Edmund Grindall, Archbishop of Canterbury, was a native of Hensingham, in this parish; and, in 1583, obtained letters-patent for the foundation of a free grammar-school at St. Bees, in which gratuitous instruction in the classics was provided for a hundred boys. This institution is under the management of a corporation of seven governors, two of whom are the provost of Queen's College, Oxford, and the rector of Egremont.
It has produced several learned characters, among whom was the pious Dr. Hall,[16] bishop of Norwich, whose eventful life is familiar to every reader of ecclesiastical history. Much of the prosperity of the village of St. Bees depends on the lodgings which it supplies to the students during term.
The parish of St. Bees is of great extent; and, judging from the ruins still observable, must have been fortified by the Romans at all the convenient landing-places along the shore, which here, and particularly to the northward, presents many vestiges of their military occupation. The village stands on the margin of the bay formed by the southern promontory of St. Bees'-head.
ST. BEES'-HEAD.
"When tempests rage, and nights are long and dark,
The 'Light of Barath' guides the wilder'd bark."
This lofty headland, anciently known as the "Cliff of Barath," is a conspicuous object to vessels in the north-east part of the Irish channel—bold, abrupt, and precipitous towards the sea; but presenting, as it slopes inland, a fine undulating and pastoral mass of verdure, through which, at intervals, projecting fragments of rock discover its geological character. The succession of deeply indented and rugged precipices which it presents seaward, is singularly wild and picturesque; and during gales from the southward the scene is one of the most sublime that can be conceived.