A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND 



the passage necessary for a sow and her litter. 

 Turning to Scots law we find an analagous 

 measurement in use at an earlier period. It 

 was laid down in a statute made at Perth in 

 1177 that according to the king's assize the 

 midstream was always to be free to the extent 

 that a swine of three years old, well-fed, could 

 not touch either side with its head or its tail. 

 Between 1293 and 1372 this unique method 

 of measurement appears to have been dropped 

 in Cumberland, for in the latter year the 

 aperture was expressed in feet in a judgment 

 between the lord of Cockermouth and John 

 de Camerton about a fishing dispute in the 

 Derwent. The earl of Angus, the com- 

 plainant, brought an action for injury to his 

 part of the river by John de Camerton's weir. 

 It was alleged that the complainant had from 

 time immemorial an aperture of the breadth 

 of 24 feet, commonly called the free water, 

 which aperture ought always to be in the 

 deeper part of the river and in all mill pools 

 and demesnes from that weir to the sea. The 

 cause of the action was that John had filled 

 up the aperture with stones to divert the water 

 to his mill, whereby only four salmon were 

 taken then for the forty that were taken be- 

 fore. It was decided that 8 feet of the 

 handiwork of stones was a nuisance, and it was 

 ordered to be abated at John's expense. 1 

 When the measure became a matter of statute 

 law the legislature left it to the discretion of 

 the justices, who were empowered to survey 

 and search all weirs that they should not be 

 too narrow so as to lead to the destruction 

 of salmon fry, but with ' a reasonable open- 

 ing' according to ancient custom (17 Ric. II. 

 c. 9 ). 



The citizens of Carlisle have possessed a 

 fishery in the Eden from an early date. It 

 was found by inquisition in 1 22 1 that a 

 fishery in that river was included in the ' farm' 

 of the city which they held of the king. 2 At 



1 Assize R. 45 Edw. III. summarized in the 

 report of the Special Commission on Lord Lons- 

 Jale'i Salmon Hall Fishery in 1868. In the 

 same report there is reference to another document, 

 being an Elizabethan survey on the death of the 

 earl of Northumberland, dated 1577, in which it 

 is stated that for twenty-four years past the river 

 Derwent was a free water and kept open in all 

 places without coop, fish-garth, or any other let 

 from the sea or foot of the said river unto an old 

 coop or fish-garth then decayed, which stood about 

 Cockermouth Castle. But the river had been 

 then (1577) stopped and shut up with a fish-garth 

 made of late years by Sir Henry Curwen to the 

 prejudice of the said earl and to the great damage 

 and loss of his tenants and farmers. 



* Fine R. 5 Hen. III. m. 2 ; Royal Charters oj 

 Carlisle (Cumb. and Westmld. Arch. Soc.), 1-3. 



an assize in Carlisle in 1292 they claimed 

 that, when Henry II. demised the city to 

 them at a certain rent, the fishery was an 

 appurtenant of the ' farm,' though a jury of 

 country gentlemen returned the verdict that 

 it was without the borough and in the juris- 

 diction of the county. 3 Whatever doubt may 

 have existed at this time about their right to 

 the fishery, which according to the record was 

 located at ' Beumund ' or Beaumont, it was 

 set at rest by a charter of Edward II. in 1316, 

 who granted a fishery to the citizens ' for the 

 betterment of our city of Carlisle.' Another 

 gift was made by Edward IV. in 1461. Not 

 only did that king confirm ' the king's fishery 

 in the Eden water,' but also 'out of his more 

 abundant grace ' he granted ' the custody of 

 our fishery of Carlisle otherwise called the 

 sheriff's net or fishery of frithnet in Eden 

 water in the county of Cumberland to have 

 to themselves, their heirs, and successors for 

 ever without yielding anything therefor." 

 Regulations for the good ordering of these 

 fisheries were made from time to time and 

 recorded among the bye-laws of the city. In 

 the Dormont Book, the earliest official record 

 of the Corporation, it was directed in 1561 

 that the farmers of the King Garth and Free 

 Net should yearly present the market of Car- 

 lisle ' with the half part of all such fyshe as 

 thei shall gyt at the same (fisheries) for the 

 better furnishment and releef of all the in- 

 habitantes of the same city upon paine and 

 forfitor of 6s. 8d. for everie default.' A cen- 

 tury later the King Garth fishery could not 

 have been so productive as to allow the lessees 

 to give half their yield of fish by way of rent, 

 for in 1680 the Corporation granted them a 

 substantial abatement. In former times there 

 must have been good years and bad years for 

 the taking of salmon in the Eden as the rent 

 of the fisheries fluctuated from one year to 

 another. In 1597 the rent of the Free Net 

 was 14 and of the King Garth 32, whereas 

 in the following year the former was only 

 ,1 1 los. and the latter 20 3*. 4^. In 1600 

 the value of the Free Net had risen to 13 

 6i. 8^., while the rent of King Garth re- 

 mained as it had been two years before. In 

 1648 the rent of King Garth was only 10 ; 

 in 1652 both fisheries were let to one farmer 

 for jiO, the Free Net now assuming the 

 name of ' Freebote,' but in the following year 

 the rent of ' the fishgarthe with ye free boate ' 

 was demised at ^38. The annual letting of 

 the fisheries was stopped by order of the Cor- 

 poration in 1673, when it was provided that 



3 Plac. de Quo Warr. (Rec. Com.), 

 Royal Charters of Carlisle, 4-6. 



336 



