Lake District - Day 3, Monday, 29th October - Part 2: Grasmere Village and St Oswald's Church

I made the short journey by car to the village of Grasmere after returning from the Rydal Water walk. We usually park in the small car park by the nurseries in the village centre but as the main car park actually had spaces I decided to play safe and park there. I was due to meet the rest of the family outside the Grasmere Gingerbread Shop.

I passed a shop that had a lot of unicorn "goodies".

The Church of St Oswald where

in the churchyard you can view the Wordsworth graves.

William Wordsworth (1770 - 1850) is a famous English poet and his sister Dorothy wrote the most interesting journals of their lives in Grasmere.

William was born in Cockermouth, Cumbria, on 7th April 1770 and his sister Dorothy was born a year later. Their father, John, was a land agent to James, 1st Earl of Lonsdale. In 1776 William and Dorothy were sent to live with their grandparents in Penrith. In 1778 their mother died and William and his older brother Richard were sent to Hawkshead Grammar School lodging with Mr. and Mrs. Tyson. Dorothy meanwhile was sent to live with an aunt in Halifax and returned to her grandparents in 1787 when she was 16. In all this time she and William had not seen each other. Between 1778 and 1794 she lived with an aunt and uncle in Norfolk. Their father died but William continued at school until 1787 when he went to St John's Cambridge gaining a BA 3 years later. He then toured France and Spain having a daughter by Annette Vallon in 1787. He was unable to return to France for some years due to troubled times there and France declaring war on England.

William and Dorothy were eventually re-united and set up home together in Dorset and later in Somerset where they lived close to Samuel Coleridge. In 1799 they returned to the Lake District on holiday and found Dove Cottage (formerly the Dove and Olive Branch Inn) available to rent. So they decided to move to the cottage. Three years later William finally received repayment of a significant amount of money which his father had lent the 1st Earl of Lonsdale. In 1802 William married Mary Hutchinson of Penrith who he and Dorothy had known since their childhood. William Dorothy and Mary lived together in Dove Cottage. William and Mary had five children of whom two died in 1812. In 1808 needing more space they moved to Allan Banks in Grasmere where they stayed for 3 years. This was followed by a move to the damp rectory for 2 years before they moved into Rydal Mount. At this time William had been appointed Distributor of Stamps for the County of Westmorland for which he received £300 per annum. He stayed in this position until 1843 when he was made Poet Laureate. William died aged 80 on 23rd April, 1850.


Close to the churchyard is the Grasmere Gingerbread Shop. Grasmere Gingerbread which I really do adore is a gingery cross between a cake and a biscuit and was invented by Sarah Nelson in 1854. It is registered officially as "Non Genuine without trademark". From 1854-1904 the gingerbread shop was Sarah Nelson's home and called Church Cottage. Prior to that it was a village school where William Wordsworth sometimes taught local children.

Sarah Nelson was born into a fairly humble household and she pursued a career in service eventually becoming the cook for Lady Farquhar who lived in Grasmere.

In her spare time Sarah created new recipes and in the winter of 1854 she eventually perfected Grasmere Gingerbread. She began to sell it to villagers and tourists from a tree stump near her home. It became that popular that making it, wrapping it and selling it took over her life for the next 50 years. She was happily married to her husband Wilfred who had a variety of jobs - labourer, grave digger and fly-fishing instructor. They lost their only son when he was 6 to cholera and their 2 daughters died a few years later of TB.

Sarah Nelson was widowed in 1880 but continued making gingerbread until she died in 1904. She is buried in St Oswald's churchyard (sadly I missed her gravestone).


After her death the business was inherited by two nieces and was later sold to local villager Daisy Hotson who later went into partnership with Jack and Mary Wilson. At the end of the 1960's Jack's nephew and his wife took over the business and these days their daughter Joanne and her husband run the shop.

There was rather a long queue!! for the shop but even Timothy did not mind waiting.

Later in the afternoon there was less of a queue.

We must have bought at least two dozen pieces between us. In fact, I like it that much I have been known to order it by post for a Christmas treat.

When we got home B had a go at making some - we found a recipe in this

little book.

Although tasty it was nothing like the real thing - the recipe of the real gingerbread is a closely guarded secret and kept in a bank vault "somewhere in Cumbria"! We might try the recipe again - add more ginger, plus some tiny pieces of glace ginger, use less oats more flour and perhaps a little less butter and put a thinner layer in the tin!



B, D and E returned to the car for a late lunch while I decided to go without the sandwiches and take advantage of their absence by visiting the church of St Oswald. I have been before but there were items I missed.

The church of St Oswald

The church is located on the banks of the River Rothay. Oswald came to the valley in 642 AD and found local people by the river worshipping a sacred oak tree. He chopped down the tree (must admit I felt rather a pang at the thought of the loss of a beautiful sacred oak) and made an altar creating the first church. No-one knows exactly where the original church was but it would be nice to think that the current church is built on the site of the pagan oak tree.

The church today is dedicated to St Oswald who founded the first place of worship. He was the second son of the King of Northumbria and he became King for 10 years after reclaiming his father's kingdom. He was famous for his generosity. He died a martyr's death at Oswestry and a shrine was built at the place where he died which became a site of pilgrimage with many miracles reported. He became the patron saint of kings.

Parts of the present church, the fourth built on the site, date from 1250 AD.

The Nave consists of two aisles and the most prominent features are the 3 "A-shaped" roofs which were described by Wordsworth in the 5th book of "The Excursion" as having "rude and antique majesty". The Tower and South Aisle date from ~1250 AD and the North Aisle was added as a separate building in 1490 AD. In 1563 it was incorporated into the main church which Wordsworth describes in "The Excursion"

"Not raised in nice proportion was the pile,
But large and massy; for duration built;
With pillars crowded, and the roof upheld
By naked rafters intricately crossed,
Like leafless underboughs in some thick wood,
All withered by the depth of shade above"

It is believed the font is probably 14th century.

In the 1860's the floor of the church was raised and slated and afterwards the annual "rushbearing" became a village festival rather than a necessity. The tradition of rushbearing probably dates back to pagan times. The present ceremony is a celebration of the Parish Church and its saint St Oswald. The first mention of rushbearing in this church is found in the Warden's accounts of 1680 when the rough earth floor was covered in rushes. Today the event takes place on the Saturday closest to 5th August although in 2002 the event was moved to the 3rd Saturday in July in the hope that more children would attend before the holiday season. The Bearings are traditional shapes symbolising religious and biblical themes.

The Madonna and Child sculpture is a memorial to the artist Ophelia Gordon Bell. It is a copy of her favourite commission for a Convent in Surrey.

The stained glass in the Nave is all post Reformation.

The Memorial Stone to William Wordsworth as poet laureate was created by the pre-Raphaelite sculptor Woolmer for Westminster Abbey. However, as Wordsworth wanted to be buried at Grasmere the stone was purchased by his friends and put in the church in 1852.

The piece of stone in the chancel is a remnant of one of the earlier churches.

The organ dates back to the 1920's and was donated by Mr J. Taylor of Helmside in memory of his second daughter Nellie Taylor VAD who died in France in June 1918.

This large pew dates back to 1633 and was used by the Fleming family for nearly 200 years.

In this window are fragments of ancient glass - they are believed to have originated from stained glass windows that were smashed either during The Reformation or the Civil War.

Even though it was my 3rd visit to the church I still managed as usual to miss some items - some of the memorials and an old parish chest.




I bought an interesting little leaflet on the "Flora of the Churchyard". Churchyards are often called "God's Acre" as most medieval churchyards were an acre in size. Until the 17th century churchyards resembled meadows or pastures with hay being made in the former and sheep grazed in the latter. After this time gravestones began to be used to mark a person's place of burial and more elaborate monuments followed in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Since the mid 1980's "The Living Churchyard Project" formed by conservationists and The Church of England has recognised the importance of churchyards as unofficial nature reserves. They often hold an abundant and varied selection of plant species and some are refuges for rarer plants. In the last two decades the importance of churchyards as a habitat has been recognised in terms of the range of grasses, lichens, fungi, ferns, flowers and trees they can contain together with the insects, reptiles, birds and mammals than can live or visit. The habitat has often been undisturbed and unfertilised for centuries at a time when there have been great changes to the countryside and farmland.

The churchyard at Grasmere is about an acre in size surrounded by the original boundary of stone walls. There are around 100 species of wild flowers growing there.

8 of the churchyard yews were planted by William Wordsworth.



After meeting up with the others we went a wander round the village.

*D

*D

*D

*D

*D

*D


On the way back to Broomriggs we stopped of at the Outgate pub to have a quick drink and check out the menu and

*D

then briefly visited Hawkshead (again!) to visit the village store for a pumpkin which

*D

D carved when we got back.

*D



The next post will include a trip to Grizedale Forest, a visit to the Claife Viewing Station (a place unbelievably we have never visited before) and a walk along the shores of Windermere.



*D - Photos taken by my son with the Canon SX50HS bridge camera

Rest of the photos taken by me with the Pansonic Lumix FZ330



Reference:

Guide to Grasmere Church
The Flora of God's Acre - St Oswald's Churchyard Grasmere
"Discover the secret behind Grasmere's green door" - leaflet on Sarah Nelson and Grasmere Gingerbread