Flimby Parish

  Is bounded on the W. by the sea, on the N. and N.E. by the parishes of Cross Canonby and Dearham, and on the S. and S.E. by the parish of Cammerton, and contains 1539A. 26P., rated at £1883, mostly belonging to the earl of Lonsdale, Henry Curwen, Esq., and the Messrs. John and Themes Walker, of Maryport. It abounds with coal, and its population in 1841 was 546 souls. This parish was anciently a manor and chapelry under Cammerton, but was severed from the mother church in the 37th of Henry VIII (1546), by Adam, son of Gospatrick, who was then parson of Cammerton; so that it has been a distinct parish for upwards of 300 years. It appears that this Adam sold Flimby to a Thomas Dalston, Esq., of Carlisle, who, the following year (viz. 1547), sold the same to the Blennerhassets, in whose family Flimby hall and a considerable demesne in the parish continued for 225 years, till purchased by Sir James Lowther, Bart., of William Blennerhasset, Esq., in 1772; but "the whole parish is freehold, and every freeholder has a legal title to the royalty of his property whether in houses or lands." The manor was given to the monastery of Abbey Holme, by Gospatric son of Orme, but the monastery's claim to it was relinquished when Adam, son of Orme, was parson of Cammerton. 

The village of Flimby occupies a pleasant situation, 2½ miles S.E. of Maryport. The church, dedicated to St. Nicholas, is a neat but plain edifice, rebuilt in 1794, on the site of the old fabric, and will contain nearly 200 persons. At the dissolution of the monasteries it appears to have been made a vicarage, but the benefice is now only a perpetual curacy, in the patronage of the landowners, and incumbency of the Rev. Wm. Dickinson. It has been augmented with £600 from queen Anne's bounty, and was certified to the ecclesiastical commissioners as of the average annual value of £82. From the terrier1 made in 1749, and other records, it would appear that when Flimby was separated from Cammerton, all the glebe lands, moduses in lieu of tithes, &c., which had been previously paid to the clergyman of the latter place, were, at the same time, transferred to Flimby, by the above-named Adam, son of Gospastric.

 

Mannix & Whellan, History, Gazetteer and Directory of Cumberland, 1847

 

 
 

Notes

1. "terrier" - an inventory.


29 April 2008

© Steve Bulman