Worthies of Westmorland: Or, Notable Persons Born in That County Since the Reformation (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Worthies of Westmorland: Or, Notable Persons Born in That County Since the Reformation

Scotch invaders. It is very certain, that long after the conquest, this county was over-run with wood we read of nothing but forests, and chases, and parks, and mastage, and pannage, and vert, and venison, and greenhue, and regarders, and foresters, and verderers, and an hundred other names and titles respecting the keeping or preservation of the woods and game therein. In almost all the mosses, there are large trees of oak, fir, birch, and other wood, covered now four, five, or six feet in depth, with that kind of earth that the people dig up for fuel, many of which have the marks of the stroke of the ax upon them, and are lying near to their root, which is at the bottom of the moss and the t0ps and leaves, by the stoppage of the water draining into the vacuities, seem to have contributed towards increasing the growth of the peatmoss, which in some places, it is very observable, acquires a new covering every year. The water, weeds, moss, straws, grass, ling, and other matter, which collect in the winter and stagnate, are dried up in summer, and effect a new crust upon the former mass.

Upon many of the commons are ridges and fur rows, which evidently bear the signature of the plough. The tradition amongst the country people is, that this was done in the reign of king John, when the kingdom was under an interdict from the Pope, and the inhabitants thereby prohibited from tilling their improved ground. But besides that an interdict doth not imply any such prohibition.

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