Bygone Cumberland and Westmorland

by Daniel Scott

While some of the quaint laws connected with markets and fairs in other parts of the country are unknown in Cumberland and Westmorland, others not less interesting may be found in these counties. The searcher after such old-time lore may find a good deal of it in the standard histories, but still more in those byways of local literature which are too much neglected. In this chapter no attempt can be made to do more than touch the fringe of the subject.

There is in existence in the Dean and Chapter Library at Carlisle a monition probably dated towards the end of the fourteenth century addressed to the clergy of the diocese, requiring them to see the constitution of Otho strictly carried out—all fairs being banished from churchyards and suspended on Sundays and solemn feasts. Churchyard fairs were for the emolument of the churches, and were styled by the name of the saint whose example is inculcated by the church’s name. The late Canon Simpson, one of the most eminent antiquaries in the two counties, proved that, in England at least, no church was ever dedicated literally to a saint. Fairs, especially “pot fairs,” still prevail in church cloisters in Germany.

Meat selling at church doors was common in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and even so late as the time of Charles the Second. The only instance of such a thing occurring in Cumberland of which there is record now was at Wigton. In one of the old local histories appears the following note:—“The Rev. Thomas Warcup, who erected his monument in the churchyard long before his death, was obliged to fly from Wigton on account of his loyalty during the Civil Wars. After the restoration of King Charles he returned to the Vicarage, and tradition says that the butcher market was then held upon the Sunday. The butchers hung up carcases at the church door, to attract the notice of customers as they went in and came out of church, and it was not unusual to see people who made their bargains before prayer began, hang their joints of meat over the backs of the seats, until the pious clergyman had finished the service. The zealous priest, after having long but ineffectually endeavoured to make his congregation sensible of the indecency of such practices, undertook a journey to London on foot, for the purpose of petitioning the King to have the market day established on the Tuesday, and which he had interest enough to obtain.”

Warcup became Vicar of Wigton in 1612, and possibly on the principle that he was the best qualified to write his own epitaph because he knew himself better than was possible for another to know him, he prepared the following, which he had put on a headstone many years before his death:—

“Thomas Warcup prepar’d this stone,
To mind him of his best home.
Little but sin & misery here,
Till we be carried on our bier.
Out of the grave & earth’s dust,
The Lord will raise me up I trust;
To live with Christ eternallie,
Who, me to save, himself did die.”

There was a keen rivalry between Crosthwaite and Cockermouth at the beginning of the fourteenth century. The townsmen sent a petition to Parliament in 1306, stating that owing to the sale of corn, flour, beans, flesh, fish, and other kinds of merchandise at Crosthwaite Church on Sundays, their market was declining so fast that the persons who farmed the tolls from the King were unable to pay the rent. An order was soon afterwards issued stopping the Sunday trading at Crosthwaite. But the fairs and markets in churchyards on week-days were not prohibited by statute for two hundred and eighty years after the Cockermothians sought protection. The orders thus issued were not long recognised, but collectors of scraps of local history in all parts of the county have added to the general knowledge on this point.

The announcing of sales in churchyards was in the early part of this century a common custom. At Crosby Ravensworth the clerk hurried from his desk immediately the service was concluded, followed by the congregation, and mounting the steps he announced when a person’s sale by auction would take place, and read out any notice given to him, for which service he received a fee of fourpence. The custom has long since become obsolete; old William Richardson called the last notice in 1837. It has been asserted, with what amount of truth need not be too closely inquired into, that when this method of advertising public events was forbidden, the attendance of the parishioners at public worship showed a rapid falling-off. The custom of churchyard proclamations prevailed at Orton in the early part of the century, and the inscriptions on certain horizontal tombstones have been obliterated by the hob-nails in the clerk’s boots. While necessarily there must have been a great diversity in the articles announced in the churches or churchyards as likely to be submitted for public competition, it would be difficult to find a parallel for this paragraph, which appeared in the Pacquet for March 8th, 1791:—“A few months ago a person in very good circumstance at no great distance from Ravenglass buried his wife. His son, a few days since, also became a widower, and on Sunday, 27th ult., a sale of their wearing apparel was published at all the neighbouring parish churches! Whether motives of economy suggested the measure, or a wish to remove whatever could remind the disconsolate survivors of their loss, can only be guessed at.”

Among the relics treasured by Lord Hothfield at Appleby Castle, is an article reminding the visitor of the days when free trading was unknown. This is the principal corn measure which was used in the market at Kirkby Stephen more than two hundred years ago; its purpose and record are stated in the raised letters which run around the copper measure a little below the rim:—

“The measure of Thomas, Earle of Thanet Island, Lord Tufton, Lord Clifford, Westmorland, and Vescy, for the use of his Lopps [lordship’s] market at Kirkby Stephen in Westmorland, 1685.”

In the same building are two other corn measures, smaller than the Kirkby Stephen measure just mentioned. One bears only the word “Thanet,” and a coronet. The other measure, of different design, with the monogram, “A. P.” in raised characters, indicates approximately its age, as it was obviously the property of the Countess Anne of Pembroke. The measures, made of bell metal, formerly in use in Sir Richard Musgrave’s manor at Kirkoswald, are still carefully preserved by Mr. John Longrigg, the last steward.