Lowther, Cumbria

Lowther Castle is a crenellated country house in the historic county of Westmorland, which now under the current unitary authority of Westmorland and Furness, in the ceremonial county of Cumbria, England . The estate has belonged to the Lowther family, latterly the Earls of Lonsdale, since the Middle Ages. It is a fully managed ruin, open to visits by the public to the shell of the castle and some of the gardens since 2011. Additional work was completed since that time, most recently on the extensive gardens. Francis Knollys escorted Mary, Queen of Scots to Lowther Hall (as the house was then known) on 13 July 1568 on her way to Wharton Hall and Bolton Castle. In the late 17th century, the 1st Viscount Lonsdale rebuilt the family home, then known as Lowther Hall, on a grand scale. The current building is a castellated mansion which was built by Robert Smirke for the 1st Earl of Lonsdale between 1806 and 1814, and it was only at that time that the site was designated a "castle". The family fortune was undermined by the extravagance of the 5th Earl of Lonsdale, a famous socialite, and the castle was closed in 1937. During the Second World War, it was used by a tank regiment. Its contents were removed in the late 1940s and the roof was removed in 1957. The shell is still owned by the Lowther Estate Trust. George Macartney, when visiting the summer retreat of the Chinese emperor in Chengde in 1793, could compare the magnificence of what he saw only with Lowther Hall: “If any place in England can be said in any respect to have similar features to the western park, which I have seen this day, it is Lowther Hall in Westmoreland, which (when I knew it many years ago) from the extent of prospect, the grand surrounding objects, the noble situation, the diversity of surface, the extensive woods, and command of water, I thought might be rendered by a man of sense, spirit, and taste, the finest scene in the British dominions.”In the 19th century, an East India Company ship, HCS Lowther Castle, was named after the estate.

Whale is a hamlet in the Westmorland and Furness unitary authority area, Cumbria, England. Historically in Westmorland, it is about a mile south of the village of Askham. In the Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72 it had a population of 53.

Lowther Castle Stead is a medieval site in Cumbria, possibly a ringwork castle. Lancaster University Archaeology Unit carried out a survey of the earthworks in 1997.

Askham Hall is a country house near Askham in Cumbria. It is a Grade I listed building.

Hackthorpe is a hamlet in the Eden district, in the county of Cumbria, England. Circa 1870, it had a population of 110 as recorded in the Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales.

Helton is a village in the Eden district, in the English county of Cumbria. It is about a mile south of the village of Askham. Circa 1870, it had a population of 180 as recorded in the Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales. The village is situated on a steep slope running down from the limestone fells to the flood plain of the River Lowther. Helton is on Wideworth Farm Road, which forms part of the road north to Penrith, and south towards Bampton. A Wesleyan chapel was built in Helton in c.1857 and is a Grade II listed building, now converted for residential use .

Clifton & Lowther railway station was a station on the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway (L&CR) south of Penrith near to the village of Clifton. Although it was the original terminus to cross Pennines rail traffic on the Eden Valley Railway, it was rapidly by-passed by a new line and junction. The station, which was on the West Coast Main Line, was treated as a private stop by the Earls of Lonsdale.

Askham is a village and civil parish in the Eden district of Cumbria, England. It is in the historic county of Westmorland. According to the 2001 census the parish had a population of 360, decreasing slightly to 356 at the 2011 Census. It is situated on the eastern edge of the Lake District National Park, 4 miles (6.4 km) south of Penrith. Nearby are the remains of Lowther Castle, the site of the annual Lowther Show, a three-day event of country pursuits.

Leath was one of the wards of the historic county of Cumberland in north west England. Unlike most other English counties, Cumberland was divided into wards rather than hundreds. The ward was bounded on the south by Westmorland, the north by Cumberland and Eskdale wards, the east by the counties of Northumberland and Durham and on the west by the wards of Allerdale above Derwent and Allerdale below Derwent. In the Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870–72) John Marius Wilson described Leath: LEATH, a ward in Cumberland; bounded by Northumberland, Durham, and Westmoreland, and by the wards of Eskdale and Allerdale; and containing Addingham parish, twenty other parishes, and part of another. Acres, 216,296. Pop. in 1851, 29,103; in 1861, 28,675. Houses, 5,819. The ward largely corresponds to that part of the modern Eden District that lies within Cumberland that is the former Penrith urban and rural districts and the Alston with Garrigill Rural District. Market towns in the ward were Penrith (the largest settlement and seat of local government), Kirkoswald and Alston. At one time, the village of Greystoke had held markets. A large part of the ward once made up the main part of the Royal hunting ground known as Inglewood Forest, which was subject to Forest Laws up until the reign of Henry VIII. The manors of Penrith, Langwathby, Castle Sowerby and Great Salkeld and at times Glassonby and Gamblesby were part of the royal estate known as the Honour of Penrith, which eventually passed into the hands of the Dukes of Devonshire.

Knipescar Common, or Knipe Scar, is an upland area in the east of the English Lake District, above the River Lowther, near Bampton, Cumbria. It is the subject of a chapter of Wainwright's book The Outlying Fells of Lakeland. The summit is "indefinite" but reaches 1,118 feet (341 m) and there are limestone outcrops and an ancient enclosure. Wainwright commends the views which include Blencathra to the north and "a continuous skyline of the higher Pennines." Two ring cairns are scheduled monuments. The more northerly is the "ancient enclosure" described by Wainwright.Immediately to the east of the southern part of Knipescar Common lies Shap Beck Quarry, an active limestone quarry.

The Clifton Moor Skirmish took place on the evening of Wednesday 18 December during the Jacobite rising of 1745. Following the decision to retreat from Derby on 6 December, the fast-moving Jacobite army split into three smaller columns; on the morning of 18th, a small force of dragoons led by Cumberland and Sir Philip Honywood made contact with the Jacobite rearguard, at that point commanded by Lord George Murray. Murray ordered his baggage train to continue its retreat towards Penrith while he delayed Cumberland's force. The action did not begin until late afternoon, in failing light and heavy rain; while technically a draw, it enabled Murray to retreat in good order and escape into Scotland. Sometimes suggested as the last battle on English soil, there are numerous other claimants, such as the 1940 Battle of Graveney Marsh on the Kent coast.

Clifton is a small linear village and civil parish in Cumbria, England. Historically part of Westmorland, it lies 3 miles (4.8 km) south east of Penrith.