Cartmel, Lancashire

Description
Cartmel, a small town and an ecclesiastical parish in Lancashire. The town stands in a fine valley, overhung by the Coniston Fells, within 2 1/2 miles of the Leven sands, 2 NE of Cark-in-Cartmel railway station, and 6 1/2 E of Ulverstone. Egfrid, King of Northumbria, gave the surrounding lands to St Cuthbert; Ethelred, a successor of Egfrid, put to death here two rivals to his throne ; and William Mareschal, Earl of Pembroke, founded here in 1188 a grand Augustinian priory. The priory enjoyed the privilege of providing guides for the Leven and Morecambe sands, and was given at the dissolution to Thomas Holcroft. The priory church still stands, measures 157 feet along the nave and choir, 100 across the transepts, and is now the parish church. The nave was rebuilt in the 15th century, the rest is Early English; the choir has an eight-light transomed east window; the central steeple exhibits the curious feature of a diagonal belfry on a square basement; and the church contains carved stalls, two ancient monuments of Prior Walton and Sir J. Harrington, and monuments of the Prestons, the Lowthers, and others, and an altar-tomb erected to the memory of Lord Frederick Cavendish, who was assassinated in Phoenix Park, Dublin, in May, 1882. The town is partly in the townships of Lower Allithwaite and Upper Holker, and consists of good stone houses in narrow irregular streets, is a seat of petty sessions, and has a post, money order, and telegraph office under Grange-over-Sands. It once had a weekly market, and it still has fairs on the Wednesday before Easter, Whit-Monday, the Monday after 23 October, and 5 November. A grammar school has £120 from endowment. Bishop Law was a native, and was educated in the grammar school. The parish includes also the townships of Upper Allithwaite, Upper Holker and Lower Holker. A medicinal spring, called the Holy Well, exists about 3 miles south of the town, and draws numerous visitors. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Carlisle ; value, £290 with residence. Population of ecclesiastical parish, 752. There are also a Wesleyan chapel, a Friends' meeting-house, and an institute with reading rooms and library.