70 REPORT OF THE MEETINGS FOR 1896 



to the Hospitallers. In 1619 the former were in the hands 

 of twenty tenants, and the latter was held by two freeholders, 

 John Key and John Bulman. In 1715 the customary tenants 

 were reduced to thirteen : Ricliard Wilson, the tenant of the 

 manor house and of the demesne and other lands, having 

 apparently absorbed some of the smaller holdings, for out of 

 a total rental of £129 8s., he paid £57 8s. The farmers 

 resided in the village, each in his own house, with a garden 

 and croft attached to it ; but the rest of the land was farmed 

 in common, each occupier working, and taking the crop from, 

 the number of ridges he occupied in proportion to the 

 "farms" he held, and depasturing the march or unenclosed 

 lands in the same manner. It was not until 1859 that all 

 traces of this, the older system, were swept away in the 

 improvements which the Earl of Carlisle was able to make 

 after he had purchased the Hospitallers' lands, and had 

 acquired by exchange those portions of the glebe which were 

 in scattered ridges amongst the farms. 



The Hospitallers or Knights of St. John held about 

 seventy acres in the township, and were possessed of their 

 lands here in the reign of Edward I. The Ministers' Accounts, 

 after the Dissolution, contain the following entry : — 



Hugham. Et de iis. iid. de redd, et firmis tarn liberornm quatn 

 castamariorum tenentium ac ad voluntafcem domini Regis in villa 

 de Hugham predicta per annum solvendo ad festa predicta 

 equaliter. — Snmma iis. iid.* 

 As has been already noticed, these lands in 1619 were 

 held by John Key and John Bulman ; the latter had enclosed 

 a parcel of ground called the Goose Crook, which action was 

 the subject of an enquiry in the manor court. Of the suc- 

 ceeding owners, the Lawsons, more may be said on a future 

 occasion : their descendants continued to hold the pleasant 

 house on the south side of the road, at the high or west 

 end of the village, until it was sold with its lands in 1838, 

 by Robert Swallow, to the Earl of Carlisle. 



The manor house and demesne lands were rented by a gentle 

 family descended from Richard, son of Peter Wilson of Toath- 

 man, in the parish of Shap, in Westmorland, who was a com- 



* Arch. JSl., Vol. xvij., p. 276. The rent days were Ladyday and 

 Michaelmas. 



