BURTON-IN-KENDAL is a small well-built market town, and township, surrounded on all sides but the north by Lancashire, and distant 11 miles S. of Kendal, 7 miles W. by S. of Kirkby-Lonsdale, 250 miles NW. of London, and 11 miles N. by E. of Lancaster. The market-place is a large square, lined with good houses and shops, and having in the center a handsome stone cross; but the market, which is held on Tuesday, is only of small importance, and the fair on Easter Monday, is now more a mart of pleasure than of traffic, though a few cattle are brought for sale, and a number of farm-servants stand to get the straws taken out of their mouths, or in other words to get hired. It had also a fair on the 23^rd of April, which, as well as the other, and the market, was established in 1661, after which, it was long the largest corn-market in the county; but since the completion of the canal, Kendal has held that rank, though there is a small wharf at Burton. Being on one of the turn-pike roads leading from Kendal to Lancaster, there are in the town several good inns for the accommodation of travelers, and many respectable families out of business have chosen it as a cheap and pleasant place of residence. The CHURCH, dedicated to St. James, is an ancient Gothic fabric with side aisles, a square tower, three bells, and two chapels or burial places belonging to Dalton and Preston Halls. The pulpit is curiously carved, and dated 1607. This church, with many others, was given by Ivo de Talebois, to St. Mary’s Abbey, in York. After the dissolution, the rectory and the advowson of the vicarage were granted by Queen Elizabeth to the Earl of Lincoln, and Christopher Gough, gent. "with reservation of a rent to the Crown of £9 7s. 8d.; to the schoolmaster of Kendal, £9 5s. 8d.; to the curate of Hugill, £3 6s. 8d.; and to the Bishop of Chester, £2." The advowson afterwards passed through several families, one of whom sold it to Thomas Hutton and Jeffrey Tenant, but John Johnstone, Esq. whose lady is the heiress of the Hutton family, is now the patron, and the Rev. Bryan Waller, A.M. is the incumbent. The great tithes belonged to the Prestons, whose two heiresses carried them in marriage to Lords Montgomery and Clifford; the former having the tithes of Burton, Holme, and Dalton, (afterwards sold to Colonel Charteris), and the latter the tithes of Preston Patrick and Holmscales, which, in Burn’s time were sold to Mrs. Gibson, of Lancaster. The vicarage, which is valued in the king’s books at £15 17s. 3 ½ d. was certified in 1725, at £31 6s. 8d., and in the same year augmented with £200 of Queen Anne’s bounty, and £200 given by the executrix of Lady Moyer, and other donors, both of which sums were laid out in the purchase of the present vicarage house, and the adjoining estate, the ancient glebe and house called Kirk-Butts, having been seized by the lords of the manor, who were some time patrons of the living. In 1772, it was augmented with an estate at Yealand Conyers, in Lancashire, purchased with £400, viz. £200 obtained from Queen Anne’s bounty, £100 given by the Rev. John Hutton, then vicar, and £100 given by the Countess Dowager Gower. On the inclosure of the Commons, in 1815, the tithes of the parish were commuted for by an allotment of 55A. OR. 20P. for Burton, 48 acres for Holme; 58A 1R. for Dalton; and the sum of £1400 for Preston Patrick, and £420 for Holmscales. The GRAMMAR-SCHOOL, which was re-built by subscription in 1817, has since 1657 received various benefactions and donations, which now produce about £50 a year; but the £800 left in 1795 by Henry Parkinson, is either wholly or partly lost by the recent failure of the Rev. Henry Sill, in whose hands it was vested. A Sick Club, called the Amicable, established in 1787, had its whole stock in the hands of the same reverend bankrupt. There is also another club, called the Friendly Society, which was established in 1827. The MANOR OF BURTON is held of the Crown, by a yearly quit-rent of £1 11s. It was anciently held by a family of its own name, but now belongs to Mrs. Sarah Atkinson, who holds a Court on Whit-Monday and Martinmas-day, for the admission of the customary tenants, and the recovery of debts under 40s. "The tenants only pay a 2d. fine, that is, doubling the rent, and no heriot." PETTY SESSIONS are held here on every alternate Tuesday, when the two following magistrates are usually on the bench, viz. Geo. Wilson, Esq. of Dallam Tower, and Wm. Waltham Atkinson, Esq. of Burton-House. Thos. North, Esq. resides in the town. About 1777, the inhabitants expended "some hundreds of pounds" in draining a large tract of marshy and mossy ground on the west side of the town, the principal drain being "between 2 and 3 miles long, 4 yards broad and 2 yards deep." Under the soil "is a bed of whitish earth, which is neither sand, nor clay, nor marl, and yet in some respects resembles each of them. It every where abounds with innumerable small shells of the snail and periwinkle kind, and such as appear sometimes in limestone and marble." Many trunks of large oak and firs were found buried in the moss.

CLAWTHORP, or Clawthrop, as it is generally called, is a small village in Burton township, 1 mile NNE. of the town, and about the same distance SSE. of Farlton Knot, a beautiful naked limestone mountain, said to resemble much in form the rock of Gibraltar. On the edge of another mountain, nearer to Burton, is a natural curiosity called Clawthorp-Clints, or Curwen Woodkins, and consisting of a large plain of naked limestone rock, a little inclined to the horizon, and deeply rent with a number of fissures, 6, 8 or 10 inches wide, which it is supposed could only have been formed by the ebbing of copious waters, and as there are in the neighbourhood several limestone plains, with a similar surface, it is conjectured that they, as well as this, were once covered by the ocean.

DALTON township, one mile E. by S. of Burton, is in the hundred of (South) Lonsdale, in Lancashire, of which county Edmund Hornby, Esq. of Dalton Hall, is now (1829) High-sheriff.

GOOSE-GREEN, a hamlet in Preston Patrick township, 5 ½ miles N. by E. of Burton.

HERON-SIKE, a hamlet in the township of, and ½ a mile S. of Burton.

HOLME is a large village and township, on the Lancaster and Kendal canal, within two miles N. by W. of Burton. Two extensive Flax mills were built here about forty years since, and now employ a considerable number of hands. Here is also a good inn, which was erected a few years ago. The manor anciently belonged to two lords, "Preston and Tinsdal;" from whom it passed to the family of Charteris.

MILLNESS, a hamlet in Preston Patrick, 5 miles N. by E. of Burton.

NOOK, a hamlet in Preston Patrick, 4 miles NNE. of Burton.

PRESTON PATRICK is a large township and chapelry, without a village of its own name, but containing the hamlets of Gatebeck, Goose-Green, Millness, and Nook, with a number of dispersed dwellings, extending from 4 to 6 miles N. by E. of Burton, on the east side of the river Belo, which is crossed by the canal, near the CHAPEL, a nest Gothic structure, which stands on the side of a hill, in the center of what was formerly a large Park. In 1781, this chapel was endowed with parochial privileges. The curacy is in the first of the inhabitants paying chapel salary, and is now enjoyed by the Rev. Samuel Scott. In 1722 it was augmented with an estate at Nook, purchased with £200 of Queen Anne’s bounty, and £240 given by James Graham, Esq., Sir John Mawson, and the inhabitants. It has received two other augmentations, viz. 15 acres of land at Houghgill, in Yorkshire, purchased in 1773, with £200 of Queen Anne’s bounty, and £200 given by the Countess Dowager Gower; and 2A. 3R. 15P. of land at Bentham, in Yorkshire, purchased with £200 more of Queen Anne’s bounty, in 1810. The ancient yearly salary of £3 4s. 8d. is paid out of the tenements in the chapelry. The SCHOOL, which was built by subscription about 1780, was, at the inclosure of the extensive common in 1814, endowed with an allotment of twenty acres, now let for £12 10s. per annum, and vested in trust with the Chapelwardens and Overseers. There was formerly an ABBEY here, but it did not exist long before its founder removed it to Shap. The manor of Preston Patrick, like Bampton Patrick, is supposed to have received the latter part of its name from Patrick de Culwen, a descendant of Ivo de Talebois, first Baron of Kendal, and the great ancestor of the Curwens, of Workington. Preston is said to be a corruption of Priest-town, and the manor was long held by a family of its own name, several of whom were knights and baronets. In the 18^th century the manor was sold to the Charteris family, of Hornby Castle, one of whom in 1773, enfranchised the tenants for the sum of £5,130. The Earl of Lonsdale is now lord of the manor, and owner of the Preston Hall estate, occupied by a farmer. Here are several handsome villas, viz. Challen Hall, John Foster, Esq.; Barkin House, Thomas Clegg, gentleman; Black Gates, Nathan Sill, gentleman; and Hollins, William Talbot, gentleman. Challen Hall was rebuilt about 1770 by Mr. Robert Dickinson, and was anciently called Chanon Hall, from the canons of the Abbey. At Park End Mill are extensive marble works, where the marble, brought chiefly from Dent in Yorkshire, is cut and polished by machinery, propelled by water.  Return to Top