• Alston
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• Ambleside And Troutbeck
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• Askam In Furness
• Barrow In Furness
• Bassenthwaite
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• Orton
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• Seascale
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• Staveley
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Lake District Saints

When the early Christian saints came marching into the The Lake District, St Herbert,  who was bishop of Lindisfarne, lived on an island in Derwentwater. In those days, a saint was someone recognized to be holy; it was not a formal appointment. Herbert prayed that he might die at the same time as Cuthbert and both passed to their reward on the 20th March 687. St Herberts Island being an object of pilgrimage, some of the pilgrims would surely voyage from Friars Crag.

Keswick's special saint is Kentigern, a name that means 'head lord'. He is primarily associated with Strathclyde, where he was also known as Mango, or 'dearest friend', and it was while travelling from Glasgow to Wales, via Carlisle that he ministered to the Cambrians at clearing In woodland where a cross was raised _ hence Crisfield, now known as Crosthwaite. He became a cult figure, no less than eight churches being named after him. Crosthwaite Church dates back to the sixth century, though the fabric is now of the sixteenth.

A westward spread from Northumbria in the seventh century brought the Anglian folk to the Keswick area. More significant for the upper dales and fell sides was the arrival of Irish Norse settlers in the eighth and ninth centuries. Norse folk had their theist, or clearings, on low ground where they were handy to a Kelda or spring, a copious supply of water being an essential element in their lives. In summer they took their livestock to a seat, or high-flying pasture, where the stock could graze the summer flush of vegetation, leaving grass in the unglazed meadowland at home to be made into hay as winter fodder. In Borrowable, the new settlers cleared much of the land of rocks, as at Stonethwaite, and Rosthwaite, while Thorneythwaite  was originally a clearing in an area where thorn trees were abundant. During Norse times, the close browsing of domestic stock inhibited the regeneration of timber. In the extensive oak woods, pigs spent part of the year snuffling for acorns.

Most of Lakeland was under the Scottish king in AD 1086 when Norman scribes compiled the Doomsday survey. Six years later, William Rufus led an expedition north and took Carlisle, settling in that area 'very many English peasants with wives and stock' so that the ground might be tilled. The Normans divided up their newly taken land into baronies, the barons being the principal supporters of the Conqueror. They were adequately rewarded for their loyalty.

Keswick evolved as a natural focal point where the River Daren't divided the two Allendale's and Greystoke. At nearby Cocker mouth, a castle was built to represent baronial power. Keswick took its name from a humble 'cheese farm'. Furness Abbey, founded in the vale of the Deadly Nightshade (near modern Barrow) in 1127, purchased a good deal of Borrowable from Alice de Rumelli in 1208, . The native sheep became known as Herd wicks after the monastic sheep walks. Packhorse ways connected the parent abbeys with their outlying estates.

Borrowable from Boreal, 'the valley of the fortress' had an important grange at the village that is aptly named Grange in Borrowable. Alice de Rubella sold some of the remaining land and property in Borrowable, namely Watendlath and its surrounding fells, to Fountains Abbey, in the valley of the Skull, near Ripon. In the land known as Keswick, the abbey developed both farming and mining interests and had a mill at Crosthwaite. Under Fountains Abbey, the 'cheese farm' evolved into a settlement of distinction, the local point of administration being possibly where the moot hall now stands.

In 1276, Thomas de Derwentwater, lord of the manor of Keswick, was permitted to hold a market on Saturdays. Trade would have been affected by the Scottish raids during that time. An outbreak of the plague in 1349 claimed almost half of the people living in Cumbria. In 1362, Sir Thomas de Escheat arrived from Rome to try and settle a quarrel that had broken out between the abbeys of Fountains and Furness regarding a dairy herd that had been established by Fountains at Stonethwaite in Borrowable. It wanted to acquire some of the Furness land so that the venture might be developed further.

Leland the topographer, visiting the area in the I 530s, an uneasy time following the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII, described Keswick as 'a Lytle pore market town'. Richard Graeme of Nether by acquired the Fountains prop-erty in Borrowable. Two Londoners, William Whitmore and Jonas Vernon, obtained what had been the local possessions of Furness and promptly resold them to thirty-eight local people at knockdown prices.

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