Hothfield, of Hothfield, Lord Lieutenant of the County of Westmorland,
Lord of the Manor of Skipton in Craven, and Lord and Owner of this
Fair, Doth strictly Charge and Command in Her Majesty's name that all
persons keep Her Majesty's Peace, and not to presume to ride or go
armed during the time of this Fair to the disturbance of Her Majesty's
Peace, in pain to be punished according to the Statute in that case
made and provided; and also that all persons bargain and sell lawful
and sound goods and merchandise, and pay their due and accustomed
tolls and stallages, use lawful weights and measures, upon pain to
forfeit the value of their wares and merchandise; and also that buy,
sell, or exchange any horse, mare, or gelding, that the sellers and
buyers thereof repair to the Clerk of the Tolls, and there enter their
names, surnames, and places of abode of all such persons as shall buy,
sell, or exchange any such horse, mare, or gelding, together with the
price, marks, and vouchers at their perils; and lastly if any person
have any injury or wrong done by reason of any bargain or contract,
during the time of this Fair, let them give information thereof, and
the same shall be tried by a Court of Pie Poudre, according to law.
"God save the Queen, and the Right Honourable Henry James Baron
Hothfield."
Needless to say, the Court of Pie Poudre has not sat for many years now.
Many curious and interesting customs were once connected with the holding
of markets and fairs; a few of these survive, though not in the form once
known. The practice a little over a century ago at Ravenglass, where a
fair was held on "the eve, day, and morrow of St. James," has been thus
described: "On the first of these days in the morning, the lord's
officer, at proclaiming the fair, is attended by the serjeants of the Lord
of Egremont, with the insignia belonging thereto; and all the tenants of
the Forest of Copeland owe a customary service to meet the lord's officer
at Ravenglass to proclaim the fair, and abide with him during the
continuance thereof; and for sustentation of their horses they have two
swaiths of grass in the common field of Ravenglass in a place set out for
that purpose. On the third day at noon, the Earl's officer discharges the
fair by proclamation; immediately whereupon the Penningtons and their
tenants take possession of the town, and have races and other
divertisements during the remainder of that day."
The laws of the old Corporations at Kendal, Carlisle, and Appleby, and the
guilds and societies at other places, were very stringent, and far
surpassed the most exacting rules of the trades unions in our own day.
This statement may speedily be verified by a reference to the reprinted
Kendal "Boke of Recorde." The "shoddy cloth man" appears to have
flourished almost as much three hundred years ago as he does to-day; at
any rate he was sufficiently in evidence to cause the Corporation to pass
a very stringent order in regard to "Clothe Dightinge." The excuse for
the imposition of the regulation was that "Sundry great complaints have
been made in open Court of the insufficient and deceitful dressing and
dighting of clothes uttered and sold within the town, as well by the
inhabitants as foreigners coming to the same, therefore it is ordered by
the Alderman and head burgesses of the borough with the full assent of the
most part of the fellowship of Shearmen now dwelling within the borough,
that if any person or persons either now resident in the town or shall
hereafter be resident here or in the country adjoining, shall from
henceforth have or bring any pieces of cloth to sell or utter within this
borough to any person, not being well and sufficiently dight and dressed
throughout in all points alike, as well one place as another, in cotton,
nop, or frieze as it ought to be; the same being so found by the four
sworn men of the same occupation from time to time appointed, shall
forfeit and lose for every such piece 2s. 4d., the half thereof to the
Chamber of this borough, and the other half to the takers of the same."
A further order provided that if any piece of cloth was not "well, truly,
and sufficiently made in all places alike, and all parts thereof of like
stuff as it ought to be, or which shall not be clean washed and clean
without blemish left in it, upon the like pain of 2s. 4d., to be forwarded
by the maker to those before limited for the first fault, and for every
fault then after committed and duly proved, the fine and penalty to be
doubled." Factory and workshop inspectors, of a sort, were not unknown
three hundred years ago. The Corporation ordered the appointment of four
members of the "Company and fellowship of tayllers" to be known as
searchers or overseers, having power to have the oversight of all faults,
wrongs, and misusages happening or done in the trade. The order did not
long remain in force before the Corporation decided to repeal them, but
two or three years later they were revived by common consent, and ordered
to continue during pleasure. In still later times travelling tailors were
a brotherhood, and within the last fifty years when on their journeys
levied money on the resident fraternity.
Cordwainers, when the "Boke of Recorde" was compiled, were only allowed to
do certain kinds of work, and were forbidden to "spetche," or patch boots.
Tailors, too, could not employ any man who might apply for work, there
being a very strict law about the employment of freemen in preference to
those not free; nor could the shearmen enjoy any greater liberty in their
trading operations. One rule ran: "No countryman or person not free shall
be permitted to bargain, buy, exchange, trade, sell, or utter within this
borough or the precincts hereof, any clothes for outside as a shearman,
save only such as be occupiers now of the same trade, or such as shall
purchase their freedom, upon pain to lose ten shillings, whereof to the
Chamber 5s., and Company 5s."
There was a salutary rule about the selling of meat on Sundays: "From
henceforth no butcher, or other his servant, or factor shall sell or utter
any flesh or other victuals or meat out of any shop or stall within the
borough or liberties, or the precincts of the same, or keep any his or
their shop or warehouses open or unshut up after the ending of the third
peal or bells ringing to morning or evening prayer on any Sunday or other
festival day, upon pain to lose to the Chamber of this borough 12d."
The laws against forestalling, regrating, ingrossing, and otherwise
interfering with the due course of trade, were very strict in the markets
held under manors and also in those otherwise regulated. The practice
was, however, not peculiar to Cumberland and Westmorland. One other rule
from Kendal may be mentioned as showing the steps taken for preventing
skins being hoarded up, until prices became high: "It shall not be lawful
for any butcher or other person dwelling out of this borough or the
liberties of the same from henceforth to bring into the borough to be
sold, either on the market day or in the week-day any sheepskin (except
the same skin--having the ears upon it--be cleaving unto the head or
carcase of such flesh where upon it did grow) being so brought to be sold,
nor that they nor any of them shall sell, or offer, or put to sale, any
such skin on any market day so brought to be sold unto the borough before
ten o'clock before noon, upon pain to lose and forfeit as much as 2s."
The penalty for buying victuals before they arrived at the market was
forfeiture, while it was further ordered that "no man or woman shall
suffer any corn to be sold or measured in their houses upon pain of 6s.
8d., but that all corn shall be bargained, bought, and measured in open
market only."
An old native of the borough not long ago assured the writer that when he
was a boy, in the old coaching days, the suspicion of "poaching" extended
even to the lawyers, for, said he, "At the Assizes at Appleby the Bar had
all to enter the borough together, or not before a certain hour, lest one
individual might secure more than a fair share of the briefs."
Market-bells are still rung at various places in the two counties. That in
St. Andrew's Church, Penrith, is sounded every Tuesday morning at ten
o'clock, before which hour business is supposed to be forbidden. The same
rule prevails at Appleby, where the bell hangs in a campanile over the
Moot Hall. This, of course, is a survival of the days when forestalling
was a very serious offence--and properly so. The archives of the
Corporation of Carlisle contain documents bearing on the connection of the
bells with trading. Mention of the market-bell appears in the bye-laws of
1561, thus: "Itm that noe outman shall sell any corn to any fore nor to
such tym as the market bell be rounge on payn of forfitor." Happily it is
not possible to apply to all the saying used with reference to one old
market in West Cumberland--that "it opens at twelve o'clock and closes at
noon," the meaning, of course, being that there is little or no market
left. It was recorded by Mr. Green, the noted artist, that at Ambleside
the market was crowded by small merchants, "who were called together by
the tinkling of a small bell. Then all was bustle and animation; joy
beamed in every countenance, for all the traffic was for ready money, and
every individual lived upon the produce of his labour."
Old-Time Home Life
There is a very great store of gossip and anecdote in existence which
might be utilised to illustrate the picturesqueness of old-time life in
Cumberland and Westmorland. Whether the lack of sanitary comforts,
intellectual facilities, and of opportunities of seeing the world or of
knowing of its doings, were counterbalanced by the freedom from care and
the quiet humdrum lives, which were led by the majority of the people in
the two counties, is an open question. An anecdote told in a book
published well-nigh a century since, well illustrates the simplicity of
life among Lakeland folk generations ago. A foreign physician, eminent in
his profession, practiced in the neighbourhood of Keswick. He was one day
asked by another medical man how he liked his position. "My situation," he
replied, "is a very eligible one as a gentleman; I can enjoy every species
of country amusement in the greatest perfection; I can hunt, shoot, and
fish among a profusion of game of every kind; the neighbouring gentlemen,
too, seem to vie with each other in acts of politeness. But as a
physician I cannot say that it is so alluring to me, for the natives have
got the art of preserving their healths and prolonging their lives without
boluses or electuaries, by a plaster taken inwardly, called thick poddish.
This preserves them from the various diseases which shake the human
fabric, and makes them slide into the grave without pain by the gradual
decay of nature."
As might be supposed, a people possessing so many primitive habits, and
whose lives were so circumscribed, had numerous peculiar contrivances in
their homes. Some of these have been so long out of use that their purpose
has almost passed from memory. Before the days of mineral oils, the
general means of illumination, both in mansion and cottage, was the
rushlight. These candles were made of the pith of rushes, dipped in melted
tallow. They were fixed for use in an arrangement known as a "Tom
Candlestick," which in the early years of this century were common objects
in every village home. Mr. Anthony Whitehead, in the last edition of his
Westmorland poems (1896), mentions a curious belief in this
connection--that the rushes were not considered fit for use unless pulled
at the full moon.
A love of finery has seldom been a failing with the residents in the
country districts of Cumberland and Westmorland, and especially was this
the case before travel became easy. In the days when at the most the
ordinary folk only saw the shops of a town on "term day"--and in a vast
number of instances that would only occur on a few occasions in a
lifetime--dress was of the most homely and substantial sort. "Hodden grey"
for the men and correspondingly good wear for the females--most of it home
made--were the ordinary fabrics. Clogs were worn at one time by all
classes, from parson down to the poorest labourer, and even on Sundays the
wearing of boots or shoes was often an indication of the owner being a
person of some local consequence. The housewives had a curious method of
preserving the stocking heels, which was probably more efficacious than
cleanly. They took care to "smear the heels of the family's new stockings
with melted pitch, and dipped them immediately in the ashes of turf. The
glutinous mixture incorporated with the woollen, and altogether formed a
compound both hard and flexible, which was well adapted to resist the
united friction of wood and leather." The utility of clogs for certain
purposes is undoubted, but this useful kind of footgear is apparently
losing its popularity.
There have been plenty of descriptions left--by old-time tourists and home
historians--at various periods of the methods of life of the people, and
they generally agree that the costumes, especially of the dales-folk, were
picturesque. The homespun material was frequently undyed, black and white
fleeces being mixed to save the expense of dyeing. This homely material,
which is still made in some parts of Scotland and Ireland, has in recent
years been pronounced by fashion to be superior, for country wear, to the
most finished products of the steam loom; so that now the most elegant
ladies do not disdain to wear dresses of the self-same homespun of which
our ancestors made their "kelt coats." These coats were ornamented with
brass buttons, as were the waistcoats, which were made open in front for
best, in order to show a frilled shirt breast. Knee breeches were the
fashion for centuries. They were buttoned tight round the body above the
haunches, so as to keep up without braces. Those used for best had a knot
of ribbon and four or five bright buttons at the knee, and those who could
afford it, had them made of buckskin. Their stockings, which were a
conspicuous part of the dress, were also made from their own wool, the
colour being generally blue or grey. On their feet they wore clogs on
ordinary occasions, but when dressed in holiday costume, they had low
shoes fastened with buckles which were sometimes of silver.
That picture is a pleasant one; the life in the home was less picturesque.
Churches and farm houses (especially the bedrooms) had next to no
ventilation. The sanitary--or rather insanitary--state of country places
was deplorable, and fevers of a very fatal character were common. The
records of the desolation wrought by some of them is melancholy. Open
drains and sewers in immediate proximity to farm houses were very usual.
Bedrooms very often communicated through the length of a house. This was
economy! A passage or corridor was not required. A leading clergyman, not
finding a casement which would open in a church where he was officiating,
extemporized ventilation by smashing a pane of glass. In the country
cottages and farm houses, as well as in many habitations in the towns, the
chimneys had no flues, and were funnel-shaped, being very wide at the
bottom and gradually contracting to the top, where they had an aperture
of the size of an ordinary chimney, through which the smoke escaped. In
these open chimneys, hams, legs of beef, flitches of bacon, and whole
carcases of mutton were hung to dry for winter consumption. Clarke, in his
"Survey," mentions having seen as many as seven carcases of mutton hanging
in one chimney in Borrowdale, and was told that some chimneys in the vale
contained more. Few of these old-fashioned chimneys are now to be found in
the country.
Wheat has never been grown in large quantities in Cumberland and
Westmorland; hence the necessity in former days for oat, rye, or barley
bread being the staple foodstuffs. Certainly the Westmorland oatmeal,
which required to pass through many processes, and to be stored with very
great care, was the staff of the rural households. It was used in a
variety of ways. There was the porridge for breakfast and supper, the thin
oatcake serving the main purposes of white bread in these days, and the
"crowdy"--an excellent and invigorating species of soup, made by pouring
the liquor in which beef was boiling, over oatmeal in a basin. Oatmeal
also entered into the composition of pie-crusts and gingerbread, like the
famous Kendal "piggin bottoms"--snaps stamped out of rolled dough by the
iron rim which formed the external base of the wooden "piggin" or
"biggin," a diminutive wooden tub used as a receptacle for various
household requisites. Many good houses had either no oven or a very small
one, and pies were baked in a huge iron pan covered all round and above
the massive lid, too, with burning peats. Hence the contents were equally
cooked on all sides.
The extent to which flesh meat, both fresh and cured, was used two or
three centuries ago, must have been much less per individual than is now
the case. Leaving out of account the cost to the poor--and the mere fact
that meat was sold for a very few pence per pound does not necessarily
indicate that it was therefore low-priced--there was not a great quantity
available. The art of winter fattening of sheep and cattle was unknown,
and so artificially preserved meat had to be depended upon after
Martinmas, or at the best between Christmas and spring. One old chronicler
wrote:--"The supply of animal food proved inadequate to the demands of the
community, for the fat stock, fed in autumn, being killed off by
Christmas, very little fresh meat appeared in the markets before the
ensuing midsummer, except veal. The substantial yeomen, as well as the
manufacturers, provided against this inconvenience by curing a quantity of
beef at Martinmas, the greatest part of which they pickled in brine, and
the rest was dried in the smoke. Every family boiled a sufficient piece of
their salt provisions on Sunday morning, and had it hot to dinner,
frequently with the addition of an oatmeal pudding. The cold meat came day
after day to the table so long as any of it remained, and was as often
eaten with oat-bread alone. At the same time a wooden can, full of the
briny liquor in which the beef had been cooked, was placed, warm and
thickened with a little meal, before each person by way of broth. The
stomach was encouraged in the better sort of houses to digest these
stubborn materials by a supply of pickled red cabbage, which was prepared
for the purpose in October or November. Hogs were slaughtered between
Christmas and Candlemas, and converted principally into bacon, which, with
dried beef and dried mutton, afforded a change of salt meat in the spring.
The fresh provisions of winter consisted of eggs, poultry, geese, and
ill-fed veal."
In this connection it would be very interesting to know whether the
provisions of the will made by Thomas Williamson on December 14th, 1674,
are in any way carried out, or what has become of the charity. He
bequeathed the sum of L20 to be laid out in land to be bestowed upon poor
people, born within St. John's Chapelry, or Castlerigg, Cumberland, in
mutton or veal, at Martinmas yearly, when flesh might be thought cheapest,
to be by them pickled or hung up and dried, that they might have something
to keep them within doors during stormy days.
If animal flesh was dear, despite its small cost, there was some
compensation in another way. After the salmon season commenced, great
quantities of this modern luxury were brought from Carlisle and West
Cumberland, and sold in other markets in the two counties. The price was
frequently as low as a penny, and not often higher than twopence per
pound, the lack of carriages and roads of a decent character rendering
conveyance for long distances anything but an easy task. Then the poverty
of the people further south offered the owners of the fish no inducements
to carry the commodity into Lancashire. The abundance and cheapness of
salmon seem to have been proverbial. How far the story may be true the
writer cannot say, but it is worth while noting that a condition
concerning apprentices in some west of England towns, is also recorded as
applying to the Charity School at Kendal. The boys apprenticed from that
institution were not to be compelled to dine on salmon, or on fish in
general, oftener than three days in the week.
Much worse was the condition of the labouring folk of the lower class, who
are said to have "subsisted chiefly on porridge made of oatmeal or dressed
barley, boiled in milk, with the addition of oat-bread, butter, onions,
and a little salted meat occasionally." This meagre diet was probably the
cause of the agues which were once very common, especially in the country
districts. The disorder, to a large extent, disappeared when the culture
of vegetables became more general, and salted provisions less essential.
Up to 1730 potatoes were very sparingly used, and were chiefly grown near
Kirkby Lonsdale.
Many of the old stories of the curious methods of dealing with tea, before
it became a common and indispensable article on the tables of all classes
in this country, are obviously either untrue or exaggerated. Hence the
veracity of the following statements, which appeared in print in
Westmorland in the first decade of this century, is not vouched for:--"Not
long after the introduction of potatoes, tea became a favourite beverage
with the women, in spite of a steady opposition from the men; perhaps it
found its way into the north in form of presents. From the method of
preparing this foreign luxury not being generally understood, these
presents were sometimes turned to ridiculous uses. One old lady received a
pound of tea from her son in London, which she smoked instead of tobacco,
and did not hesitate to prefer the weed of Virginia to the herb of China.
Another mother converted a present of the same sort and magnitude into a
herb pudding; that is, she boiled the tea with dressed barley, and after
straining off the water, buttered the compound, which she endeavoured to
render palatable with salt, but in vain, for the bitter taste was not to
be subdued."
How unfavourably the introduction of tea was regarded, by some writers at
any rate, may be gathered from the following paragraph, which appeared in
the _Pacquet_ of October 23rd, 1792:--"A correspondent says that in the
neighbourhood of Greystoke, during the late harvest, added to an increase
of wages, the female reapers had regularly their tea every afternoon, and
the men, toast and ale. How different is this from the beef-steak
breakfasts of old! How degenerate is the present age, and how debilitated
may the next be!"
Oat-cake and brown bread are less favoured in the two counties than was
formerly the case, a fact which was often deplored by the late Bishop of
Carlisle, Dr. Goodwin. It is not a little curious that two articles which
formed the staple portions of the diet of the people from sixty to a
hundred years ago, should now be regarded more in the nature of luxuries.
As an example of the sparing way in which "white flour" was used, an old
Appleby native tells a story concerning what happened at a good hostelry
in the borough, sixty years ago, at a time when wheaten flour was very
scarce, but butcher meat very plentiful. Among other good substantial
things on the table was a huge meat pie, at the shilling ordinary. Just,
however, as the "head of the table" was about to cut the crust, the waiter
whispered to him, "Please, sir, missis says flour is so dear, ye must run
t' knife round t' crust and lift it clean off on to my tray to do another
time."
From the remains of ancient structures it is still possible to draw good
pictures of the way the old inhabitants passed their lives therein. The
late Dr. M. W. Taylor by that means elaborated the story of the daily
doings of the people, from lord to vassal, who inhabited Yanwath Hall. A
similar picture has been presented by Mr. J. F. Curwen in his monograph on
Levens Hall "in the bygone":--