A very unusual tenure has been noted as being in existence in the township of Kirkland, a few miles from Wigton. It was stated thus a century and a quarter ago:—“The tenants have a lease granted to them generally by Mr. Lancelot Salkeld, father of Sir Francis, for 999 years, paying a certain yearly rent for every tenement, amounting in the whole to £6 15s. 1d. yearly, and every twenty-one years they are to pay a fine to the lord, viz., a twenty-penny fine, which they call a running gressom, and then take new leases, but pay no general fine upon the lord’s death, nor upon change of tenant, but they pay a heriot upon the death of every tenant.” Tenures of cumin do not appear to have been common in the two counties. The best known of the kind was in the time of Henry the Eighth, when a yearly rent of 2½d., and one pound of cumin and services was paid by the heirs of John Reede to Fountains Abbey, for the fish garths in Crosthwaite, Keswick.
By the custom of some places a parson might be obliged to keep a bull and a boar, for the use of the parishioners, in consideration of his having tithes of calves and pigs. Such a condition held in certain parishes in Cumberland, but as the stipulation said nothing as to the quality of the animals to be maintained, many farmers, with the progress of agriculture and education, began to keep their own, and the requirement gradually became a dead letter.
A peculiar obligation concerning Sparket Mill was laid on the tenants in the hamlet of Thackthwaite, in Watermillock parish, as is explained in the following “Verdict of the Head Jurie of Weathermelock, May 9th, 1709”:—“As for the controversie betwixt the Tennents of Thackthwaite and ye miller of Sparkhead Mill concerning the repairing of the Mill Dam and the race, we find upon Oath and upon notice given by ye miller the tennents of Thackthwaite are to make ye race sufficient to carry water from the Dam to the Trough Head, upon condition that the miller give them every time they meet to work it a Pott of ale and a pennyworth of tobacco as they have had formerly. And as for the Dam we likewise find upon Oath that the repairing of the same belongs to the Lord of ye Mannor.”
What would owners of dogs in these days think and say were such regulations in force as used to be enforced at the ancient Cumberland town of Egremont? The old ordinances of Richard Lucy for the government of the borough declared that “those who hold burgage tenure in Egremont shall find armed men for the defence of the fortress forty days at their own charge; shall find twelve men for the lord’s military array, and be bound to aids for his redemption from captivity, and hold watch and ward; and that they shall not enter the forest with bow and arrow, nor cut off their dogs’ feet within the borough.” The explanation of the last item is that the inhabitants of the forest, who kept dogs to defend their dwellings, were obliged to cut off one foot to prevent their chasing the game, but the precaution was not considered necessary in the town.
Among the local peppercorn rents the following is interesting. The Gill estate, in the parish of Bromfield, is said to have belonged to the Reays “as long as any other estate in the kingdom has been in one family.” The tradition is that the head of the family had the then extensive lands of Gill granted to him and his heirs by William the Lion, King of Scotland in the twelfth century, not only in reward for his fidelity to his prince, but as a memorial of his extraordinary swiftness of foot in pursuing the deer; outstripping in fleetness most of the horsemen and dogs. The conditions of the grant were that he should pay a peppercorn yearly, and that the name of William should, if possible, be perpetuated in the family. There were several eminent men among the descendants, but the distinctive Christian name is no longer strictly adhered to.
An estate enjoying exemption from payments of tithes is that of Scale Houses, in the parish of Renwick. This arose, declared a writer early in the present century, “owing to an ancient owner of the land having slain a noxious cockatrice, which the vulgar at this day call a crack-a-Christ as they rehearse the simple fable.” The document which gives this exemption is believed to be still in existence. Among the dues to which the abbot and convent of Shap could claim were services and money payments from Bampton as “alms corn,” and there was a similar tribute from Mauld’s Meaburn and Hoff. Burn mentions in his chapter on Bewcastle a tenant’s duty not publicly noted in any other local manor, the people having to pay yearly customary rent, quit rents for improvements, and £2 1s. 4d. carriage money, whatever that may have been.
There was a curious regulation in one of the divisions of Windermere parish, which lasted up to about 1780:—“It was anciently customary in the township of Applethwaite for every tenant’s wife who lived below the highway to pay 5d. yearly rent to the lord of the manor, and every other woman above 16 years of age 2d., above the road every tenant’s wife paid 3d., and every other woman above 16, a penny. How this custom originated, or why the ladies on the low side of the road were rated higher than their contemporaries in the opposite division, we are unable to say.”[9]
Among the old manorial officers at Cockermouth chosen at the Michaelmas Courts were a bailiff, assessors, assessors of bread and ale, mill-lookers, moor-lookers, hedge-lookers, leather searchers, swine-ringers, and appraisers. The jury of the Leet formed the special jury for the government of the borough, and the bailiff was the returning officer for elections, as well as clerk of the market. At Egremont the officers chosen annually were a borough serjeant, two bailiffs, four constables, two hedge and corn-viewers, and assessors of damages. Most of the old manors, indeed, would furnish examples of quaint offices, whose purpose is now scarcely known. A good deal might be written concerning the old manorial and other Courts of the two counties. Occasionally these still afford interesting proceedings, but the real purpose for holding them has ceased to exist. The Courts of Pie Poudre, at Appleby and several other places; the Court of Conscience, or, as it was commonly called, the Wapentake Court, and the Court of Record at Kendal; and the many Court Leets, are now merely matters of local history.