INTRODUCTION ii 



' duffel ' or ' hodden-grey ' into clothes for the men, and the finer 

 stuff called ' russet ' into dresses for the women. The wages of a 

 tailor were lod. to is. per day, with food and lodging ; he often 

 remained a week or more at a farm before the wardrobe of the family 

 and servants was complete, for at that time dresses and clothes formed 

 a considerable part of the female servants' wages. The pedlars who 

 passed with their wares from farm to farm, acted as newsmen for the 

 district, and were ever welcome for this if not for their goods — 

 attending markets or church being the only other means of obtaining 

 news at a time when newspapers were unobtainable on account of 

 their price. It was customary in outlying districts for at least 

 one farmer to attend church and carry the week's news back to the 

 rest of the dale. This custom had gone on for years in one of 

 the dales, till about 1S25, when the attendance at church suddenly 

 increased, and it went on steadily doing so for several Sundays to the 

 gratification of the parson, who complimented a leading dalesman on 

 the great improvement of church-going in the dale. " Improvement," 

 said the yeoman, " we were never half as bad as we are now. We 

 have all quarrelled about our sheep ; there is not one in the dale will 

 speak to another if he meets him, and if we did not come to church 

 ourselves, we could get neither news nor bacca." The dates of sales 

 and fairs, notices of lost and strayed sheep and all matters of public 

 interest were given out from the church porch or from the top of the 

 most convenient tombstone after service, till well into the century. 

 A sale of three carts of hay and a horse and cart, belonging to a woman 

 with six children, who had applied for parish relief, took place in the 

 body of Troutbeck Church, on Sunday the 14th January 1827. 



"Clogs instead of shoes the labouring people still wear; " wrote 

 Nicolson and Burn, " the upper part whereof is made of strong curried 

 leather, and the sole of wood, shod and bound about with iron," the wood 

 used for this purpose being that of the round leafed alder. The Literary 

 Antiquarian (JohnGough) writes of them in 1812, " The utility of clogs 

 preserved them from neglect, being commonly worn on workdays by 

 children in the towns and labourers in the country," while Briggs writes 

 of them in 1822 that they " still form an important article of a West- 

 morland farmer's dress ; indeed it would be impossible to wade through 

 the wet and dirt of a farmyard in winter without these guards to the 



