allotment we have no records, but such as are modern, in comparison of what we know concerning those things which I have already mentioned, as giving occasion to villages, and of course to some degree of cultivation; to as much at least as might, however confined and imperfect, and however far from general, supply the inhabitants with bread, whilst the waste lands supported their cattle, and the woods furnished their game.
When therefore I say that the nature of the soil of these countries particularly inclines them to become forest, I comprise their general character; which I cannot better exemplify, than by taking notice of the prodigious oaks, yews, elms, and other trees which lately were and indeed yet are visible in many places. I may add, that the veins of minerals are numerous in the mountains; that the black-lead of Borrodale is almost a peculiarity; nor is the slate of some quarries much less than one.
  settlement
I subjoin here two or three quotation respecting the first settlement of men on certain parts of the county of Cumberland, or at least the first settlement we are acquainted with, that it may be more clearly understood what was meant in the paragraph preceding the last. We find it mentioned, that Henry III. in the third year of his reign, disforested that part of the Forest of Englewood which is contiguous to the town of Dalston. William de la Wast-dale, a hermit, was the first who made any inclosures in Sabergham. Bewcastle, as it is now called, formerly belonged to the Barony of Brough; it was laid waste entirely by the incursions of the Scots, until its old masters undertook, after a considerable space of time, to feed their cattle there in Summer, and constructed booths and huts for the herdsmen: those becoming permanent habitations, are said to have given the name of Booth-castle, or Bew-castle. to the old Roman fortress which stood there. Adard de Logili, Lord of Wigton, was the firsts who inclosed a parcel of ground near Carlisle, called Blackhill. from a rising ground amidst it covered with black heath: Cardew, in the same neighbourhood, was made habitable in the time of Rufus: Raughton was desart much later, and was first cleared by one Ughtred (whose posterity were called de Raughton) being held by him as a fee-farm for taking care of the hawks in Englewood for the King: Skelton (formerly Scale-town, or Villa ad Scalingas) was civilized by de Boyvill of Livington, who built Scales here for the watchers of his cattle anno 1120, in the reign of Henry I. It was a tract covered with whins, and indeed such did its contiguous waste-ground remain, till
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