Old Cumbria Gazetteer |
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| Michael's Fold, Grasmere | ||
| Michael's Fold | ||
| site name:- | Greenhead Gill | |
| locality:- | Grasmere | |
| civil parish:- | Lakes (formerly Westmorland) | |
| county:- | Cumbria | |
| locality type:- | sheepfold | |
| coordinates:- | NY343082 (?) | |
| 1Km square:- | NY3408 | |
| 10Km square:- | NY30 | |
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 BRR42.jpg (taken 7.10.2009) |
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| evidence:- | old print:- Robertson 1911 |
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| source data:- | Print, lithograph? Green Head Ghyll, from a watercolour by Arthur Tucker, published
by Chatto and Windus, London, 1911. click to enlargeRSN141.jpg Tipped in opposite p.268 of Wordsworthshire by Eric Robertson. With Michael's Fold in the foreground? printed at bottom:- "GREEN-HEAD GHYLL / (Site of Michael's sheepfold)" signed at painting lower left:- "Arthur Tucker" item:- JandMN : 197.45 Image © see bottom of page |
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| story:- |
Michael and his younger wife Isabel had one son, Luke. From a young age Luke helped
his father in the shepherding. It is said that Isabel lit a lamp in the cottage window
to guide them home of an evening, which was known as the Evening Star of Grasmere. |
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| When Michael was about 70 he had to pay the debts, as guarantor, of his brothers son
whose business had failed. Half the farm had to be sold; the remainder was not viable.
Luke, age 18, left home to work in London to provide money to pay more of the debts,
but before he went, father and son brought rocks from the fell to build a sheepfold
by the beck. Luke went to the bad and disappeared abroad. Michael was too old to finish
the fold. When Michael died the farm was sold, and the farm cottage was demolished,
the land ploughed. |
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| All that is left is a pile of stone still waiting to be built into Michael's Fold. |
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