Field and Desk Archaeology

High and Late Medieval

• Hallowbank Quarter

  

• Kentmere is divided into 4 Quarters. Each Quarter is divided into 15 Tenures. Each Tenure would have been allocated to a particular Grassing. It is these Grassings that can still be seen at Hallowbank Quarter - strips of land stretching from the valley floor up the fellside. Each Grassing thereby getting the same mixture of land within each Grassing. Each Tenure gives the right to graze 80 sheep in the Grassing (inbye land) and the right to graze the same sheep on the open fell in summer. The numbers were calculated to ensure that the land was not over-grazed and was strictly enforced.

  
  

  Longhouses are frequently found in pairs, so if you find one there is quite often a second one nearby. In Kentmere, the surviving Longhouses are situated within the Grassings, uniformly spread half way up the fell, but do not have any associated enclosures. The main exception to this is at Overend, where there is probably a Medieval Farmstead comprising two house platforms (not of the long variety) situated in a farm yard enclosure (below the Grassings).

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• This is a typical pair of Longhouses at Wray Crag. Most of the Longhouses in Kentmere are of a similar size and state of repair. The Longhouses most probably date back to when the population of Kentmere was at its highest during the Medieval Warm Spell. At the end of the 13th century, the predictable weather patterns broke down in Europe which along with a major volcanic eruption at Hekla in Iceland, resulted in famine at the start of the 14th century. This was followed by the Black Death in 1348/49. The smaller population which survived the Black Death became wealthier either directly or indirectly.

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• This is a nearby 'Longhouse' on the Brockstones Grassing. It seems to have been deliberately left open on the long southern side. This suggest to me that it may have been used as animal housing. The prosperous Kentmere economy being based on sheep and wool.

  
  

  All measurements in metres. ASL Above Sea Level

• Wrea & Crag Quarter

  

• Crag Quarter is in the North and craggy - not the best of land. Wrea Quarter is to the South. This is the second of our Longhouse surveys. Targets marked in purple. The Tenures in Wrea Quarter were all accumulated into the hands of the Kentmere baillif. Hence it's alternative name of Hall Quarter. I would imagine this process was mostly arrived at on an amicable basis, but seemingly not in the case of this slighted Longhouse in Hall Quarter. Longhouses don't normally have a big boulder placed inconveniently in the middle. The richest family in Kentmere was the Aireys according to the Hearth Tax records and in the early years they were the bailiifs, at least until the arrival of the Gilpins who married into the family.

  
  
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• These are the 2 Longhouses at Birk Rigg in Crag Quarter. Upper Birk Rigg in the foreground is a complex multi-layered site, which has been adapted more than once. Normally Longhouses just sit on the ground and don't get adapted, but Upper Birk Rigg sits on a substantial man-made bank. This makes it difficult to interpret as it is unique in Kentmere. It is interesting to note that there are peat workings in the area above Upper Birk Rigg.

  
  

  Lower Birk Rigg is in the background. Lower Birk Rigg is quite large and well-preserved in Kentmere terms. This leads me to think that it probably later in origin that the smaller less well preserved Longhouses and may even be post-Medieval. In view of this, I made a rough plan.

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• The principal features of Lower Birk Rigg, must be the well preserved Fire Window and Peat Hearth shown below. The stone on the right-hand side of the Fire Window has fallen inwards. It would have been vertical originally. The doorways are also cleanly preserved. I suspect that the downhill side might be a byre.

  
  
  
  

• Two other notable Crag Quarter Longhouses are the conjoined double length Longhouse at Castle Crag and the small concealed wasp-waisted longhouse at Piked Howes. The Piked Howes Longhouse seems quite distinct from the normal Kentmere type.

  
  
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