It is a town of much commerce : has fine quays on the river
Lune, which brings up fliips of 250 tons burden clofe to the place.
Forty or fifty ihips trade from hence direilly to Guinea and the
T'FeJi-Indies : others to Norway. Befides the cabinet goods, fome
fail cloth is manufactured here ; and great numbers of candles are
exported to the Wejl-Indies. Much wheat and barley is imported.
The cuftom-houfe is a fmall but elegant building, with a portico
fupported by four ionic pillars, with a beautiful plain .pediment :
each pillar is fifteen feet and a half high, and conflits of a fingle
{lone. There is a double flight o f fteps, a ruftic furbafe and coins ;
a work that does-much credit to Mr. Gittow, the architect.
C a s t l e . The caille is very intire ; has a moil magnificent front, confifting
of two angular towers, and a gateway between ; and within is
a great fquare tower : the courts of juftice are held here ; and
here are kept the prifoners o f the county, in a fafe yet airy confinement.
C h v r c h . The church is feated on an eminence near the .caille, and commands
an extenfive, but not a pleafing view. Within is a mural
monument in memory of Sir Samuel Eyres, one of the judges of the
king’s bench in the time of King William ; and a very pompoüs in-
fcription on the grave-itone of Tho. Covell, fix times mayor o f the
town, 48 years keeper of the caille, 46 years one o f the coroners o f
the county, captain o f the freehold land of the hundred of Lonfdale
on this fide the fands, &c. &c. died Aug. 1,1639.
Ceafe, ceafe to mourn, all tears are vain and void,
He’s fled, not dead, diflolved, not deftroyed :
In Heav’n bis foul doth reft, bis body here
Sleeps in this duft, and his fame every where
Triumphs :
Triumphs: the town, the country, farther forth,
The land throughout proclaim his noble worth.
Speak of a man fo courteous,
So free and every way magnanimous ;
That ftory told at large here do you fee
Epitomized in brief, C o v e l l wa s he.
This is given as a fpecimen o f an epitaph fo very extravagant,
that the living muil laugh to read; and the deceafed, was he capable,
rnuit bluih to hear.
On the north fide o f the church-yard are the remains o f an old
wall, called the wery wall. Camden conjeClures it to have taken its
name from Caerwerid, or the green fortrefs, the Britijb name o f
Lancafter : and that it was part o f a Roman wall. For my part,
with Leland, I fufpeCt it to have been part of the enclofure of the
Priory, a cell of BenediSine monks of St. Martin, at Sees in France,
fupprefled by H en. V. and given to Sion abby.
The ihambles o f this town muit not be omitted : they are built
in form o f a ftreet, at the public expence ; every butcher has his
fhop ; and his name painted over the door.
Crofs the Lune, on a handfome bridge of four arches. Turn to
the left, and after four miles riding, reach Hefs-bank, and at low
water crofs the arm o f the fea, the Moricambe o f Ptolemy, that divides
this part o f the county from the hundred of Furnefs, a detached trail
peninfulated by the fea, lake, or river, a melancholy ride o f eleven
miles •, the profpeit on all fides quite favage, high barren hills indented
by the fea, or dreary wet fands, rendered more horrible by
the approach o f night, and a tempeiluous evening, obfcured by the
driving of black clouds. Beneath the ihade difcerned Amfide tower,
E the
S h a m b l e s .
C a k t u e l S a k d i .