[32] The early practice of burial in distant churches is inexplicable to this age. But it should be remembered that in early days man was a peripatetic animal, to whom the distance between Grasmere and Kendal, or Hawkshead and Dalton, would be slight; and that a corpse wrapped in a winding-sheet would be much lighter than one coffined.
[33] Of the first, still paid, there is plenty of evidence. It was even allowed during the Commonwealth. In 1645 the Rydal Hall account-sheets show that arrears were paid to the Kendal parson out of the tithes "upon order for 5 yeares stypd out of Gresmire," amounting to £3 6s 8d or five marks. Next year is entered "Rent due to mr. M. out of Gresmire tithes" 13s 6d. The order came from the Puritan Committee at Kendal.
A mortuary, or corpse present, was distinct from a burial fee, and was supposed to cover any obligation forgotten by the dead man to church or priest. The claim anciently was upon his second best animal, the best going to his feudal lord; but it came to be paid in coin; while a law was passed (21 Henry VIII.) limiting the sum to 10s., and that only when the deceased owned goods to the value of £40. Dr. Cox, Parish Registers of England. The following receipt is in existence for a fee paid to Kendal on the death of Edward Walker of Rydal, who was buried in his parish church of Grasmere:—
"Jan; the 2nd Anno Domj 1652.
Rec. p. fr ye Executors of Edward Walker ye Sume of ffive shillings in full satisfaction of a Mortuary due to ye Vicar of Kendall by me Tho: Willain I say received the day and yeare abouesd by me Tho: Willain ye aforesd sume of 5s 0d."
[34] Creighton's Historical Essays.
[35] At Cartmel in 1642 measures were taken "for the makinge upp of the twentie-fourte ... that there may be four in everye churchwardens division as hath formerlie been used." Stockdale's Annales Caermoelensis.
[36] There is a tradition that a route from Skelwith Bridge dropped sharply from the top of Red Bank to the old ford of the Rothay known as Bathwath (Rydal Hall MSS.), and that it had even been used for funerals. This seems unlikely, unless the use were a repetition of a custom that had prevailed before the present Red Bank road was made; and of superstitious adherence to old corpse-roads the Rev. J. C. Atkinson (Forty Years in a Moorland Parish) gives instances. There may indeed have been once a well-trodden path there. In former times a fulling-mill stood on the left bank of the Rothay, near to the ford, and within the freehold property of Bainrigg. The mill was owned by the Benson family in the fifteenth century, but Bainrigg had belonged before that time to a family of de Bainbrigg, who had at least one capital dwelling or mansion-house standing upon it. Now a road to this house or houses there must have been. The woodman recently found a track leading up from the site of the mill to the rocky height, which emerged upon the present Wishing-Gate road. On the line of this (which was engineered as a turnpike road only about 1770-80) the older way doubtless continued towards Grasmere, past How Top and through Town End. A huge stone standing on this line was known as the How Stone. Levi Hodgson who lived at How Top, and who described the route to Mr. W. H. Hills, remembered fragments of a cottage in the wood. If the Skelwith Bridge folk ever used it as a church path, they would meet their townsmen (who had come over White Moss) at How Top. Close by there is still a flat-topped boulder used for resting burdens upon.
[37] This gate is shown in a map of 1846, as well as the stile which gave its name to the house then still standing, that was immediately opposite. Both disappeared at the widening of the lane from Stock Bridge to the church.
[38] Ambleside Town and Chapel.