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A very pleasant Furness village with houses and cottages of all shapes and sizes. It is quite likely the invaders penned their sheep or stabled their cattle at Scales.
This agricultural hamlet known as High and Low Scales used to belong to a family called reay who were given the land in the twelth century by Scots King William the Lion as a reward to the first Reay for his fleetness of foot.
When his royal patron was pursuing the deer, Reay could outstrip both dogs and horses. The family seat was Gill House in a wooded glen beside the Langrigg Beck. It was built about 1830 by a John Reay, perhaps the first oldest son to break the tradition that they all had to be called William. At any rate the Gill must be one one of the few haunted houses to have its spooks officially recorded by the Government. It happened during the last war when the hauntings ......obviously by pro-Nazi ghosts...stopped the house being used as a Women's Land Army Hostel. Mediums declared the trouble-makers to have been a Satanist and a wife-murderer. Their activities ceased when the house was unoccupied for some years after the war. The present owners report nothing untoward these days.
Their used to be many trades operating here but today 'trade' as such, consists of three farms. The Parish hall was a malt kiln at one time, and at the rear will be found three store huts, used for cattle shelters at one time. It is thought that cock-fighting took place here, each has a hole in the top allowing the public to look down on the proceedings. The school incidentally was at one time a tithe barn.
Two village greens, one of which has a pinfold...i.e. a pound for stray animals.
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