Cartmel in 1839

Cartmel is locally in the limits we have assigned to the district of Furness, but is said not to be ‘within the liberties of Furness’ It is 14 miles from Lancaster across the Sands. The parish contains 22,960 acres, and had, in 1831 a population of 4,802. It is subdivided into seven townships or chapelries. The town is in the townships of Lower Allithwaite and Upper Holker, in a narrow well-wooded vale watered by a small stream, and overhung on the east by the high ridge of Hampsfield Fell. The streets are narrow and irregular ; the houses are chiefly built of stone. The church, which formerly belonged to a priory of the regular canons of St. Augustine, founded A.D. 1188, by William Mareschal, earl of Pembroke, was purchased at the dissolution by the inhabitants, and afterwards made parochial. It is a large cross church in the early English style, with a central tower, a choir with richly ornamented stalls, and a fine east window. The nave is more modern than the rest of the building. The population of the townships in which the town stands was, in 1831, 1,933. There are cotton-mills at Upper Holker, but little trade is carried on : the market is on Tuesday. There is a medicinal spring of some repute about three miles from the town. The living is a perpetual curacy, in the archdeaconry of Richmond and diocese of Chester, of the clear yearly value of £113. There were in the whole parish, in 1833, four endowed day-schools, with 115 children; three national schools, with 147 children ; ten other day-schools, with 215 children ; two boarding-schools, with 21 children ; and seven Sunday-schools, with 337 to 347 children; beside which a national schools were Sunday-schools also, and had 131 children.

Near Cartmel is Holker Hall, one of the seats of the Earl of Burlington.