Westmorland

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This article has not been researched and written yet

This article has not been researched and written yet

Westmorland was described in 1671 as for the most part ‘barren, being full of great moors and high mountains (called the North Fells [the modern Lake District]), yet there are many fruitful valleys in it, abounding with good arable, meadow and pasture grounds and commended for plenty of corn and cattle’. Fleming-Senhouse Pprs. ed. E. Hughes (Cumb. Rec. Ser.

Situated at a crossing on the upper River Eden some 30 miles south east of Carlisle, Appleby was relatively small for a county town and, indeed, was ‘so slenderly inhabited, the buildings … so mean and the inhabitants generally so idle (having no manufacture of note among them)’, that were it not for the fact that the Westmorland assizes and quarter sessions were held there ‘it would be little better than a village’. W. Camden, Britannia ed. E. Gibson (1695), 807, 813; Fleming-Senhouse Papers ed. E. Hughes (Cumb. Rec. Ser.