Tag: Westmorland
Kendal town clock
Kendal town clock has told the time on the town hall since 1861. But it had a predecessor. By 1837, the previous town clock (with a wooden face) had been marking time for 70 years. It was atop the old... Read More
Legends and Historical Notes on the Places of North Westmorland
Legends and Historical Notes on Places of North Westmorland, published in 1887, remains a useful resource for family historians and local historians some 134 years later. But who was Thomas Gibson, ... Read More
Hubert Crackanthorpe and Leila Macdonald
The last Crackanthorpe to be recorded on Cumbrian Characters was a tragic one. And the short version is that Hubert Crackanthorpe was an author who died young, likely as a result of suicide. With fact... Read More
Frozen fish, a Cumbrian discovery
Frozen fish, a staple of any domestic freezer, was a 20th century discovery by Clarence Birdseye. Or was it? Well, no. But this isn’t a blog about native Canadians, or how the Romans invented underf... Read More
Wicked Jimmy and the Westmorland Militia
If the militia in the late 1700s were akin to Dad’s Army, the commander of the Westmorland Militia was… well, he was Wicked Jimmy. Most families have a black sheep somewhere down the centuries, bu... Read More
Need-fire – a Celtic tradition that lasted till the 1840s
The need-fire – a Celtic response to cattle disease – might not mean much to people today. But, it’s only 160 years or so since desperate farmers finally abandoned it. And it seems to have been ... Read More