The picturesque little village of Allithwaite and the last wolf.
This clustered little community, which stands on the southern slopes of Hampsfell midway between Grange and Cartmel, appears in old records as Hailinethwait, and the name is believed to be derived from the old English Halig Wella- ‘the clearing by the Holy Well’.(There were also three other wells one near the top of the village one in the centre and one down beck hill most have been covered over now.) This name makes
sense, as not far away you will encounter the said ‘Holy Well’ at the base of Humphrey Head. It is also worth considering the possibility that the name is in fact Old Norse and means simply ‘Halle’s son’s clearing’. Allithwaite was traditionally a community of fishermen, and builders it has a quarry but this is mostly overgrown there is still an old lime kiln there, while at Blenket Farm the only iron ore mine in the area was worked, the ore being taken to Backbarrow to be melted down. Today Allithwaite seems to be in danger of becoming a suburb of Grange. We can only hope that the village manages to retain its identity somehow.
From Allithwaite you can pass down beck hill to Beckside near to the old Corn Mill over a series of flat fields to a lane before encountering the first place of interest from a bend in the road. A few hundred yards up a farm track incongruously sited in the midst of a farmyard stands the tall, gaunt ruins of Wraysholme Tower.
Wraysholme Tower is a medieval pele tower, which was built, along with its near neighbours Arnside and Hazelslack Towers, to withstand the incursions into this area of the ravaging Scots, who repeatedly invaded Northern England after Bannock burn, burning and plundering the Furness area in 1322. Wraysholme Tower is not open or accessible to the public, being part of the farm, so it must therefore be inspected from a distance. The tower reputedly dates from around 1485 (although some sources place it as far back as the thirteenth century) and it originally had a hall attached to it on its north side. It is thirty-nine feet high, and the projecting turret at the southwest angle contains the tower’s Garde Robe (lavatory). The tower is built of rough rubble limestone and the walls are four feet thick, reputedly cemented together with lime and bullock’s blood. It was obviously designed to withstand a great deal. Comfort was sacrificed to the needs of defence, but as the building (like its sister towers) was never intended to be much more than a defensive lookout tower and an occasional hunting lodge for its owner, its comfort would not have been a major consideration anyway.
The Harrington’s of Gleaston, who in the Middle Ages were wardens of the coast, built the tower.
They were a powerful and influential family with far-flung estates, Sir William Harrington of Hornby Castle being Henry V’s standard-bearer at Agincourt. Besides Wraysholme they also held Farleton, Arnside and Hazleslack Towers. During the Wars of the Roses, however, they fared rather badly, mainly as a result of supporting Richard III, who was a popular figure in the North. After Bosworth Field and their equally ill-starred support for the Yorkist ‘pretender’ Lambert Simnel (who landed on nearby Piel Island in June 1487), the estates of Sir James Harrington and his brother were seized and handed over to the Stanley’s, who, as any reader of Shakespeare knows, had, during the Battle of Bosworth, switched sides at the last minute and given Henry Tudor the victory. The Stanley’s (later the Earls of Derby) eventually sold off Wraysholme to the Dickinson family, who held it for a time, but eventually the tower passed to humbler owners and was gradually allowed to fall into ruin. Today it functions as a farm building. Its cressets have given way to TV aerials, and its lonely sentinels to clucking chickens. An ignominious fate indeed.
From Wraysholme we come to the rocky bulwark of Humphrey Head, which juts out onto the sands of Morecambe Bay.
Humphrey Head is the only sea cliff of any note between North Wales and St Bees. 160 feet high, its precipices – thanks to the sands (which during the war aeroplanes were landed although the sands are very treacherous as many of the local fishermen will tell you) and low lying coastline all around – look higher than they actually are. From the triangulation on the summit of the headland, there is a fine prospect taking in the Pennines, the Bowlands and Lancaster; the Ashton Memorial and Blackpool Tower are also both in view. At low tide it is possible to walk right around the headland on the beach, but it is worth remembering that when the tide does come in it comes in amazingly fast, and flows right up to the base of the cliff. If in doubt, follow the top route.
Humphrey Head offers much of interest. According to legend it was the scene of a famous ‘chase’ (immortalised in poem and ballad) in which the last wolf was slain by one of the Harrington’s of Wraysholme Tower. By all accounts, Sir Edgar Harrington offered the hand of Adela, his niece, to anyone who would rid the district of the last wolf in Cumbria. A mysterious stranger duly dispatched the creature, and upon revealing his true identity turned out to be Sir Edgar’s long lost son and Adela’s banished sweetheart.
At the end of the lane, near the base of the cliff stand the now pathetic remains of St Agnes Well, the stone hut that formerly covered it being long ago reduced to ruin. The Holy Well of St. Agnes has an interesting history. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries it was popular as a spa, and the salty waters were said to cure ague, gout, jaundice and worms. Lead miners from Alston Moor in Northumberland made an annual pilgrimage to the well, believing that it countered the effects of lead poisoning, and its waters were also poured into milk kits and carried by rail to Morecambe to be sold to holidaymakers.
From the end of the lane, hard by the beach, a steep path ascends through the woods at the base of the cliff, becoming a rock scramble as it winds right to the cliff top. Further along the base of the cliff an even more precipitous path leads up the precipice, passing through a natural ‘window’ in the rock. Would-be climbers would be wise though, to take heed of the following warning which is carved on a rock at the base of the cliff:
Beware how you these rocks ascend
Here WILLIAM PEDDER met his end
August 22nd 1857 Aged 10 years
The last wolf in England was reputedly killed at Humphrey Head in the 15th century; indeed, the weather vane on the nearby Cartmel Priory depicts a wolf’s head in recognition of this.
And i like the pamphlet by Mrs Mercier Set in the 14th century, it tells of Sir Edgar Harrington of Wraysholme, a violent, impulsive man, and his ward and orphan niece, the beautiful Adela. Before the tale begins, Sir Edgar’s estranged son John, who was Adela’s beloved, has departed for the Crusades and is believed dead. Adela’s one comfort, apart from an old priest, is her younger cousin Margaret of Arnside, a dark and feisty girl
A wolf, which has its den at Humphrey Head, ravages the land around and Sir Edgar has promised half his lands and Adela’s hand to whichever knight will dispatch the beast. On the evening before the big hunt, the contenders gather for a feast, among them the Knight of Leyburne, who loves Adela, though knows that she herself loves another (are you following this?). Earlier that day, Margaret has noticed a strange knight, visored and silent, which has arrived alone to join the hunt. Approaching him, she discovers that he is John Harrington, returned unscathed from the Crusades, and determined not to reveal his identity until he has killed the wolf and won Adela’s hand. Later, under pressure, Margaret reveals to Adela that her true love has returned.
On the day of the hunt, the wolf is chased A noble chase was that, famed in ballad and story, and told beside the fire of many a cottage or of hall for many and many a winter’s night thereafter. The grisly wolf, strong and cunning, led them over Kirkhead and Holker to Newby Bridge; there he plunged into the brawling Leven, and over it after him went the pack and crew. On through woodland glen and over wild hill they go, in clamorous dash, till the grey beast finds brief shelter in the recesses of Coniston Old Man. Here the hunter’s breath, but their hounds are staunch, and their horses good as ever dashed through a wood. The dogs are on the track again like grim death, away by Esthwaite, and on to the green shores of Windermere, where the panting savage takes the water at one bold plunge, and leaves his foes behind. The rival knights, Leyburne and Delisle [John Harrington’s assumed name] follow “foremost of the dripping train,” and win the eastern side of the lake. Two tireless bloodhounds keep the scent, and the chase continues along the shore to craggy Gummershaw, and finally back to its lair at Humphrey Head. Two riders have survived the hunt, Leyburne and the visored Knight. Both, on horseback, perch at the edge of the precipice down, which the wolf has plunged. Adela and Margaret watch from the beach. Margaret calls out to Leyburne to be careful, and he shies back, but John Harrington, on his Arab steed, plunges down
The wolf dashes towards Margaret and Adela. Adela swoons, but Margaret, a true heroine, picked up a stone from the shore and threw herself between her cousin and the wolf. At the same moment, she heard a rush, a fall, a groan upon the shingle, and in another second a spear transfixed the wolf, and he rolled writhing in the sand. John Harrington has killed the wolf, and can now marry Adela. By coincidence both his father, Sir Edgar, and Adela’s old priest, appear on the beach. There is reconciliation between the old man and his son, and Sir Edgar orders the priest to marry them then and there, before he changes his mind.
The Last Wolf: a Legend of Humphrey Head, which occupies the final pages of Mrs Mercier’s book,
The verses, which are pretty surely of 19th century provenance and in ballad form, must have formed the starting point for Mrs Mercier’s narrative.
The sun hath set on Wraysholme’s Tower,
And o’er broad Morecambe Bay;
The moon from out her eastern bower
Pursues the track of day.
On Wraysholme’s grey and massive walls,
On rocky Humphrey Head,
On wood and field her silver falls,
Her silent charms are shed.
Humphrey Head is the highest (and just about only) cliff of any size on the Lancashire coast. The Kirkhead Tower stands above it, offering excellent views over Morecambe Bay. Together they add up to some very scenic and most interesting walks.