County Palatine of Lancaster Widow (late Wife of William Fleming
of Coningston-Hall aforesaid Esq^r; and eldest daughter of Roger
Kirkby of Kirkby in the said County Esq^{re}) and of John Kirkby
Gentleman her second brother was this Monument by her three
sorrowful sons S^r Daniel Fleming Knight Roger Fleming and William
Fleming gentlemen, for their dear Mother and Uncle here erected.
The said John Kirkby (having lived above 30 yeares with his sister
aforesaid, and having given to the Churches and Poor of Kirkby
and Coningston aforesaid 150£) died a Bachelor at Coningston-Hall
aforementioned September 28 A.D. 1680, and was buried near unto
this place the next day: And the said Alice Fleming died also
(having outlived her late Husband above 27 yeares and suruiued
5 of her 8 children) at Coningston-Hall aforesaid Febry 28 A.D.
1680, and was buried in this Church, close by her said Brother
Febr 28, 1680, in the same Grave where ye Lady Bold (second wife
of John Fleming Esq^{re} deceased, uncle to ye said William
Fleming Esq^r) had about 55 yeares before been interred.
Epitaph
Spectator stay, and view this sacred ground
See it contains such Loue, on Earth scarce found,
A BROTHER and a SISTER, and you see
She seeks to find him in Mortality--
First he did leave us; then she stay'd & try'd
To live without him, lik'd it not and dy'd
Here they ly buried, whose Religious Zeal
Appeard sincere to Prince, Church, Commonweal;
Kind to their Kindred, Faithful to their Friends,
Clear in their Lives and Chearful to their ends.
They both were Dear to them whose good intent
Makes them both liue in this one Monument.
So Dear in Cordial Loue, tho' th' outward part.
Turne Dust it holds impression to the Heart.
The churchyard is first mentioned as a burying ground in 1594, and
until 1841 was very small: indeed, the population it had to serve
was small up to the nineteenth century. But by 1841 the population
of the parish had grown, and Lady le Fleming made an addition to
the churchyard. Subsequent additions were made in 1845, 1865, and
1878, the last by the removal of the old Institute, formerly the
Boys' School. This used to stand between the church and the road,
as shown in the photograph exhibited, with other views and relics
of the neighbourhood, in the museum at the Coniston Institute.
In Coniston Churchyard the centre of general interest is Ruskin's
grave, marked by the tall sculptured cross of gray Tilberthwaite
stone, which stands under the fir trees near the wall separating
the churchyard from the schoolyard. Near it are the white crosses
of the Beevers, and the railed-in space is reserved for the family
of Brantwood. The sculptures on the east face are intended to
suggest Ruskin's earlier writings--the lower panel his juvenile
poems; above, the young artist with a hint of sunrise over Mont
Blanc in the background, for "Modern Painters;" the Lion of
St. Mark, for "Stones of Venice," and the candlestick of the
Tabernacle for "Seven Lamps." On the west face below is the
parable of the labourers in the vineyard--"Unto this Last," then
"Sesame and Lilies," the Angel of Fate with club, key and nail
for "Fors Clavigera," the "Crown of Wild Olive," and St. George,
symbolizing his later work. On the south edge are the Squirrel,
the Robin and the Kingfisher in a scroll of wild rose to suggest
Ruskin's favourite studies in natural history. On the north edge
is a simple interlaced plait. The cross was carved by the late H.
T. Miles of Ulverston from designs by W. G. Collingwood.
Since the restoration the clergymen have been:--
Richard Rawling May, 1676 d. June, 1682
John Birkett June, 1683 d. Feb., 1716
John Stoup 1716 d. Oct., 1760
John Strickland 1761 d. Sep., 1796
There seems then to have been an interregnum until William Tyson
is recorded as assistant curate in 1805. The incumbent in 1809 was
Jonas Lindow, who died 1826, under whom officiated as assistant
curates:--
John Hodgson, June, 1809.
John Kendal (occasional).
Matthew Inman Carter, of Torver (occasional).
John Douglas, May, 1816, to November, 1821.
W. T. Sandys, February, 1825 (afterwards incumbent, assisted by P.
Fraser).
H. Siree, February, 1835, to April, 1837 (assistant or incumbent?).
J. W. Harden, incumbent, 1837 to November, 1839 (to whom S.
Boutflower, afterwards archdeacon of Carlisle, was assistant).
Thomas Tolming, incumbent, December, 1839; resigned April, 1870.
Charles Chapman, incumbent, 1870; died 1905.
H. E. Wood, curate in charge, 1905 to April, 1906.
F. T. Wilcox, incumbent, April, 1906.
The school used to be held in the church, an arrangement common
in this district when the clergyman was also schoolmaster. Later,
a small building was put up, within the area of the present
churchyard; this was turned into a Mechanics' Institute in
1854, as already noted, when new schools were built. The site
of the Boys' School and master's house, with adjacent ground,
was conveyed by a deed dated December 6th, 1853, from Lady Le
Fleming to the incumbent and chapel-wardens of Coniston and
their successors. The buildings were to be erected as approved by
Lady Le Fleming, and the school was always to be conducted on the
principles of the Established Church of England. There is no deed
extant for the Girls' (now the Infants') School. It was probably
built at the same time as the old Boys' School, being similar in
construction, especially in the chimneys (as Mr. Herbert Bownass
notes). Dr. Gibson says in _The Old Man_ (1849) that both schools
had been conducted for the previous three or four years on the
Home and Colonial School system.
The schoolmasters since the building of the new schools have
been:--
Mr. Diddams, 1854-1858.
Mr. Ryder, 1858-1859.
S. K. Thompson, 1859-1864.
W. Brocklebank, 1864-1887.
C. J. Fox, 1887-1891.
John Morris, 1891-1902.
W. J. Rich, 1902.
The mistress of the Infants' School since 1876 has been Miss Agnes
Walker.
The Mechanics' Institute in 1877 was found to be inadequate and
inconvenient, and in 1878 a new building was made on the Yewdale
road. This in its turn was outgrown, and in 1896 the committee,
under the presidency of Dr. Kendall, resolved to enlarge it. A
library and reading room, billiard and recreation rooms, room for
meetings and classes, bath, museum, concert hall and caretaker's
house were planned, and built in 1897 with the proceeds of various
exhibitions and bazaars, added to private subscriptions. This
enlarged Institute or village clubhouse was opened by Mrs. Arthur
Severn on April 15th, 1896.
In 1900 an exhibition of drawings by the late Prof. Ruskin was
held, and visited by over 10,000 people. From the proceeds of
this a room for a museum was added, to supersede the little
room formerly allotted for the purpose; and the Ruskin Museum
was opened in August, 1901, Canon Rawnsley giving the inaugural
address. The collection shown in the Museum is confined under
two headings--"Ruskin" and "Coniston." It comprises (_a_) local
history and antiquities, with a few illustrative specimens
of general antiquities; (_b_) local minerals, to which it is
hoped some day to add other branches of the natural history of
Coniston: of this division Mr. Ruskin laid the foundation by his
gift in 1884 of a collection of minerals and the model of the
neighbourhood; (_c_) Ruskin drawings and relics, given or lent
by Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Severn; (_d_) books by and about Ruskin,
with autographs, etc., in illustration; (_e_) engravings after
Ruskin's drawings, and portraits of him; (_f_) copies and prints
from pictures which have formed the subject of his writing. The
collection is still growing, and an enlarged edition of the
Catalogue (3d.) was brought out at Easter, 1906; copies can be
had of the caretaker at the Institute. The Museum is open every
week-day from 10 till dusk, admission one penny in the slot of the
turnstile. Eight to ten thousand pennies have been taken yearly
since the opening. The hon. curator is Mr. Herbert Bownass.
In the summer an exhibition, usually of pictures, is held during
August and September in the large hall adjoining. Since the new
Museum was built, the room formerly occupied by the collections
has been used as a Ladies' Reading Room; and in 1905 a workshop
for wood carving and other art crafts was added to the premises.
The subscription to the Institute for residents over 16 years of
age is 1s. 3d. a quarter; for boys, 9d.; for visitors 1s. a week,
or 2s. 6d. a month. The management is in the hands of a committee
elected by the members, non-sectarian and non-political; Dr.
Kendall has been president since 1884, and Mr. Edmund Todd hon.
secretary since 1902.
The Baptist Chapel was built in 1837, the youngest of many chapels
described in a booklet entitled _Old Baptist Meeting-houses in
Furness_, by F. N. Richardson (1904). Tottlebank, the oldest,
was founded in 1669. Sunnybank, in Torver, 1678, and Hawkshead
Hill, founded a few years later, no doubt took the early Baptists
of Coniston; one of whom, William Atkinson of Monk Coniston,
tanner, was fined in 1683 for attending a conventicle. These three
chapels are now open, though Sunnybank and Hawkshead Hill were
closed for some years before 1905. The seventeenth century chapel
at Scroggs, between Broughton and Coniston, was dilapidated in
1842, and is now a cattle shed. The Coniston Chapel ministers
were Mr. Kirkbride, Mr. Myers, and then for twenty-one years from
about 1865 the Rev. George Howells; he was succeeded by Rev.
Arthur Johnson. For nine years before 1904 there was no Baptist
congregation, and the chapel was let to the "Brethren," who built
a place of worship for themselves and opened it 1903. The Baptist
Sunday School had been carried on all the while by Mr. William
Shaw, and on regaining possession of the chapel a congregation was
once more formed with Rev. R. Jardine as pastor.
A Primitive Methodist Chapel was built in 1859, but some years ago
was converted into a Masonic Hall. A Wesleyan Chapel was built in
1875, but there is no settled minister.
The Roman Catholic Chapel was built in 1872 by Miss Aglionby of
Wigton; Prof. Ruskin gave a window to this chapel. It was served
for many years by Father Gibson; on his removal he was succeeded
by Father Laverty, at whose death in 1905 Father Bradshaw was
appointed to the cure.
VIII.--CONISTON INDUSTRIES.
COPPER.
That the copper mines were worked by the Romans and the Saxons
is only a surmise. Dr. A. C. Gibson, F.S.A., writing in 1866,
said:--"Recent operations have from time to time disclosed old
workings which have obviously been made at a very early period,
by the primitive method of lighting great fires upon the veins
containing ore and, when sufficiently heated, pouring cold water
upon the rock, and so, by the sudden abstraction of caloric,
rending, cracking and making a circumscribed portion workable by
the rude implements then in use, specimens of which are still
found occasionally in the very ancient parts of the mines,
especially small quadrangular wedges perforated for the reception
of a handle."
The mines of Cumberland were worked throughout the Middle Ages,
and it is not impossible that these rich veins in the Coniston
Fells were tried for ore; but we have no proof of the local
assertion that they have been worked continuously since the days
of the Romans. On the contrary, there seem to have been only two
periods, of about a century each, during which mining was actively
pushed. In the time of Queen Elizabeth we reach firm ground of
history.
In 1561 a company was formed by several lords and London merchants
to work the minerals of the kingdom under a patent from the
Crown. They invited two German mining experts, Thomas Thurland
and Daniel Hechstetter, who coming to England opened mines, and
built smelting works at Keswick in 1565; and in spite of strong
local opposition soon made a great success. (Their proceedings
are described in a paper by J. Fisher Crosthwaite, F.S.A., in
_Transactions_ of the now defunct Cumberland Association, viii.)
They also took over the Coniston mines, and worked them with
energy and profit. They opened out no less than nine new workings
beside the old mine--the New or White Work, Tongue Brow (in
Front of Kernel Crag), Thurlhead, Hencrag, Semy Work, Brimfell,
Gray Crag, the Wide Work, and the Three Kings in Tilberthwaite;
employing about 140 men. The ore was raised at a cost of 2s. 6d.
to 8s. a kibble, each kibble being about a horse load, for it was
carried on pack-horses to Keswick for smelting. To avoid this they
proposed building a smelting house at Coniston, which was, they
said, well supplied with wood and peat, and an iron forge was
already there. It would be easy to boat the manufactured copper
down the water, and ship it at Penny Bridge.
But in the civil wars the Corporation of "Governors, Assistants,
and Commonalty of the Mines Royal" came to an end. The Parliament
soldiers wrecked the works at Keswick, and operations at Coniston
were stopped.
After the civil wars, Sir Daniel Fleming was several times
approached on the subject of reopening the mines. He seems to
have been willing. He notes on January 21st, 1658, "given unto
the miller of Conistone for going along with me on to the fell,
1s.;" and on March 22nd, "given to Parce Corratts when hee came
to looke at the blacke lead mine at Conistone, 2/6." This turned
out a disappointment, for on May 2nd, 1665, he says, "given unto
a Newlands man who came to look at the _supposed_ wadd-mine at
Coniston, 5/-." And so nothing seems to have been done.
In 1684 Roger Fleming at the Hall sent his brother, Sir Daniel,
a report of the mines "which were first wrought by the Dutchmen"
(Keswick Germans) and others discovered more recently. Only three
of the old workmen were living, but from their evidence we get
the details given above. On May 25th, 1686, John Blackwall wrote
from Patterdale to Sir Daniel that he had examined the ground at
Coniston and studied the evidence of the three old miners, and
was prepared with a company to open the mines, if they could agree
upon terms.
Sir Daniel died in 1701; and the Rev. Thomas Robinson's _Natural
History of Cumberland_, &c., published in 1709, mentions that
copper had been formerly got at Cunningston, by the Germans,
and taken to Keswick, but says nothing about a revival of the
industry. It was, however, prosecuted in a small way throughout
the eighteenth century. A Company of Miners at Ulpha is mentioned
in George Bownass' account for tools in 1772. West says, in 1774,
merely, "the fells of Coniston have produced great quantities
of copper ore," nothing of mining in his time; and the smith's
accounts from 1770 to 1774 do not mention it. There must have
been a revival shortly afterwards. Captain Budworth, about 1790,
tells the story of the devil and the miner, retold by Dr. Gibson
from local tradition, to the effect that Simon the miner found
a paying vein in the crag--it is called Simon Nick to this day,
and the cleft he made is seen yet on the left hand as you go up
to Leverswater; but one night at the Black Bull he boasted of his
luck, and said the fairies, or the devil, were his partners, upon
which he found no more copper, and lost his life soon after in
blasting.
In 1802 the mines were going. In 1820 the _Lonsdale Magazine_ says
that they had been worked at intervals for many centuries, and had
lately been in the hands of "spirited adventurers," but were then
discontinued.
About 1835 a new era of prosperity began, in which Mr. John
Barratt became the leader. His skill and energy brought about such
success that in 1849 they employed 400 men, and yielded 250 tons
of ore monthly. In 1855 the monthly wage list amounted to £2,000.
In 1866 Dr. Gibson said:--"For many years their shipments averaged
300 tons per month, and employed from five to six hundred people,"
but "the number of hands employed do not now exceed two hundred."
Up to this time the ore had been boated down the lake, and carted
to Greenodd. Now the Coppermining Company promoted a railway
connecting Coniston with Broughton and the Furness line. It was a
separate concern when it was opened in 1859, but absorbed into the
Furness system in 1862.
The mines, as they were in his days, are described at length
by Dr. Gibson in _The Old Man, or Ravings and Ramblings around
Conistone_. Alexander Craig Gibson, M.R.C.S., F.S.A., was born at
Harrington, 1813, the son of a ship's captain, who died early.
He was taken by his mother to her home at Lockerbie, and brought
up there; afterwards apprenticed to a surgeon at Whitehaven. In
1844 he came to Coniston as medical officer to the mining company,
and lived for seven years at Yewdale Bridge, where he wrote his
"Ravings and Ramblings" as articles for the _Kendal Mercury_,
afterwards collected into a volume, and subsequently republished
with considerable revision. He left Coniston in January, 1851, and
remained at Hawkshead for some years; then removed southward, and
finally settled at Bebington in Cheshire, where he died in 1874.
A collection of sketches in prose and verse, _The Folk-speech of
Cumberland_, &c. (Coward, Carlisle, 1869; ed. ii., 1872), shows
him to be master of the dialect of the north-west in various
forms--Furness, Cumbrian, and Dumfriesshire; and his book on
Coniston remains a valuable contribution to local anecdote. (I owe
the data of his life to the Rev. T. Ellwood.)
After the middle of the nineteenth century the copper mines
became less and less profitable, owing to the competition of
foreign imports. During the "eighties," they were only just kept
open, until the Coniston Mining Syndicate, under the energetic
management of Mr. Thomas Warsop, tried to put new life into the
old business. Mr. Warsop attempted to introduce a new system of
smelting, but this smelting house was blown away by the storm of
December 22nd, 1894. He took the watercourse from Leverswater to
work a turbine, which superseded the old waterwheels for pumping,
and also supplied power for boring in the mines, and for crushing
and mixing the material from the old rubbish heaps, with which he
made excellent concrete slabs, much in demand for pavements. But
the development came to an end with Mr. Warsop's removal in 1905,
and when the mines were offered for sale there was no purchaser.
IRON.
In our tour of the lake we have noticed that there are remains of
old iron works along its margin, now difficult to trace.
In High Furness, the district of which Coniston Lake is the
centre, and the most northern part of Lancashire, there are about
thirty known sites where iron was smelted in the ancient way with
charcoal, producing a _bloom_--the lump of metal made by _blowing_
in the furnace--whence the name _bloomeries_. Of these sites about
half are in the valley of Coniston, and eight are actually on the
shore of the lake:--
Beck-leven (below Brantwood) East side.
Parkamoor Beck (below Fir Island) "
Selside Beck (below Peel Island) "
Moor-gill (above Sunny-bank) West side.
Harrison Coppice (opposite Fir Island) "
Knapping-tree (opposite Fir Island) "
Springs (opposite Beck-leven) "
Waterpark (below Coniston Hall) "
All these have been bloomeries of a somewhat similar kind,
and on Peel Island some iron works have been carried on of a
rather different type, and perhaps at a different period. Small
bloomeries have also been in blast at Tom-gill (the beck coming
down from the Monk Coniston Tarns, often called Glen Mary), and
at Stable Harvey in Blawith. One is said to be at the limekiln in
Yewdale. There were two bloomeries of the later and larger type at
Coniston Forge (up stream from the church) and at Low Nibthwaite,
and two others further down the Crake, making sixteen in all the
valley now known. There are, of course, many beside in the Lake
District, as in other parts of the country.
That there were iron works before the Conquest in Furness appears
from the place-name of "Ouregrave" in _Domesday_, which must be
identical with Orgrave. At this place, early in the thirteenth
century, Roger of Orgrave gave Furness Abbey the mine "cum ...
aquæ cursu ad illam scil. mineriam lavandum," a grant confirmed by
his son Hamo in 1235 (_Coucher Book of Furness_, p. 229). About
1230 Thomas le Fleming gave them iron mines in Elliscales. By 1292
a great part of their income was derived from iron works.
Canon Atkinson, in his introduction to the _Coucher Book of
Furness_, c. xviii., reckoned that they must have had some forty
hearths to produce the iron they made. When the wood near the
mines was exhausted, it became easier to carry the ore to the
place where charcoal was burned than to bring the charcoal--so
much greater in bulk--to the ore. An acre of forest was not enough
to supply charcoal for smelting two tons of metal, and so the
woods were gradually devastated over a wider and wider area.
In 1240 the abbey, which owned the eastern side of the lake,
but not the lake itself, got leave from the baron of Kendal to
put boats on the lake of Coniston for fishing and carrying. The
carrying was chiefly of timber for building, but the tops and
branches were no doubt used for charcoal. That on the other shore
the smelting works were creeping up the valley is seen from the
grant, before 1282, of William de Lancaster to Conishead Priory
of the dead wood in Blawith for charcoal to supply the canons'
bloomeries--for it was not only Furness Abbey that dealt in iron;
and, indeed, more bloomeries exist on the side that did not belong
to the abbey than on the shore that did. Thus in the thirteenth
century we infer that smelting went on by Coniston Lake shore well
up the west side.
On the east side there is a remarkable coincidence between the
sites of Furness Abbey "parks" (or early clearings for sheep
farms) and the bloomeries we find there. Near Selside Beck, where
slag has been found, is Waterpark--anciently Water-side-park,
apparently the earliest of the abbey sheep farms. Above Parkamoor
Beck bloomery is Parkamoor--the sheep farm on the moor. Above
Beck-leven bloomery is Lawson Park, the latest of the Furness
Abbey sheep farms. I think the inference is that when the land was
cleared they put sheep on it, and went up the lake to the next
beck for the site of their bloomery. What we know for certain is
that in early times the valley of Coniston was thickly wooded, but
by the time of the dissolution of the monastery, High Furness had
been nearly denuded of timber.
After the dissolution of the monastery, the commissioners of Henry
VIII. let part of the woods of Furness Fells to William Sandys
and John Sawrey, to maintain three smithies, or combined smelting
and hammering works, for which the rent was £20. Less than thirty
years later, in 1564-5, these were suppressed, because it was
represented that the woods were being wasted, and the £20 rent
was thenceforward paid to the lord of the manor by the customary
tenants as "bloomsmithy rent."
The tenants of High Furness were allowed to make iron for
themselves with the loppings and underwood, which may account for
some of the small bloomeries. But by this time an improved and
larger furnace was beginning to come into fashion, and in the
seventeenth century we find that one such existed at Coniston
at the Forge, between the Black Bull and Dixon Ground. It is
mentioned in 1650 by the German miners, and by Sir Daniel Fleming
in 1675. In 1750 it was turning out eighty tons of bar iron a
year, and in 1771 Thomas Tyson is mentioned as the ironmaster
(George Bownass' accounts). This would suffice for the needs of
the neighbourhood, while at the same time the Deerpark, which
we know was stocked in the seventeenth century and probably was
preserved in the sixteenth, would make impossible the carrying
on of smelting at Waterpark bloomery, which is within it, and
at Springs, close to it. The relics from Peel Island, associated
with iron works, seem to be mediæval, and the isolation of a forge
on an island, as at Rampsholme in Derwentwater, implies that
protection was sought, which would hardly be needed in Elizabethan
and later times hereabouts. The conclusion seems to be that many
of the little bloomeries are mediæval; that at Stable Harvey,
perhaps the work of Conishead Priory after the grant of 1282, and
those in Monk Coniston, the work of Furness Abbey.
The iron ore came from Low Furness, but there was an iron mine at
the Red-dell head under Weatherlam. The Rev. Thomas Robinson, in
his _Natural History of Westmorland and Cumberland_, 1709, says
"Langdale & Cunningston mountains do abound most with iron veins;
which supplies with Ore & keeps constantly going a Furnace in
Langdale, where great plenty of good and malleable iron is made,
not much inferior to that of Dantzick."
SLATE.