A detailed history of Sedgwick
|
Drumlins are usually around 10m - 25m high, with broad rounded tops and have a long axis parallel to the orientation of ice flow and an up-ice (stoss) face that is generally steeper than the down-ice (lee) face enabling the direction of the retreating ice that laid them down to be identified.
This parallel alignment gives a distinctive flavour to the landscape they form, known as a “basket of eggs” topography. |
1579 Map by Saxton
Shows "Seggeswick" with buildings and an enclosed wood There is a bridge at Levens and Natland is referred to by its original name of Watland. |
1611 Map by Speed
Shows "Seggeswick" and Watland and thr River Kent is "Can Flu" |
1590 Conveyance by Robert Atkinson, Edward Wilson and Robert Makereth to Thomas Strickland, esq., of messuages and lands in Sigswicke in the several occupation of Thomas Lyndethe, yearly rent 8s. 6d.; William Cocke, yearly rent 5s. 9d.; John Jackson, yearly rent 5s. 9d.; Arthur Chamber, yearly rent 3s. 6d.; Peter Chamber, yearly rent 3s. 6d.; Christopher Fletcher, yearly rent 5s.; to hold in fee. Thomas Strickland, gent., and William Prickett, attorneys to deliver seisin. Dated 12 October, 1592 saw controversy between Thomas Strickland and Jas.Bellingham who had repaired the corn mill at Force Falls and impeded the fishing there. The resolution required Strickland to pay 10/- for fishing thereafter. Sedgwick appears as a group of scattered farms in the hearth taxes. For example (right) 1669 There were sixteen hearths in this Constablewick chargeable to the Hearth Tax. |
Road Strip maps On the left is plate 38 of Ogilby's 1675 Road Map, Brittania. They were strip maps showing routes from London - here Sidewick or Siggeswick appears south of Natland or Notclaf on the road and 253 miles north of London. This indicates that the old Pack Horse route via Crosscrake has been surpassed by the road running south through Natland and Kendal giving a faster and more direct route to Levens Bridge. The strip map was improved in 1720 by Bowen In both lower case italic writing means a hamlet or village. |
In 1692, 1700 and 1713 the in Records Relating To the Barony of Kendale: Volume 3, records that Force Bridge was in disrepair
In 1706 Chambers Farm (now Carex) was licensed as a place for religious worship for Quakers.
In 1752, a thousand yard stretch of Well Heads Lane in Sedgwick which was part the main Kendal to Milnthorpe highway was deemed "very ruinous, miry, deep broken and in decay" and the inhabitants of the village were ordered to repair it or be fined the sum of £20. On the 18 January, 1754, the inhabitants produced a certificate that the highway was well and sufficiently repaired and received a discharge of the indictment. In the same year, at Bradshaw Wifes in the township of Sedgwick, villagers were ordered to repair a different section of road but on the 4 May 1853, the jury found that they were not guilty and discharged the indictment. In 1756, Sedgwick became part of the newly established Crosscrake Parish, and the Chapel at Crosscrake became its Parish Church. Previously, it had been in the ancient Parish of Heversham. Having become "ruinous and unused" by 1717 Crosscrake Church was rebuilt in 1773.
Around this time, an iron forge was established by Thomas Holm and his associates, on the west bank of the Kent, just below Force Bridge. In 1769, The poet Gray visited the Iron Forge at Force Falls and wrote
The stream is much impaired in beauty since the forge was erected. I went on down to the forge (from which we proceeded the din described) and saw the demons at work by the light of their own fires. The iron is brought in pigs to Millthrop by sea from Scotland and it is here beat into bars and plates. (Gray's Journal) Map by Jeffrys 1770 SEDGWICK
|
Simpson 1746 map
The map has a smaller scale but Seggeswick is important enough to feature. Bowen and Kitchin 1760 The map is still fairly inaccurate and local roads are not shown. Jefferys’ map, surveyed in 1768 and published in 1770, was one of the new county maps published in the late 18th century involving the use of triangulation to replace the less accurate method of road traverse. It is more a map of the sociopolitical landscape detailing what Jefferys and his subscribers believed to be the most significant features of the county, especially settlements, transport links power, industry, wealthy families and their elite residences. It shows much more detail - most notably local lanes and we can see Sedgwick has grown to a significant settlement - as large as Natland and has a Mill and Forge by the river. |
It is before the canal and railway were built and shows Sedgwick as a hamlet centred around the junction of Wellheads Lane/Back Lane and the road coming from Crosscrake and Natland - probably Fox Cottage/Hill Top area - it is difficult to locate because the lanes seem to be drawn fairly inaccurately - although Back Lane would still have followed its original route taking it directly to Sedgwick House gate - (it was re-routed by the Wakefields along the canal when it was built to allow development of the Mews area.) There is a river crossing to Nanny Pie Lane where the stepping stones were and a bridge over the Kent at Force Falls. Lakerigg Corn Mill is shown by the river on a lane that continued all the way through to Natland along the current bridle way. The forge at the lower waterfalls is also shown. |
Proceed through Sedgwick, and fall in with the course of the river at Force-bridge, and from the crown of it have a very singular romantic view of the river both ways, working its passage in a narrow deep channel of rocks, hanging over it in a variety of forms, and streaming a thousand rills into the flood. The rocks in the bottom are strangely excavated into deep holes of various shapes, which, when the river is low, remain full of water, and from their depth are black as ink.
The bridge is one bold arch, supported by the opposite rocks, of unknown antiquity. A mantle of ivy vails its ancient front, and gives it a most venerable appearance. If you ride down the west side of the river from the bridge, as far as the forge, to see the water-fall of the whole river, let it be remembered, that the stream is much impaired in beauty since the forge was erected. And if, from the end of the uppermost house, you look up between the trees in the midst of the channel, you will see the whole body of the river issuing from a sable cavern, and tumbling over a rock, of height just sufficient to convert it into a froth as white as snow, and behind it the arch of the bridge is partly caught in a disposition that forms a very uncommon assemblage of picturesque beauties. This is seen in the highest perfection when then stream is full. Return to the bridge, and ride down the east side of the river to Levens-park.- In order to ride through the park, you must be favoured with a key from Levens-hall. |
Sedgwick Village
Cumbria LA8 0JW |
|