Heversham, Westmorland Family History Guide
Heversham is an Ancient Parish in the county of Westmorland.
Other places in the parish include: Woodhouse, Summerlands, Stainton, Rowell, Preston Richard, Milton, Hincaster, Heversham with Milnthorpe, Heaves, Eversley, End Moor, Crooklands, and Ackenthwaite.
Alternative names:
Parish church:
Parish registers begin:
Parish registers: 1605
Bishop’s Transcripts: 1682
Nonconformists include: Independent/Congregational, Society of Friends/Quaker, and Wesleyan Methodist.
Table of Contents
Adjacent Parishes
Parish History
The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales 1870
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about 4 miles, by the Lancaster and Kendal canal, and nearly as far by the Lancaster and Carlisle railway, which has superseded the canal; and contains a Roman camp on Helm hill, a Danish camp at Hincaster, and barrows near Sedgwick.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.
Source: The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales [Wilson, John M]. A. Fullarton & Co. N. d. c. [1870-72].
A Topographical Dictionary of England 1848
HEVERSHAM (St. Mary), a parish, in the union and ward of Kendal, county of Westmorland; containing, with the chapelry of Crosthwaite with Lyth, and the townships of Hincaster, Levens, Preston-Richard, Sedgwick, and Stainton, 4405 inhabitants, of whom 1599 are in the township of Heversham with the town of Milnthorpe.
The parish comprises by computation 15,000 acres, of which nearly one-half is inclosed: the surface is greatly diversified with hill and dale; the soil in the higher grounds is a light mould resting on limestone, and in the valleys chiefly alluvial on a substratum of clay.
A hill called the Head is noted for a magnificent panoramic view, embracing Morecambe bay and the Lake mountains. A ridge of sterile rock extends for almost three miles near the western boundary of the parish, and terminates at the southern extremity in a precipitous cliff. An attempt was made to explore this ridge, which is called Whitbarrow, for copper-ore, but was discontinued for want of due encouragement.
The rivers Kent and Pool flow through the parish, and the lands are also watered by the Rowel beck, and intersected by the Lancaster canal to Kendal. The Lancaster and Carlisle railway passes through in a direction from south to north, for about three miles. There are numerous quarries of limestone, which is used for building, and also burnt into lime; the cotton manufacture is carried on to some extent, and rope-making affords employment to about sixty persons.
The living is a vicarage, valued in the king’s books at £36. 13. 4.; net income, £516; patrons and impropriators, the Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge. The tithes were commuted for land in 1803; the glebe comprises 650 acres. The church is a handsome building, externally in the later English style, with a lofty embattled tower, and contains some interesting monuments: the north aisle was burned down by an accidental fire in 1606, and the nave and south aisle much injured, but a complete restoration, with new roofing, was effected in the following year.
There are churches or chapels at Crosscrake, Crosthwaite, Levens, and Milnthorpe; and the dissenters have places of worship.
The free grammar school was founded in 1613, by Edward Wilson, who endowed it with land now producing about £60 per annum, and with two exhibitions, one to Queen’s College, Oxford, and one to Trinity College, Cambridge. These exhibitions are each worth nearly £50 per annum; and there is another to Queen’s College, founded by Lady Betty Hastings, besides four to Magdalen College, Cambridge, in conjunction with the schools of Leeds and Halifax, founded by Mr. Milner.
The learned Dr. Richard Watson, Bishop of Llandaff, was a native of this place, where his father conducted the school for many years. There are one or two barrows.
Source: A Topographical Dictionary of England by Samuel Lewis 1848
Parish Records
FamilySearch
The memorial inscriptions of Saint Peter’s Church, Heversham
Census returns for Heversham with Milnthorpe, 1841-1891
Births and baptisms, 1797-1835 Author: Wesleyan Church (Beathwaite-Green, England)
Parish registers for Levens, 1836-1901 Author: Church of England. Chapelry of Levens (Westmoreland)
Parish register printout of Heversham parish, Westmoreland, England (1696-1854)
Heversham : the story of a Westmoreland school and village Author: Humber, Robert D.
Maps
OS Grid Reference: SD4956783439 (all-numeric format: 349567 483440); 54.244°N 2.774°W
Vision of Britain historical maps
OS maps
Ordnance Survey
OS maps
National Library of Scotland
OS maps
Administration
- County: Westmorland
- Civil Registration District: Kendal
- Probate Court: Court of the Bishop (Consistory) of the Commissary of the Archdeaconry of Richmond Western Deaneries – Kendal
- Diocese: Chester
- Rural Deanery: Kendal
- Poor Law Union: Kendal
- Hundred: Kendal Ward
- Province: York