Morland Directories

Morland Parish

Is an extensive and fertile district, abounding with limestone, and bounded by the parishes of Cliburn, Lowther, Shap, Crosby-Ravensworth, Appleby, Kirkby-Thore, and Long Marton. The river Leeth forms its northern and western limit, and on its eastern side it is margined by the Eden. It is intersected by the Lyvennet and another rivulet, and is about 6 miles in length and 3½ in breadth, containing six townships and two chapelries, of which the following forms an enumeration, with the number of inhabitants in 1801, 1811, and 1821, and the estimated annual value of the lands and buildings in 1815:

* * Each township and chapelry maintains its own poor separately.

MORLAND is a large and well-built village, 7 miles NNE of Shap, and about the same distance W by N of Appleby. Here are two large manufactories, one for the fabrication of coarse linen goods, and the other for tape, thread, and other small wares. The CHURCH is a large ancient pile, dedicated to St. Lawrence, and has a tower, with three good bells. It was given by Ketel, grandson of Ivo de Talebois, to St. Mary’s Abbey, in York, for the support of the cell of monks at Wetheral, but the vicarage has long been in the patronage of the Dean and Chapter of Carlisle, and is valued in the king’s books at £11 18s. 1½ d. and was afterwards certified at the clear yearly value of £45. A small Friends’ meeting-house was built here in 1804, and has a burial-ground attached. The FREE SCHOOL is endowed with £16 a year by the Dean and Chapter of Carlisle, in lieu of their having (as formerly) to provide the tenants of the manor with wood for the reparation of their houses, &c. They also, after the inclosure of the commons, between 1780 and 1800, gave their allotment of 30 acres for the benefit of the parish, and directed that five-sixths of the rent should go to the schoolmaster, and one-sixth be appropriated for the purpose of repairing the school, foot bridges, &c. The founders have also enjoined the inhabitants to augment the master’s salary with a yearly subscription of £8, so that his annual stipend is now upwards of £30. The numerous Charities belonging to the parish produce upwards of £105 yearly.

BOLTON, a long village, township, and chapelry on the west bank of the Eden, 4 miles NW by W of Appleby. The Chapel of Ease is an old building, dedicated to All Saints. The curacy, of which the land-owners are patrons, and the Rev. Edward Jackson incumbent, was anciently only worth £4 10s. a year, viz. £3 paid by the vicar of Morland, and 30s. arising "from the produce of the chapel-yard, surplice fees, and the tithes of garths, chickens, eggs, ducks, hemp, and flax in the lordship of Bolton." It has been augmented with £1000, of which £800 was obtained from Queen Anne’s bounty, in 1754, 1761, and 1785, and £200 was given by the Countess Dowager Gower. Two estates in Bolton were purchased with £800 of this money, and the rest was laid out in the purchase of the Scar-side estate at Orton. Bolton Free-School has been endowed since 1731 with several benefactions, amounting to £312, yielding a yearly interest of about £14, for which the master teaches 14 free scholars, under the control of eleven trustees. The principal benefactions are as follows: James Hanson, in 1721, 40l.; Elizabeth Hanson, 10l.; Joseph Railton, in 1762, 40l.; William Bowness, in 1762, 50l.; Michael Richardson, D.D. in 1765 and 1784, 100l.; and John Fallowfield, in 1804, 21l. A neat Methodist Chapel was built here in 1818, on land given by William Dent, together with a donation of 30l. When the common lands in this township were enclosed, pursuant to an act of the 48^th of George III all the tithes were commuted for, by an allotment of 382A. 3R. 10P. to the Dean and Chapter, the appropriators of the corn and hay tithes; 35A. 3R. to the vicar; and 1A. 3R. 20P. to the perpetual curacy of Bolton. The chapel of ease is about to be re-built, 100l. having been received for that purpose from the Society for building new Churches. In 1816, a cast iron CHAIN BRIDGE was raised across the Eden, within a mile N from the village, at the expense of the land-owners on both sides of the river. It is 30 yards in length, and was originally only supported by strong buttresses at each end; but having given way, about two months after its completion, two massive pillars were raised under it, so that it may now endure for ages. The Earl of Lonsdale is lord of the manor, in which is Buley Castle, now a farm-house, but anciently one of the seats of the Bishops of Carlisle, to whose successor it still belongs. Eden Grove is the seat of Richard Tinkler, Esq.

KING’S MEABURN township has a good village, seated on a pleasant eminence, 5 miles W by N of Appleby. The manor was once possessed by the crown, and was called King’s Meaburn to distinguish it from Mauld’s Meaburn. The Earl of Thanet is its present lord, and the tenants pay 10d. fines on the death of lord, and 17d. fines on change of tenant.

NEWBY, or Newby Stones, a village and township, 5 miles N by E of Shap, where there is plenty of limestone, and a seam of coal six inches thick, and 25 yards below the surface: this coal is worked for the use of the lime-kilns, near the hamlet of Towcett. The manor was long held in capite of the king, by the families of Vernon and Nevinson, but now belongs to the Earl of Lonsdale. The ancient Hall is occupied by a farmer: the common was enclosed in 1811.

SLEAGILL, a township and village, 7 miles W by S of Appleby, is another manor of the Earl of Lonsdale, crossed by the thin seam of coal mentioned above, and formerly held by a family of its own name. In 1670, William Mawson "gave the tithes of Slegill to the vicarage of Penrith," which, at the enclosure in 1803, received an allotment of 140 acres, in lieu of the corn and hay tithes, and the vicarial tithes of Morland were also commuted for 13 acres.

STRICKLAND (GREAT), a village and township, 6 miles SSE of Penrith. It gave name to the family of Strickland, which continued here many generations, and afterwards removed to Sizergh Hall, as will be seen at a subsequent page. The manor was anciently called Stirkland, and was held of the barons of Kendal by the Stricklands, from whom it passed in the reign of Henry VI to the Fallowfields, whose heiress carried it in marriage to the Dalstons, who sold it to Sir John Lowther, an ancestor of its present lord, the Earl of Lonsdale. In the village, is an ancient Quaker’s Chapel, with a burial ground, now nearly deserted. The school was built in 1790 with money belonging to the township, and is endowed with a small plot of freehold land, purchased with £10, left in 1757 by William Fletcher, and £20 left by William Stephenson, in 1797.

STRICKLAND (LITTLE), a hamlet and township, in the chapelry of Thrimby, nearly 3 miles N of Shap, where a branch of the Crackenthorp family resided for several generations, but the manor now belongs to the Earl of Lonsdale. The common was enclosed in 1811.

THRIMBY, a pleasant hamlet and township, 3¼ miles N by W of Shap, was anciently held by a family of its own name, but the Earl of Lonsdale is now lord of the manor and owner of most of the soil, which was purchased by his ancestor, John Viscount Lonsdale. The Chapel of Ease includes within its jurisdiction both this township and that of Little Strickland, and was re-built in 1814, at the expense of the Earl of Lonsdale, and the curate; the farmers leading the materials. The original chapel was quite dilapidated and deserted for many years till 1681, when Thomas Fletcher bequeathed a yearly rent charge of £10, to be paid out of High and Low Sandriggs, and Bryam tenement in Little Strickland, (where the chapel is situated), for the benefit of the curate and schoolmaster, which offices are now filled by the Rev. John Webster. The vicar of Morland is patron of the curacy, which has received four lots of Queen Anne’s bounty, amounting to £800, the two last of which were obtained in 1800 and 1822, and the other were many years ago laid out in the purchase of the Stony-Gill estate, in Crosby Ravensworth, so that only £400 remains at interest. The school adjoins the chapel, and has also been re-built, but has never been augmented since its first endowment.

TOWCETT, a hamlet in Newby township, 3 miles N by E of Shap, where Matthew Betham, gentleman, has an estate, and is working a thin seam of coal.

Directories