Anchorite House
Curwen, 1900 p 157
Speed, in his map of 1614, engraves the name as "The Ankeriche," which seems to have been a walled inclosure with rows of trees, and the Parish Clerk in his buriek registers variously spells the names thus:-
1770, Richard, son of John and Ruth Nelson of the Anchorage.
1771, Edward, son of John and Ruth Nelson of the Anchoress.
1772, Ruth, daughter of John and Ruth Nelson of the Anchor House.
1805, the wife of John Nelson of Anchor Hous.
1833, James Birkett, spinner, Anchorite House/
Ages have passed away since the death of the recluse, whose abode by the well side first gave a distinctive name to this placid pool: yet the spring still bubbles up, fresh and pure as when the waters were deemed holy, and pilgrims came hither to drink to be cleansed from their sin.
Spenser's beautiful poem of a "Hermitage" is truly descriptive of the place:-
"A little, lowly hermitage it was
Down in a dale: ... a little wide
There was a holy chapel edified,
Wherein the hermit dewly went to say
His holy things each morn and eventide;
Thereby a crystall stream did gently play, Which from a sacred fountaine welled forth alway."
There is a pleasant legend about this place well worth repeating here. It was toward the end of the reign of King Edward III. that an Anchorite appeared in Kendal in the habit of a palmer, with the crossed staff, the robe, and the broad flat hat decorated with a cockle shell upon his tanned and withered forehead, which denoted that he had been in the Holy Land. Nobody enquired who or what the pilgrim was, for the class were as common as commercial travellers are today; but, although he lived on the humblest fare, he bestowed much money in alms on the lepers and licensed beggars who infested the highways, sat before the cross house, or hung around the church doorways. After a time he busied himself in collecting stones from the fellside and, having purchased a small piece of land from the Abbey of St. Mary's at York, he constructed for himself a hovel, furnished with the rudest and simplest materials, and took up his abode by this spring. But gossip and curiosity soon began to be aroused concerning the stranger, who had laid aside his staff and changed his pilgrim's weeds to assume a coarse white cassock of Kendal cloth, and who was always busy cultivating the ground attached to his cell by the well side. The anchorite was deemed an holy man, and the spring became the resort of the afflicted, who fondly thought that its pure waters and the prayers of the hermit, versed in the healing arts of the east, were capable of performing miracles. At last he fell sick unto death, and confessed to Father Ralf the story of his only love. Long years gone by, his Blanche was all to him, smiling upon and sharing his every dream of happiness, embroidered his scarf, and wrought the blazon of his knightly pennon when he won his spurs by capturing a Scottish chief. They never spoke of love; theirs was no lip worship. The two souls intermingled, as it were, by instinct, and both were blessed; until one day, whilst staying at Kendal Castle, an usurping brother's love marred all. His Blanche was lost to him, fear succeeded to frenzy, and that same night he concealed their bodies beside this well. Selling his patrimony he assumed the cross, hoping to lose his burden by warfare against the infidels; but on his return he was again attracted hither, and built his hermitage over the relics of his only love. So did Father Ralf confess him, and by means of the hoard he left behind, masses for the soul of Julian de Clifford continued to be said in Kendal Church till the period of the reformation.
Tradition says that the bee-hive hut was built in 1176, and that the narrow road which lead up to it made two spiral circles around it, the fences of which concealed the dwelling from the gaze of passers by. The present house was built in 1771 by Alderman John Shaw, who let it to various tenants; W. Carradus, a soldier in the 79th Highlanders at Waterloo, was born here in 1784. Shaw married Elizabeth Greenhow, and latterly it has been the property and residence of John Greenhow.
Nearby is a small mill, which John Eccles of Kirkbarrow House used in 1798 as a spinning mill. He was the first in this neighbourhood to spin yarn by water power, all of the spinning previously having been done at the spinster's own houses, the mills only employed for the fulling of cloth and rasping of dye woods. Subsequently the mill was used by Isaac Rigge & CO., card makers in Captain French Lane, for a wire mill. It has since been used for grinding bones.
The stream from this interesting Well could more easily be traced before being covered up than now, so that it is well here to record its passage. At first flowing down that part of Capper Lane called Cop Beck, along one side of Anthony Yates' garden, and passing through his entry, it takes a sharp bend to the right, along a two-foot wide culvert covered with heavy flag-stones till it reaches the spot where the old smithy stands, opposite to the Church Schools. Here it crosses the road, running along the Glebe house garden, around the corner of the portes lodge, and down into the river. Leading off this main waterway were two other , but artificial, branch culverts, one crossing the road in front of and down the Lane beside the "Ring o' Bells Inn," and on the other, leaving it at the acute elbow, crossed into Hoggs's Yard, and down into the Abbot Hall grounds.
In bygone times thes brooks formed an important part of the street life of the day, for as they passed along Kirkland there used to be four or five iron lids, through which the women could pass down their buckets to fill them with the pure water. Oh! the frolic and youthful pranks that gathered around these spots, and the chattering of women as they gathered in their canfuls of necessary water. And Oh! should a lid at night time be left displaced, the danger to the unwary and the chill to the backbone when a bruised limb found itself knee deep in the cooling waters!
Spenser
On the west side of Kirkland, is a house called Anchorite House, which, as the name implies, has been formerly the sequestered abode of an anchorite, or religious recluse. Tradition reports, that it was originally a small hut, the shape of a bee-hive; and the narrow road which conducted to it made two circles round the house: and the fences of that road concealed the dwelling from the gaze of passengers. Before the house is a fine spring of clear, pure water, called "Anchorite Well," which supplies the principal part of Kirkland -"Wherein the Hermit dewly wont to say His holy things each morn and eventide; Thereby a crystall streame did gently play, Which from a sacred fountaine welled forth alway."
