Wood.
In spite of local production, iron was not plentiful in the eighteenth century. Iron nails were too valuable for common use, though they are found in quantities at the old furnaces on Peel Island and elsewhere, which must date from an earlier period. Wooden pegs were substituted in making kists and other furniture, house roofs, doors and boats. The trade in woodwork of many kinds flourished in Coniston and its neighbourhood.
We have already mentioned the sixteenth century "Cowpers and Turners, with makyng of Coles," and the Baptist tanner of Monk Coniston in the seventeenth century; his tannery was, no doubt, that at Bank Ground. Another old tannery was at Dixon Ground in Church Coniston. Bark peeling and charcoal burning are among the most ancient and continuous industries; the round huts of the charcoal burners and their circular pitsteads can be traced, though overgrown and so nearly obliterated as to resemble prehistoric remains, in many of the woods, or places which once were wooded.
In George Bownass' ledger, already quoted, John Bell & Co. are named as wood-mongers in 1771, and in 1772 the same smith repaired the "coal boate" owned by the executors of William Ford.
In 1820 the old Lonsdale Magazine says that the woods were cut every fifteen or sixteen years, and brought in the same value as if the land had been under cultivation. The wood was used for charcoal in smelting (and later in gunpowder making), for poles, hoops, and birch besoms; bird-lime was made from the bark of the holly, and exported to the West Indies.
As the Lancashire spinning increased there was a great demand for bobbins, and large quantities of small copse wood went to the turning mills. There was one near the Forge at Coniston, and a later bobbin mill farther down stream at Low Beck. Others were worked at Hawkshead Hill by W. F. Walker, and more recently at Sunnybank in Torver. But this industry has now died out.
An agreement in possession of Mr. H. Bownass, dated February 13th, 1798, between John Jackson of Bank Ground, gent. (landlord), and Robert Townson of the Gill, yeoman (tenant), of the one part, and T. Mackreth of Bank Ground, tanner, and John Gaskerth of Mattson Ground, Windermere, woollen manufacturer, of the other, authorises the building of a watermill for spinning and carding on the land called the Becks and Lowlands in Church Coniston. The carding mill near Holywath was owned early in the nineteenth century by Mr. Gandy of Kendal, and managed by Mrs. Robinson of the Black Bull.
The rise of Coniston trade is shown pretty accurately by the returns of population in this period. In 1801 Church Coniston contained 338 persons; in 1811, 460; in 1821, 566; and in 1831, 587. At this last date there were 101 houses inhabited and 9 empty, none building; and there were 102 families of which 25 were employed in agriculture, 65 in trade, mining, &c., and 12 beside. In Monk Coniston with Skelwith the population in 1801 was 286; in 1811, 386; in 1821, 426; and in 1831 it had dropped to 397. There were then 78 houses occupied and 12 empty; 36 families lived by agriculture, 2 by trade or manufacture, and 41 otherwise. This means that the village was always the home of the miners and quarrymen, while "at the back of the water" there was a gradually increasing settlement of gentlefolk attracted to the place by its scenery. In the later half of the century the population of Church Coniston, after reaching 1324 in 1861, fell to 1106 in 1871, 965 in 1881, and 964 in 1891; showing the decline of the once flourishing industrial enterprises. During the next decade the slate trade increased, and in 1901 the population had risen to 1111, whence the new rows of houses which, if not picturesque, were much needed. It is no longer possible to crowd the cottages as in mid-Victorian days when, it is said, the miners coming down from their work took the beds warm from the men on the other shift. And yet, granting the necessity, one cannot help regretting the meanness and ugliness of much recent building in the village. A pleasant exception is the new office for the Bank of Liverpool at the bridge, which is a clever adaptation of the old cottage, making a pretty effect without pretentiousness; and perhaps, with this example, local enterprise may still create—what is far from impossible—a little town among the mountains worthy of its environment.