II. AMBLESIDE INDUSTRIES. The immemorial village customs lingered on, the ancient land-tenure held its own, though with weaker grip, till the 18th century. But far back in the past can be traced the first trickle of the ever-growing stream of home manufacture and trade that was to lift the pastoral hamlet to a thriving village and then to a town, with the weekly market so long coveted by its neighbour, Grasmere, with two Fairs in the year, and their attendant Court of PiePowder. Perhaps some peculiarity of custom favoured the growth of Ambleside more than the hamlets around, or some cunning in her men. No fulling-mill-no corn-mill even, previous to 1324is mentioned in the earlier Inquisitions and Rentals. Possibly the community was too small, like the adjacent one of Loughrigg, for it to be worth while for the Lord at first to establish the usual corn mill, which was let out to one tenant, and at which all the rest were bound to grind their corn. The usual fulling or walk mill, where the villagers carried their home-spun cloths to be dressed for their home-made garments, which was provided for Grasmere as early as 1324, may also have been an erection of the lord's, let out as a monopoly; though this is not certainly known. What is certain, however, is that the hamlets of Loughrigg and Ambleside, for which alone no fulling mills are accounted at first to the lord, paid to him a peculiar tax calling Walking-silver. In the Levens rental it is stated: The same tenants (of Ambleside) hold by the custom of WalkynSylver and pay per annum 6s. 8d. Possibly this tax carried with it the right, since no walk mill was provided by the lord, to full their cloth where and how they would, either at a neighbouring mill beyond C their boundaries, or else to institute private or home-mills* without a monopoly. It is in a document of 1453 (Min. Acc', Bdle. 644, No. 10,444), when Henry VI. grants this lordship to his halfbrother Edmund, Earl of Richmond, who had married Margaret, the little heiress of the Duke of Somerset, that we first hear of a fulling mill at Ambleside. The widow of the Duke of Bedford still held a third of the property as her dower. Amelsette. Jhan Newton reeve there Of 24. 7. 8 of two parts of rents and farms of all tenants there at 16. 5. 1 p. an. at terms aforesaid, whereof farm of water corn mill 13s. 4d, farm of Walkyngsilver 6s. 8d, farm of the fulling mill there constructed anew 131d, of farm of the herbage of Trowtbeke brigge 6s. 8d, to wit of 3 terms, and 40s. farm of two parts of a tenement called Maist forster place at 26s. 8d. as above. Sum 26. 7. 81 Gressum'e. Of 7li. of two parts of admissions of tenants there at 4. 13. 4. p. a. payable with farms abovesaid at said terms. Sum t. 33. 7. 8 In 1473 the death of the Duchess of Bedford released her claim (which Edward IV. seems to have allowed to stand) upon the lordship. He now hastened to confer (Ing. p.m., 12 Edw. IV., No. 47) "of the lordship or township of Hamylsed" upon Sir William Parr, to whom he had already alienated the rest, and his heirs. The Inquisition states "Hamelsed and Troutebek" to have been worth £16 yearly to the Duchess. It is twenty-one years later that we have our next glimpse of the place, given by a most valuable Rental The Lord of Rydal possessed a mill on Scandale-beck (which formed the boundary of Ambleside) as late as the early 17th century, which may have been the fulling mill for his villagers. Their corn mill was on Rydal-beck. Such a mill would be conveniently accessible for both Ambleside and Loughrigg folk. Since writing the above, an enquiry sent to Notes and Queries on the subject of "Walking-silver" has been ably and fully answered by Mr. W. Farrer (see 10th series, 170). His first suggestion differs little from the one offered here, except in detail. The preserved at Sizergh Castle, of the date 1494.* pendulum of Kingship had swung again, and for the last time, in the Wars of the Roses. Henry VII. had snatched the Crown from the Yorkists, and had naturally robbed the Parrs of the Richmond Fee, which had been his mother's by right. But the Parrs, seated by inheritance at Kendal Castle, and doubtless greatly concerned in the manufacture and export of woollen cloth, which had already begun to enrich their little town in Westmorland, had exercised apparently a strong progressive influence over the alienated lordship (stretching round about their caput, and therefore bound up by interest with it) even in the short time they held it. The Sizergh MS., which is too long to print in extenso, expressly connects new fulling mills both at Grasmere and Ambleside with the name of Sir William Parr. Concerning "Amelset," besides the dues of the water mill and of "Walkyngsilver" (which are stated to be included in the general rents), we are told of a "tenement called Maister fosters place with 30 cattle [places]," now occupied by three holders. Also of the farm of the fulling mill in the tenure of Thomas Brathwayte 144d; of the farm of another fulling mill, in the tenure of Robert Jackson 14td. There is even a third fulling mill, described at the close as newly constructed in the time of William Parre knight late occupier of this lordship, as demised to Thomas Robynson Jacson by the year. Ambleside had, it is clear, started well on her career of commercial prosperity. The market, indeed, which was to crowd her streets every Wednesday with wool-growers from the fell-sides and with clothiers and chapmen from Kendal, was yet 200 years ahead; but with three fulling • Thanks are due to Sir Gerald Strickland for allowing a search for the MS. to be made and a copy to be taken. mills at work in the fifteenth century she must already have begun to supply the neighbouring woollen centre with some of that cloth which was exported to the south, and was well known to the citizens of Tudor London as Kendal Green. How busy must have been the little Stock Beck-now valued chiefly for the romantic beauty of its glen and waterfall-in turning those medieval wheels of commerce, and all in its short course below the fall, through the tiny town! It is difficult to understand where the mills could have stood. There were five of them at the leastthree fulling mills and two corn mills-even supposing the later bark mill to have taken the place of one of the fulling mills, and the paper mill to have been turned by Scandale Beck. The mystery of the two corn mills must be first considered. The customs of the place with regard to the tenants grinding their household corn (mostly havers or oats) would seem to have been singular. It might be supposed, from the statement (contained in the Inquisitions of 1324 and 1335) of the corn mill being worth 5s. yearly to the lord, that the mill was the usual lord's monopoly, let out. But in the Levens MS. this statement drops out, and we are expressly told "all the tenants of the same [hamlet] hold the water corn mill, 20s. od." And later the Sizergh MS. says that the dues of corn mill and walking-silver were included in the tenants' rent, and therefore were collected from all. Had the tenants compounded with the lord to break the monopoly? He was largely the gainer by the change, it is clear; and so perhaps were they. Of the two corn mills the old one was perhaps derelict in 1639, when its holders, Elizabeth Jackson, widow, and her son William, make over all their rights in it by deed to Mr. Gawen Brathwaite, holder of the new mill, provided he will pay the 41d. mill rent due to the lord for |