Threlkeld is basically a string of cottages and farmsteads on the Keswick road, together with the outlying hamlet of Scales. Both names are Scandinavian in origin and probably derive from the Norse settlement of the lake District in the 10th century. It's a pleasant little village with two inns. The Horse and Farrier is dated 1688, and the Salutation Inn. Both cheerful places much frequented by climbers and fell walkers.
Threlkeld Church was built in 1777, although the unusual little squashed tower is probably 17th century in origin. A neat stone-seated porch leads into the church with its tiled floor and interesting possessions. There are two bells at least 500 years old, a well-worn Black Letter Bible of 1613 and a handsome modern font made of Threlkeld granite.
The church records go back to the time of Queen Elizabeth I and tell of the quaint local custom by which a person making a promise of marriage promised also to pay five shillings (25p) to the poor if he or she broke the contract.
The area is also popular with budding archaeologists. A Roman settlement existed here and was occupied from the 3rd to the 8th centuries AD. Today, this Threlkeld site ranks amongst the most instructive in the Lake District. The elementary features of the view, the mountains that lie around, are probably not very different from the time when the settlement was inhabited more than 1500 years ago. Apart from the site of this old British village, the Celtic period of this area has left its mark in the name of the mountain that dominates the scene - Blencathra. Blencathra rises steeply above the great valley to the east of Keswick, from which there are excellent views of Thirlmere and Derwentwater.
The old farm called Threlkeld Hall and the mountain slopes near by have between them a memory which takes us back to the Wars of the Roses. The original Threlkeld Hall was the home of Sir Lancelot Threlkeld, who used to say that of his three great houses one was for pleasure, another for pprofit and warmth in the winter, and this one to provide him with tenants to go to the wars. He married Lady Clifford, whose cruel first husband had been slain at Towton and whose young son Henry Clifford was in danger of his life from the Yorkists. Today, the only remaining signs of the original building are a riased pile of stones and a largely filled in moat to the south of the present farmhouse.
A busy period in the life of Threlkeld was during the time 1880-1900 when a total of 10,000 tons of galena and 13,400 tons of zinc was produced here. With a value exceeding £120,000 (a princely sum in those days) it brought a rapid (though short-lived) prosperity to the area. About a hundred men in the village worked in the mines and the refining sheds. What was once a small hamlet quickly became a typical mining village...an appearance incidentally, which it still retains to this day.
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