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Kirk-Oswald in Cumberland County England History and GeographyKIRK-OSWALD, a parish in LEATH ward, county of CUMBERLAND, comprising the market town of Kirk-Oswald, and the township of Staffield, or Staffol, and containing 1069 inhabitants, of which number, 760 are in the town of Kirk-Oswald, 15½ miles (S.E.) from Carlisle, and 292 (N.N.W.) from London. This place, which derived its name from St. Oswald, the canonized King of Northumberland, belonged, in the reign of John, to Hugh de Morville, one of the murderers of Thomas ? Becket: it was burnt by the Scots in 1314, since which period it has not been distinguished by any events of historical importance. The town is pleasantly situated on the eastern bank of the river Eden, in a beautiful and fertile vale, which gradually widens towards the south, and expands into a large tract of open country. The houses, which are in general well built, are irregularly scattered along the declivities of the hills which enclose the vale. The castle, of which only one square tower and some dark vaults are remaining, occupies a bold eminence to the east of the town, and is said to have been a very noble structure, of which the great hall was more than three hundred feet in length, and embellished with a series of portraits of ancient British kings: it was built by Ranulph d'Engaine, enclosed with a quadrangular rampart by Hugh de Morville, enlarged and fortified by Thomas de Multon, and beautified by Thomas Dacre; the acclivities are richly wooded, and defended by a deep ditch on all sides, except that which overlooks the river: the castle was demolished by the Howards, and the furniture and antiquities removed to Naworth castle. The Raven beek, over which is a bridge of one arch, intersects the town; and the inhabitants are supplied with water from a reservoir at the market-cross, into which it is conveyed by pipes from an eminence at a short distance. Within half a mile westward of the town is a bridge of six arches over the river Eden, built in 1762. There are flour-mills, a paper-mill, and a mill for carding wool. The parish contains several quarries of freestone, and one of marble, of a blue colour spotted with white. The market, granted in the 2nd year of the reign of King John, is on Thursday, and a market for corn was established a few years since on Monday; the corn is pitched in the market-place: the fairs are on the Thursday before Whitsuntide, and August 5th for cattle. The living is a discharged vicarage, in the archdeaconry and diocese of Carlisle, rated in the king's books at £8, endowed with £400 private benefaction, and £400 royal bounty, and in the patronage of the Crown. The church, dedicated to St. Oswald, was, about the year 1523, made collegiate for twelve secular priests; but this society did not subsist for more than ten or twelve years; at the dissolution, the revenue was £78. 17.: the building, situated at a little distance from the town, is very irregular and ill proportioned, and was probably enlarged by the Dacres and the Cliffords, whose arms appear in the windows; it has no teeple, but on the summit of an adjoining eminence a tower has been erected, which is used as a belfry. There is a place of worship for Wesleyan Methodists in the town, and one for Independents at Park-head, near the eastern extremity of the parish. The free school is endowed with a house and some land producing £10 per annum, to which John Lowthian bequeathed £100: fifteen boys are instructed at a trifling expense. A benefit society, said to have been the first established in the country, has existed here for a considerable time. On the side of a hill, in a field about one mile from the town, are two cairns of moderate size. From Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of England 1831, courtesy of Databases 4 Sale |
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