Hutton in the Forest is located some six miles north-west of Penrith. Here, surrounded by fine woodlands and growing on the site of the ancient Forest of Inglewood is the village's simple church with its double bellcot. It stands all alone at the end of a road lined by high Scotch pines, and its great house still stands in seclusion among magnificent trees.
From the Penrith Road there is a glimpse of the mansion, the home of Lord and Lady Inglewood, its turrets and battlements contrasting oddly with the part designed by Inigo Jones. Like other Cumbrian homes it has grown up around an ancient tower, whcih was added to in Elizabethan and Jacobean times. The house's story begins with the legend of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and then continues into the Middle Ages with the DeHotons. In the early 17th century they sold out to the Fletchers, rich merchants from West Cumberland from whom, about a century later it was inherited through marriage by the Fletcher Vanes, within whose family it has remained ever since.
In the church there is a mediaeval coffin stone, carved with a cross and little pictures of a chalice and a missal.The oak lectern is in memory of a man who ministered here for 56 years last century, and there is a memorial to Sir George Fletcher of 1700 who was 'Knight of the Shire near 40 years' and built part of the great house.
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