Seascale - In the Beginning

Before the coming of the Whitehaven & Furness Junction Railway in 1847 Seascale was only a hamlet of farms within the Parish of Gosforth. These farms were Seascale Hall, which was the Lord of the Manors home farm, Brownbank, Lane Head, Swang, Croft Head, Whole house, Town End, Seascale Howe, Black How and Bailey ground. Whitriggs farm was in the parish of Drigg until Seascale was formed from the ancient parish of Gosforth in 1900. These farms that can trace their history back many hundreds of years are still to be seen today, with one exception, all though only two are still working farms. The exception is Whole house farm which was to be found roughly where the roundabout on Whole House Road is now situated.

Evidence for people living in this area goes back to the stone age as is shown by the stone circle at the far end of the golf course. These early settlers would have been hunter gatherer’s using the inland fell areas as a source of stone & flint for their implements. Evidence for this occupation can be found in both the artefacts found in the local fields and associated with the Stone Circle to be found in Grey Croft field, which is above New Mill beck, close to the Seascale & Ponsonby Parish boundary. It had been a locally held view that this circle was some sort of early Victorian “fake” but an excavation showed otherwise. The excavation and restoration work, to give us what we see today, was carried out in 1949 by William Fletcher along with the boys of Pelham House School in Calderbridge.

The early history of Seascale is bound up with the ancient Manor of Seascale which would have been held as a gift of the Barons of Egremont who controlled the area of Cumberland called Copeland, or Allerdale above Derwent, which stretched from the River Derwent in the north to the River Duddon in the south.

Without doubt the original Lords of the Manor of Seascale originated from the years following the conquering of the border areas by Henry II after which this part of Cumberland would have been divided amongst the Kings supporters and the Manors of Seascale, Newton, Bolton & Gosforth came into existence as a requirement of Knights Service.

The earliest mention of the de Seascale family occurs when Aschetil & Aldwin de Seascale were witness to a deed during the reign of Henry II along with Roger the Archbishop of York. So there was a de Seascale family, presumably living at Seascale Hall, until one Henry de Seascale died about 1613.

Seascale Hall Farm has a datestone of 1606 along with the initials J.S.& M.S., which could have commemorated the move of John and Mary Senhouse from their family seat at Hallsenna (originally Hall Senhouse) to Seascale Hall. This Manor house, now a farm, overlooks the new road from the right, as you travel from Moffats corner to the Calder gate of the BNFL complex. Before the arrival of factory it was located at the side of the ancient road running along the west coast coming from Drigg, then heading towards Calder Hall and onto Beckermet and all points to the north. This route would have been the A595 of antiquity.

The farmers of the manor would have been beholden of the Lord of the Manor paying him an Annual Rent of a few shillings (1 shilling = 5p), depending upon size, for the privilege of holding the farm. In this context a farm would mean a few acres of land, a thatched house, barn, garden & orchard. Today we would consider it more a smallholding than a farm. It is probable that only the Manor farm would have been larger than 30 acres which was the size that could be run by one family. The object was to support the family and provide sufficient excess produce to sell at market to pay for those items that could not be grown or made on the farm. Travelling tradesmen such as tinkers, tailors & shoemakers would move from farm to farm making clothing or other products for the family in return receiving board and lodgings, whilst they worked, as part payment.

Documents that were drawn up for the Manor Court of 1764, and another from 1778 belonging to Gosforth church records, have survived until today and list the twelve properties then found within the manor of Seascale.

The additions to the list of farms shown at the start of this article were Elvenhow, Baily & Gatehouse which were presumably agricultural workers cottages that have not survived until modern times.

At some time after 1764, the two separate Manors of Newton and of Seascale were combined into a single Manor.

At the same time as the two manors were being combined under a single ownership two other events were happening in the life of Seascale’s farmers and other land-holders in the surrounding areas.

The first was Enfranchisement which was the ending of control of the farms by the lord of the manor and allowed the farmer the right to pass the ownership of the farm to whoever he wished. This was the first stage to what we today call freehold ownership but then the farmers still had to pay certain fees to the Lord of the Manor

The second was the Enclosure Act that ended the process of the parish having so called Common Land. This had been an area of land that was held to be available for all members of the community to either grow food, if there was no land attached to their homes, or for grazing their cattle during the summer months.
During Enclosure this land was divided between the then existing farmers by a process overseen by “three wise men” appointed from adjacent parishes. This process resulted in the eventual formation of the farm known as Acreless which was the most modern farm in Seascale. The Commons that had existed along the foreshore were eventually sold by the farmers to the Railway Company at the time of the building of the railway.

To conclude the story of the Manor of Seascale, after the death of Commander Steward, the Steward family who are now resident elsewhere in the country, sold off their remaining estates along with the title “Lord of the Manor of Seascale & Newton”. Associated with this title is the most important record of local life and history, the Manor Court Records of Seascale & Newton, and currently these records are no longer available for research as the title is now held by an Australian !