Lancaster Archaeological and ReferencesMultum in parvo Historical Society http://lahs.archaeologyuk.org/

Research Group Newsletter orem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipisci No. 4: February 2021

Welcome to the Research Group e-newsletter

We are pleased to welcome a new member to the We are also pleased to welcome guest author, Research Group, Dr John Davies. Readers will recall Professor Gill Baynes, who discusses the history of that John was our first guest author who wrote a Sunderland Point and Sambo’s Grave in this edition. fascinating article about the restoration of a Despite being in the third Covid lockdown and the redundant Lancaster Corporation electricity cabinet ongoing difficulties that presents for researchers, we outside his house in the August 2020 e-newsletter. remain optimistic following the successful We now have nine members in the Research introduction of the Covid vaccination roll-out Group and are seeking to increase this to twelve. If programme, that restrictions will be able to start you would like to join the Research Group or being eased after Easter. In the meantime, stay safe contribute to the e-newsletter, contact details are and well! provided at the end of the e-newsletter.

NEWS UPDATE

REGIONAL ARCHIVE SERVICES UPDATE Archives The following information is correct at 04 February Currently closed to the public. Copying and enquiry 2021. Please check the websites below for any services are available. The monthly newsletter ‘News subsequent changes to the continuing closures of from the Archives’ can be subscribed to by emailing: regional archives and museums in . [email protected] For the latest news about Lancashire Archives see: Cumbria Archive service https://www.lancashire.gov.uk/coronavirus- All archive sites are currently closed until further updates/archives/ notice. They are providing an enhanced remote Twitter: https://twitter.com/lanchistory enquiry service which may be of interest to researchers whilst the archive centres are closed. Cheshire Archives and Local Studies Further details on Cumbria Archives can be found Closed until further notice. Enquiry and copying here: services are available. For the latest updates and links https://www.cumbria.gov.uk/archives/whatsnew/defa to the online collections on Flickr, the online blog ult.asp and the tithe map website see: Twitter: https://twitter.com/cumbriaarchives https://www.cheshirearchives.org.uk/home.aspx Twitter: https://twitter.com/CheshireRO

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The New Archives Card mains electricity to assist research carried out on The new Archives Card was recently launched and specific properties or districts in Lancaster. replaced the previous CARN scheme. Users visiting Michael Haslam most archives in the UK (including Lancashire, Cumbria and Cheshire Record Offices) will need this GUEST AUTHOR card to access archival material. You can begin Professor Gill Baynes discusses the history of registration at the following link, and need to visit a Sunderland Point and Sambo’s Grave participating archive within three months to complete Sunderland Point is a small local village among the the registration, bringing also two forms of ID with marshes, on a windswept peninsula, between the you: mouth of the and Bay. It was https://www.archivescard.com/ARAHUB/About/Car used as a port for slave ships and cotton ships but its d_Guidelines.aspx The Archives Card is free of importance declined as other ports such as Lancaster charge and valid for five years. opened up (Plate 1). Darren N. Webster, Archivist

RESEARCH GROUP WEBPAGE The Research Group has its own webpage on the Society’s website at http://lahs.archaeologyuk.org The LAHS website has recently been updated to include the addition of our e-newsletters, Issues 2 and 3. UPDATE ON PREVIOUS ARTICLES Plate 1: Modern day Sunderland Point Electricity Cabinets Cunliffe H (1984) The Story of Sunderland Point: From the Early Days to Modern Times, Lancaster • Issue No.2: August 2020 (self-published) John Davies has advised that following further Strictly speaking, "Sunderland Point" is the name of research by Naomi Parsons of the Lancaster the tip of the peninsula on which the village of Museum, an entry in the Lancaster City Council Sunderland stands but the name is frequently applied minutes for 1901 (Item 484) has confirmed that an to the village itself. Local people living there now “…application by Mr A. G. Dowthwaite, asking refer to it as “The Point” (Plate 2). for a supply of electricity for two houses in Brettag (sic) Drive, Haverbreaks …” was approved to provide and lay an electricity main from Ashton Road to the point of supply. This refers to a parcel of land purchased by Amos Douthwaite, property developer, purchased from the Albert Park Estates in 1900 on which he subsequently built Albert House and a house on the adjacent plot for himself. • Issue No. 3: November 2020 Pauline Churchill has reported another original Corporation cabinet on the west side of Regent Street at the junction of Lindow Square, Lancaster. We will compile a database for all the cabinets reported including photographs, recording their dimensions, and a description of their condition. This information can be used by researchers in Plate 2: Modern day map of Sunderland Point and conjunction with the extensive research conducted locality (Ordnance Survey,1:25,000, Sheet 296) by Pauline’s husband, Tim, in The History of Cunliffe H (1984) The Story of Sunderland Point Lancaster’s Electricity Generation: 1881-1983, to provide dating evidence for the installation of 2

Smaller ships arriving laden with such things as cotton, tallow, ginger, spices, rum and molasses could unload here or wait for the tide before moving up to the main docks at St. George's Quay in Lancaster and registering at the Customs House. Sailors were known to press gang new recruits at the Three Mariners public house, just off the quay in Lancaster, and at the Golden Ball pub on the way back along the river, commonly called Snatchems. Fit young candidates were often plied with copious amounts of alcohol before being whisked away for an extended service at sea. Many young men, often thatchers, also disappeared from the farms and villages around the marshes. Some sources think that the name Snatchems alludes to a place where many young thatchers drank, Thatchems, from where they were press ganged. In 1736 the master of a ship left Sambo, a slave/cabin boy, at Sunderland Point to serve locally whilst he travelled on to Lancaster to undertake his business in the rest of Britain. Sambo died the same year believing he had been Plate 3a: Sambo’s grave (Author) deserted by his master. He probably would not have been able to communicate with the locals. He died in the old brewery which still stands on the corner of the Here lies pathway that leads to his grave. Sambo's Grave is on Poor SAMBOO un-consecrated land, as he was not a Christian. It is A faithfull NEGRO still a local tourist attraction today usually decorated Who with flowers and stones placed there by local (Attending his Maſter from the Weſt Indies) children. DIED on his Arrival at SUNDERLAND

The brother of William Watson who was a Full sixty Years the angry Winter's Wave prominent Lancaster slave trader funded the grave Has thundering daſhd this bleak & barren Shore and also wrote the epitaph that now marks the grave Since SAMBO's Head laid in this lonely GRAVE (Plates 3a and 3b). Lies still & ne'er will hear their turmoil more.

Full many a Sandbird chirps upon the Sod The fabled Sunderland Point Cotton Tree And many a Moonlight Elfin round him trips A tree growing there was believed to be a cotton Full many a Summer's Sunbeam warms the Clod tree either growing from a seed shed from a bale of And many a teeming Cloud upon him drips. cotton or planted deliberately which will never be known. It is actually a female black poplar but in the But still he sleeps _ till the awakening Sounds mythology of Sunderland Point it will always be a Of the Archangel's Trump new Life impart cotton tree (Plate 4). Then the GREAT JUDGE his Approbation founds Not on Man's COLOR but his_WORTH of HEART

James Watſon Scr. H.Bell del. 1796

Plate 3b: Epitaph written by James Watson (transcription of Plate 3a by Author)

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Robert Lawson at the beginning of the 18th century developed Sunderland Point as a port. He became bankrupt in 1728 which began the steady decline of Sunderland Point that was soon totally surpassed by which opened in 1787. The British Quaker movement protested to Parliament in 1783 against the slave trade. There is an embroidered panel in the Quaker Tapestry Museum in Kendal graphically depicting their protest. Interestingly though, Lawson was a Quaker!

MEMBERS’ RESEARCH PROJECTS THE VILLAGE, MILL AND WEIR AT LOWER HALTON The Lune Rivers Trust has submitted an application for planning permission under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 to partially demolish the existing weir fish pass and construct a new permanent fish pass (www.lancaster.gov.uk planning applications and advice: 20/01169/FUL). The Research Group are currently researching the design Plate 4: Female Black Poplar, Populus nigra, and construction of the weir at Lower Halton. The The fabled Sunderland Point Cotton Tree, courtesy information provided in support of the planning of the Woodland Trust application will allow us to compare and contrast the Change of use design and construction of both weirs to understand The use of Sunderland Point subsequently changed why the dam wall at Lower Halton has collapsed on from, and was promoted for, sea bathing (Plate 5) several occasions.

George Jackson Inn Keeper Sunderland Some interesting facts to emerge from the planning application are: Begs leave to inform the public That he has fitted up an inn for the purpose of sea bathing • Skerton weir is the furthest downstream weir on the main River Lune and represents the tidal limit And has completed two bathing houses for the purpose with on the watercourse, even though extreme tides are every other requisite accommodation Sunderland is a fine healthy place able to spread further upstream (Ribble Rivers Distance from Lancaster 5 miles Consultancy) From the dock at Glasson 1 mile And is considered as one of the best situations for the • Skerton weir is thought to have been originally purpose in the north of England constructed to provide water power for Skerton Pleasure boats will be kept in readiness to accommodate his Corn Mill (Edenvale Young Associates) customers: Sea and river fish of all kinds to be had: And good stabling for horses • The weir was historically used to control the supply of freshwater to mills upstream (Edenvale Lancaster April 21st 1792 Young) A.S. Busher, Lancaster • A weir has been in the present location at Skerton Plate 5: Dalziel N (1992) Lancaster Maritime from at least 1891 (Edenvale Young) Museum, Lancaster: Lancaster City Museum • The earliest map was reviewed from the National Library of Scotland online archive surveyed in 1891 (Edenvale Young): Plate 1 4

Plate 1: Different forms of poppyhead Needham, How to study an old Church, p.48

Plate 1: Lancashire OS six-inch England and Wales, 1842-1952, surveyed 1891, published 1895 Plate 2: Square topped Source: https://maps.nls.uk added by LAHS, courtesy Bench ends with deep of the National Library of Scotland cut decorative carving Michael Haslam Needham, op cit. p.48

PARISH CHURCH ARCHITECTURE: THE HISTORY OF PEWS

Part II: The Church from the fourteenth century to the Reformation From the late fourteenth century, as sermons and meditations in church became more important, fixed bench pews in the nave became increasingly common and were universal by the end of the fifteenth century. Early benches were made of thick oak planks 1 with plain ends that were flat-topped. Then, decorative interest became concentrated on the bench ends and bench fronts. The degree of survival for carvers were given a free hand and showed bench ends varies widely across England but it was considerable innovation such as drilling holes in the not unknown for medieval bench ends to be reused in 2 top of bench ends to insert prickets (Plate 3) which new seating by Victorian conservationists. were spiked holders on which tallow candles were impaled to provide illumination.4 Medieval bench ends show a great deal of regional diversity in design from finials terminating in tall poppyheads with a variety of sculpted figures (Plate 1) to being square-topped with deep-cut decorative Plate 3: A pricket or candle holder carving (Plate 2). The latter included elaborate vernacular styles varying from relief figural scenes to Needham, op cit. p.48 vine scrolls, heraldry, religious emblems and 3 grotesque ornament. The fifteenth century was the age of great achievements by woodworkers. Wood 5

Installation of benches continued through the sit closer to the west end of the nave than maids and decades of religious upheaval into the late sixteenth young women. 9 century.5 The name “poppyhead” was in use as early In the next issue I will explain the impact the as the fourteenth century and had no connection with Reformation had on changes in liturgy and the the flowering plant of that name but was derived from controversy surrounding the introduction of box the French “poupée” – a puppet or figurehead. pews. Another form of decoration was the fleur-de-lys Michael Haslam (Plate 4), a symbol of purity, often associated with the Virgin Mary.6 References: 1. Needham A (1945) How to Study an Old Church, London: Batsford, p.48 2. Bradley S (2016) Churches: An Architectural Guide (Pevsner Introductions), London: Yale University Press, p.81 Plate 4: Fleur-de-lys 3. Bradley, op cit, p.81 poppyhead 4. Needham, op cit, p.63 Courtesy of geograph.org.uk 5. Bradley, op cit, p.82

6. Charles Cox J (1933) English Church Fittings, Furniture and Accessories, London: Batsford, p.109 7. Sparvel-Bayly J A “Pews of the Past” in Curious Church Gleanings ed. W Andrews 1896. Hull: The Hull Press, pp.142-145 With an increase in living standards during the 8. Strong R (2007) A Little History of the English fifteenth century the necessity for seats became more Country Church, London: Vintage Books, p.40 urgent. The clergy had allowed laymen of wealth and 9. Strong, op cit. p.109 influence to occupy stalls in the chancel hitherto reserved for themselves, and it soon became difficult to prevent other parishioners from enjoying the same CONTACTS privileges in the nave, hence moveable seats or Research Group Coordinator benches were introduced. Benches fell victim to the Michael Haslam fashion for family isolation in the sixteenth century, [email protected] the poorer classes, still being without either, were confined to sitting in the west end of the nave.7 Editor

Dr Gordon Clark Private pews became commonplace in the fifteenth [email protected] century and provided the church with additional income with parishioners specifying in their wills that Membership Secretary they wished to be buried close to where they had Don Walker formerly sat each Sunday.8 Compared with the [email protected] restless inattention which had preceded the provision of bench seating, the atmosphere would have been far more constrained. Males and females continued to be segregated, and seating, which by now had become commonplace, continued to be fixed according to social status with the lower classes and the young consigned to benches at the west end. Those hard of hearing were seated closer to the pulpit and it was inappropriate for older women and church elders to

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