The Church of Grasmere: A History

PREFACE

INTRODUCTORY

THE DEDICATION OF THE CHURCH

THE SITE

PREFACE

Grasmere draws many pilgrims in these latter days. It has become the Shrine of Nature and Poetry, for within its graveyard lies buried nature's austerest and most sincere interpreter. The natural beauty of the spot, combined with its associations, has given rise to a copious literature; and its praises have been rehearsed in poetry and prose of a high order. But by the historian Grasmere has been neglected. Its geographical position has tended to its eclipse. In ancient times locked up from the world in the farthest chamber of the mountains, and still the remotest parish of Westmorland (itself a neglected county), it has missed the attention of the careful chronicler, and no serious attempt has been made to penetrate its past. James Torre (1649-1699) indeed in his MS. collections for a history of the Archdeaconry of Richmondshire, compiled a list of five rectors who had served the parish of Grasmere before the Reformation; but no searcher has followed up his efforts. Nor has the excellent, though necessarily limited, information given in the pages of Nicolson and Burn (1770) been since filled up or supplemented.

The following historical sketch makes no pretensions to completeness, which would be beyond both the writer's powers and opportunities. It began as a small thing, a chapter merely in the yet unfinished "Chronicles of Rydal." But there seemed a need for the publication of such facts as had been gathered together; and in response to an expressed desire, the sketch that had been laid by was overhauled, expanded and prepared for press. It contains (there is little doubt) some unsuspected errors and oversights, for which the reader's leniency is asked.

The information has been collected from many sources, public, private, and traditional. The earliest comes from the Record Office, where there are treasures still to be explored. For the seventeenth century – and particularly the period of the Civil Wars – the MSS. at Rydal Hall have yielded facts of great interest, especially those culled from the account-sheets of Mr. Richard Harrison, who was agent and executor of Squire John Fleming.

From all sources, however, the information obtained is fragmentary, and facts are disappointingly isolated. Always there is something beyond, that we want to know and cannot find out; and so the story of the great Restoration Tithe Dispute has no ending. The Presentments have been only available for a limited number of years. The church registers are defective. Even the church-wardens' accounts, which begin at the Restoration, are not complete. It is fortunate, however, that the second volume of these accounts, long missing, and strangely recovered from papers found at the house of descendants of a former parish clerk, was copied before it was again lost. There is a gap of seven years between the third volume and this copy, owing no doubt to the last leaves of the second volume having been torn off.1

The writer has received more help and kindness than can well be acknowledged. Thanks are specially due to Mr. Stanley le Fleming and Sir Gerald Strickland for granting ready access to their muniments; to Dr. Magrath, author of The Flemings in Oxford; to the Revs. W. Jennings, J. H. Heywood, and M. F. Peterson for permitting the church documents to be consulted; to Messrs. W. Farrer, J. A. Martindale, and George Browne for their kind contributions of antiquarian knowledge; to Mr. W. Buckton I am indebted for the plan of the church.

INTRODUCTORY

All history begins with geography. Grasmere was from early times the centre of a parish that embraced the twin valleys of Rothay and Brathay, whose waters drain into the lake of Windermere, while the lake empties itself into the great bay of Morecambe. Therefore Grasmere has always belonged politically to the fertile region round about the bay, and the history of that region – from the time when the Celt enjoyed it, onward through its conquest by the Angle, its aggregation with the province of Deira and the kingdom of Northumbria, still onward through its conversion to Christianity and its connection with the central church government at York as part of the Archdeaconry of Richmondshire – is the history of Grasmere herself: and to understand the origin of her church, it is necessary to briefly indicate the main events in the kingdom of Northumbria and the Church of York.

The actual rise of Christianity within the valleys can only be conjectured. The Celts who dwelt here through the rule of the Roman may not have embraced the faith, but some whisper of Saint Ninian's mission must surely have come to them, if not his direct teaching, as he passed on his way from Rome through Cumberland, to found at Whithorn in Galway a new religious community, like the one his great teacher Saint Martin had founded at Tours. The mission of Saint Patrick too, who in the fifth century returned to finish the work of conversion and church establishment in Ireland, must have been noised abroad, for his name is imprinted on many a spot hereabouts; Patterdale or Patricdale,2 with its well named after him, being distant barely ten miles from Grasmere.

The holy Kentigern is known to have made missionary excursions from Carlisle into the mountains, before 573; and Crosthwaite, where he planted a cross, is but 13 miles from Grasmere, along the line of the Roman road from Kendal to Old Carlisle. With this artery of communication open, it is impossible that tidings of the new faith should not have reached our valley before the close of the sixth century.

Soon these tidings were to come from the east as well as the west, borne by the triumphant arms of the invading Angles. Truly Ethelfrith who, in winning the battle of Chester, first laid our mountain fastnesses open to his kingdom of Northumbria, was a heathen; but his successor Edwin embraced Christianity and brought Paulinus, a member of Saint Augustine's mission, to preach the gospel (627). At York, the capital of the kingdom, a Christian church was built, a second one even being started in stone to replace the wooden structure; and the new bishop moved about with the king and his court, preaching and baptizing. The valleys of Northumberland and Yorkshire, which were the scenes of his labours, are named by Bede, who knew them well; but it is not known that he crossed into Westmorland.

Edwin's overthrow gave Northumbria to the pagan king of Mercia, but it was soon regained by Oswald, who identified himself completely with the new faith. He brought Aidan, who had been educated in the Celtic Church (now firmly settled in Scotland) to fill the place of the departed Paulinus. But instead of taking up the bishop's seat at York, Aidan with the strong predilection shown by his church for island-sanctuaries, chose Lindisfarne to be the centre of his missionary efforts in Northumbria. Here Finan succeeded him in 651, and rebuilt the first rude edifice, constructing it of hewn oak thatched with reeds.

King Oswald (slain at Maserfeld, 642) was shortly after succeeded by Oswy, an ardent disciple of the new faith, as was Alchfrith his son. Alchfrith acted as sub-king in Northumbria under his father.3 He endowed a monastery at Ripon, which was presumably within his dominion, and placed there Eata, abbot of Melrose, with a little band of Scotic monks. At this time there was a young priest named Wilfrith, lately returned from a journey to Rome (658), with whom Alchfrith made fast friends. Convinced by Wilfrith that the practices of the Anglo-Scotic church, where they differed from those of Western Europe, were mistaken, he turned out the monks of Ripon, when they refused to alter their customs, and gave the establishment over to Wilfrith, to rule as abbot. The kings attempted to settle the differences of practice between the churches at the synod of Whitby (664), where the counsels of the Roman party under Wilfrith prevailed; and this caused the retirement of Colman, bishop of Northumbria, who refused to conform. It was now necessary to supply his place, and the kings, father and son, seem without disagreement to have selected each his own man, presumably for his own province; thus making two bishops instead of one.4 While Alchfrith chose Wilfrith for his bishop, and sent him to Gaul for consecration, Oswy chose Chad, sending him to Kent to be consecrated as Bishop of York "for him and his" by the Archbishop. But by the time that Wilfrith had returned from his foreign journey, things were changed at the court. Alchfrith was dead, possibly slain in rebellion against his father; and Wilfrith, deprived of his patron, settled down quietly at Ripon as abbot, while Chad ruled the whole church of Northumbria from York.

But when Oswy died (670 or 671) and his son Ecgfrith succeeded, Chad retired, and Wilfrith was made sole Bishop. Now began a very active and happy period of his life. Enjoying undivided power, a position which suited his nature, he moved about his huge diocese, everywhere creating new foundations and building fresh churches. With skilled workmen under him, he was the great architect and builder of his time. First he turned his attention to the head church in York, which had become, since Oswald's days, ruinous. After building there an edifice unique in its time, he took his masons to Ripon, and there he built a basilica of dressed stone with pillars and arches and porches. He also enriched its altar with vases, and a vestment of purple and gold, and laid upon it a book of the Gospels, marvellously illumined, and enclosed in a gold and jewelled case. Wilfrith made the dedication of this church, which was attended by King Ecgfrith, and by tributary kings, reeves and abbots, an occasion of great splendour. Standing before the altar, with his face towards the concourse of people, he recited the names of the lands with which Ripon was endowed, as also of certain sanctuaries of the Britons which were taken over by it.

Now this enumeration of lands, said to be given by princes with the consent of the bishops, is of great interest.5 Were these lands within Alchfrith's former sub-kingdom – the nucleus being his monastic endowment? – and was it intended to create a bishopric there at Ripon, separate from the one at York? Certainly the great tracts of country mentioned were to be ecclesiastically ruled from Ripon, whether by abbot or bishop.

Moreover, in the confused and certainly corrupt list of names that has come down to us of Wilfrith's remarkable recitation, several have been localized within that last conquered portion of Northumbria lying to the west, which may have been called by the Celts who lost it, Teyrnllwg.6

Whatever had been Alchfrith's intentions about Ripon, Wilfrith's were clear in thus making it the church centre for a district as wide as a diocese. In effect, it was a diocese; though only for a short time was there a recognized Bishop of Ripon. And this was after Ecgfrith and Wilfrith had unhappily quarrelled, and Wilfrith had been expelled from Northumbria, when Theodore, the new archbishop, who had been called north to re-organize the huge diocese, made finally five bishoprics out of it; and Eadhed (after temporarily ruling a see at Lindsey) became, according to Bede, the Bishop of Ripon. But upon the reconciliation of Wilfrith with King Aldfrith, who succeeded Ecgfrith, Eadhed retired from Ripon, and Wilfrith again took possession of it, and ruled it – though only as abbot – until his death.

Wilfrith's inauguration of Ripon, which took place in the period of his sole prelacy of Northumbria (671 to 678) was then an event of great importance for the district round the great Bay, and for Grasmere; indeed it is hardly too much to say that its results lasted over a thousand years. For in spite of the bishop's loss of power, his scheme ultimately held good. When the long dark days of Danish anarchy were passed, the western district which he gathered in to the fold of Ripon emerged as an ecclesiastical entity, and it kept its bounds through the administrative changes of the Norman kings, which carved out of it the barony of Kendal, and made of it parts of Westmorland, Cumberland, Yorkshire and Lancashire. The archdeaconry of Richmondshire, which was formally constituted a section of the diocese of York in 1090, is in fact almost identical with Wilfrid's province of Ripon. It is true that Ripon ceased to be its centre, that establishment sinking again into a monastery, which lay indeed a few miles beyond the boundary of Richmondshire; while a new centre was created at Richmond, a little town without significance standing in another Yorkshire vale.7 This great church province was ruled over by an archdeacon, who possessed almost the powers of a bishop,8 until it was transferred by Henry the Eighth in 1541 from the diocese of York to that of Chester; and it remained intact until 1847, when it was broken up among what are now the dioceses of Carlisle, Manchester, and Ripon.9 Our own part of it became the archdeaconry of Westmorland, under Carlisle.

After Wilfrith had lost favour at the Northumbrian court, and carried his grievances to Rome, King Ecgfrith secured the co-operation of Theodore, archbishop of Canterbury (669) in the organization of the Northern Church. As has been said, there are indications that church work went on busily in the district of the great Bay. St. Cuthbert, who had served his apprenticeship as a monk at Ripon, was made bishop in 685 and administered his great See from Lindisfarne. Into his charge Ecgfrith expressly gave Cartmel with its Britons, and the newly-conquered district round Carlisle. Carlisle became indeed a thriving church centre, with royal nunnery and monastery, and with missions spreading round it. Bede has drawn a striking picture of the bishop's visit to the ruined Roman city, when a vision of the king's overthrow came upon him; as well as of his last meeting with St. Herebert, the hermit of Derwentwater, who was wont every year to seek his counsel. The district of Cartmel he placed in the charge of the "good Abbot Cineferth," as if it were too distant from Lindisfarne for his immediate care. But, while his own easiest route to Carlisle would be by the straight road along the Roman Wall, he would not be ignorant of that other road striking northwards through the mountains from the great Bay. He may, indeed, have travelled this road himself on his missionary journeys, and even have halted to preach in the vale of Grasmere. It is certain at least that some of the holy men working for the Anglo-Scottish Church at this period must have done so. With the defeat and death of Ecgfrith the glory of the Northumbrian kingdom came to an end indeed; but the church continued to prosper; and in the two hundred years between that event and the final relinquishment of Lindisfarne as a See, on through the ravages of the Danes, it wrought a mighty work, not only in the old kingdoms of Bernicia and Deira, but in the region westward. Many of our existing foundations may well date back from that time; and it is probable that the ruined or entirely vanished chapels of our district were built in that age of piety.10 We know from Bede that there was a monastery at Dacre in Cumberland, which existed at least until 926.11 It has been suggested that a certain monastery, founded by a Northumbrian nobleman in the reign of Osred (slain in 717) was situated at Heversham in Westmorland.12 Certainly at Heversham may be seen the fragments of a cross wrought in patterns such as experts ascribe to the Anglian school of workmanship introduced by Wilfrith.13

Then too a thrilling event in hagiological history touched our parts nearly. When the monks of Lindisfarne fled before the ravaging Danes with St. Cuthbert's body, they went westward for safety, and their wanderings brought them into Cumberland and Westmorland.14 A gap in their travels which the antiquary has yet failed to trace may possibly have been filled by a route through Craven – that perpetual haunt of refugees – and about Morecambe Bay.

Certainly a well-used road must have passed not far from our district in the days of Northumbrian anarchy, when Danish kings and allies reigned alike at York and at Dublin. Windermere indeed is associated with the murder (741) of two young princes of the royal house.15

THE DEDICATION

To the question so often asked, When was the church of Grasmere founded? no more than a conjectural answer can be given. The district formed part – though a remote one – of Northumbria, and doubtless shared in the conversion of that kingdom. Even before that time it may have been touched by those successive missionary efforts, which have been happily classed as the Romano-British of Ninian at the end of the fourth century, the Irish of Patrick in the fifth century, and the Kymric of Kentigern in the sixth; and these efforts were followed up by the steady work of the Anglo-Scottish monks, and the establishment under the Anglian kings of an organized church.16

The dedication of the Grasmere church favours the supposition that its foundation was early. Its name-saint is King Oswald, who planted a cross as a standard in the battle by which he gained Northumbria, and who was killed at Maserfeld by the heathen Penda in 642. He became the idol of the Northumbrian christians, and his relics were cherished in many a shrine. When danger threatened Lindisfarne, his head was placed for safety in the coffin of St. Cuthbert;17 and with this sacred burden the monks, as stated above, fled westward, wandering for years in parts adjacent to Westmorland, if they did not actually cross its borders.

A well in the Grasmere valley shared the dedication with the church, and indeed may have been antecedent to it, as a place of resort. It is at the foot of Kelbarrow (formerly Kelbergh,18 the hill of the spring); and the Celts were wont to decorate their kels or springs with votive offerings of a heathen kind. The church, however, always took care to possess herself of such wells, absorbing any sanctification that was ascribed to them; and the water of St. Oswald's well continued to be carried to the church for baptisms until quite recent times.19

Church and well are not, however, close together. The well springs in the flat meadow between the path to the Wray and Wray Beck, but it is now covered in. The adjacent bay of the lake is called Well-foot, and the bridge over the beck has the same name; and when the Wray property was "boundered" in 1683, the "welfoot bridge" was spoken of.

It is suggestive that the farmstead close by owns the name of Pavement End, being formerly known as Padmire. Could it be proved that the name is an ancient one, the idea that the spot was much resorted to of old would be confirmed, since the causeway went so far and no farther.20

THE SITE

The present site of the church may not have been the original one. It is hardly a likely halting-place for a travelling preacher. The Roman road which traversed the valley could neither have been the present one, that leads to church and village, nor the straight cut from Town End that passes the Swan Inn. Both of these cross the flat bottom; and the Romans from the summit of White Moss (by which they certainly entered the vale) would never have dropped into the marsh below (even now water-logged in places), only to climb out again, to that gap of the Raise that plainly beckoned them to their goal northward. Instead, they would maintain their level as far as might be, and keep along the firm slope of the fells at a height of some 300 to 400 feet; then, with only two rapid becks to ford, they would come easily and gradually to the ascent of the pass. It is interesting to find that along this presumed route there exists a line of scattered homesteads; while the modern road below was – until the recent spurt in building, vacant but for a cottage and the Swan Inn; and this last stands in reality on an ancient cross "loaning" between the higher road suggested, and the village. Many of these homesteads have been turned into houses for the wealthy, and great alterations have taken place; but a track the whole way may still be made out, though hidden in places by private drives and occupation roads. From White Moss it dropped but little at first, passing behind the highest of the modern houses, according to the belief of old people, who say that this section of it, though remembered, was stopped up before their time. It touched How Head, a farmhold now deserted; then the Hollins, Forest Side, Ben Place and Beck Houses. It crossed Greenhead Gill and passed behind Knott Houses, Winterseeds and Gillside, continuing by the present ford over Tongue Gill, whence the pass is soon gained.

Now of these names many represented of old not one house, but a couple or even a group. Doubtless most of them were planted by the Norse settlers either upon or below the Roman road, on some spot conveniently above their meadows and common field; and devious lanes would in time become trodden between one and another, to the final discarding of the old straight track. Still this can be traced in places; and a bit to be seen above Winterseeds is probably the actual Roman road. A stone celt was recently found in the beck close below it. A quern was also found not far off.21 The fact that a smithy existed until recently at Winterseeds – which is only reached now by climbing the steep brow from the main road – is strong presumptive evidence of an old line of traffic passing by it. There the last of the smiths, John Watson, made the ironwork of the present outer church-door. When he became old, a smithy was set up on the lower road, at Tongue Gill.

Now it is a singular fact that a field lying a little below this road, near the gateway of Forrest Side, bears the name of Kirk How. And there is a tradition attached to the spot. It is said that the church of the valley was to have been built here, and that the materials were even gathered together ready for the start; when lo! they vanished in the night-time, only to be found upon the present site, and that a second attempt only produced a like result, the inference being conveyed, by sly looks and chuckles on the part of the narrator, that the task had been wrought by some supernatural Being, not to be lightly mentioned. Whether this was the Hob, or Hobthrush who played so large a part in the stories of the past, cannot be said, but the legend, in its humorous fearlessness, and love of a practical joke, is characteristic of the dalesman,22 and coupled with the name of the field it is suggestive. It seems possible that here, at a spot where a traveller upon the road might so conveniently halt and set up his cross and portable altar, an early rude (perhaps timbered) structure may actually have once stood. A well, too, for baptism was not far off. There is one in the grounds of the Hollins whose water has remained in repute, and which was examined by an expert at the time (1843) when an effort was made to establish a hydropathic cure in Grasmere.23 The water was then pronounced finer than that of St. Oswald's Well; but as the owner of the land would not sell, the establishment was placed at the Wray, close to St. Oswald's. The enterprise, started by Mr. Phillips, and conducted by a resident doctor and a German bathman, was not successful, and was given up in five or six years. If the well at the Hollins ever had a name, it is now unknown.

It is hard not to let conjecture play round this tradition of a change of site. Might it not actually have been made? Could it be connected with the turning of Grasmere into a manor, and with the parcelling out of a demesne in the valley? The barons of Kendal, of whom Ivo de Talbois was the first, possessed all these parts, from the time of Henry I. He and his successors governed by feudal methods, through agents. There was here no intermediary lord between baron and vassal; and the baron's officers – his bailiffs and his foresters – would be placed in secure houses or fenced lodges, whence they would control and govern. A demesne of Grasmere is mentioned on the death of William de Lindesay, 1233, and a manor and park in a charter of 1297.24 The woods sold by Henry the Eighth in 1544 were the residue of the lord's forest; he being the inheritor of the Fee.

Now we may reasonably suppose this demesne to have been planted in Kirktown, as the present village came to be called, where the meadows were rich and the soil deep for ploughing, but distant from, and below the ancient line of road with its scattered homesteads. The demesne made a village nucleus; for all the accessories of a manor house would spring up about it. We know the lord's brewery was not far off, at Kelbergh, where springs – beside the holy one – are still abundant.25 In a rental, dated 137526 that concerned the part of Grasmere then held by the Hotham and Pedwardyn families, it is stated that "Richard Smyth holds the forge and should render 12d and 1d," with the addition that he pays 2s 0d per annum for "Kelebergh." From another document we learn that certain tenants of Grasmere pay an unspecified sum for the brewery of Keldbergh.