Old Cumbria Gazetteer |
 |
|
| Hugh's Laithes Pike, Shap Rural | ||
| Hugh's Laithes Pike | ||
| locality:- | Naddle Forest | |
| civil parish:- | Shap Rural (formerly Westmorland) | |
| county:- | Cumbria | |
| locality type:- | hill | |
| coordinates:- | NY50221516 | |
| 1Km square:- | NY5015 | |
| 10Km square:- | NY51 | |
|
|
||
 BZW90.jpg (taken 16.2.2014)  BZW91.jpg Cairn. (taken 16.2.2014) |
||
|
|
||
| evidence:- | old text:- Harper 1907 item:- ghost; boggle |
|
| source data:- | Guidebook, The Manchester and Glasgow Road, by Charles G Harper,
published by Chapman and Hall Ltd, London, 1907. HP01p114.txt Page 114:- "..." "... Lowther Castle and its beautiful park, seat of the Earl of Lonsdale. The mansion itself, built by Smirke in 1808, is magnificent, in the sense that it is huge and was costly to build and is princely in its appointments, but it is not a castle nor is it Gothic architecture, although the architect who designed it, and the second Lord Lonsdale, for whom it was designed, fondly imagined it to be so." "The wicked Lowther, the "bad Lord Lonsdale," i.e. the first Earl (1736-1802), once haunted this superstitious countryside, after he had run his earthly course with sinful eclat, and was a dreaded "boggle" - which is Westmoreland and Cumberland for "ghost." This once notorious character, "this brutal fellow," as Boswell styled him, was eccentric to a degree, and actually acknowledged himself to be "truly a madman, though too rich to be confined." One of his eccentricities was the keeping of wild horses, instead of deer, in his park at Lowther. Too rich and powerful to care a rap what was thought of him. he drove about in gloomy, out-of-date majesty in an ancient mildewed carriage drawn by shaggy, unclipped horses. The entry of this equipage into Penrith, where he owned most of the property and, politically speaking, all the inhabitants, was regarded with awful expectation of what he would do next, and was feared almost as much as the coming of some medieval judge armed with a commission to try rebels." "In life representative of the worst and coarsest feudal barons of the Middle Ages, he was held in terror in his death. The awe-stricken rustics long continued to tell how he was with difficulty buried, and how, while the clergyman was praying over him, his mischievous disembodied spirit" HP01p115.txt Page 115:- "very nearly knocked the astonished cleric from his desk. Disturbances at the Hall and noises in the stable followed, and men and horses had no rest. The Hall became almost uninhabitable, and out of doors there was constant danger of meeting the noble but malignant spook, either driving in his ghostly "coach and six," or walking along the dark roads. In a desperate case of this kind, a Catholic priest was thought to be essential as a spirit-layer. The Established Church would not serve, and as for Dissenters - bah! The priest came and prayed, but Jemmy was obstinate and stood a long siege, and when conjured by all that was holy, was only willing to be banished to the Red Sea - to which troublesome spirits are rusticated, as a sort of spiritual Botany Bay - for a year and a day. This was not considered good enough. The district had experienced too much of him in life, and ardently wished to be shot of his ghost for good and all, and so the priest was urged to pray for all he was worth, which he did, finally overpowering the tyrant. Instead of transporting him to the Red Sea, he was laid under a great rock of Walla Crag, Haweswater, for ever!" |
|
|
|
||
 BZW80.jpg (taken 16.2.2014) |
||
|
|
||
| ghost story:- |
Drink and sport killed the first earl of Lowther, Wicked Jimmy, or the Bad Earl. He
fell, drunk from a horse in steeplechasing, broke his neck, and died at age 66. He
had not repented his life, and his ghost began to haunt Lowther. He galloped his coach
across the park on moonlit nights, roamed in the stables and the village, and was
haunted the castle halls. The parish priest failed to exorcise his ghost, but a catholic
priest had slightly better success; but after a period away the ghost returned. The
villagers took their own remedy. They dug him up and buried him on Hugh Laithes Pike
by Hawes Water, with a great boulder on top to hold him down. His hauntings in Lowther
stopped; though it is said that a figure is sometimes seen on the pike at dusk. |
|
| When the wind gusts blow down from Mardale Head, lashing the quiet lake to fury, it
is said to be his ghost struggling to escape his rocky prison. |
||
|
|
||
| hearsay:- |
Sir James fell in love with the daughter of one of his tenant farmers. He kept her
in Hampshire, but she died, unhappy away from home. And Sir James turned to drink. |
|
|
|
||
| ghost story:- |
On the top of the pike is a little cairn marking the last resting place of Jimmy Lowther.
Jimmy lead a riotous life, and broke his neck steeplechasing, drunk, 1802 age 66.
Having made no death bed repentance, his grave was not peaceful. The vicar tried to
lay his ghost, but eventually his neighbours dug him up and buried him out of harm's
way on the pike, though his ghost is said to wander here. |
|
|
|
||
| personal | ||
| person:- | : Lowther, James, Sir |
|
| place:- | burial place | |
|
|
||
Lakes Guides menu.