The Book of Coniston

or in the ancient equivalent form of these Welsh numerals, which their masters learned from them, and used ever after in a garbled form as the right way to count sheep. The Coniston count-out runs—

And from these north-country dales the Anglo-Cymric score has spread, with their roaming sons and daughters, pretty nearly all the world over. (See the Rev. T. Ellwood's papers on the subject in Cumb. and West. Antiq. Soc. Transactions, vol. iii.)

During the ninth century the Anglian power declined. Welsh Cumbria regained some measure of independence with kings or kinglets of its own, under the dominant over-lordship of the Scottish crown. But the Anglian settlers still held their tuns, though their influence and interests so diminished that it was impossible for them to continue and complete the colonization of Lakeland. It remained a no-man's-land, a debateable border country, hardly inhabited and quite uncivilised.

Norse Period.

Who then settled the dales, cleared the forest, drained the swamps, and made the wilderness into fields and farms?

Let us walk to-day through the valleys to the north of the village, and ask by the way what the country can tell us of its history.

Leaving the church we come in a few minutes to Yewdale Beck. Why "beck?" Nobody here calls it "brook," as in the Saxon south, nor "burn," as in the Anglian north. In the twelfth century, as now, the name was "Ywedallbec," showing that it had been named neither in Anglian nor in Saxon, but by inhabitants who talked the language of the Vikings.

The house on the hill before us, above fields sloping to the flats, is the Thwaite house. Thveit in Iceland, which the Norsemen colonized, means a field sloping to a flat. On the wooded hill behind it are enclosures called the high and low Guards—"yard" would be the Saxon word; gardhr is the Norse, becoming in our dialect sometimes "garth" and sometimes "gard" or "guard."

At the Waterhead the signpost tells us to follow the road to Hawkshead, anciently Hawkens-heved or Hawkenside—Hauk's or Hákon's headland or seat.

Taking the second turn to the left we go up the ravine of Tarn Hows Gill (Tjarn-haugs-gil), and reach a favourite spot for mountain views. Above and around the moorland lake rise the Langdale Pikes (Langidalr there is also in Iceland), Lingmoor (lyng-mor), Silver How (Sölva-haugr), Loughrigg (loch-hryggr), Fairfield (fær-fjall), Red Screes (raud-skridhur), and on the left Weatherlam (vedhr-hjalmr) and all the fells and dales, moors and meres, which cannot be named without talking Norse.

Descending to the weir which was built by the late Mr. Marshall, to throw into one the three Monk Coniston Tarns, as the sheet of water is still called, a broken path leads us down past the waterfall of Tom or Tarn Gill, romantically renamed Glen Mary, and now even "St. Mary's Glen," and out upon the road opposite Yewtree House, behind which stood the famous old yew blown down in the storm of 22nd December, 1894. Turning to the right, we pass Arnside (Arna-sidha or setr, Ami's fellside or dairy) and Oxenfell (öxna-fell), and soon look down upon Colwith (Koll-vidhr, "peak-wood" from the peaked rocks rising to the left above it; or Kol-vidhr, wood in which charcoal was made). We quit the road to Skelwith (skál-vidhr, the wood of the scale or shed) and descend to Colwith Feet (fit, meadow on the bank of a river or lake), and ascend again to Colwith Force (fors, waterfall), and pass the Tarn to Fell Foot, an old manor house, bought in 1707 by Sir Daniel Fleming's youngest son Fletcher, ancestor of the Flemings of Rayrigg, who placed his coat of arms over the door (as Mr. George Browne of Troutbeck says—Cumb. and West. Antiq. Soc. Transactions, vol. xi., p. 5).

Permission is readily given to view the terraced mound behind the house, in which Dr. Gibson and Mr. H. S. Cowper have recognized a Thingmount such as the Vikings used for the ceremonies of their Thing or Parliament. There was one in Dublin, the Thingmote; the Manx Tynwald is still in use; and the name Thingvöllr (thing-field) survives at Thingwall in Cheshire, South Lancashire, and Dumfriesshire. On the steps of the mound the people stood in their various ranks while the Law-speaker proclaimed from the top the laws or judgments decreed by the Council. Eastward from the mount, to make the site complete, a straight path should lead (as in the Isle of Man) to a temple by a stream or well; and around should be flat ground enough for the people to camp out, for they met at midsummer and spent several days in passing laws, trying suits, talking gossip, driving bargains, and holding games—as if it were Grasmere Sports and Wakefield Competition, hiring fair and cattle market, County Council and Assizes, all rolled into one. These requirements are perfectly met by this site, which is also in a conveniently central position, with Roman roads and ancient paths leading to it in all directions through Lakeland.

From other sources than place-names—from Norse words in the present dialect as analysed by Mr. Ellwood, we learn that the Vikings settled here as farmers. The words they have handed down to their descendants are not fighting words, but farming words—names of agricultural tools and usages, and the homely objects of domestic life.

The Norse settlement appears, therefore, to be an immigration, not of invaders, but of refugees; and the event which first caused it was perhaps the raid of King Harald Fairhair, about 880-890, on the Vikings of the Hebrides, Galloway, and the Isle of Man.

Gradually they spread from the coast into the fells, until they had filled all the hill country; and if we set down their first arrival as about 890, we find that for no less than three hundred years they were left in possession of the lands they settled, and in enjoyment of liberty to make their own laws and to rule their own commonwealth at the Thingmount on which we are standing.

Norman Period.

The Norman Conquest, it must be understood, did not touch the Lake District. William the Conqueror and his men never entered Cumbria, nor even High Furness. The dales are not surveyed in Domesday, and the few landowners mentioned on the fringe of the fells are obviously of Norse or Celtic origin—Duvan and Thorolf, and Ornulf and Orm, Gospatric and Gillemichael. After William Rufus had seized Carlisle, the territory of Cumbria and Westmorland was granted to various lords; but the dales were the hinterland of their claim. In the Pipe Rolls we have full accounts of the inhabitants and proceedings of the lowlands during the twelfth century, but not a word about the Lakeland. And in the disturbed and disputed condition of affairs—the lordship was even in the hands of the King of Scots from 1135 to 1157—it is easy to understand that it was worth nobody's while to attempt the difficult task of reducing to servitude a body of hardy freeholders, secure in their mountain fastnesses.

In the later part of the twelfth century, the baron of Kendal and the abbot of Furness began to take steps towards asserting their claim.

Thirty men, for the most part residents in the surrounding lowlands and already retainers of the abbot and the baron, were sworn in to survey the debateable ground. Half of these men, to judge by their names or pedigrees, were of Viking origin. In the list are Swein, Ravenkell, Frostolf, Siward (Sigurd), Bernulf (Brynjolf), Ketel, and several Dolfins, Ulfs and Orms, with the Irish Gospatrick and Gillemichael. Of the other half, several are Anglo-Saxon and the rest Norman.

Their starting-point, in beating the boundaries, was Little Langdale—as if they had met, by old use and wont of the countryside, at the Thingmount; and they enclosed the district by Brathay, Windermere, and Leven, eastward; Wrynose and Duddon, westward; and then halved it by a line, along which we may follow them, to Tilberthwaite and by Yewdale Beck to Thurston Water. Thence their division line ran along the shore of the lake to the Waterhead and down the eastern side, and so along the Crake to Greenodd.

The western half was taken by the baron of Kendal to hold of the abbot by paying a rent of 20s. yearly on the Vigil of the Assumption (old Lammas Day). The baron also got right of way and of hunting and hawking through the abbey's lands, thence called Furness Fells. The valley of Coniston was thus divided into two separate parts—the eastern side, but including the Guards, was Monk Coniston; and the western side, including also the lake, became known from the village church as Church Coniston.

Though this arrangement was proposed about 1160, it was not finally settled until 1196; after which the two owners could proceed to reduce the old Norse freeholders to the condition of feudal tenants. A charter of John, afterwards king, at the end of the twelfth century, directs the removal of all tenants in Furness Fells who have not rendered due fealty to the abbot. By what threats or promises or actual violence this was accomplished we have no record; but we can see that it was a slow process, and we can infer that it was not done by way of extermination. For the Norse families, with their language and customs, remained in Coniston. They were a canny race, and knew how to adapt themselves to circumstances. Throughout Lakeland they evidently made good terms with the Norman lords, and kept a degree of independence which was afterwards explained away as the border tenant-right—but really must have been in its origin nothing less than a compromise between nominal feudalism and a proud reminiscence of their Norse allodial practice—the free ownership of the soil they had taken, and reclaimed, and inhabited for three centuries of liberty.

V.—MONK CONISTON.

The Furness monks were of the Cistercian order; which is to say, they were farmers rather than scholars or mere recluses and devotees. To understand them in the days of their power, we must put aside all the vulgar nonsense about fat friars or visionary fakirs, and see them as a company of shareholders or college of gentlemen from the best landowning families, whose object in their association was, of course, the service of God in their abbey church; but, outside of it, the development of agriculture and industries. They devoted their property and their lives to the work, getting nothing in return except mere board and lodging, and—for interest on their capital—the means of grace and the hope of glory.

Some of the brothers lived continually at the abbey, fully occupied in the service of the household, in hospitality to the poor and to travellers, in teaching the school, in various arts and crafts, and especially in the office work necessary for the management of their estates. Their method was to acquire land, sometimes by purchase or exchange, more often by gift from those who had entered the community, or had received services from them; and then to improve these lands, which were generally of the poorest when they came into the abbey's possession. As the plots were widely scattered over Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Cumberland, it must have been no light labour to manage them. For this purpose a brother was sent to act as steward or bailiff at a grange or cell on the outlying estate.

One such manor house of the monks we may see at Hawkshead Old Hall (see the sixpenny Guide to Hawkshead, by Mr. H. S. Cowper). This was built more than two centuries later than the division of High Furness; and though there was probably an earlier building, the list of abbey possessions in 1292 makes no mention of it. The monks, energetic as they were, had plenty to do in improving their lands in Low Furness, and made little impression at first upon the wild woods and moors of the fells, thinly dotted with the old Norse thwaites and steads.

On the other hand, they provided almost immediately for the spiritual needs of their new flock. There was already a chapel at Hawkshead, which is mentioned in 1200, but no consecrated burial ground; and if anyone wished for Christian burial, his body had to be carried on horseback or on a sledge some twenty miles to Dalton. In 1219 the monks amended this by making Hawkshead Chapel into a parish church, greatly against the will of the vicar of Dalton, who was the loser by the reform; and Monk Coniston has ever since been in the ecclesiastical parish of Hawkshead.

Church Coniston got no share in this advantage. Up to the time of Elizabeth, its people had to take their dead to Ulverston. As you go through the village, just beyond the Baptist Chapel, is a stream known as Jenkin Syke; and the story goes than a Jenkins of Yewdale or Tilberthwaite was being carried, uncoffined, on a sledge to Dalton or Ulverston for burial, but when the procession reached Torver they found that the body was gone. They tried back, and discovered it in the beck, which bears the name to this day.

The first and most obvious use of the fells to the monks was as a forest of unlimited timber. One purpose for which they wanted this was for charcoal to smelt the iron ore of the mines in Low Furness. They needed the waterway of the lake, which was the baron's, who, in 1240, allowed them to have "one boat competent to carry what might be necessary upon the lake of Thurstainwater, and another moderate sized boat for fishing in it, at their will, with 20 nets," and a similar privilege on Windermere. The baron bargained that if any of the monks' men damaged his property it should be "reasonably amended"—as much as to say there was really nothing of value along the western side of our lake in 1240.

Now that the monks had the waterway and could get at their forests, they pushed the industry. By the end of the century (1292) they could return a considerable income from their ironworks, while making nothing out of the agriculture of High Furness.

There was good hunting, however, and in 1281 the abbot got free warren in Haukesheved, Satirthwait, Grisedale, Neburthwaite, (Monk) Kunyngeston, and other parts of the fells—the old Norse names alone are mentioned. But in 1338 he was allowed by Government to impark woods in Fournes fells; not to create deer parks in a cultivated country, for that was not done until much later, when the bad Abbot Banks in 1516 "of the tenements of Richard Myellner and others at a place called Gryesdale in Furness fells made another park" (beside those he had just made in Low Furness) "to put deer into, which park is about five miles in compass" (Pleadings and Depositions, Duchy of Lancaster, quoted by Dr. T. K. Fell; Mr. H. S. Cowper supposes this site to have been Dale Park.) These fourteenth century parks or parrocks were simply enclosures from the wild woods, and among them were Waterpark, Parkamoor, and Lawson Park which we have passed. So it was a century and a half before the monks got their woods cleared enough to settle their shepherds on the lands given them by the thirty sworn men's division.

Even then it was notoriously a wild place. In 1346 (as we gather from a ballad and pedigrees printed in Whitaker's Loidis and Elmete, 1816, vol. ii., p. 396) it was, like Sherwood and Inglewood, the resort of outlaws. Adam of Beaumont (near Leeds) with his brother, and Will Lockwood, Lacy, Dawson and Haigh, came hither after slaying Sir John Elland in revenge for the murder of Sir Robert Beaumont.

They seem to have been here until 1363 or later—a gang of brigands; which shows how little grip the abbey had so far laid upon its hinterland.

But gradually new farms were created and held by native families who acknowledged the abbot as their lord, and provided men for military duty or for various "boons," such as a day's work in harvest. These new farms are now known as "grounds." In Monk Coniston we find Rawlinson, Atkinson, Knipe, Bank, and Holme Grounds; and in the list of abbey "tenants" of 1532, "from the Ravenstie upwards" (the path from Dale Park by Ravencrag to Hawkshead), are Robert Atkyns, Robert Knype, Robert Bank, Rainold and Robert Holme. The Kirkbys of the Thwaite and the Pennys of Penny House also signed. Rawlinson is not on this list, but on that of 1509 giving the "tenants" "from the Ravenstie downwards," i. e., south part of High Furness. The lists do not state that, for example, the Bankes lived at Bank Ground, but prove that the families were then in the immediate neighbourhood.

At Bank Ground are the ruins of a house which was of some pretentions, judging from carved stones lying there. Local tradition makes it the site of a religious house, with a healing well. Dr. Gibson supplies a monk, "Father Brian," and tells a tradition of a witch living opposite (where the gondola station is) who came to the monk and confessed that she had sold herself to the devil. The monk set her a penance, and promised absolution. So when the devil came to claim his own she fled up Yewdale Beck, calling on "Father Brian and St. Herbert," and the devil's hoof stuck fast in the Bannockstone, a rock below the wooden bridge in Mr. George Fleming's field. The hole is there. Many rocks have such holes, from the weathering out of nodules. Mediævals may have called them devil's footprints; moderns often call them "cup-markings," in equal error.

It may be that a hermit lived where the Bankes afterwards built their homestead; it is possible that there was a "cell" for the abbey's Monk Coniston representative at the Waterhead. But the final list of abbey estates (1535), while mentioning Watsyde Parke, Lawson Parke, and Parkamore among granges and parks, puts "Watterhed et (Monk) Connyngston, £10-19-5-1/4" in the rental of tenants, as if the farm were then let to a tenant, as Hawkshead Hall was in 1512. The old Waterhead mansion, however, is known as Monk Coniston par excellence, and behind the modern Gothic front are ancient rooms with thick walls and massive beams, said by Mr. Marshall, the owner, to be part of the original monks' house.

There are few actual relics of this period in the way of archæological finds, so that the discovery of a tiny key of lead, with trefles on the ring, cast in a double mould, at Tent Cottage, where it was found under a stone, is worth remark. Mr. H. S. Cowper thought it a pilgrim's badge of the fourteenth or fifteenth century, and the site was one of the "grounds" of the abbey "tenants."

The list of "tenants" referred to is in an agreement of 1532 to prevent "improvement." They had "inclosed common pasture more largelie than they ought to doe, under the colour of one bargaine called Bounding of the pasture," and this sort of "improvement" was thenceforth forbidden. But five years later the abbey was dissolved, to the great harm and regret of the country side. Though a bad abbot did, for a time, give trouble by making deer parks, the abbey rule, on the whole, was good. Monk Coniston made slow but sure progress, and reached a point beyond which it did not advance for the next three hundred years.

What it was like when the abbey gave it up may be gathered from the report of Henry VIII.'s commissioners:—"There is moche wood growing in Furneysfelles in the mounteynes there, as Byrk, Holey, Asshe, Ellers, Lyng, lytell short Okes, and other Undrewood, but no Tymber of any valewe;" they mention also "Hasells." That there had been timber is proved by the massive oak beams of many a farmhouse and old hall, but the forests were all by this time cleared, and coppice had taken their place. "There is another yerely profytte comming and growing of the said woods, called Grenehewe, Bastyng, Bleching, bynding, making of Sadeltrees, Cartwheles, cuppes, disshes, and many other thynges wrought by Cowpers and Turners" (the beginning of well-known local industries) "with making of Coles (charcoal) and pannage of Hoggs."

After the dissolution the manor remained in the Crown until 1662, when Charles II. granted it to General Monk, Duke of Albemarle, whose descendant Elizabeth, daughter of George, Duke of Montague (whence the other name of Peel Island), married Henry, third Duke of Buccleugh, whose representative is now lord of the manor.

Monk Coniston remained separate from Church Coniston, both ecclesiastically and politically, until the Local Government Act of 1894 establishing Parish Councils gave occasion for the union of the two shores of the lake into one civil parish. But Monk Coniston is still in the ecclesiastical parish of Hawkshead.

VI.—THE FLEMINGS OF CONISTON HALL.

In 1196 the baron of Kendal was Gilbert fitz Roger fitz Reinfrid, who had got his lordship by marriage with Heloise, granddaughter of William I. de Lancaster. In her right he claimed Furness as well. So did the abbey, and the result of this dispute we have seen in the division of the fells.

There was a family at Urswick who, to judge by their name, might have been descendants of the old Norse settlers. Adam fitz Bernulf held land there of Sir Michael le Fleming about 1150; Orm fitz Bernulf was one of the thirty sworn men; Stephen of Urswick was another. Stephen was doubtless christened after the king, who had founded the abbey; for fashions in names followed royalty then as now. Gilbert fitz Bernulf was another of the family—a Normanised Norseman, it would seem. To him Coniston was let or assigned by Baron Gilbert of Kendal.

His son Adam was living in 1227. Adam's daughter Elizabeth was his heiress, and married Sir Richard le Fleming.

Le Fleming, or the Fleming, meant simply "the man from Flanders." William Rufus had invited many Flemings to settle as "buffer" colonies in Cumberland and Wales, and Sir Richard's ancestor Michael had received Aldingham in Low Furness. Sir Richard's grandfather, being a younger son, had got a Cumbrian estate with headquarters at a place called by the Cumbrian-Welsh Caernarvon. Ar mhon (arfon) means "over against Mona;" in Wales Caer-n-arfon is "the castle over against Anglesey (Mona);" in Cumbria the same name had been given to the castle over against Man (Mona). It was an oblong base-court with a ditch, and a round artificial hill (later known as Coney-garth or King's-garth, cop) exactly like the Mote at Aldingham. There Sir Richard's father lived, and dying was buried at Calder Abbey.

But when Sir Richard married Elizabeth of Urswick, and got with her the manors of Urswick, Coniston, Carnforth, and Claughton, they chose to live at Coniston; and being wealthy, they probably built a mansion which, rebuilt two hundred years later, became the Coniston Hall we now see. Their settlement here would be about 1250 or later.

Sir Richard, being a knight, must have brought his men with him, and let them have farms near at hand on condition of following him to the wars. No doubt he turned out the Norse holders of Heathwaite and Bleathwaite, Little Arrow (Ayrey, "moor") and Yewdale, or took on them as his men. Billmen and bowmen he would need, and we find a Bowmanstead in the village.

These tenants followed his son, Sir John, to Scotland in 1299 to fight Wallace; and got, with him, special protection and privileges from Edward I. for bravery at the siege of Caerlaverock. John's son, Sir Rayner, was in favour at Court, and held the office of King's Steward, Dapifer, for these parts, in the beginning of the fourteenth century. So West says.

His son, Sir John, had three children. The daughter Joan married John le Towers of Lowick; his eldest son William died without children; and so Coniston Hall fell to the younger brother, Sir John, who lived there in Edward III.'s time, while Adam of Beaumont and his fellows were outlaws in the fells, and doubtless shot the Coniston deer. Sir John died in 1353, and was succeeded by Sir Richard, who married Catharine of Kirkby, and died about 1392. Of his three sons, Sir Thomas, the eldest, succeeded him. He married (1371) Margaret of Bardsey, then Elayn Laybourn (1390), and then his deceased wife's sister Isabel (1396). His elder son was Thomas, for whom in his childhood his father arranged a marriage with an heiress, Isabel de Lancaster. She brought Rydal into the family.

Up to this time the knights "le Fleming" had lived for 150 years at old Coniston Hall; during Sir Thomas' life (he died about 1481) the Hall seems to have been rebuilt, so far as can be gathered from the architecture of the remains. Part of his time he spent at Rydal, perhaps while rebuilding Coniston Hall.

After him there are no more knights "le Fleming," but a series of Squires Fleming, keeping up both the Coniston and Rydal Halls.

Squire John, son of Sir Thomas, was a retainer of the lord of Greystoke, a fighting man in the wars of the Roses. He married Joan Broughton, and his son John in 1484-5 moved to Rydal, leaving Coniston Hall as dower-house for his stepmother Anne. He died about 1532. His son Hugh lived at Coniston, and married Jane Huddleston of Millom Castle. He died in 1557, and his son Anthony died young; and so his grandson William succeeded him in the last year of Queen Mary.

West says:—"This William Fleming resided at Coniston Hall, which he enlarged and repaired, as some of the carving, bearing the date and initial letters of his and his lady's name, plainly shows; he died about 40 Elizabeth (1598), and was buried in Grasmere Church. The said William Fleming was a gentleman of great pomp and expence, by which he injured an opulent fortune; but his widow Agnes (a Bindloss of Borwick) surviving him about 33 years, and being a lady of extraordinary spirit and conduct, so much improved and advanced her family affairs, that she not only provided for, and married well, all her daughters, but also repurchased many things that had been sold off.... This Agnes established a younger branch of the family in the person of Daniel, her then second son. When her son John married and resided at Coniston Hall, she retired to Rydal Hall, where she died 16 August, 7 Car. I. (1641)."

There is a tradition that Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586) visited at Coniston Hall. There used to be an old book with his name in it and "Fulke Greville is a good boy" scribbled in an antique hand on a fly-leaf. It is probable that Squire William, the "gentleman of great pomp," invited many visitors, especially young men of distinction, for hunting parties in his deer park; and Sidney is said to have stayed at Brougham Castle, so that he may well have been, once in a while, in the Lake District.

Dr. Gibson tells a legend, which he says he collected at Coniston, of Girt Will o' t' Tarns—"one of the Troutbeck giants." (Hugh Hird, the chief of them, flourished in this period.) Girt Will is represented as carrying off "the Lady Eva's" bowermaiden, and being caught and killed at Caldron Dub on Yewdale Beck (a little above the sawmills), where his grave was shown, still haunted, they said. There is no "Lady Eva" in the records, but (allowing for distortion) there may be a grain of truth in the story, if it really was a tradition.

Squire John lived at Coniston. He was twenty-three at his father's death. His first wife was Alice Duckett of Grayrigg (died 1617); his second, the widow of Sir Thomas Bold, and daughter of Sir William Norris of Speke, the famous old timbered hall near Liverpool. She died at Coniston Hall, and was buried in Coniston Church, which Squire William had built. His third was Dorothy Strickland of Sizergh, for whose sake he became a Roman Catholic at a time when Roman Catholics were persecuted; and consequently, after being J.P. and High Sheriff, he was heavily fined, and had to get a special licence to travel five miles from home. He had a turn for literature; we find in the Rydal letters one enclosing the latest playbook and (Massinger's new work) the Virgin Martir.

His son William was only fourteen at his father's death in 1643, and soon afterwards died of smallpox in London. Consequently the Hall went to his cousin William (son of the Daniel before mentioned), born there in 1610, and educated at St. John's College, Cambridge. He was one of Charles I.'s cavaliers, and suffered severely in pocket for his loyalty. He married Alice Kirkby in 1632, and died at the hall in 1653.

His eldest son Daniel, born in 1633, studied at Queen's College, Oxford, and Gray's Inn. He married, in 1655, Barbara Fletcher of Hutton (who died 1670), and they had a large family. He was a cavalier, heavily fined by Cromwell's sequestrators, and living in retirement until the Restoration, busied in improving his estates and his mind. He became a famous scholar and antiquary, corresponding with many learned men, and distinguished, among other things, for his knowledge of Runic inscriptions. Under Charles II. he took a very active share in public business; was knighted at Windsor in 1681, and elected M.P. for Cockermouth, 1685. He died 1701.

This Sir Daniel finally forsook Coniston for Rydal. In his lifetime the Hall was held by his bachelor brothers, Roger and William, lieut.-colonel of cavalry and D.L. for Lancashire. In the Rydal MSS. there are many letters to and from them; for instance, Major W. Fleming writes (July 1st, 1674) to the constables of Coniston about arming the men of Colonel Kirkby's regiment—the pikemen to have an ashen pike not under sixteen feet in length, the musketeers to have a well-fixed "musquet" with a barrel not under three feet in length, and a bore for twelve bullets to the pound, with "collar of bandeleers" and a good sword and belt.

Other relatives of the family lived at the Hall, which was kept up as a sort of general establishment. In September, 1680, Sir Daniel notes that his bachelor uncle, John Kirkby, "did fall sick Sept. 15, and he died at Coniston Hall, Sept. 28. I had not the happ to see him dureing his sickness." But Sir Daniel was sometimes there, and speaking of one visit, he says (December 14th, 1680), "my tenants there and I did see a blazing starr with a very long tail—reaching almost to the middle of the sky from the place of the sun setting—a little after the sun setting, near the place where the sun did set. Lord, have mercy upon us, pardon all our sins, and bless the King and these Kingdomes." He got over it by Christmas, and "paid the Applethwait players for acting here, Dec. 27th 00-05-00" (5s).

On February 26th, 1681, his mother died at Coniston Hall, and was buried in Lady Bold's grave, close by her brother, John Kirkby—"Mr. John Braithwait preaching her funeral sermon upon 1 Tim. 5, 9, and 10, and applying it very well to her." Her three sons put up the brass in the church to her memory.

There was no intention then of letting the Hall go to ruin. Sir Daniel notes (March 20th, 1688), "This day was laid the foundation of the great barn at Coniston Hall"—not the new barn to the south of it, which is a much later building.

We get a glimpse of the friendly relations of hall and village in a letter of November 16th, 1689, from George Holmes at Strabane to the colonel at the Hall, describing the famous siege of Derry, and adding—"Pray do me the favour to present my humble service to Mr. Rodger and all the good familie, to the everlasting constable, and to my noble friend the vitlar."

Dr. Gibson, about 1845, was told by an aged inhabitant of Haws Bank that one of the cottages in that hamlet (pulled down to build Mr. John Bell's house) was formerly an alehouse, and that a neighbour who died at a great age when the doctor's informant was a boy, used to relate that he remembered having seen two brothers of the Fleming family, who were staying at the Hall, go there for ale, and make a scramble with their change amongst the children round the door, of whom the relater was one. The names of the brothers, he stated, were "Major and Roger."

This must have been in Queen Anne's days, when perhaps Colonel William and his brother Roger were gone. But of Sir Daniel's sons, one was Major Michael, M.P. for Westmorland in 1706, died before George I. (his daughter married Michael Knott, Esq., of Rydal, whose family afterwards came to Coniston Waterhead); and another was Roger, afterwards vicar of Brigham.

So we bring "the good familie" at the Hall down to the second decade of the eighteenth century, after which they seem to have deserted Coniston and left it to decay. Fifty years later it was an ivy-covered ruin.

A novel by the Rev. W. Gresley, M.A., Prebendary of Lichfield, called Coniston Hall: or, The Jacobites (1846), professes to recount the fortunes of "Sir Charles Dalton" of the hall, in the rising of 1715. But the local colour is inaccurate, and the circumstances impossible.

About 1815 it was patched up into a farmhouse; the ruined wing was left to the ivy, and an inclined way was built up to the old oriel window of the dining-hall to make it into a barn. Later, the old oak was carried off. Quite recently the dwelling-house and the chimneys have been newly cemented, which, necessary as it was, takes away from the picturesqueness. The main features of the interior can be traced; we can make out the daïs, the great fireplace, the carved screen through which doors led to the stairs going down to buttery and kitchen, and the fine old roof with its great oak beams. From the middle beam, in which the grooves for planking are still seen, a wainscot partition was fixed to the back of the daïs, and behind it was the withdrawing room. There you see its large fireplace and windows on both sides, and in the corner is a spiral staircase, leading down to a door opening on the garden, and up to the loft or solar, in mediæval times the best bedroom, of which we can see the footing of the flooring joists up in the wall, and the little window looking east to catch the morning sun. That was no drawback; folk were early risers when they had only candles to sit up by.

In its old state the Hall must have been a fine place on a fine site; damp, it might be thought, but you note that its dwelling rooms are not on the ground floor, and in those big fireplaces you can imagine the roaring fires that were kept when wood was plentiful. The lake is close at hand for fishing, and along the shore towards Torver extended the deer park, still a lovely bit of park scenery. That they kept deer even after the head of the family had settled at Rydal, Sir Daniel's accounts testify. On December 22nd, 1659, he notes, "given unto George Fleming's boy for bringing a doe from Coniston, 2s.;" and on Christmas Day, "given unto Thomas Brockbanck for killing the doe at Coniston, 1s. 6d." It was not only at Christmas that they indulged in venison. On July 11th, 1660 (King Charles had just come home, so cavaliers could feast), George Fleming brought two deer from Coniston to Rydal, and got 2s.; and on September 11th, 1661, Sir Daniel treated his brother-in-law, Sir George Fletcher, to a hunt, and gave the tenants 1s. for drinks, "and next day more for the hunters to drink, 2s. 6d." It sounds little, but money was more valuable then, and he did not always kill a deer so cheaply. On July 27th, 1672, "paid my brother Roger which had spent in killing the buck at Coniston, 6s. 6d.;" and August 12th, 1677, "delivered to my son William when he went to Coniston to kill a buck, 5s."

The following useful bit of topography is taken from the old copy kindly lent by Dr. Kendall:—

"The ancient bounds of the manor of Coniston, besides the Water or Lake of Coniston, and certain tenements in Torver, Blawith, and Woodland thereunto belonging, are in these terms, namely:—

"Beginning at Coniston otherwise Thurston Water and so by the Eastern bank of Yewdale Beck up the same on to the low end of the close called the Stubbing and so upwards round the said close by the hedge that parts it from Waters Head Grounds into Yewdale Beck, and so up Yewdale Beck into the foot of Yewdale Field and so upwards by the hedge which parts the several Allans[A] belonging to Yewdale from Furness Fell grounds unto Yewdale Beck and so up Yewdale Beck unto the foot of a close called Linegards (otherwise Lang Gards) and so upwards round the said close by the hedge thereof betwixt it and Holme Ground unto Yewdale Beck and so up the said beck unto Mickle Gill head, and from thence ascending to the height of Dry Cove over against Green Burn and from thence by the Lile Wall to the height between Levers Water and Green Burn and so to the head of Green Burn and from thence by the Rear or Ray Cragg[B] and Bounders of Seathwaite unto Gaites Hause and so by the south side of Gaites Water and so down by Torver Beck to the foot of Fittess,[C] and so straight over to Brighouse Crag Yate and from thence to the Moss Yate and so down by a little Syke unto Brundale Beck and so down to the Broadmyre Beck and so down the same to Coniston Water aforesaid."

VII.—THE CHURCH AND PUBLIC BUILDINGS.

There was probably no church at Coniston before the time of Queen Elizabeth, though services may have been held by the squire's chaplain. Monk Coniston was, and still is ecclesiastically, in the parish of Hawkshead.

Coniston Church was built in 1586 by William Fleming, the "gentleman of great pomp and expence." It was consecrated and made parochial by Bishop Chaderton; the original dedication is not known. In 1650 the Parliamentary enquiry shows that there was no maintenance but the £1 19s. 10d. which the people raised for their "reader," Sir Richard Roule—"Sir" meaning "Rev." in those days. With liberal squires at the Hall, no doubt the "priest," as they called him, was not badly off, though Colonel Fleming, writing to his brother (November 27th, 1688), says:—"Tell the constable the same hearth man (hearth-tax collector) is coming again. Tell him to be as kind as his conscience will permit to his neighbours, and play the fool no more. The priest and he doth not know how happy they are." The income was eked out by the old custom of "whittlegate," right to have his meals at various houses in turn; and it is said that the Priest Stile opposite Mount Cottage was so called because he was so often seen crossing it on the way to his accustomed seat at the squire's table.

Until the end of the eighteenth century the curate was also schoolmaster, and as late as 1761 was nominated to the dual office by the six men or sidesmen representing the inhabitants. The patronage was afterwards in the hands of the Braddylls of Conishead Priory; eventually it passed into the possession of the Rev. A. Peache, and the living is now in the gift of the Peache trustees. Its net value is £220.

The original church, for we do not know that it was rebuilt between 1586 and 1818, was a small oblong structure with lattice windows and a western belfry tower.

In the Coniston Museum there is a mutilated document (found by Mr. Herbert Bownass among some old deeds) which not only shows the quaint arrangement of seats in the church separating the sexes, but also gives what is practically a directory of the parish in the time of Charles II.

Imp^s Seats in the Quier:

In the seat with the Minister, one for Silverbank & one for ffarr end.

2 The next seat above:

One for Silverbank for Robert Vickers, for Robert Dixon Bridge End & Jno. Atkinson de Catbank & for Holywarth.

3 The second fform above:

Edward Tyson, Rich. Hodgson, John Holms, Wm. Hobson de Huthw^t, Wm. Atkinson de Gateside.

The third fform above:
Wm. ffleming jun^r de Littlearrow, Jam. Robinson, Tho. Cowerd, Park Yeat.

The fourth fform above:
Tho. Dixon de Littlearrow, Mich. Atkinson, Huthw^t, Geo. Towers, Hows bank.

The fform next the wall or the highest fform:
David Tyson de Tilb^rthw^t, Wm. ffleming de Catbank, one for ffar end.

The back fform next Quier door:
Jo. ffleming, Low Littlearrow, Henry Dover de Brow, Wm. Harrison de Holywarth, Wm. Atkinson, Above beck, Myles Dixon & Robt. Dixon de Tilb^rthwaite.

The fform above it:
Wm. ffleming de Park Yeat, Geo

The fform under the Pulpit:
Jo. Harrison de Bowmansteads

Men's fforms ith church:
ffirst Jo. Dixon, Wm. Dixon, Tho. Dix ffleming of Bowmansteads.

The second fform beneath:
One seat for ffarr end, Wm. Towers

The third fform
Smartfield, Jo. Tyson, Low House Low Udale, Wm. Denison

The ffourth fform:
One for Silverbank, Rob. Walker Parks.

Womens fforms

The Highest ith Church:
Wm ffleming wife de Upper
Sam^s. Henry Dover wife de Brow
Hallgarth and Myles Dixon wi[fe]

2 The second fform Beneath:

David Tyson wife de Tilberthw^t
wife, Dixon Ground, Wm. Dixon, Geo

3 The third fform:

Outrake, Gill, Howsbank wives, Jo. ffleming wife, Low Littlearrow, & Park Yeat.

4 The ffourth form:

Silverbank, ffarr end, Ed. Tyson de Nook, Tho. Dixon de Littlearrow, Wm. Atkinson, Above beck, their wives.

5 The ffifth fform:

Smartfield, Wm. Atkinson, Wm. Cowerd, Wm. Hobson de Huthw^t, Jo. Atkinson and Wm. Atkinson, Catbank, their wives.

6 The sixth fform:

Jo. Harrison & Tho. ffleming de Bowmanstead, [——] Dixon ground, Ed. Park, Wm Denison, Upper Udale, their wives.

7 The seventh fform:

Myles Dixon, Upper Udale, Rob. Walker & Wm. Addison, Low Udale, Wm. Walker, Wm. Harrison & Elizabeth Parks.

To this devision we the Minister, six men and churchwardens have set our hands the year ffirst written, Anno Dnî 1684

Jo. Birkett cur.
Wm. ffleming}
Wm. ffleming}
Christo. Dixon} Sidemen
Wm. Harrison}
Wm. ffleming}
Myles Dixon}
Mich. Atkinson} Churchwardens
Myles Dixon}

In 1817 the curate in charge, John Douglas, and the churchwardens, Joseph Barrow and William Townson, obtained a faculty to rebuild the church. A sum of £325 was raised by subscription, a further sum by assessment, and the Incorporated Church Building Society made a grant of £125. The new church was consecrated by the Bishop of Chester on November 20th, 1819—Coniston being still within the diocese of Chester, not yet transferred to that of Carlisle.

In 1835 a faculty of confirmation was issued from the Consistory Court of Chester by which pews were assigned to the contributors of the building fund and other parishioners. In 1849, Dr. Gibson described the building as "oblong and barn-like, with a few blunt-arched windows in its dirty yellow walls, and overtopped at its western extremity by an unsightly black superstructure of rough stone, which some might call a small square tower badly proportioned, and others, with apparently equal correctness, the stump of a large square chimney."

In 1866 the same writer, in a paper read to the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, said:—"The church of Coniston, which occupies a position central to the village, is a chapel of ease under Ulverston, with a stipend of £146, recently augmented, derived from land, houses, bounty, dividends and fees. It was rebuilt in 1819 on the site of an older edifice. The only part of the former church that remains is the belfry tower, which, being out of keeping and small in proportion to the body of the present building, confers but little ecclesiastical and no architectural distinction upon it."

The late Mr. Roger Bownass, in marginal pencillings on this paper, noted:—"This is an error. The Belfry Tower was wholly rebuilt at the same time as the church, i.e., in 1818-19; the writer of this note having seen the old Tower pulled down, and new Foundations laid; One reason for the Landowners rebuilding the Church (which they did chiefly at their own expense) being the alleged state of the old Tower, the Bells of which, the Sexton pretended he durst not ring for fear he should bring the Tower down about his ears, though it was so difficult to get it down. So strongly was it built and cemented together that it had to be cut through nearly, near its base, before it could be brought down." Mr. Bownass goes on to say that his father, as one of the guarantees, contributed nearly £50, "which his widow had to pay, he himself dying before it was finished, and was the first person carried into the Church while the shavings, etc., lay on the floor, as the writer, his son, of 6 years of age, can well remember."

To resume Dr. Gibson's account:—"The new building is plain even to meanness; but being now well screened by trees and flourishing evergreens—and I may state that evergreens grow here with a luxuriance that I have not seen elsewhere—it is not so offensive to the eye as formerly. The interior has been greatly beautified by improvements made in 1857, the cost being defrayed by subscription. The addition of a reading desk, pulpit, reredos and altar rail in handsomely carved oak, the painting of what used to be an unsightly expanse of white ceiling, in imitation of oak panelling, and the spare but tasteful introduction of tinted glass into the windows, have made the inside as handsome as it is likely to be whilst the pews are allowed to remain. The parish register dates back to 1594. In the vestry is stored a library, chiefly of works in divinity, sermons, etc., which have been purchased from time to time with the interest of different sums left by the Fleming family, commencing with £5 under the will of Roger Fleming of Coniston, dated February, 1699. In the vestibule of the southern entrance to the church is kept one of those curious old chests, made from a solid block of oak, like that containing the muniments of the Grammar School at Hawkshead. The only contents of this are a number of slips of paper, each bearing the almost illegible affidavit of two women that the corpse of each person interred was shrouded in cloth only made of woollen material. These worn and fragile evidences of a curious old protective law—for I infer it could only be enacted to support the landed interest—serve, if they do nothing else, to explain the line in Pope which has puzzled many modern readers—