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has laid out the grounds with much taste, and greatly improved the surrounding country.

The mountainous district, constituting all the northern part of Furness, is locally known by the name of FELLS; and these are distinguished from each other by the appellations of Coniston, Furness, and Cartmel. Wood has been very abundant on these eminences, and was generally cut down once in every fifteen years, to be charred, for the use of the furnaces and forges in the neighbourhood. The fells of Upper Furness have been called the Apennines of Lancashire; and at an early period were noted for their wild-game, deer, &c.; whence hunting has ever been a favorite diversion, and exercise of the lords of these domains. Pre vious to the union of Scotland and England, the borders of the two kingdoms were involved in almost perpetual warfare; and the robust sport of hunting has ever been considered the most appropriate diversion for the warrior; to whom the wild boar, the stag, and the wolf, have been generally considered to afford the best, and most noble objects of pursuit. The contiguity of HighFurness to Scotland, subjected its inhabitants to repeated attacks from the borderers of the latter kingdom; and the high fells, partly covered with woods, afforded shelter to the original wild beasts of the island. Whilst the former kept the lords of Furness in a state of constant vigilance, the latter, by inuring them to violent exercise and hardihood, prepared them to encounter and support military watchfulness, and military dangers. By some ancient grants recited in West's Antiquities, it appears that wolves, wild boars, wild deer, falcons, &c. were common in this district, and that Richard de Lucy, Lord of Egremont, who was Lord Chief Justice of England in the reign of Henry the Second, in a grant to Reginald Fitz-Adam, makes this reservation :

"Salvis mihi et heredibus meis cervo et cérva, apro et leia, et accipitre, quando ibi fuerint."

Besides the beasts, &c. here mentioned, there was an animal of the Deer species, called the Segh. In the year 1766, three beads of horns were taken up on Duddon sands, of a size much superior to those of any deer now known; they are supposed to be the

VOL. IX.

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horns

horns of the Scofe Stag, as they seem to agree with the descrip tion given of that animal by Camden. The largest of those heads had the horns fixed to the skull, which was entire. The length of the horn was three feet nine inches, the width between the extreniity of the tips three feet seven inches and half, the round of the beam seven inches and half, and the breadth of the palm four inches.

Great alterations appear to have taken place in this district: for Mr. West observes, "In the seventh year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the woods being greatly reduced, certain blomaries in High-Furness were suppressed at the common request of the tenants of Hawkshead and Colton, that the tops and croppings of these woods might be preserved for the nourishment of their cattle in winter. The blomaries, or iron smithies, were then leased by Christopher Sandys, Gent. and William Sawrey, who paid twenty pounds annually to the queen for the wood they consumed. At the suppression of the blomaries, the tenants charged themselves, and their successors, with the payment of this rent, which is called the bloosmithy, or wood-rent, and is rated and assessed amongst the customary tenants, at the discretion of four and twenty of that body, elected by a majority of the whole. Since the beginning of the eighteenth century, the re-introduction of furnaces and forges, for making and working iron, has advanced the value of wood considerably, and the tenants have found the means of improving part of their lands into meadows, and preserving their woods for the use of the furnaces +." Among the trees of this district, the holly is sedulously cultivated and preserved; and its green leaves are given to the sheep during the long and hard winters.

HORNBY

Is a small market town, seated on the eastern banks of the river Lune, over which there is a stone Bridge of three arches. The

* A place in High Furness, noted for a breed of large deer or seghs.

+ West's Antiquities of Furness, 8vo. p. 33. &ẹ.

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views down the valley are extremely fine, and the winding river, with its wooded banks, present various highly picturesque features. The cotton manufactures constitute the chief business of the place. A fair, or market, is held here every alternate Tuesday for cattle; and this, with an annual fair, occasion some bustle and trade in the town. A religious hospital, or priory, of Premonstratensian canons, was founded here, and made subject to the Abbey at Croxton, in Leicestershire. At the dissolution, it was granted to the Monteagle family, who possessed also an old baronial mansion called Hornby-Castle, which is seated on an eminence, about half a mile from the river. According to Camden, this "noble castle was founded by N. de Mont Begon, and owned by the Harringtons and Stanleys, barons of Mont-Eagle, descended from Thomas Stanley, first earl of Derby, who was advanced to that title by Henry the Eighth. Hornby castle is now the property and seat of John Marsden, Esq. and contains a large square tower, and a lofty round one. The church, which is subordinate to Melling, is neat, and distinguished by an octagonal tower. Hornby has only eighty-seven houses, and 414 inhabitants. About two miles north of this town is THURLAND-CASTLE, which formerly belonged to the Tunstal family, who took that name from a village so denominated. The church at Tunstal formerly belonged to the Abbey of Croxton, but is now a vicarage in the gift of the proprietor of Thurland Castle. At the breaking out of the civil wars, this fortified mansion, with its domain, belonged to Sir John Girlington, and by him was 'garrisoned for the king, in whose behalf it sustained a close siege for some time. A party of the kings forces came to relieve it, but were soon repulsed by some troops under Colonel Rigby, a Lancashire lawyer, and about Michaelmas, 1643, it was obliged to surrender.

"Girlington, stout Thurland his house maintain'd
'Gainst a sharp siege; yet was at length constrain'd
On terms for to surrender: Hornby too
Had yielded to the now prevailing foe*."

*

G 2,5

Cooper's Civil Wars, p. 91.

Sir

Sir John Girlington, who was colonel of a regiment of horse, was afterwards slain at Melton Mowbray, in Leicestershire. In 1719, this estate was possessed by Paul Burrand, Esq. and now belongs to a descendant of his family.

Near the village of Kellet is a natural curiosity called DUNALMILL-HOLE, which is a large cavern of very romantic aspect, and extends for nearly 200 yards into the bowels of the hill. The entrance to the cave is near a mill, which, with the accompanying scenery, is extremely picturesque. The mouth of the cavern “is romantically fringed with trees, which growing from the rocks, and impending over the entrance, contribute greatly to the awful gloom. Immense fragments of rocks hang from the roof of the orifice, as if ready to drop down, and crush the intruding visitor, forming altogether one of the rudest and most grotesque entrances imaginable. Nothing can be conceived more alarming than the appearance of this rugged cavern; the numberless large chinks and crevices grinning on every side; the dark passage before us unfathomable to the eye; the massy lumps of rock projecting from the roof and walls; and the dashing of the water from rock to rock, heard at a distance in awful yells-all conspire to alarm the stranger not accustomed to such scenes. This, however, is not always the case; for in dry seasons the cave may be explored, not only without danger, but with pleasure to those who are curious in viewing such singular works of nature*." This cavern, like those at Wokey, Somersetshire, at Castleton, Derbyshire, and others in lime-stone hills, consists of several large and small apartments, or open spaces, with intermediate chasms: and its roof is hung with various stalactites and incrustations. A small rivulet which passes through, and issues from this cave, after running under ground for about two miles, again rises near the village of Cornforth, and there falls into Morecambe-bay. About five miles north of Hornby is the village of OVERBOROUGH, where the Roman station,

*"A Descriptive Tour and Guide to the Lakes," &c. by John Housman,

8vo. 1802. p. 194.

station, called Bremetonacae, was fixed'; and according to Mr. Rauthmell, the judicious historian of the place, "Julius Agricola. chose this hill to build Bremetonaçae upon, in the first century of christianity; and after it had been demolished by the Caledonian. Picts of Scotland, it was again repaired and garrisoned by Theodosius in the fourth century." The evidences of this place having been a Roman station, are an encampment situated at the confluence of two streams or rivers, and tesselated pavements, in-. scriptions upon stones, old medals, &c. which have been found at different times. And that it was the Bremetonacae of Antoninus, is very satisfactorily proved by the arguments adduced by Mr. Rauthmell. This station is stated, in the tenth Iter of the Roman Geographer, to be XX miles north of Coccium, and XXVII miles. south of Galacum. The latter station is fixed by Mr. Rauthmell at

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Apulby," or Appleby in Westmoreland, which he says is “twentyseven Italian miles, or between twenty-two and twenty-three English miles from this place;" and the same author says, that "all antiquarians are agreed in fixing Coccium at Ribchester," which in the line of the Roman road, he observes, is just twenty Roman, and about eighteen English miles from Overborough. The station being thus identified, he proceeds to develope its history, and describe its antiquities. Like the generality of Roman stations, this was formed near the junction of two rivers, having the Lac washing its southern banks, and the Lune running on the western side. On the eastern and southern sides the ramparts are still visible, but the others have been nearly obliterated by modern improvements. Among the fragments of antiquity found here, Mr. Rauthmell has represented, and described an Altur, which, he says, was "dedicated to the idol Magon, by a Roman lady, upon the recovery of her health." It was inscribed on one face, and on another was a basso-relievo of an owl; whilst the third face was marked with representations of two instruments used in the sacrificial ceremonies. The other relics are a "bulla aurea, a

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* "Antiquitates Bremetonacenses, or the Roman Antiquities of Overs

borough," 4to. 1746.

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