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Claife
civil parish:-   Claife (formerly Lancashire)
county:-   Cumbria
locality type:-   locality
coordinates:-   SD37029734 (etc) 
1Km square:-   SD3797
10Km square:-   SD39
evidence:-   old map:- Saxton 1579
placename:-  Classe
source data:-   Map, hand coloured engraving, Westmorlandiae et Cumberlandiae Comitatus ie Westmorland and Cumberland, scale about 5 miles to 1 inch, by Christopher Saxton, London, engraved by Augustinus Ryther, 1576, published 1579-1645.
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Sax9SD39.jpg
Building, symbol for a hamlet, which may or may not have a nucleus.  "Claffe"
item:-  private collection : 2
Image © see bottom of page
evidence:-   old map:- Keer 1605
placename:-  Classe
source data:-   Map, hand coloured engraving, Westmorland and Cumberland, scale about 16 miles to 1 inch, probably by Pieter van den Keere, or Peter Keer, about 1605 edition perhaps 1676.
image  click to enlarge
KER8.jpg
"Classe"
dot, circle and tower; village 
item:-  Dove Cottage : 2007.38.110
Image © see bottom of page
evidence:-   old map:- Speed 1611 (Wmd) 
placename:-  Classe
source data:-   Map, hand coloured engraving, The Countie Westmorland and Kendale the Cheif Towne, scale about 2.5 miles to 1 inch, by John Speed, 1610, published by George Humble, Popes Head Alley, London, 1611-12.
image
SP14SD39.jpg
"Classe"
circle, building and tower 
item:-  Armitt Library : 2008.14.5
Image © see bottom of page
evidence:-   old map:- Jansson 1646
placename:-  Classe
source data:-   Map, hand coloured engraving, Cumbria and Westmoria, ie Cumberland and Westmorland, scale about 3.5 miles to 1 inch, by John Jansson, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1646.
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JAN3SD39.jpg
"Classe"
Buildings and tower. 
item:-  JandMN : 88
Image © see bottom of page
evidence:-   old map:- Seller 1694 (Wmd) 
placename:-  Classe
source data:-   Map, hand coloured engraving, Westmorland, scale about 8 miles to 1 inch, by John Seller, 1694.
image  click to enlarge
SEL7.jpg
"Classe"
circle, italic lowercase text; settlement or house 
item:-  Dove Cottage : 2007.38.87
Image © see bottom of page
evidence:-   old map:- Morden 1695 (Wmd) 
placename:-  Classe
source data:-   Map, hand coloured engraving, Westmorland, scale about 2.5 miles to 1 inch, by Robert Morden, published by Abel Swale, the Unicorn, St Paul's Churchyard, Awnsham, and John Churchill, the Black Swan, Paternoster Row, London, 1695.
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MD10SD39.jpg
"Classe"
Circle. 
item:-  JandMN : 24
Image © see bottom of page
evidence:-   old map:- Ford 1839 map
placename:-  Claife
source data:-   Map, uncoloured engraving, Map of the Lake District of Cumberland, Westmoreland and Lancashire, scale about 3.5 miles to 1 inch, published by Charles Thurnam, Carlisle, and by R Groombridge, 5 Paternoster Row, London, 3rd edn 1843.
image
FD02SD39.jpg
"Claife"
item:-  JandMN : 100.1
Image © see bottom of page
evidence:-   old text:- Martineau 1855
item:-  ghost story; ghost
source data:-   Guide book, A Complete Guide to the English Lakes, by Harriet Martineau, published by John Garnett, Windermere, Westmorland, and by Whittaker and Co, London, 1855; published 1855-76.
image MNU1P030, button  goto source
Page 30:-  "... His driver, or some resident, will probably take care that he [a visitor] does not stay till it is more than reasonably dusk. ... it is said to be impossible, somehow or other, to get over to the Ferry Nab in the ferry-boat, except by daylight. And if you should"
image MNU1P031, button  goto source
Page 31:-  "arrive at the Nab too late, you may call all night for the boat, and it will not come. The traveller may judge for himself how much of the local tale may be true. He may probably have heard of the Crier of Claife, whose fame has spread far beyond the district: but if not, he should hear of the Crier now, while within sight of Ferry Nab. If he asks who or what the Crier was,- that is precisely what nobody can tell, though every body would be glad to know: but we know all how and about it, except just what it really was. It gave its name to the place now called the Crier of Claife,- the old quarry in the wood, which no man will go near at midnight:-"
"It was about the time of the Reformation, one stormy night, when a party of travellers were making merry at the Ferry-house,- then a humble tavern,- that a call for the boat was heard from the Nab. A quiet, sober boatman obeyed the call, though the night was wild and fearful. When he ought to be returning, the tavern guests stepped out upon the shore, to see whom he would bring. He returned alone, ghastly and dumb with horror. Next morning, he was in a high fever; and in a few days he died, without having been prevailed upon to say what he had seen at the Nab. For weeks after, there were shouts, yells, and howlings at the Nab, on every stormy night: and no boatman would attend to any call after dark. The Reformation had not penetrated the region; and the monk from Furness who dwelt on one of the islands of the lake, was applied to to exorcise the Nab. On Christmas day, he assembled all the inhabitants on Chapel Island, and"
image MNU1P032, button  goto source
Page 32:-  "performed in their presence services which should for ever confine the ghost to the quarry in the wood behind the Ferry, now called the Crier of Claife. Some say that the priest conducted the people to the quarry and laid the ghost,- then and there.- Laid though it be, nobody goes there at night. It is still told how the foxhounds in eager chase would come to a full stop at that place; and how, within the existing generation, a schoolmaster from Colthouse, who left home to pass the Crier, was never seen more. Whatever may be said about the repute of ghosts in our day, it is certain that this particular story is not dead."
ghost story:-  
 One night the ferryman heard a cry from the opposite bank, so set out across the lake. He didn't return till next morning, speechless with fright, and died without speaking a word, a few days later. From then the crying was heard on stormy nights, till a monk from Lady Holme Island exorcised the spirit.
The Crier of Claife may have been the spirit of Thomas Lancaster who poisoned his wife, six children, and a servant, with arsenic, 1671. He was hanged from the door frame of his house, the custom for a domestic murderer, and then put in irons at the gibbet at Sawrey Causeway, near the ferry.
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