By Margaret Clarke

England was already an old country in 1066 when Duke William of Normandy invaded these shores. A thousand years earlier the Romans had conquered what was then a prosperous, well settled country. Evidence of settlement in many periods throughout the last five thousand years has been found in our local villages. Axe heads, flint tools, ‘a lozenge shaped arrow head, beautifully worked on both faces and fragments of pottery, all from the Neolithic period have been found in Carnforth. Warton, on the Crag, in Silverdale and the Yealands.1

The tumulus on Summer House Hill in Yealand Conyers erected sometime in the Bronze Age is evidence of strong political administration and substantial numbers of people. Burial urns probably dating from the same period were found in the Crag Foot area in 1785 by John Jenkinson of Yealand when he was bringing new land into cultivation. Thirteen years later he was still locating archaeological evidence. Romaine Hervey recorded in his diary on 2 July 1798, ’John Jenkinson and I dug up some Roman bones on Warton Crag, they expected me to find an urn but were disappointed2. Perhaps he was mistaken in thinking they were Roman.

The Iron Age is perhaps best known for the large number of hill forts, although they range in date from the late Bronze Age to the Roman conquest, and in some areas they appear to have been occupied throughout the Roman period and into the Dark Ages. The fort on Warton Crag is a fine example of an Iron Age Hill Fort ’in a perfect position on a prominent limestone hill, naturally defended on three sides by rock terraces and overlooking the sea to the west…a long slope on the north defensively reinforced by three curving but parallel stone wall ramparts’3. A hill fort can be compared to a medieval castle; both were important focal points, serving a military and an administrative purpose and acting as a refuge in times of need. ’In the labour demands and agricultural surpluses implied by hill fort construction we glimpse something of the interactions between the component parts of a complex system of settlement.4’

Although the first written record of our villages appears in Domesday Book in 1066, their names tell us a little about their earlier history, all our village names are Old English or Anglian, hut we have no means of knowing whether older Celtic or British settlements were given new names by incoming Anglians. Only the river names, Kent and Keer, are Celtic names. Lancaster was an important Roman centre, but has an Anglian name. In Lancashire there are more than fifty Celtic or British place names; most of them are south of the Kibble, several are in the Fylde, but there are none in the Lune Valley5. Warton means the ’guard settlement’ and probably was given that name by the Anglians because of the hill fort on the Crag. The ending ’-ton’ signifies a settlement and the prefix gives it its own identity. Hutton is the ‘settlement on a spur of land’. Carnforth means ’heron (or crane) ford’. The word ‘bere- wick’ meaning an ’outlying part of a lord’s estate’ in time became Borwick. There appears to be some doubt about the meaning of Yealand, and two alternatives are postulated, either ‘high land’ or ‘land by a stream’. Silverdale may mean ‘silver valley’ because of the light coloured limestone rocks there. Other old English names within our villages are Hilderston from the personal name Hild or ‘Hildered’s settlement’, Leighton from the word Ieactun meaning ‘garden, and Lindeth meaning ’lime tree headland’. All these settlement names seem to date from the later part of the 7th century. The nearest village to us with a name indicating that it dates from the earliest phase of Anglian settlement, c570, is Melling.

In the 9th century Horsemen from Ireland and the Isle of Man came to the West coast and settled among the Anglian communities. Hyning if a Norse name meaning ‘enclosure from the Old Norse word hygna ‘to fence’, and Mourholme means the ‘island in the marshes’. The villages of Kellet have a Norse name meaning ‘slope on which there is a spring’, and Arnside means Arni’s saetr or ‘shieling’, a ’summer pasture’6.

In 1066 the villages which came to form the ecclesiastical parish of Warton, although existing close together geographically, were administered from widely scattered centres. Yealand, at that time not divided into two separate entities, covered a large area, including Silverdale it is thought, and was part of an estate administered from Beetham. Borwick belonged to this estate, which also included Farleton, Preston Richard, Heversham, Hincaster and Levens. This estate was one of many held by Tostig, Earl of Northumberland and brother of King Harold.

Warton and (Priest) Hutton were part of a larger estate administered from Austwick, which included Burton (in Kendal), Holme, Lupton, Preston Patrick, Mansergh, Middleton, Kirkby Lonsdale, Caton, Claughton, Heldetun (an unidentified place – could it be hilderstone?), and Clapham, and was held by Torfin, an Englishman.

Carnforth was administered from Halton, the centre of the most dominant estate, which included both Kellets, Bolton (le Sands), Slyne, Stapleton Terne (now a lost name), Bare, Poulton, Torrisholme, Oxcliffe, Heaton, Skerton, Lancaster and Kirk Lancaster, Aldcliffe, Thurn- ham, Hillham (in Cockerham), Hutton and Newton (both in Bulk, near Halton), Overton, Middleton, and Heysham. It was also held by Earl Tostig7.

It is unfortunate that the entries in Domesday Book for this part of the country are so brief. They consist only of the names of the holders of the estates, the component parts of each estate and the area liable to pay geld or tax. However these administrative areas had probably baen in existence long before 1066. Professor Glanville Jones argues, many think very convincingly, that these estates, which he calls multiple estates, had their origin in the Iron Age and were often associated with hill forts or fortified places. The estate of Torfin, with its centre at Austwick could well have been a multiple estate as described by Professor Jones.8

The Norman Conquest had far reaching effects in our part of the country. Between 1066 and 1086 each of the three estates to which our villages belonged received a different lord. Roger of Poitou, the son of a Norman, was granted the estate of Beetham. King William acquired Torfin’s estate of Austwick and Earl Tostig’s many estates including Halton.

A great reorganisation of land and estates subsequently occurred. In 1066 this area was in the west Riding of Yorkshire, within Northumbria, which stretched across the country from coast to coast and extended from the Humber and the Ribble over the whole of the north of England. King William granted out much of the land which came into his possession to his Norman supporters. Amounderness and the land between the Mersey and the Ribble, he granted to Roger of Poitou. Later William Rufus added Lonsdale, Cartmel, and Furness to Roger’s possessions. Furness and Cartmel form a geographical unit with Cumberland and Westmorland, but the route over the sands of Morecambe Bay was strategically important and so Roger of Poitou was given jurisdiction over these separated areas. Roger made Lancaster the administrative centre of his large estates, which became known as the ‘Honour of Lancaster’. In course of time this became recognised as a county. In fact this year, 1982, is the 800th anniversary of this recognition.

This reorganisation of land had a direct effort on our villages. The former English estates were broken up. Sometime after William the Conqueror’s death all our villages received the same lord when they were granted to Gilbert, 1st Baron of KendalVictoria County History of Lancashire VIII. pp. 151ff for history cf Barony of Kendal9. The Barony of Kendal had lands from Garstang in the south to Barton, near Ullswater, in the north, and as far west as Ulverston. During the later part of the 12th century the Baron of Kendal built two castles as his administrative centres, one at Kendal and the other, Mourholme Castle, at Warton. Thus Warton became the administrative centre of the southern part of this huge Barony. That Warton had achieved a position of some economic importance is indicated by the granting of a charter by King John In 1200 for a weekly market to be held on Wednesdays10.

We do not know precisely when the ecclesiastical parish of Warton came into being, but it seems very probable that the Baron of Kendal established the church at Warton sometime between 1160 and 1180. He endowed the church with Land at Hutton, which gave that place the new name of Priest Hutton. There may have been a chapelry there before 1160. We know that originally Carnforth was not part of the parish of Warton. A document dated 1320 says:Carnforth which is now in the parish of Warton was in the parish of Bolton before the interdict in England and the men of that township partook of all the sacraments of the church in Bolton church and their bodies were buried in the churchyard of the church of Bolton, and they paid all manner of tithes both small and great to the church of Bolton. And there is still a path between Bolton and that township called, as it is believed, Bolton ’KIRKSTY’ by which the men used to go from that township to the parish church of Bolton; the truth may be fully sought from the older men of the Township of Bolton11.

In 1246 William de Lancaster III, Baron of Kendal, died, leaving his two sisters as co-heiresses. The Barony was therefore divided between them, Heloise Bruce receiving Kendal Castle and Alice Lindsay receiving Mourholme Castle. As a result Warton was detached from the Barony of Kendal, and its development thereafter was as the centre of an independent lordship. After it was granted borough status12 by Alice’s son, Walter Lindsay, it was replanned as a village, evidence of which is visible today.

The division of the Barony affected our other villages also. Borwick, like Warton, was assigned to the Lindsays. Yealand had been divided during the 12th century when one part was granted to Adam de Avranches, who was eventually succeeded by his great-granddaughter who married Robert de Conyers. The other part was granted to Norman de Yealand whose son adopted the name Redman or Redmayne. Yealand Redmayne was assigned to the Lindsays, but Yealand Conyers was assigned to the other heiress. Carnforth had been divided into several moieties and granted to various people, and so in 1246 some parts were assigned to the Lindsays and others to the Bruces.

The Barons of Kendal, by granting out land to tenants, received from these tenants’ allegiance and services. The tenants became the lords of the estates or manors they had been granted and received from their tenants, the people living and working in our villages, rents in money or kind and services. By the end of the medieval period we find that our villages have developed in quite distinct ways and their customs show a great variation as a result of these many partitions of land.

Notes

Carnforth which is now in the parish of Warton was in the parish of Bolton before the interdict in England and the men of that township partook of all the sacraments of the church in Bolton church and their bodies were buried in the churchyard of the church of Bolton, and they paid all manner of tithes both small and great to the church of Bolton. And there is still a path between Bolton and that township called, as it is believed, Bolton ’KIRKSTY’ by which the men used to go from that township to the parish church of Bolton; the truth may be fully sought from the older men of the Township of Bolton.

  1. The Cumbria and Lancashire Archaeological Unit is in the process of listing all known archaeological sites in these counties. Its records are kept at the University of Lancaster. ↩︎
  2. Printed in Cumbria Family History Society Newsletter 15 (May 1980). ↩︎
  3. C.L.A.U. ↩︎
  4. B. Roberts, Rural Settlement in Britain (1979). ↩︎
  5. J.J. Bagley, A History of Lancashire (1976) ↩︎
  6. E. Ekwall, The Place Names of Lancashire (1922) ↩︎
  7. Domesday Book transcriptions are available in the appropriate volumes of the Victoria County Histories, also in Domesday Book-Cheshire: including Lancs, Cumbria and N. Wales (1 78) ↩︎
  8. G.R.J. Jones, ’The Multiple Estate as a Model Framework for Tracing the Early Stages in the Evolution of Rural Settlement’ ↩︎
  9. Victoria County History of Lancashire VIII. pp. 151ff for history cf Barony of Kendal. ↩︎
  10. T. Duffus Hardy (ed.), Rotuli Chartarum, Record Commission 1857, I, 1, p.50. ↩︎
  11. From an Extent of the Manor of the Rector of Bolton le Sands, c1320, in Lancashire Inquests, Extents and Feudal Aids, W. Farrer (ed.). The interdict of 1208 occurred as a result of a quarrel between King John and the Pope. England was excommunicated and religious services throughout the country were suspended for some years. ↩︎
  12. M. Bateson, ’The Creation of Boroughs’, English Historical Review XVII, pp286-95. ↩︎

Published in Mourholme Magazine Issue 1 Autumn 1982. This was the first article in the first Mourholme Magazine.