Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for HEVERSHAM

HEVERSHAM, a village, a township, and a parish, in Kendal district, Westmoreland. The village stands about midway between the river Kent and the Lancaster and Carlisle railway, 1¾ mile N of Milnthorpe. The township includes Milnthorpe, with its head post office and railway station, and three hamlets; and contains a workhouse which, at the census of 1861, had 122 inmates. Acres, 2, 880; of which 290 are water. Real property, £5, 895. Pop., 1, 433. Houses, 274. The parish contains also the townships of Hincaster, Stainton Sedgwick, Levens, Preston-Richard, and Crosthwaite and Lyth. Acres, 19, 749. Real property, £26, 395. Pop., 4, 300. Houses, 813. The property is much subdivided. Levens Hall, Sedgwick House, Summerlands, Heaves, and Eversley are chief residences; and Lower Levens Hall, Heversham Hall, Hincaster Hall, and Cowmire Hall are old mansions converted into farmhouses. The surface exhibits much diversity of hill and dale; includes the mountain-mass of Whitbarrow; extends downward, through peat mosses, to the estuary of the Kent; is traversed, for about 4 miles, by the Lancaster and Kendal canal, and nearly as far by the Lancaster and Carlisle railway, which has superseded the canal; and contains a Roman camp on Helm hill, a Danish camp at Hincaster, and barrows near Sedgwick. Limestone is worked, and building stone is quarried. A foundry and iron works were formerly in Stainton; and gunpowder works were recently established in Preston-Richard. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Carlisle. Value, £625. * Patron, Trinity College, Cambridge. The church is variously Norman, early English, and perpendicular; comprises nave, aisles, and chancel, with porch and tower; and has recently been much improved. The p. curacies of Milnthorpe, Levens, Crosscrake, and Crosthwaite are separate benefices. A grammar school was founded at Heversham, in 1613, by the Wilsons of Dallam Tower; has an endowed income of £42, with four exhibitions at Oxford and Cambridge; and was restored partly by Bishops Watson and Preston, and subsequently much improved. Bishop Watson's father was master of it; Bishop Watson was a native of the village; and Bishops Watson and Preston attended the school. Charities, £104.


(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a village, a township, and a parish"   (ADL Feature Type: "populated places")
Administrative units: Heversham CP/AP       Heversham CP       Kendal RegD/PLU       Westmorland AncC
Place: Heversham

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