The storm of Coronation Day that raged round Skiddaw had given way to calm and sunlight.  It was determined, though the glass still stood at rain, to fire the beacon, or so much of it as it was hoped had not been blown away by the furious winds of the preceding day and night.  The day improved.  Telegrams were dispatched to the Committees in charge of bonfires on neighbouring heights, and away at four o’clock in the afternoon started the rocket-men and the builders to repair any havoc that the wind might have played with the peat-stack on the summit.  For though we had securely fastened the larch-pole tripod round which the peats had been built with iron rope and heavily weighted the whole mass with stone, so fierce was the wind at the time of building that one of the builders was lifted clean off his feet, and the storm had increased in violence since that day. (p. 23)

Going up some hours later, I passed through the larches of Latrigg to the Gale, and heard the cuckoo calling from the grey-green slopes of Skiddaw as the ancient Roman guard had done who held their little outlook camp here, and could not help thinking how at the call of that “wandering voice”—the one familiar voice in a strange land—those men of old time had been cheered with thoughts of home.  They, too, probably on just such an evening as this, had seen bonfires in olden time, for it was Midsummer Eve, and on Midsummer Eve the Brigantes hereabout would doubtless have lit their fires in yonder Druid Circle on Castrigg Fell, and rolled their burning wheels of straw for Beltane festival down the slopes of Skiddaw. (p. 23)….

But the beauty of that evening sky lay not so much in the long lingering bars of sunset as in the great clear ocean inlet of opal light that seemed to flood in from some aerial Atlantic between headlands covered with black forest growth—the purple-black clouds of night.  Suddenly, like some vast lighthouse tower on one of these forest headlands, a light was seen, and the planet Venus, lighting her torch, conjured forth from Bassenthwaite a marvellous reflection of its world of flame.  Star called to star, and suddenly we were aware of Jupiter, glorious above the pike of Grizedale to the west. (p. 25)

But we had other work to do than look at stars or evening sky, for the bonfire was still in building.  A sturdy helper stood on the pile, fifteen feet high, deftly placing into position the peats that, first soaked in a barrel of paraffin, were being thrown up to him.  Then all the light brushwood that had been prepared for the bonfire top was stowed into place between the upstanding horns of the larch poles, round which the pile had been built.  These were well trampled down, more peats added, a sack of shavings dipped in paraffin was packed away, and, descending from his perch, he and other stalwart helpers deluged the mass with paraffin thrown on to it by buckets or sprayed on to it by garden syringes, and the bonfire waited for the torch. (p. 25)

At 9.55 a ship’s signal rocket went up and broke with a loud report.  We could hear the echo like distant thunder from the hills across Bassenthwaite, and in a moment from the heights of Grizedale, Catbels, and the King’s How in Borrodale other thunder-makers sailed into heaven.  So quiet was the air that the bonfire-builders on Grizedale Pike, above the Whinlatter Pass, heard distinctly the echo of the signal rocket that was fired on Scafell Pike miles to the south.  Then a magnesium rocket sailed up, and we saw a globe of light in answer on far Helvellyn and Scafell top, and we knew that there were watchers on those heights also determined to share our offering of loyalty to the King. (p. 26)

“It is 10 o’clock,” shouted the bonfire-builder, and bidding all the people come to windward the torch-bearer applied a light to his torch and touched the shavings on the top of the pile.  It must have astonished all who had never seen a peat bonfire, well paraffined, lit before, to see how in a moment, with a great roar of jubilance, the whole of that mass from top to bottom blazed out into light, and sent out its banner of flame for a hundred feet or more above the Crosthwaite Vale.  Then the roar of the ten thousand tongues of flame was for a moment drowned in the hearty singing of the National Anthem and the cheers that followed. (p. 26)

Many bonfires had been lit on the previous night, but here and there steady stars were seen to jewel the dark-blue carpet of the plain, and rockets were observed to sail up and hang like globes of light and disappear.  From Gummers How in the south, to Wigton in the north the bonfire-makers were busy.  As for our neighbours, the most beautiful bonfire was the one that glowed on Grizedale Pike.  Barrow burned brightly in answer to Catbels for a short time, and one of the most beautiful immediate effects was the red fire upon Helvellyn top. (p. 26)

It was a disappointment to us all that the “flare” which had been kindly lent by Messrs. McMurtie for Helvellyn could not be got up at the short notice given, but our “flare” on Broad End burned like a splendid torch, and must have been seen far and wide.  Scafell answered us bravely with its rockets, and those who were in charge of that height had been able at short notice to work a bonfire light that burned for a considerable time. (p. 26)

Not the least beautiful part of our celebration on Skiddaw was the way in which rockets at the summit and the burnings of green and red light were answered by the rockets and coloured lights at Skiddaw Broad End.  The nearest fire on the east was the fire at Caldbeck, seen in the Caldew gap, which by its brightness and length of burning must have been of considerable size. (p. 27)

Some of us, leaving the rest of the pyre at the summit, went off through quiet air to Broad End to watch the festal fires on Derwentwater.  The boats seemed “like fireflies tangled in a golden braid,” and rockets from Crow Park sailed up and broke in answer to our own.  At 11 o’clock a bouquet of rockets ascended from Skiddaw High Man and fell into stars of red, white, and blue.  Again the National Anthem rang out clear, and leaving the fire still burning furiously we turned our backs upon it and began the descent. (p. 27)

Only those who have had to stumble through semi-darkness down over the Skiddaw shales and through the broken turf and pitfalls on Jenkin side can know the difficulty of such descent, and a week after they will still probably be reminded that certain muscles in their stumbling and recovering themselves were brought into play which had not been brought into play before.  But the hut was reached at last, and the delight of the ease gained for foot as we traversed the Gale meadows and passed down through the larches of Latrigg more than compensated for the sorrow of the descent. (p. 27)

The cool air of the valley was sweet with elder flower.  Belated lovers came wandering up through the shadows to see the sunrise from Skiddaw, with such sunrise doubtless in their hearts that they might well have foregone the climb.  No voice but the corncrake was heard in the meadows, and the solemn quiet of Skiddaw, restored to its ancient tranquillity, sank into one’s soul.  The afterglow upon Helvellyn, the gorgeous fire upon Skiddaw top, seemed passed as suddenly as a dream, so strange the contrast between silent vale and jubilant mountain peak; but the memory of the bewitching evening climb, and all the Coronation joy upon that ancient height will live for ever. (p. 27)

(A Book of Coronation Bonfires, 1911, pp. 23-7)

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Visitors to Crosthwaite Church who are at all interested in archaeology will be glad to know that they can now find on the external walls of that church a record of bygone days, and bygone religious usage, which renders it unique amongst all the churches in England.  (p. 109)

The uniqueness lies in the fact that it retains incised upon its outside walls twelve consecration crosses—cross-pattée in circle—whose diameter is 4¾ inches smaller than is usually the case.  The idea of the consecration crosses was originally baptismal, that is to say, just as the body of the human being was looked upon as the temple of the Holy Spirit, and was consecrated to God in baptism by the use of the cross, so the Church was looked upon as the body within which was enshrined the spirit of the living God; and this body, dedicated to the uses of the Holy Spirit, needed also to be consecrated by the use of the cross in a similar manner.  That, at any rate, was the idea of the early Gallican Church. (pp. 109-110)

Later there was fused with this highly symbolic rite another consecration ceremonial, which came from Rome, and consisted of the enclosing of the saint’s relics within the altar of the new church.  The altar was then marked with consecration crosses in memory of the more ancient practice of imperial Rome, of building churches over altars that enshrined a martyr’s grave. (p. 110)

Both forms of service, the consecration of the altar and of the walls of the church by crosses, chrism and prayer, became prefixed to the celebration of the Eucharist, and formed the long consecration rite of the mediaeval pontificals.  This anointing with oil of the walls of the church where consecration crosses had been engraved is made known to us first in the English pontifical of Egbert, Archbishop of York, A.D. 732-766. (p. 110)

But the English as opposed to the Gallican use was not content with consecration crosses within, but added twelve outside the building.  The anointing with chrism of these outside walls on the consecration day is not mentioned until the pontifical of Archbishop Robert of Winchester, written at the end of the tenth century.  With the exception of Archbishop Robert’s pontifical, there appears to have been no ordering before the eleventh century of the anointing of any of the outside walls; but from the end of the eleventh century the English pontificals order external as well as internal anointings, and in each case the anointing is to be in twelve places, probably in memory of the twelve Apostles.  Where, as is sometimes the case, a thirteenth consecration cross has been found, and is of the same date, that cross was probably placed there in memory of the patron saint. (pp. 110-111)….

At Crosthwaite an additional liturgical interest attaches to the outside crosses, because they seem to prove that even under the Maryan reaction, when Roman opinion was strong and many old books had been destroyed, the Bishop who consecrated the church still adhered to the English in preference to the Continental rite, for there can be no question that these consecration crosses were placed upon window jambs that were inserted in fourteenth century walls at the last important building of the church in the first or second year of Queen Mary, 1553-4. (pp. 113-114)….

One other thing should be noted about the consecration crosses on the outside walls.  They are twelve in number, and instead of being, as was usually the case, placed three on each of the four walls, north, south, east and west, they are placed six on the south wall, and six on the northern wall.  The fact that, though they are engraven on the left jambs of the northern wall, they are not all at the same height is probably to be accounted for by the fact that the mason chose for his purpose the finest grained and hardest stone, or the stone of the largest size for so important a mark of consecration. (p. 114)

Up to the year 1915 we had believed that Crosthwaite Church only preserved these consecration crosses on the outside, viz. on the south wall, and one consecration cross in the interior.  But my friend Mr. F. C. Eeles, a well-known Scottish antiquarian, a Rhind Lecturer in Archaeology, who had been working for the Scottish Royal Commission on Ancient Monuments, and was much interested in the history of bells, coming to visit the parish in order to inspect one of the oldest bells in Cumberland—a thirteenth century bell, with a black letter inscription, that used to hang in the parish room gable, and is now enshrined and saved from weathering in the old church—read a short paper which I had written for the Westmoreland and Cumberland Archaeological Society in 1914; and at once, from his knowledge of the fact that the English use was to have twelve consecration crosses on the outside, began carefully to inspect the jambs of the windows on the north wall.  He found a slight indication of the arc of a circle projecting beyond the roughcast, and discovered the whole circle.  I begged that he would continue his search, and in a few days he had recovered for us five other crosses that are now visible. (pp. 114-115)

He then set to work to search for the twelve consecration crosses, which he knew must have originally existed within the church, according to the Roman or Continental use, and was rewarded by discovering, hidden sometimes under as much as 4 inches of plaster placed there by Gilbert Scott in 1844, seven more, each on the left side of a window.  Those on the south side, four in number, are cut upon a stone space on the left or east side of the three windows, east of the south doorway.  There can be no doubt that two others originally were carved in similar positions on the spaces of the other windows, but they probably disappeared when the stonework of these windows was refaced by Gilbert Scott’s directions in 1844. (pp. 115-116)

On the north side of the church four were discovered all upon the surface of the wall touching the splay, and close to the lefthand side of the windows. (p. 116)….

However much we may deplore the fact that they were ever covered up by Gilbert Scott, and had been lost entirely to us all these years, we probably owe to this fact that the colour of these black lines is still visible. (p. 116)

We were rejoicing in the finding of the twenty-one consecration crosses when, by sheer accident, a twenty-second was discovered by the churchwarden, who happened to be looking at a buttress, which had lately been unstripped of its ivy, at the east end of the church, and which had been rebuilt in 1812.  The light chanced to be particularly favourable for observation, and he saw thereon the remains of the twenty-second consecration cross.  It was quite clear that this had been carved upon the stone of an earlier church, which had been cast out and used for rebuilding; and we gather therefrom that although the twelve crosses on the south and north walls are all of them evidently of the same date and belonged to the Maryan consecration, this cross at the east end must be the record of an earlier consecration.  Whether of the Norman Church or of the later Catholic Church we cannot say. (pp. 116-117)

As we look upon the twelve consecration crosses, we may call up to mind the very interesting ceremony which took place, probably in the year 1554.  Then, after a solemn celebration of the Holy Eucharist, which was always the important feature of church consecration, Bishop Aldrich, with his attendant priests, having predetermined sturdily to consecrate with the English and not with the Roman use, went from cross to cross, the people following after, and solemnly anointed the crosses one by one with prayer and thanks to Almighty God that the church, with its completed tower and its Maryan windows, was now a fair, fit temple for the indwelling of the Spirit of God—that Spirit which, so long ago as 553, had impelled Kentigern to set up his cross in the thwaite, and to call the men of the fellside who had relapsed into paganism, back to the faith of Christ crucified. (pp. 117-118)

(Past and Present at the English Lakes, pp. 109-118)

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Sir,—It would be wisdom to recognise that the Lake District is not suitable for the raising of cereals, though grass and roots do well.  This year is the second in succession in which the laudable efforts of the dalesmen to fulfil the national requirement of sparing all the land they could from their natural work of sheep-raising and milk-production have been doomed to disappointment.  Their oat crop was excellent, but incessant heavy rains set in just when it was ripe, and have ruined all their hopes.  I have heard of one man who hit on a lucky expedient: he took sickle in hand and cut all the heads of the grain and left the straw standing, and I write to call attention to this expedient in the hope that others may follow a good example.  How far such salvage of the crop on a large scale is possible I know not, but doubtless the Agricultural Department will have their minds set on any suggestion by which, under these adverse weather conditions, what can be saved of our bread supply will be saved.

(Times, 25 September 1918, p. 10)

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Ah telt oor Gwordie t’ udder daay
    He betther nut com’ yham,
Fwoakes can’t git butther here fur paay,
    Back-end we meade nea jam.

And barn wi’ eggs at saxpence each
    An’ tea sea mutch a pund,
For lads as hungered as a leech
    A meal can scearse be fund.

An’ tho’ a melder o’ gude meal
    Ligs still widin the kist,
Poddish he nivver supped a deal
    And haver-bread ne’er mist.

But what he wreat us back-oor lad,
    “Naay! Cursmas time is near,
Ah’d rayder starve at yham, tell Dad,
    Then hev’ a kite-full here.”

“Fur hunger is nut aw for food
    Ah’s hungered for the Fells,
For Skidder breeast and Darren fluid
    And soound o’ Crostet bells.”

“And sea tho’ fwoakes may ca’ me daft,
    Ah’s com yance mair to sea
T’auld fwoake at yham;” and fadder laft,
    “That lad’s the lad for mea!”

(Carlisle Journal, 1917, 28 December, p. 7)

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