Soon after 1120 a Benedictine priory, dedicated to St Bega, was founded there as a dependency of St Mary's Abbey at York. St Bega's principal relic was a bracelet or ring, kept at St Bees. The legends of her life and miracles are contained in the thirteenth-century Life of St Bega, but other evidence of the cult is to be found in the charters of the St Bees Register. St. Bees religious house, which is supposed to have been destroyed by the Danes, was restored in the reign of Henry I by William de Meschines, who made it a cell of a prior and six Benedictine monks to the mitred Abbey of St. Mary, York. It was endowed by him and his son Ranulph, and also by William de Fortibus, earl of Albemarle, (circa A.D. 1192). Ranulph confirmed his father's grants to the priory of the church of St. Bees, and seven carucates of land there; the chapel (capella) of Egremont, the tithes of his demesne in Copeland, and of his men there; the tithe of his fisheries, hogs, venison, pannage, and vaccaries, throughout Copeland; the manor of Ennerdale and Ketel's grant of the church of Preston, &c., all the woods from St. Bees to Whitehaven, with two bovates of land and one villein, in Rottington; also Swarthtoft, and the churches of "Whittington and Botele." The priory of St. Bees had also tithes and lands in the Isle of Man, of which island the priors were barons. The present church of St. Bees is supposed to have been built by William de Meschines, a relative of the Conqueror, in 1120.

 

(Egremont / St. Bridget in Beckermett) Calder Abbey was founded A.D. 1134, by Ranulph de Meschines, for monks of the Cistercian order, and, as was usual, dedicated in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It was a filiation from the abbey of Furness, and subsequently received many valuable gifts; amongst the rest, the churches of St. John Baptist, Beckermet, and St. Michael, Arlecdon, were appropriated to it in 1262. The conventual church formed a cross, having north and south transepts, with a tower at the intersection, a great part of which still remains, and the weather mouldings of the roofs shew that they were high pitched. It rests upon light clustered arches, with capitals ornamented with a roll, from which spring beautifully pointed arches, which formed the cupola. In an arched recess, on the south side of the choir, was the sedilia, where the officiating priest sat during the chanting of the Gloria in excelcis Deo, and some other parts of the mass. The old church was appropriated to Calder Abbey before the yeare 1262, and until the dissolution, both this parish and those of St. John and Arlecdon, were under the spiritual care of the monks of that house. As the revenues of the church were not restored, but granted to the Flemings of Rydal, the parishes of St. Bridget and St. John were so impoverished, that from this time until the yeare 1842 they were supplied by one curate, who officiated at each church, alternately. John Fleming, Esqr., gave the church to Sir Jordan Crossland, Knight, on his marriage with his daughter, whose daughters and co-heiresses sold it to Richard Patrickson, Esq. On an alabaster slab, near the south transept, is the following inscription, in Lombardic capitals :- Hic jacet dompnus Robertus de Wilughby Abbas de Caldra, cujus animœ propicietur Deus; and on the north transept are three effigies of knights in mail armour, with surcoats, &c. One is supposed to be in memory of Sir John le Fleming, who was a benefactor to the abbey.

 

 

The latter, Cistercian order founded as an abbey St. Bridget, Beckermet Parish, a church dedicated to St. Mary in Egremont, was given by William de Meschines to the priory of St. Bees, which was a cell to St. Mary's Abbey, in York from and returning to northern Cumbria-a Benedictine priory. St. Bridget it is in Beckermett, is bounded on the southeast by the river Calder, which separates it from the parish of Ponsonby; on the W. by the Irish sea; on the N. by the parishes of Hale and St. John's; and on the E. by the mountains of Copeland Forest; contains part of the villages of Beckermet and Calder Bridge, with the hamlets of Sella-Field, Yotten-Fews, and Skalderskew. The manor of Great Beckermet, so called to distinguish it from the manor of Little Beckermet, in the adjoining parish of St. John, includes the chief part of the village, and belongs to lieut. general Henry Wyndham, except one estate, which is hold under the earl of Lonsdale. The Abbey's principal benefactors were John le Fleming, Knt., Cicely, countess of Albemarle, William de Esseby, and the Huddleston family. At the dissolution, which probably occured in 1536, when Henry VIII dissolved 380 of the lesser monasteries, the revenues of this abbey were valued by Dugdale. In 1538, that king granted to Thomas Leigh, L.L.D., (one of the commissioners for visiting the monasteries), and his heirs, "the demesne and site of the abbey or manor of Calder, and the church, steeple, and church yard thereof, and all messuages, lands, tenements, houses, buildings, barns, dovecotes, gardens, orchards, waters, ponds, mills, ground, and soil, as well within as nigh unto the site and precinct of the said monastery; as also all lands, tenements, meadows, pastures, woods, &c. at Calder." About 1225, Thomas of Newton and Johanna his wife made a promise not to enter into litigation against the abbot and convent of St Mary's and the prior and monks of St Bees. About 1400, the day of St Bega was celebrated at St Mary's, York as one of the lesser festivals, "in albs" with possible dates - 6 September, 31 October and 17 December. 31 October. The fourth miracle relates the punishment of Walter Espec, whose only son was killed when Walter had sworn falsely on the bracelet regarding certain land which he claimed from the monks of St Mary's, York. He later repented and became the benefactor of St Mary's and founder of Nostell and Rievaulx, and friend of St Bernard as well. Walter is an historical personage, the lord of Helmsley and a great northern baron, who died in 1155 not known to have been connected to St. Bees or Cumbria. Egremont the ancient market town is a venerable cruciform building, principally semi-Norman (circa 1200). The chancel, repaired from a ruin in 1817, to serve as a divinity school, is very noble, but needs restoration. Near Egremont, after its demolition by the Danes in the tenth century, a priory was established near the ancient site by William de Meschines, in the reign of Henry I. for a prior and monks of the Benedictine order, and was made a cell to St. Mary's Abbey in York. The ordinances of Richard Lucy, for the government of the borough, made about the reign of king John, declares that those who hold burgage tenure in Egremont were to find armed men for the defence of the castle, forty days at their own charge; twelve men for the lord's military array; be bound to aids for the redemption of the lord and his heir from captivity, for the knighthood of one of the lord's sons, and the marriage of one of his daughters; to hold watch and ward; not to enter the forest with bow and arrow; nor cut off their dogs' feet within the borough. The burgesses who had ploughs were to till the lord's demesne one day in the year, and every burgess was obliged to find a reaper; their labour was from morning, ad nonam, that is, from six to three. By the rule for inspecting the dyers, weavers, and fullers, it seems those were the only trades within the borough, under the character of craftsmen, but many of the inhabitants are now employed in the manufacture of linen, thread, and paper, and in the tanning and dressing of leather, there being five tanneries in the town and neighbourhood. There are also in the parish, extensive ironstone mines, belonging to the Messrs. Ainsworth and Lindow; the ore is shipped at Whitehaven chiefly for the iron foundries at Cardiff and Newport, in Wales. The present church of St. Bees is supposed to have been built by William de Meschines, a relative of the Conqueror, in 1120. Little of its former history is known, excepting a few of its Priors, as under :- Robert, the first Prior; Waleran, 1197; Ricardus; Nicholas, 1257, 1279, and 1282; Benedict, 1282; William, 1288; John; Roger Kirkby; Roger Armyn, 1435; Edmund Smyth, 1496; Thomas Barwise, 1498; and Robert Alanby, 1523. The boundaries of the parish are extensive, but the tradition that the limits were marked by the snow, said to have fallen through the prayers of Bega, on Midsummer day, and granted by lord Lucy to the Virgin Saint is questionable, as the castle of Egremont does not appear to have been built before the yeare 1070; and the first mention we have of the Lucy's as occupiers of Egremont, is in a commission of Edward II to Sir Anthony Lucy, about the yeare 1323 to proceed to Cardoil (Carlisle) and arraign Sir Andrew de Harcla, for his treachery at the battle of Beighland, in that monarch's reign, and probably six hundred years after the death of St. Bega. When St Bees priory was dissolved on 16 October 1539, it was referred to in Latin as the cell or church of St Bega, or, in English letters of the time, the cell of St Bees. This was not the name of the village: in the valuation Of 1535, as in earlier times, that is Kyrkeby Becok .(St Mary, to whom the church was also dedicated, seems to have dropped out of the record. Edward VI, in 1553, the seventh yeare of his reign, granted to Sir Thomas Chaloner, Knight, the manor, rectory, and cell of St. Bees, with all its rights and possessions not granted away by the crown before, to be holden by him and his heirs, "in fee farm rent for ever of the king as of his manor of Sheriff Hutton, in Yorkshire, in free and common soccage by fealty only, and not in capite," paying to the crown yearly the fee farm rent of £143 16s. 2½d. Philip and Mary, in the yeare 1557, granted the said yearly rent to Cuthbert Scott, bishop of Chester, and his successors, subject to an annual payment to the crown of £43 8s. 4d. A portion of the manor of Ennerdale was given by Ranulph de Meschines to the priory of St. Bees, and the remainder passed successively to the Harringtons, Bonvilles, and Greys, but was forfeited to the crown in 1554, by the father of lady Jane Grey, and was granted by Elizabeth to the tenancy in 1568.

 

Mannix & Whellan, History, Gazetteer and Directory of Cumberland, 1847