ART. I. The present state of Antiquarian Research in Westmorland and Cumberland. By the Rev. James

Simpson, Vicar of Kirkby-Stephen.

Read at the Inauguration Meeting of the Society, at Penrith, Sept. 11th, 1866.

ABOUNDING as they do in objects of antiquarian interest,

and fruitful as they are in subjects well fitted to incite the curiosity and occupy the attention of archæologists, these counties have not until now had any society such as that which we have established to-day; and though not a little has been done in the way of exploring the remains and explaining the many curious relics of antiquity that have been from time to time discovered, and are still existing in the district; much yet remains to do. The members of this society may work diligently, labour patiently, and meet often, before they need to lack subjects to engage their interest and secure their attention.

In his description of Cumberland, Speed says:-" Many memorable antiquities remain, and have been found in the county, for it being the confines of the Roman possessions, was constantly secured by their garrisons; and in many places their ruines remaine with altars and inscriptions of their cap taines and colonies whereof many have been found." And not only has its position on the confines of the Roman kingdom in Britain made it fruitful in altars, and inscribed stones and sculptured monuments, the work of that ancient people, and witnesses of their rule and their presence, but at a later period of our history "standing as it did in the fronts of assaults, so was it strengthened with twenty-five castles, and preserved by the praiers (as was then thought) of the votaries in religious houses in Carlisle, Lanercost, Wetherall, Holme, Dacre, and St. Bees." Westmorland cannot claim to have so many Roman remains, feudal castles, or religious foundations, for the want of the last of which Fuller quaintly accounts. "I behold," says he, "the barrenness of this country as the cause why

there

there are so few friaries and convents therein, Master Speed, (so curious in his catalogue of this kind,) mentioning but one religious house therein. Such lazy folk did hate labour as a house of correction, and knew there was nothing to be had here but what art with industry wrested from nature. The reader perchance will smile at my curiosity in observing that this small county having but four market towns, three of them are:-Kirkby Stephen, Kirkby Lonsdale, and Kirkby Kendal, so that so much of Kirk or Church argueth not a little devovotion of the ancestors in these parts, judiciously expressing itself, not in building convents for the use of monks, but churches for the worship of God."* The religious foundation here alluded to was the Abbey at Shap, which, if not the only one, was the only one of any importance in the county; and though it may be somewhat curious that in each of the vales of Westmorland, watered by its principal rivers the Eden, the Lune, and the Kent, there should be a town which must at some period anterior to the Norman Conquest have received its name from the fact that there was a church there, it is well known that places owing their names to a similar cause abound in Cumberland and elsewhere. The prefix

Kirk is not so unusual as to lead to the inference that the poeple in Westmorland were in olden times more devout, though less superstitious than in Cumberland, or in other counties.

REMAINS OF THE CELTIC Period.

But it may perhaps be more convenient, if, in reviewing the present position of antiquarian research in the two counties, we deal with the subject in the order of time. And first, as regards the Celtic remains, or rather, I should say, those remains usually assigned to the Celtic period, of which the counties contain not a few. It may be that there are slighter traces of this people, and their occupation of the district, than of those who followed them, drove them from their homes or destroyed them; and the conclusions arrived at by one of our members will in a great measure command our assent. The author of The Northmen in Cumberland and Westmorland says, "We find no vestiges of a Celtic origin in the characteristics, physical and moral, of the present inhabitants of the district, nor does their dialect present any but the faintest traces of the language of the ancient Britons. And though a moreconsiderable number of Celtic names of places exists than in most other parts of England, yet taking the district

Fuller's Worthies, Nicol's ed., vol. II., p. 426.

of

of the mountains, where ancient names usually linger much longer than elsewhere, the number of such names is, in point of fact, less than in some other mountain districts of England ?" Other writers, who have devoted great attention to the subject, and brought to its consideration no small amount of learning, and ability, and careful research, have held that the Celtic tongue has exercised a somewhat larger influence upon the nomenclature of the district and the dialect of the people, and that the Celtic type of skull is very prevalent in parts of the two counties. The author of Cumberland and Westmorland, Ancient and Modern, has traced many names and words to Celtic sources, and though it is probable that some of his derivations may admit of another explanation, or another root, still Mr. Sullivan's works and his opinions will command both attention and respect.

Whether those remarkable circles of upright stones, several of which are still existing in these counties, belong to a period previous to the landing of Cæsar, or were erected at a much later date is still a puzzle for antiquaries. The common name of Druid circles implies the popular belief as to their origin and use, and various strange opinions have been propounded concerning them, but though we may have made some slight progress in proving what they are not, and do not theorize quite so wildly as did those who have gone before us, we have done little towards solving the mystery that surrounds them. The builders and their object are alike unknown, and the mode in which they moved stones of such an enormous weight, as well as the means and appliances by which they raised them to an upright position, can be but doubtfully guessed at. That some of them have been places of sepulchre is beyond a doubt. Those best, most useful, and safest counsellors of the antiquary-the pick and the spade-have revealed the fact that bodies, chiefly burnt, have been deposited between them; but whether the circle of stones existed before, or was erected after the burial, is a question yet to be solved. In some cases, as at Long Meg, there are no traces of a mound remaining; in others, as at Gunnerkeld and at Maughanby the barrow not only filled the enclosure but partially covered the stones. The curious circular markings recently discovered upon Long Meg, at Maughanby, at Shap, and at other places, have added new interest to these ancient monuments, and may enable us eventually to learn their history. At present, however, we can only say of them, as Camden said of the font at Bridekirk, "what they mean or to what nation they belong, let the

learned

learned determine."* That the mystery will be cleared up, I fully believe, though it may happen that those who first essay an explanation of these strange characters or curious symbols, or seek to assign to them a date or a meaning will, like Bishop Nicholson in his attempt to explain the inscription of Bewcastle, err from the truth. And in solving this and other difficult problems connected with the early history of the district, we may reasonably hope that the graves of its ancient people will yield us some information. We know how much is being done, and has been done, in this direction in other localities, and as there must still be many ancient burials in these counties as yet undisturbed, it is to be hoped that the members of this society will, for the future, use their influence to prevent any barrow being opened and its contents tampered with, except under competent and careful supervision. It is not an easy thing to learn from an open tumulus all that it is calculated to teach. There are only few who can spell out the story that it tells, and tells clearly and unmistakeably to one who can read the characters and join together the syllables as they are one by one revealed. It must be remembered that many of these characters and syllables are seen but once, and if not read and understood at the time, they pass away and can never be recalled, and another link is lost, another gleam of light from the far distant past is ignorantly and ruthlessly quenched to shine no more for ever.

Is it not with deep regret that one hears of barrows opened by unskilled hands, their contents disturbed and dispersed, and no satisfactory or sufficient description left on record either of the barrow itself, the mode of burial, the type of the skull, or, if burnt, the character of the urn in which the ashes were contained, or the ornaments or the weapons that had been deposited with their owner in the grave. Not that we are without descriptions of barrows that have been opened in these counties both in the last and the present century, and of what they were found to contain ; nor are these without their value or their use, and if any member of this society would take the trouble to collect such descriptions out of the various publications in which they have appeared, he would confer no small benefit upon his fellow members, materially aid those engaged in that particular branch of research, and earn a deep debt of gratitude from everybody in these counties interested in antiquarian pursuits. In the 10th Vol. of the Archæologia, p. 112,

* Camden's Britannia-Gough's Translations, vol. III., p. 422.

there

there is the description of a barrow opened in the neighbourhood of Aspatria, the enumeration of whose contents makes one long to have been there. Having removed a mound of earth six feet above the natural surface of the ground, they found, three feet below, a vault or kistvaen formed with two large cobble stones on each side and one at each end. In it was the skeleton of a man which measured seven feet from the head to the ankle bones; the feet were decayed and rotted off. On the left side near the shoulder was a broad sword near five feet in length, the guard was elegantly ornamented with inlaid silver flowers. On the right side lay a dirk or dagger, one foot six inches and a quarter in length; the handle appeared to have been studded with silver. Near the dagger was found part of a gold fibula, or buckle, and the ornament for the end of a belt, a piece of which adhered to it when first taken up, (this was proved by Mr. Rigg to be gold), several pieces of a shield were picked up; there were also part of a battle axe, length six inches, width four inches; a bit shaped like a modern snaffle, length of the side, four inches and a half, and part of a spear, length four inches. The two large cobble stones which inclosed the west side of the kistvaen, the one two feet eight inches in length, the other three feet in length, and one foot eight inches high, had upon them various emblematical figures in rude sculpture, though some of the circles are exactly formed, and the rims and crosses within them are cut in relief. On one of the stones are marks which resemble an M and a D, but whether they were intended for those letters is very doubtful. The stones as well as the other articles found in the barrow are figured in the Archæologia as well as in Hutchinson's Cumberland; and I allude to the opening of this barrow, not merely to enquire where are now its contents or to prove how many are the opportunities of learning we have lost, but also because of the curiously marked stones which formed one side of the kistvaen in which the body was found. Were the markings made on these stones at the time of the interment, or had they, when taken for one side of the kistvaen, formed a part of a circle, within which or upon the side of which the kistvaen had been constructed and the barrow raised. These are questions which careful observation and examination at the time the barrow was opened might have enabled us to answer, and if the weapons found were such as are described, they are sufficient to mark the date of the burial, and by their aid we might have made some slight progress towards discovering the date of the circular markings. It is scarcely

worth