#Archbishop Edmund Grindall

[insidecroydon]

Ghostly convocation that is hardly a good omen for the Palace

SUNDAY SUPPLEMENT: As we head into the season of ghostly stories and things that go ‘bump’ in the night, DAVID MORGAN has a tale for troubled times in Croydon… The tram rattled along Church Street and came to a halt at the stop. One of the handful of people who got off was an elderly man. The collar of his black overcoat was turned up against the cold. He seemed unremarkable, although if you…

[thursdayplaid]

Saint Bees - What Was It Like?

We’ve talked a bit about ye olde Saint Bees, but I thought it might help to know more about what it was like to live there historically. Saint Bees was the largest parish in Cumberland, covering ten miles of coastline and contained 13 townships - some or which were old enough to be in the Domesday Book.  Its boundaries were the River Ehen on one side and the sea on the other and contains the lakes Ennerdale, Wast Water and Burn Tarn.  There was plentiful iron, lead, coal, and limestone.  The major landholders were the Dacres and the Chaloners.  After The Rising of the North, both families lost their holdings and they were passed to the Wybergh and Lowther families.

Saint Bees was big on education. Edmund Grindal - the Archbishop of Canterbury during the time of Queen Elizabeth I refused to retire from his position despite literally being about two steps from dying until a free school was created. 

(This is the face of a man who looks death in the face and says education first.)

The school was opened in 1583 because Archbishop Grindal’s death-defying powers were becoming too terrifying.  The school still exists, although it’s been added to since it’s orginal one room arrangement.  Local children would have the opportunity to go to the school from its first opening. In later centuries a college would be built in the area.

As far as local plantlife goes The Cumberland Association for the Advancement of Literature and Science in their 1880 edition (Price to Members, one shilling, Non-members, two shillings and sixpence) wrote: