A chapelry south of Kendal, which embraces the two villages of Natland and Oxenholme.
Both share St Mark's church in Natland, and are dominated by Helm, a hill of Silurian rock 605 feet above sea level.
There was a Wishing Tree that stood along the footpath bordering the western side of Helm. For innumberable years, persons passing under this tree would make a wish, and at the same time place a small stone in the wall under the tree. Tradition says that any backward glance at the tree invalidates the wish. Villagers state that a new tree is to be planted shortly.
St Mark's church is comparatively new having been built in 1910, though it did replace earlier churches on the same site. There is something substantial about the church with its tall tower and even taller stair turret, and inside there is dignity in the spacious nave and strength in the graceful arches, and in the enormous pillars supporting the walls of the tower.
St Mark's Boys Home for Waif's and strays' was an important feature of the village. It is now run as a holiday centre for disadvantaged children...under the control of the Children's Society.
The Lancaster to Kendal canal on the west side of the village was at one time busy bringing coal to Kendal. Unfortunately it has now been filled in, and parts of it are popular footpaths.
Oxenholme made its debut as a village with the opening of the mainline railway to Scotland from the south. When it was built, some wit asked "if the station is built to serve Kendal, why wasn't it built near the town?" The reply came "because the engineers thought it would be better near the railway."
The story of the village goes back to the days when the Romans had two camps close by. One was a sort of look-out post built on the ruins of a British fortress on Helm Hill, where there is a glorious view, the other was a bigger station 500 feet long and 400 fet wide, protected on three sides by a loop of the River Kent known as Watercrook. Of this stronghold, a great Roman post in Agricola's day, a few green mounds remain, and hereabouts have been found many treasures, among them an inscribed gravestone and an altar now in the British Museum. The gravestone has a quaint inscription to a soldier of the 20th Legion, and ends with the odd threat that anyone putting another body in his grave will be fined.
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