Aspatria, Cumberland

Description
Aspatria, a small town and township, and a parish in Cumberland. The town stands on the right side of the river Ellen, adjacent to the Carlisle and Maryport railway, 7 3/4 miles NE of Maryport. It has a station on the railway, a post, money order, and telegraph office (R.S.O.), and a weekly market on Thursday. It has a local board and school board, two banks, and a flourishing agricultural college, which was considerably enlarged in 1893. Its site is the side of a hill, and its appearance that of a long straggling village. Its name is a corruption of Aspatrick or Gospatrick, and was derived from one of the Gospatricks, the first lord of Allerdale, or from the As or St Patrick (predecessor of St Kentigern, the patron saint of the church), whose name was still retained in the time of King John in Wath-Patrick-Wath, a ford on the borders of the neighbouring forest. The township bears the name of Aspatria and Brayton. In the churchyard are the stem of a pre-Norman cross and an early shrine-shaped tomb, imitating the wattle work of buildings prior to the use of worked stone, and decorated with the Triquetra, St Patrick's symbol of the Holy Trinity. A silver brooch ornamented with the same early emblem was found near Brayton. Acreage, 3550; population, 2714. The parish includes also the townships of Hayton and Mealo, and Oughterside and Allerby. The surface is hilly. Coal and red sandstone are worked. A human skeleton, 7 feet long, supposed to have been that of some great chief, buried about the second century, together with a broad sword 5 feet long, and some fine ornaments of a warrior, was found, in 1790, beneath a barrow on Beacon Hill, an eminence about 200 yards N of the town. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Carlisle; value, about £400. Patron, the Bishop of Carlisle. The church was rebuilt in 1848. Hayton was made a separate charge in 1867, and is a rectory. One of the Norman arches of the churcli is rebuilt in the clock chamber of the tower, and other earlier remains are preserved in the vestry. There are Congregational, Primitive Methodist, and Baptist chapels, and small charities.