CARNFORTH.
THE BUCKSTONE
The village of Bolton-le-Sands, standing on the Lancaster Canal, and near the shore, is a small place of many inns—the “Blue Anchor,” “Black Bull” and others—and an old church, surrounded and almost overhung by trees. Succeeding it is Carnforth, growing almost while you wait, in the new-found prosperity of its ironworks, where a goodly quantity of the hæmatite ore of the adjoining Furness district is smelted. Beyond it, in a choice of routes to Kendal, by Milnthorpe or by Burton-in-Kendal, we take the second, past the “Longlands” inn; where traces of an older road to Kendal are to be found. A mile onward, a considerable stretch of it, on the left hand of the present highway, exists as a deserted lane, very narrow here and there, and overgrown with grass. In general, however, farmers have gradually abolished it and added it to their pastures, and even this surviving stretch is in process of being similarly swallowed and digested. Portions of it are not without their romantic aspects: as where a huge granite crag, called from time immemorial “the Buckstone,” stands in the hedgerow and recalls the trials of travellers in a bygone age, when roads were little better than winding tracks and sign-posts did not exist. They went, those palpitating travellers, as directed, “past the Buckstone,” standing for centuries as sure a landmark as anything in this countryside. And now it is forgotten, except by the farming and field-folk and those whose business or pleasure is in the byways and the hedges. Many surrounding houses and natural objects are named after the wild deer that once roamed the district: among them Roanad Hill, and Hilderstone and Deerslack farms.
From the Buckstone you see the rugged terraced hill of Farleton Knott, styled by the county historian “the Gibraltar of Westmoreland,” and, down beneath, the clustered houses of Burton-in-Kendal; but before you reach that decayed town the old road is cut off and a modern lane leads on the right into the highway, past Dalton Park, through whose grounds the old road ran its winding way. Still, a few yards within the Park wall, may be seen, amid the trees, a rude milestone bearing nothing by way of inscription save the figure “10.” This, if you please, was the curt way of informing travellers that they were ten miles from Lancaster. It is obvious that old-time wayfarers had to bring some native understanding with them.
The old boundary of Westmoreland and Lancashire, somewhat varied in recent times, is seen marked on a brass plate on the way to Burton-in-Kendal, opposite a group of old cottages standing in a hollow beside the modern raised road. The place is called Heron Syke, and the deep hollow and surviving fragment of old road illustrate the ancient name, indicating a marshy place with a brook, once frequented by herons.
THE BUCKSTONE.
WESTMORELAND
And here we are in Westmoreland. Authorities have not yet done disputing whether it was originally “Westmoreland,” or “Westmereland,” for the moors and the meres, i.e. the lakes, are equally prominent in the county; and, by the same token, there is no settled spelling of the name, “Westmoreland”; with two “e’s” or with one. The one “e” appears to be now the more favoured of these versions, but, for my part, I plump for the more romantic-looking old style.