Cumbria Coach Route
Section 2: Kendal – Grange-over-Sands
A6/A591 the main road to Scotland before the motorway was built. Coaching route.
Sizergh Castle NT (view to right behind trees) and Sizergh Low Barn
The home of the Stricklands for over 700 years and 27 generations. Sir William Strickland married
the Sizergh heiress, Elizabeth Deincourt in 1239. The pele tower was built in early 1300 to withstand
raiding Scots. The walls are about 10’ thick at the base! A Strickland carried the banner of St George
at Agincourt. They were on York’s side in the Wars of the Roses. They married well. In 1464 Sir
Thomas married Agnes, an aunt of Katherine Parr from Kendal. They followed James II into exile,
with Lady Strickland acting as governess to the infant Prince James Edward. Many Stuart relics are
family treasures. The family still live here, though the house was given to NT in 1950.
Levens Hall (visible left)
Privately owned by the Bagot family. Elizabethan mansion added to a 14thc pele tower.
Topiary gardens are unique, designed 1689 by a Frenchman, Beaumont. Bagot goats. Plant
centre.
Built in 1580 by James Bellingham on the site of an older house of the de Redmans. Fine
rooms, beautiful panelling magnificent plasterwork and integral kitchens paid for by the
fortune his father, Sir Alan Bellingham, made out of the Dissolution of the monasteries.
James was knighted in 1603 and his was created a Baronet. His great-grandson lost the
estate through gambling, but a kinsman Col James Graham bought the estate in 1688,
added the south wing and got Monsieur Beaumont, the King’s gardener who had trained at
Versailles, to lay out the garden. The house has a fascinating collection of legends and
ghosts!
Across the mosses:- raised bogs almost impassable => Crossing the sands. Whitbarrow Scar to right.
A5074 re-enter LDNP
Pass bottom of Lythe valley, damsons etc
Lindale = valley of the lime trees. Palaeolithic (Old Stone Age, 12,000 years ago) cave dwellers,
limestone. Leave LDNP.
‘Iron Mad’ Wilkinson. Red iron obelisk rising from a mound by the roadside with a portrait of John
Wilkinson (1728-1808). It was re-erected after being felled by lightning. The iron enthusiast built the
first iron bridge, launched the first iron ship (from the Winster, and it was only a model), mentioned
iron in every letter he wrote, and desired to be buried in an iron coffin in his own garden. He lived at
Castle Head, to SE, a handsome Georgian house, which he built at the foot of Castlehead Rock. He
improved this lofty site by cutting paths and planting trees and shrubs where there was soil enough
to sustain life. In due time the great ironmaster, “Delivered from persecution of Malice and Envy”,
was laid to rest in his own grounds. But not for every. Wilkinson’s son-in-law, William Legh, who
later occupied Castle Head, sold to another owner and in 1828 the Iron Man’s remains were
removed to Lindale church. The obelisk lay abandoned for long enough before being erected in its
present commanding position.
Grange-Over-Sands
Morecambe Bay resort. A modern mansion was built by John Wilkinson, the inventor of iron
ships, who died here in 1808. Black obelisk. ‘Costa Geriatrica’. Micro-climate.
Cedric Robinson, the Queen’s Guide. Arnside Bore. AONB on other shore.
Railway, Promenade,