BOOTLE MISCELLANEA - 1
DESCRIPTION
Bootle is a large parish extending from the river Esk in the north to the river Annas in the south, which contains the hamlets of Tarn and Selker.
It was part of the region known as 'Between Esk and Duddon’ which was the southern section of the Baronry Egremont & as such came under the jurisdictionl of the Lords of Millom. These were the Hudleston’s after 1252.
The Parish was divided into the four quarters of Bootle, Hyton, North and South.
The village of Bootle is situated within a natural depression in the land providing shelter from the westerly winds blowing in from the Irish sea. It lies on the road travelling up the west coast of Cumbeland being used by travellers who have crossed the Duddon Sands from Furness using the Dalton & Askam to Hodbarrow & Millom route.
The village is central to the parish and had the claim to be the smallest market town in England. The Market charter was granted to John de Hudleston in 1346 along with a fair lasting four days starting the 14th.September. The present market cross was placed on the site of the original to celebrate Victorias Jubilee in 1897. In 1851 there were 154 families, along with their servants, living in the parish of whom 50 were in the village; the population of the parish was 811 persons. .
Bootle - a Derivation
There are several derivations proposed for the name Bootle but it should be born in mind that it was written as Bodele in the Domesday survey.
1. from the Saxon word Botel or Botl meaning a dwelling place,
giving rise to Booth in England and Bothy in Scotland.
2. from the medieval word Bottehale coming from halh = the meadow, giving "the meadow of Bota."
MANOR
The ancient lords of the Manor were the family of Couplands who had their Manor house in the parish with lands in Bootle, Irton & Gosforth. The male line became extinct in 1377-1399 when the heiresses married into the Huddleston (of Millom), Pennington (of Muncaster) and the Senhouse (of Gosforth) families.
CHURCHES
The parish church is dedicated to St.Michael. The oldest part is said to date from Norman times, but the church has been re-modelled as follows, slightly in 1734 with additions in 1850 & 1882 and re-roofed in 1888. The registers start in 1655 but are still held at the Church. Goddard de Boyvill or "Goddard the Steward" gave the churches of Bootle & Whicham to the Abbey of St.Marys of York.
THE NON-CONFORMIST CHAPEL
In the middle of the 18th.century a Joseph Whitridge of Bootle was trading as a silk merchant in London and made a considerable fortune. He had met Selina the Countess of Huntingdon, of the Countess of Huntingdon's Connection, as well as John Wesley. In 1780 he paid for a chapel to be built in Bootle and when he died in 1809 his will provided £1,000 to be invested to pay for the Ministers of the chapel. The chapel was recently renovated and is still in use.
GENERAL
According to Hutchinson, writing in 1772?, about one mile from the shore in Selker bay there are the remains of several boats that were said to be Roman galleys, no doubt trading into Ravenglass.
There are many stone-age cairns in the Parish along with a Stone Circle at Gutterby.
SEATON NUNNERY
Within the parish there is a place now called Seaton but anciently named Leakey. Here Henry de Millom, the third generation of that family, gave land to his daughter Gunhild on her marriage to Henry fitz William except for the land belonging to "the Holy Nuns serving God and St.Mary at Seaton."
Some land in Seaton was endowed to the Nunnery by one Henry fitz Arthur in the first years of the 13th.Century, and the parish church of Irton was given to the nunnery in the year 1227. Gunhild gave her land in her widowhood to the Abbey of Holm Cultram. At the Dissolution, 1542, the nunnery was granted to Sir Hugh Askew, Knight a local member of the Askews of Lacra in Millom for services rendered, and he was knighted in 1547 at the battle of Pinkie for services to Henry VIII. He died in 1562 and has a brass plaque in Bootle chuch. His widow married William Pennington of Muncaster and the nunnery went with her, later the Penningtons sold Seaton to the Wakefields of Kendal.
Hutchinson tells the following story of this place (Seaton).
"Here a banditti of smugglers took up their residence, and continued their illicit trade for several years, till they were over-awed and broken by the coming of the military. They then applied themselves to agriculture and their farm flourished in a singular manner, superior to that of their neighbours, attributed to their better skill and knowledge brought from other parts."
SCHOOLS
The record of the Bishops Visitation of 1570 shows that there was a school at Hycemoor and names the teacher. This school educated the children of Bootle, Corney and Whitbeck. In 1725 this school was supported by the interest on money given by Richard Hutton [ the rector] and Henry Singleton of Whitehaven. In 1800 the school was already 250 years old and in 1850 when the railway passed by, the old school was sold to the railway men, and the money used to buy a site nearby and build a new one.
In 1822 a village school was held in the house of the Chapel Minister who also acted as schoolmaster.
Captain SHAWS SCHOOL
Isaac the ninth child of William & Hannah Shaw was born in July 1780. When he was 12 years he joined the Navy and served for 20 years. When he retired he returned to Bootle and built & lived at Underwood house. In 1830 he founded the school that took his name. The school was still in use in 1993 when it had 28 pupils.
THE WORKHOUSE
Prior to the Bootle Union Workhouse there had been a shelter for 30 female paupers within the parish.
In 1839 Captain Shaw & the Rev.Joseph Ormandy of Whitbeck started the work for a replacement. This finally materialised in 1856 at a cost of £2250 but today very little of it is left to be seen.
ESKMEALS
The railway station that serves Bootle, built on the Whitehaven & Furness Junction Railway in 1850, is situated close to Eskmeals.
Eskmeals is also the site of what was origially the Vickers-Maxim gun testing range that was opened in 1897. The range was used for proof testing guns made at Vickers-Maxim, later Vickers-Armstrongs, Engineering Works at Barrow-in-Furness. The guns, mostly naval, were brought by rail directly from the Works to Eskmeals. The guns were fired northwards along the range where progress could be measured from the observation stations set up along the coast as far north as St.Bees Head.
Operations were greatly increased during both World Wars with firing taking place both by day & night.
Today the range is operated on behalf of the Ministry of Defence for all types of ordnance but measurements are now made using microwave radar.
HMS MACAW
During the last war a Camp was built on the land of Wellbank Farm which thereby gave it its name. It was first used by the Army but before long was transferred to the Fleet Air Arm Station for training their pilots. It was home to 900 people at its height and gave the final traing to the young pilots who had previously trained in the USA. Many of the groups of 40 pilots were Canadians.
Also taken from the Web
HMS Macaw - Wellbank Camp, Eskmeals, Bootle, Cumberland, 17-11-1943 to 13-09-1946
Mid war the numbers of pilots being sent to Canada had increased to such a level that a transit camp was needed in the UK as a half-way house for pilots going to, and returning from North America. A few miles north of Millom in Cumberland was the Ministry of Supply workers’ camp at Wellbank, originally used by to house construction staff for the new ROF shell filling establishment at Bootle. The site was requisitioned by the Navy and, from November 1943 became HMS Macaw, often known as Bootle Station.
Bootle Notes
a. The so called "Old Coast Road" had already been lost to the sea by 1850 and people were already moving further inland towards the main road.
b. It is said that George Fox the Quaker leader from Swarthmoor near Ulverston, was staying at Millholme in the parish during 1651, when an attempt was made on his life. It is claimed that a young man was paid to murder Fox with a dagger one night during his stay. Happily he did not.
c. The village once had two water driven mills. The first named High Mill was situated to the north of Hinning House and was closed in 1936. The second was Low Mill was to be found on the south side of the village on Mill Lane that led to the fell, it was pulled down in 1941.
d. The sea beach along the parish has been elevated at some period, as is shown by the shingle at the north end of Eskmeals, where the sand has blown off the washed gravel. The ancient coast is six or eight feet above the present high water mark.
POPULATION of Bootle
PARISH 1688 1801 1811 1821 1831 1851 1901
Bootle 555 547 602 656 737 811 759
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Place Names of BOOTLE in 1851:
Bootle Parish included the hamlets of Newtown, Beck brow & Summer hill
Residences:
Bayer Grove, Beckside, Broadwater, Broom Hill, Croft house, Eskmeals, Fell green, Fellgate, Flatts, High Mill, Hill, Hinning house, Hycemoorside, Hyton, Inmains, Kiskin, Marsh side, Mill, Millholm, Millstones, Monk Moor, Moorhouse, Mount Rivers, Newtown, Nook, Old Hyton, Seaton Hall, Selkirk, Stubplace, Swallowhurst Hall, Sykebeck, Tarn, Underwoodhouse, Wellbank, Wylegap.
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References.
a. 1847 Directory publisde by Mannix & Whellan
b. The History of Bootle -- published by the Bootle Local History Soc. 1993
c. Various leaflets and newspaper cuttings accumulated over many years
Nev.Ramsden 2013