A detailed history of Sedgwick
A collection of information from Parish records and internet research 

​Part 1 - before gunpowder.....up to 1780

​​Sedgwick is situated in gently rolling “low drumlin” countryside that is a legacy from the end of the ice age, 2 million years ago.....

​The drumlins are hills that lie on top of the underlying Carboniferous limestone rocks and were formed in the Quaternary period, when retreating ice sheets and their meltwater deposited their load of clay, silt, sand and gravel in the form of these distictive oval whaleback undulations.

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. ​

​
​The picture to the left shows drumlins either side of the River Kent as it flows bottom to top, past Riverside and the picture to the right, is an archaeologists' LIDAR image showing the same area but looking north and straddling what is now Brettagh Holt roundabout.

​To the west of Sedgwick, the River Kent flows through a gorge and down a series of waterfalls  - Force Falls) - which were cut during the ice age when the Irish Sea froze, lowering sea levels, thereby increasing river gradients and causing rivers to cut back along their original beds. This erosion cut the gorges and steps we see today, which now form a series of waterfalls.

As the ice age ended, the area around Morecambe Bay would have been uninhabitable, like todays Antarctic Tundra but as the climate warmed,  birch and willow woodland grew, followed by pine, oak and elm. This when the first settlers, the New Stone Age  hunters and gathers would have begun to migrate inland via the Kent Estuary. Pollen analysis of soil shows a that by 4000BC there had been a decline of tree pollen and an increase in grains and grasses, indicating that farming was well established by then. 

As the The Bronze Age began around 3000BC, the climate became wetter and colder. The local people built  corduroy roads formed from tree trunks in the Lyth Valley and the relatively advanced Beaker People gradually moved up the Kent Estuary into southern Lakeland. 

The  thousand year Iron Age starting in around 500BC saw the arrival of the Celts. They built forts at Dallam Park, south of Heversham, at Heaves Fell and on The Helme to the north. The River Kent’s name could derive from ‘cam’ a Celtic word for a water course.

The Romans under Quintus Petellius Cerialis entered the Kent valley around 84 AD and established a fort at Watercrook just up the river from Sedgwick. They called the local warlike Celtic tribes the Brigantes  or ‘brigands’. Later descendants were called the ‘Cwmry’ from which the names Cumbria and Cumbrian stem. 

In about 600AD,  Angle settlers arrived from the eastern Kingdom of Northumbria, merging with the local Celtic people.
Then, in about 900 AD Norse Vikings penetrated the area from Ireland and the Isle of Man. They were probably Christian and settled relatively peacefully occupying previously vacant land. Their name for a settlement in a clearing was ‘thwaite’ as in the local communities of  Deepthwaite and Ackenthwaite and it was the Vikings who called the moors fells; the lakes tarns; the streams gills, becks and sykes; cliffs scars, hillsides bracks and slacks; cowsheds shippons; tracks gates and the marshes mosses.

Sedgwick was probably first occupied by these Anglian and Scandanavian settlers in the 7th and 9th centuries. The name "Sedgwick" is likely to have been derived from the Norse Sigg(e) meaning dairy farm and the Old English wīc meaning a dwelling; a building or collection of buildings for special purposes; a farm, a dairy farm; a trading or industrial settlement; or (in the plural) a hamlet, village.

By 1000AD the area was on the border between England and Scotland. Sedgwick was part of the large parish of Heversham which belonged to Tostig, brother of Harold II who was killed at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in September 1066.  Although Sedgwick itself does not feature in the Domesday Book, Heversham known as “Evesham” was, and was part of Yorkshire, making Sedgwick part of that county too.

In 1092 William Rufus conquered Cumbria and fixed the Anglo-Scottish Border at Carlisle. Westmorland and Sedgwick became part of the English Kingdom. 

By 1100 “Sigghiswic” or “sigiswic” was held by the Aencurt family descended from Roger de Yealand and Norman de Redman. The latter’s brother in law gave one moiety (or half) of the manor to Ralph de Betham, who in turn in 1184 gave it “for the health of his soul and the souls of his wife, Henry his son and his father and mother”, to the Hospital of Cockersand, at Cockersand Abbey, Lancashire. 

A chapel of ease was founded nearby at Crosscrake by St Anslem in  1190, although the area remained in the ancient Parish of Heversham.

In 1239, the much of what we now know as Sedgwick became part of the Sizergh Estate owned by the Strickland family, when William Strickland married the the heiress Elizabeth Deincourt. They extended their control over the following years - eg 
1366 By deed dated at Siggeswyk on Friday after Easter, Edward III, the above-named feoffees regranted the premises in Siggeswyk and Levenes to Sir Thomas de Stirkeland for life, remainder to John son of Sir Thomas, for life, with respective remainders to Peter and Thomas, brothers of John, for their respective lives.

In 1322, the Scots under Robert the Bruce laid waste much of the Kent Valley. Kendal records state
​‘that divers burgages which ought to render 40s now render only 6s by reason of destruction by the Scots’ and ‘the water of Kent ought to be worth £4 but now only 40s’.

In 1345, a corn mill had been established on the west bank just down river from Force Falls - Lawrence de Asmunderlawe held at his death a messuage, garden, mill. 40 acres of land, 3 acres of meadow and a 16/- rent by Knight's service. 

According to ancient records, many alternative spellings of "Sedgwick" have been used throughout the centuries - The range includes.....

• Sighiswic  1184-1190
• Sigherwick-1208 
• Suggeswyke-1256
• Sicheswyc-1260-1275
• Siggeswic / Syggeswick / Syggswyke/Sigiswyke-1501 
• Sydewyke-1537
• Sigewick-1580  
• Sedgwicke-1610
• Sidgeswick-1714

​Maps from the Sixteenth, Seventeenth and Eighteenth centuries show "Siggeswick" as a settlement with buldings and woods, which grows in importance and size over the years. 

 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. ​​

​1646 Map by Janssen


Little has changed since the 1611 map.

1695 Map by Morden
The important packhorse road running from Kendal through Natland, along the ridge at Barrows Green, through Stainton and on to Farleton is shown. 

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. 

​In the history of Westmorland and Cumberland, 1777, it records: On the west side of the force was erected some few years ago, by Thomas Holme, a forge for beating out pigs of iron and other iron work, which employs several families who have dwelling houses and offices near adjoining.  By 1816, it had fallen into disuse leaving " a row of hammered stones by the riverside, below the present group of cottages and a great amount of debris from the furness all down the river bank and river, making bottom fishing very difficult as the hook continually fixes itself in the cells of slag. Many larger pieces have been used for the Camms of the walls near by." No trace of the previous corn mill was evident. 

A vivid description of another visit to Force Falls at Sedgwick  , in this era is recorded in West's Guide to the Lakes, 1778, depicting how the natural beauty of the river is spoiled by the industrialisation caused by the forge. (The picture is taken much later but is of the "old bridge" 

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.

It was around this time that the future of Sedgwick was changed forever, when the Wakefield family bought a large parcel of land along the east bank of the River Kent to develop it into a Gunpowder Works and their family seat.
​A detailed History - part 2 -The Wakefield's Gunpowder Era in Sedgwick
To continue the story of Sedgwick CLICK HERE