In a field about a mile and a half east by north of Keswick, the remains of a Druids' Temple occupy a circular area surrounded by thirty-eight rough stones, from three to eight feet in height, and having ten other stones within, forming a square on its eastern side. King Arthur's Round Table, near Lowther, on the south bank of the river Eamont, hard by Penrith, is a trenched amphitheatre, the scene of many a tournament, where the brave of other days vindicated their knighthood by feats of arrms. It is twenty-nine yards in diameter, with two apertures where the champions entered. The Druidical Remains, called Long Meg and her Daughters, situated about half a mile south of the church of Addingham, and about six miles north-east of Penrith, are supposed to be of great antiquity, but whether they were intended for judicial rites, or for the superstitious solemnities of the Druidical religion, is not now easy to determine.

"Long Meg," and the others, "her daughters" gathered at a point consistent of sixty-seven unhewn upright stones, forming a circle of 350 feet in diameter; some of the stones are ten feet high and fifteen feet in circumference, and one, which stands about twelve yards from the others, is fifteen feet in circumference, eighteenefeet high, and weighs sixteen and a half tons; it is nearly square, and is so placed that each angle answers to a cardinal point of the compass. Near the stone into the circle there is no quarry in the neighbourhood from which the stones could have been obtained; but the Druids may have possessed a mechanical art of which we by which these stones could be removed. All the great stones forming Stonehenge, on Salisbury Plain, were brought from Marlborough Downs, a distance of fifteen miles, and that one of them weighed forty tons, and would require one hundred and forty oxen to draw it!

In the Viking Period of the Isle of Man, the Scandinavian kingdom of Dublin met the earls of Orkney and Shetlands from the Hebridean Western Isles. From the sixth century, colonists from Ulster settled between the Firths of Clyde and Fourth. The island's conversion from a missionary then derives from Mannanan where St. Maughold gives his name to a parish. Ever since, a form of Gaelic, that is, Manx and Welsh legend and the people living there. In the 1130s the Church sent a mission to establish the first bishopric on the Isle of Man, and appointed Wimund as the first Bishop. Gødred (reigned 1153 - 1158), who for a short period ruled over Dublin also, as a result of a quarrel with Somerled, the ruler of Argyll, in 1156, lost the sler islands off the coast of Argyll. An independent sovereignty thus appeared between the two divisions of his kingdom from where some of Leinster and Dublin subdued. In the English period, Neville's Cross is one struggle between one in favor during the period of another rule.

The principal monastic remains and the remains of ancient castles are to be seen at Carlisle, Cockermouth, Egremont, and Penrith

St. Bees

Calder Abbeys

Ravenglass and Whitehaven,

Lanercost Priory

two miles east-north-east of Brampton

Wetheral Priory, near Corby Castle

 

Carlisle castle stands in the sockage manor of Carlisle, in that part of St. Mary's parish without the city on the old occupant site of the old Roman fort that was repaired by Edrid, King of Northumberland in AD 680. Nearby, St. Bees was famed for miracles. After the AS Chronicle, Carlisle's restoration belonged to William Rufus and was commenced by his successor Henry I in 1122 and was later seized by St. David I, King of Scotland. Henry III returned to a ruinous state which was besieged by Alexander of Scotland.

The Askerton church of which was ruined by the Scotch, in the reign of Edward II, extends between the rivers Line and Kingwater, from 4 to 6 miles north of Brampton, comprises the ancient parish of Kirkcambeck, or Cambeck, since has long disappeared. It was rectorial, in the impropriation of the prior and convent of Carlisle; Askerton Castle, now a farm house, stands on the east bank of the Cambeck rivulet, six miles north by east. of Brampton. The ancient fortress is a small tower building, with lofty turrets, and is said to have been built, by the barons of Dacre, for the residence of the land sergeant of Gilsland, who commanded a few men in arms, to protect the barony against the incursions of the Moss-troopers. A little to the west is Knorren Lodge, the neat villa of the Misses Blackburn. Kingwater derives its name from the rivulet which flows to the Irthing, near Walton; being formed by the union of several mountain streams north of Gilsland.

Waterhead township includes a portion of the village of Banks, from which it extends to Gilsland, where the river Irthing divides this county from Northumberland. Burdoswald, the Amboglana of the Romans, the extensive remains of which cover about 4 acres, is in this township; and about 2 miles distant is Gilsland, celebrated for its chalybeate and sulphurreted spas, which are situated in the romantic and highly picturesque vale of the Irthing. Lanercost Abbey Parish district, which extends about ten miles in length from east to west and nine from north to south is bounded on the south and east by the river Irthing, on the north by the parish of Bewcastle, and on the west by the parishes of Walton and Stapleton. Divided into the four manors of Lanercost, Askerton, Walton Wood, and Trodder-main, or Tryer-main.

The great Roman wall ran through the township of Burtholme. Together with the hamlet of Burtholme, the township also contains the hamlet called the Island, and the chief part of the straggling village of Banks, which is about four miles east of Brampton, and was formerly a distinct township, but is now divided between Burtholme and Waterhead. It still ranks as a separate constablewick. St. Mary's vale, on the banks of the Irthing, three miles northeast of Brampton. Burtholme township contains 380 souls, and its rateable value is £2896 15s.

Lanercost Priory is situated in a vale, the name of Abbey Lanercost to a small hamlet in Burtholme township. The west end is used as the parish church; but the tower, chancel, and cross aisles have long been roofless, and on their delapidated Gothic walls grow a profusion of ivy, ash and other plants. At each end of the cross aisles are several tombs "richly sculptured with the arms of the Dacres and Howards, but, from exposure and neglect, are mutilated and moss-grown;" and in the adjoining field are the remains of the ancient sepulchral cross, apparently on its original site. The priory was founded in 1116, by Robert de Vallibus, for the reception of a prior and monks of the order of St. Augustine, and endowed by him with "all the lands laying between the Picts wall and Irthing."

A little to the south of the village are the remains of Wetheral Priory or Abbey, consisting only of a tower, with a fine elliptical arch; the rest of this sacred structure being demolished many years ago. Wetheral Parish extends about six miles on both sides of the Eden, in a most picturesque part of the vale of that river, and averages from 1½ to 3½ miles in breadth, being bounded on the east by the parishes of Hayton and Cumwhitton, on the west by St. Cuthbert's and St. Mary's, on the north by Warwick, and on the south by Leath Ward. It was founded in 1088, by Ranulph de Meschines, for eight Benedictine monks, and was dedicated to the Holy Trinity, St. Mary, and St. Constantine, but being an inferior house under the abbey of St. Mary's in York, it is supposed the monastery did not possess much ornament.

 

The abbey received with it the church manor and cells of Wetheral, the mill, fishery, wood, and chapel of Warwick, with two bovates of land in Corby. Confirmed by Henry I, who gave to it pannage for swine in his forest, without paying the usual forest dues and after its foundation, the priory of Wetherall was endowed by a numerous list of benefactors, and received many privileges and immunities, from Richard I. Next to the foundings St. Bridget or St. Bees was famed from the north, avenged an unknown cult of the landing places places by the Romans. The Cistercian order and St. Bridget of Calder Abbey near Egremont was once one of those in which a former parish and a successive saint were around the same times as Lombardic enscriptions there. The face of a perpendicular rock, 40 feet above the water of Eden, at a short distance from the abbey ruins, are St. Constantine's Cells, said to have been formed by Constantine, a younger son of one of the Scottish monarchs, who died here an hermit.

In 1539, it was surrendered by Ralph Hartley, its last prior, to Henry VIII, who, in 1542, granted it to the dean and chapter of Carlisle. The manor of Wetheral was sold by the commissioners of Oliver Cromwell, for £1044 5s. 1d., but on the restoration of King Charles, it was recovered by the dean and chapter, and is now held of them either by leasehold or customary tenants.

The Manor of Corby was one of the dependant manors of Gilsland Barony, and together with Warwick, was given to Odard, the first lord of Corby, by Hubert de Vallibus, Warwick. After the death of Robert, son of William, son of Odard, Adam de Chorkby, Knight, was lord of this manor, and in the 31st of Edward I it was possessed by Thomas de Richmont. In the 16th Edward II, Rowland de Richmond released the same to Sir Andrew de Harcla, earl of Carlisle," on whose attainder it escheated to the crown, and in 1337, was granted by Edward III to Richard de Salkeld, Knt. one of the benefactors of Wetheral Priory. His son, Hugh, married the heiress of Rosgill, in Westmorland, and his son John, settled at Corby, and had issue Richard Salkeld, Knt. who left five daughters, of whom Catherine and Mary possessed the Corby estate, and carried it in marriage to the Salkelds, of Whitehall, and to the Blenkinsops, of Holbeck, who enjoyed their several moieties for five generations. Of Richmonds; Alan the Black Richmond, Earl of Richmond b. abt 1096 married Bertha de Bretagne, sons; Conan le Petit and Brian Fitzalan Lord of Bedale... Daughter of John, Earl of Richmond, Joan b. abt 1224 married Richard de la Ya of Ely.

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