Westmorland

Westmorland, a northern county of England, bounded by Cumberland, Durham, Yorkshire, and Lancashire. With a very irregular outline, it has an extreme length from north to south of 32 miles, an extreme breadth from east to west of 40 miles, and an area of 505,864 acres or 790 sq. m. The surface is mountainous, the highest summits being Helvellyn (q.v., 3118 feet) on the Cumberland boundary, Bow Fell (2959), Fairfield (2950), Dufton Fell (2803), and Dun Fell (2780). The western portion of the county belongs to the Lake District (q.v.), its lakes including Windermere (q.v.) on the boundary with Lancashire, and Ullswater (q.v.) on that with Cumberland, besides Grasmere, Howes Water, Rydal Water, &c. The moorlands—to which Westmorland owes its name—are numerous and extensive; but along the courses of the Kent in the south and the Eden in the north (the principal streams) there are tracts of fertile land. Of the 400,000 acres in cultivation less than 90,000 are under corn; woods and plantations cover 17,000 acres. The climate is moist and mild, but with often much snow in winter. Coal, lead, copper, slate, and graphite are the chief mineral productions. Westmorland, which is in the diocese of Carlisle, comprises four wards, 109 parishes, and the towns of Appleby, Ambleside, and Kendal. Its county councillors number fifty-six, and it returns one member for each of its two divisions—the Northern or Appleby and the Southern or Kendal. Worthies, besides those noticed under the LAKE DISTRICT, have been Bernard Gilpin, Catharine Parr, Ann Clifford, Countess of Pembroke, Bishop Watson, and Sir J. G. Wilkinson; and Clifton Moor was the scene of a Jacobite skirmish (1745). Pop. (1801) 40,805; (1841) 56,454; (1881) 64,191; (1891) 66,098. See the Quarterly Review for Jan. 1867; works cited at LAKE DISTRICT; Bellasis, Westmorland Church Notes (1892); and History by R. S. Ferguson (1894).