BB2225 : M and the Indecipherable

Thursday 18th August 2022

What puzzled me was that Mockerkin doesn’t have a church.  After all, you would expect a place so important to have been named after a King of Cumbria to have a significant place of worship.  What might be puzzling you is why I mention him at all?  All might become clear in due course.

First, however, you need to understand where we were and why.  Stan and I are nearing the end of our respective Wainwright rounds.  He needed two small peaks in the northwest.  I had ticked them off back in 2016 (BB1627) but Stan wasn’t with us that day.  So today was his chance to put that right with Martin, Tony and I as the support crew.

We had an early morning drive through the heart of the Lake District, enlivened by an interesting confrontation with some cows.

Target number one was Fellbarrow.  Our previous visits have been from the north but seemingly the farmer has taken a dislike to his land being used by fell baggers so we opted for a southern approach, parking by what is probably the least known of the lakes- Loweswater.

This is certainly one of the easiest Wainwrights to climb.  

Follow the bridle path north then cut of east up a clear track until you reach the trigpoint at the summit.

The second objective was Low Fell which ironically is a full 23 feet higher.  This lies almost due south of Fellbarrow and the wall system makes navigation simple.

Just off the path and over a wall, the map shows the letters BS.  It took us a while to realise that this meant Boundary Stone.  Of course it needed examination.

Experience told us that each side would have a letter.  Indeed one side did.  The letter M.  The other side was sadly indecipherable.  What was the meaning of M?  And what was the missing letter?

The map shows another boundary stone a quarter of a mile to the south west.  We were tempted to go and have a look but the steep ground was tufty and we would have lost 150 feet.  More importantly, Tony would have to wait longer for his lunch. Consequently we decided to press on with our mission, leaving the M and the indecipherable as something for later consideration.

Low Fell is a magnificent viewpoint.  Standing facing south, you have the Grasmoor range to your left, and the evil-looking Mellbreak straight ahead, separated by Crummock Water.  In the far distance, many of the major Lakeland hills are to be seen.

Mission (and lunch) accomplished we could have taken the easy route back to the car.  However, we were unable to resist the opportunity to, as Doris Day suggested, move over Darling, such being the name of the Fell.  Actually, it is a steep climb from Crabtree Beck, quite the most strenuous part of the day.  

Again, a good view point, especially for self-congratulatory viewing of the skyline that we completed recently on BB2218, from Mellbreak right round to Burnbank Fell.....

..... and over to Sellafield.

Then it was down to the car .....

..... and the long drive home.

Martin came up with the theory that the stone(s) represented the parish boundary between Mockerkin and Lorton (the missing letter being L). This would make sense except, as I mentioned at the outset, there isn’t a church shown on the map at Mockerkin.  You (or at least I) would expect a parish to have a parish church.  Ah but, I hear the Wickipedarians cry, don’t you know that King Morken after whom the village was named, was actually the pagan who exiled St Kertigan in 614 AD. A Pagan wouldn’t have had a parish church.

That’s all very well but I think these parishes date a little later than 7th century.  I began to wonder if in fact the M stands for Mosser, a couple of miles to the north where there is church, albeit a small one.  Also, we had been on Mosser Fell.  Can anyone shed any more light on the M and the indecipherable?

Don, Thursday 19th August 2022

Thanks to Tony for some of the pictures 

Comitibus: Stan, Tony, Martin, Don

M and the Indecipherable Update

I though I had cracked the mystery.  After contemplating that the M and the presumed L related to the names of the upland areas Mosser and Loweswater Fells, I thought it more likely that it referred to the landowners.  Maybe the L (if it is an L) was for Lowther?  Maybe M was for Muncaster?  Maybe not.

Mike B took the initiative to contact  Mark Richards who wrote the Fellranger guides for Cicerone. Mark replied "Marshall; the family owned many tracts of the Lakes. Their main residence was Patterdale Hall. We mention them in our next podcast, already recorded, in Holme Wood above Loweswater."

He didn’t respond to the query about a letter on the other side.

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STATISTICS

BB2225 : M and the Indecipherable

Date:

Thursday 18th August 2022

Features:

Fellbarrow, Low Fell

Distance in miles:

6.6

Height climbed in feet:

1,956

GPX track:

BB2225 GPX

Comitibus:

Don, Martin, Stan, Tony

Home

BB04

BB05

BB06

 BB07

BB08

BB09

BB10

BB11

BB12

BB13

BB14

BB15

BB16

BB17

BB18

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BB21

BB22

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