High Rigg and the Poet Stonemason of St John’s in the Vale

Named for a 13th century’s hospice built by the Knights Hospitaller, St John’s in the Vale is an idyllic glacial valley, hemmed in by High Rigg & Helvellyn  with Blencathra at its foot. In the 1800’s, it was home to a stonemason turned schoolteacher who became a minor celebrity when he published two volumes of dialect rhymes that capture the comedy and romance of Cumbrian life like few others could. A few weeks before lockdown, on a brooding day between seasons, I walked through the vale to visit his modest grave, then returned over High Rigg where I found the view that inspired one of his finest poems.

The valley is soft grey and mauve, a wash of impressionist watercolour, bathed in fine mizzle, like a comforting memory that patters faintly on the cosy cocoon of my waterproofs. Through a bare-branched lattice of beech and silver birch, Wren Crag rises, a gaunt white face of rock, furrowed with olive wrinkles, its lower reaches wrapped in a scrubby winter blanket of mustard and salmon pink. At the bottom of the slope, St John’s Beck roars and hisses, gushing and crashing over rocks in a surging torrent of youthful exuberance.

Here and there, a fallen tree testifies to the brutal winds that have scourged the land in recent weeks. Battered and weather-beaten, but perennially resilient, the first signs of spring rebound in the respite of this gentler day. The moss that clothes the mottled stone of an ancient wall is vivid green, as is the grass of the grazing pasture beyond. Across the valley, shafts of sunlight tint the orange bracken that cloaks the foot of Calfhow Pike, while above, its charcoal crags are flecked yellow with straw grass.

At Low Bridge End Farm, a tea-room (self-service today) is testimony to a farmer’s ability to diversify, while a vintage tractor, inert in a meadow, is a silent echo from an older time. Further along the track, a lichen-stippled ruin tells of a farming heritage that stretches all the way back to the Vikings; its roofless gables mirror the mighty pyramids of Blease and Gategill fells, Blencathra’s western buttresses, that rise as a colossal rampart beyond.

Soon after the Norman conquests, Ranulph Engayne, chief forrester of the Forest of Inglewood (which once stretched from Carlisle to Penrith), is said to have built a hospital at Caldbeck for the relief of travellers that had fallen victim to the “desperate banditti” that roamed the woods. The same dangers may have beset travellers journeying south from Keswick. Perhaps this is why, in the thirteenth century, The Knights Hospitaller of St John are said to have built a hospice on the pass between High and Low Rigg.

The Knights Hospitaller were a religious and military order with their own papal charter, which exempted them from the laws of the countries through which they travelled and held them answerable only to the Pope. They were originally formed to staff a hospital in Jerusalem, providing succour for sick or injured pilgrims, but they began to offer armed escorts through the Holy Land, and they became an elite fighting force in the crusades. By the late thirteenth century, the order had acquired significant lands in several countries, including England.

The Hospitallers’ chief rivals in terms of power and influence were the Knights Templar. The Templars are widely accredited with having invented modern banking. Noblemen planning to visit the Holy Land could assign their wealth over to the Templars, and on arrival at a Templar stronghold in the East, they could withdraw money and treasures to the same value.

By 1312, the Templars had become victims of their own success. With banking came credit, and with credit, debt. King Philip IV of France owed so much that he was desperate to wriggle out of his obligation. When an ex Templar brought some dubious criminal charges against the order, Philip seized the opportunity to have the Grand Master and many prominent members arrested. The Templars’ secret initiation ceremonies bred distrust, and the confessions Philip extracted under torture “revealed” that Templar recruits were required to spit on the cross, deny Christ, worship false idols and indulge in acts of homosexuality: all highly dubious claims that nonetheless resulted in dozens of members being burnt at the stake as heretics. Under duress, Pope Clement V disbanded the Templars, signing over much of their property (like Temple Sowerby in the Eden Valley) to the Knights Hospitaller.

Evidence for the hospice below High Rigg is sketchy, but there is a mention of a “House of St John” in a land bequest to Fountains Abbey in 1210. It is thought the hospice evolved into the inn that stood on the pass for many centuries. It likely lent its dedication to St John’s church, which dates back to the 1500’s (possibly earlier). For many centuries, St John’s was an outlying chapel of the parish of Crosthwaite, Keswick. (It became a parish church in its own right in 1863). It’s a lonely setting for a country chapel, but it serves both the Naddle valley and St John’s in the Vale, and if James Clark’s  Survey of the Lakes of 1778 is anything to go by, the presence of the inn may have been an incentive for the faithful to turn out for worship:

“all the inhabitants of the parish, old and young, men and women, repair to the ale house after Evening Prayer”.

According to Clark, the valley was properly known as the Vale of Wanthwaite but calling it the Vale of St John had already become common practice. In his wonderful parish history, former vicar, Geoffrey Darrall, suggests that the variation, St John’s-in-the-Vale, was first used to differentiate the chapel from St John’s Keswick, when the latter was built in 1838.

By 1845, the chapel had fallen into disrepair to the extent it needed rebuilding. The man who was given the job was a local stonemason who had built many of the area’s dry stone walls and dwellings. His name was John Richardson, and he lived at the end of this footpath.

Beyond Sosgill Bridge, the beck that has been a constant companion takes a wider birth, swinging back for a final parting kiss beneath the copper-bracken clad slopes of Rake How.  Lonscale Fell commands the forward view now, soft purple but for a thin band of snow that defines its pointed eastern peak, the valley at its foot is fleetingly gilded by a shaft of sunlight. Ahead, beneath an intricate tracery of black branches, appears the white-walled haven of Bridge House, the Richardsons’ residence from 1858, when they moved from Stone Cottage on the Naddle side of the Fell.

The path meets the winding lane that climbs the pass. I turn up it, and in no more than a hundred yards, I reach the church. This humble edifice of weathered slate, nestled under High Rigg, in the shadow of Blencathra, looks as if it has been carved from the hillside—an enduring unassuming testament to rural faith.

Originally, the pass served as a corpse road. Anyone who died in the valley had their coffin carried to Crosthwaite for burial. In 1767, the chapel was granted the right to bury its own dead in its own chapel yard. It wasn’t until nine years later that the first burial took place here. A local superstition held that the Devil was waiting to claim the soul of the first interred, and the belief was so strong as to compel all ageing locals to insist they be carried to Crosthwaite when their time came (unless, by chance, someone else had beaten them to the first lot). According to Richardson, that “someone else” was an ailing vagrant who dropped dead on the road. Rather than being bemoaned as burden by the parish saddled with his burial costs, the poor soul met with a hero’s funeral.

In the churchyard, opposite the east window, stands an old gravestone in the shape of a Celtic cross, its edges softened by moss and its face mottled with lichen.  The circle at the centre of the cross holds a Christogram, intwining the letters “I”, “H” and “S” into a gothic motif—iota-eta-sigma—the first three letters in the Greek for Jesus. The foot of the cross broadens into a tablet, which bears the following inscription:

IN LOVING MEMORY OF JOHN RICHARDSON
Of Bridge House
ST JOHN’S IN THE VALE
WHO DIED ON THE 30TH APRIL 1886
Aged 68 Years
ALSO OF GRACE, HIS WIFE
WHO DIED FEBRUARY 11TH 1909
Aged 90 Years

Writing in 1975, Frank Carruthers lamented, “Today (the grave) is seldom visited because memories of John Richardson have faded”. Almost ninety years earlier, the whole valley turned out for his funeral, and they were joined by many, many more from far further afield. For John Richardson was more than a stonemason, and his legacy, more than the humble church in whose shadow he lies.

After rebuilding the church, Richardson built the school next door (now the Carlisle Diocesan Youth Centre), then put down his chisel and took up the position of school master. It was during these years that he gave full reign to another talent—a gift for capturing the rural life of the fells and valleys in a way few others have ever managed.

In 1871, Richardson published Cummerland Talk—being short tales and rhymes in the dialect of that county. A second volume followed five years later, and between them, the books turned Richardson into a minor celebrity. Seamus Heaney has described his own poetry as “the music of what happens”, and this too is what Richardson makes, a celebration of the commonplace, rendered in the everyday parlance of the district and the time, a Cumbrian counterpoint to the writings of his hero, Robbie Burns

Tom an’ Jerry (written forty years before the cartoon when the term meant a drinking den) tells the story of a man and wife, who procure a barrel of ale, which they plan to pay for by selling pints at threepence apiece to their neighbours.

As each decides to sample the ale, the other insists they hand over the requisite threepence. In the absence of any other punters, they carry on like this all evening until they both pass out. When they awake, they find they’ve drunk the barrel dry, and they’ve no means to pay for it as, all night, they were simply swapping the same threepence back and forth.

In “FOR SHAM O’ THE’, MARY!” SES I, the narrator admonishes his wife for spreading gossip, but in his eagerness to express his own disdain for such “clattin’ an’ tattlin’ ‘s aboot nowt”, he manages to repeat every piece of salacious tittle-tattle he’s heard.

The Cockney in Mosedale tells of a farmer chancing upon a strange red-whiskered creature running about the fellside in fear of everything around him: the farmer, his dog, the sheep, and the fells themselves. In his panic, the poor creature gets stuck fast in a “peet-pot”. Fearing it might come to harm if left to its own devices, the farmer leaves it “stack theer as fast as a fiddlepin” while he fodders his flock. Then he hauls it out, ties it up in his hay sheet, and carries it down to Troutbeck station, where he discovers the creature is a cockney, who’d taken the train out of London for the first time and alighted, in the dark, at the wrong station.

By way of an introduction to Sneck Posset, Richardson explains the term:

“The old fashioned mode of courting in the northern counties, which is still common in many places, is for the young man to go to the house where his sweetheart lives, late at night, after all the other members of the family have retired to rest, when gently tapping at the window, the waiting damsel as soon as she has ascertained, by sundry whisperings, that he is the expected swain, admits him. If from any cause she refuses to let him into the house, he is said to have got a ‘Sneck Posset’.”

John used the same mode (albeit with more success) to court Grace, and he tells the story (from her point of view) in It’s Nobbut Me:

By turns comical and romantic, Richardson’s rhymes drip warmth and earthy authenticity.  As he explains in the preface to Volume II, they are “strictly Cumbrian in character and idiom, the author having taken pains to ascertain that the real incidents related actually happened in that county; while in the few pieces which are purely imaginary, he has been careful to preserve the same characteristics.”

He could be reflective too, philosophical even. Carruthers describes him as “the supreme example of one of the popular images of the Lake Country Dalesman—quiet, resolute, kind-hearted and self-effacing”.  In What I’d Wish For, Richardson concludes,

It’s a sentiment I’ll dwell on more than once in the weeks to come, when the country goes into a painful lockdown, and yet the birdsong seems louder and the sky, free of vapour trails, clearer than I have ever known. Such was the wisdom of a man who prized peace of mind over celebrity and chose to live all his life in the parish of his birth, under the vaunting ridges of Blencathra.

It’s a steep pull up High Rigg from the Youth Centre, but the effort pays back handsomely. On this brooding day between seasons, the ridge is a patchwork of grassy paths, rocky turrets, drystone walls, tiny tarns and swathes of scrub in shades of ochre, tan, russet and green. The views are procession of riches: Skiddaw and Blencathra, Clough Head and the Dodds, Castle Rock, Raven Crag and Thirlmere. Helvellyn is capped in snow and wrapped in mist. Skiddaw is brown and snow-free, just as they both were when I stood here in November. Then, the snow marked the onset of winter, now it marks the season’s last stand.

Surely this is where Richardson stood when the muse struck in 1876, for this very picture is the premise for one of his greatest rhymes, the Fell King, which I’ve reproduced in full below; so I’ll leave the last words to John.

(If you’re struggling with the dialect, read it aloud—persistence rewards richly).

THE FELL KING.

By John Richardson of Saint John’s, 1876

Breet summer days war aw gone by
An’ autumn leaves sa’ broon,
Hed fawn fra t’ trees, an’ here an’ theer,
War whurlin’ up an’ doon;
An’ t’ trees steud whidderin’ neàk’t an’ bare,
Shakken wi’ coald an’ wind.
While t’ burds war wonderin’ hoo it was
Neah shelter they could finnd.

Helvellyn, toorin’ t’ fells abeun,
Saw winter creepin’ on,
An’ grummelin’ sed, “Hoo coald it’s grown;
My winter cap I’ll don.”
Clean wesh’t an’ bleach’t, as white as drip,
He poo’t it ower his broo;
An’ than to t’ fells aw roond he sed,
“Put on ye’r neetcaps noo.”

Auld Skiddaw, lap’t i’ heddery duds,
Laal nwotish seem’t to tak:
An’ seun wi’ lood an’ thunnerin’ voice,
Agean Helvellyn spak:
“I say, put on that winter cap,
Broon hill ower-groun wi’ ling;
Rebellious upstart! put it on;
Obey thy lawful king!”

Auld Skiddaw lang hed hanker’t sair
Itsel to be t’ fell king;
An’ Saddleback hed egg’t it on,
Thinkin’ ‘t wad honour bring;
An’ bits o’ profit it mud be,—
Fwok see eneuf o’ that;
When kings an’ girt fwok thriven ur
Their flunkies oft git fat.

Seah, Skiddaw stack it’ hedder up,
An’ pertly sed, “Is yon
Rough heap o’ crags an’ shilly beds,
To tell us what to don?
I’ll freely oan it’s wise eneuf
To hap itsel wi’ snow;
If I was neak’t an’ bare like it
I’d hide mysel an’ aw.

“I’s nut asham’t my heid to show,
Withoot a neetcap on;
An’ claim mair reet to be t’ fell king
Nor a bare hill like yon,
Fra t’ farthest neùks o’ t’ warld fwok come
Fam’t Skiddaw bit to see;
Whoar ten climm up Helvellyn breest,
Ten twenties climm up me!”

With threetnin’ storm, Helvellyn laps
Dark cloods aroond it’ heid;
An’ noo a voice fra t’ clood com oot,
“A bonny king, indeed!
A hill thrown up by mowdiwarps,
An’ cuvver’t ower wi’ ling,
Withoot a crag, withoot a tarn,
Wad mak a nice fell king!

“Laal brag it is for enny man
To climm up Skiddaw side;
Auld wives an’ barnes on jackasses,
To t’ tippy top may ride;
When theer, it’s nut sa’ much they see,
Bit level country roond;
They’re better pleas’t when gangin’ up.
Nor when they’re comin’ doon.

“Bit let them climm Helvellyn side,
If climm’t they nobbut can;
They munnet be auld wives or barnes;
It taks a strang hale man,
To stand on t’ dizzy edge, an’ leuk
Doon t’ screes, whoar Gough was lost;
An’ he’s neah snafflin’ ‘at can say,
Ower Striden edge I cross’t.

“Than what a glorious scene it is
‘At ‘s spread befwore his eyes,
O’ lakes an’ tarns an’ woody deàls.
An’ fells ower fells ‘at rise.
A dozen lakes, an’ twenty tarns,
Ur spread befwore his een;
An’ Skiddaw, like a low black hill,
Far doon to t’ north is seen!”

What mair palaver theer hed been,
It’s hard for yan to tell;
For gnimmelin’ soonds, an’ snarlin’ words.
Noo spread fra fell to fell;
An’ some their caps o’ white don’t on,
While udders went without;
An’ some proclaim’ t Helvellyn king,
While some wad Skiddaw shoot.

Bit noo roond Scawfell Man theer hung,
As midneet black, a clood;
An’ oot fra’t brast a thunner clap,
‘At rwoar’t beàth lang an’ lood:
Than hail an’ snow com whurlin’ doon.
An’ hap’t beàth crags an’ ling;
While t’ fells aw roond, as whisht as mice,
Oan’t Scawfell as their king!

Sources/Further Reading

Richardson, John. 1871: Cummerland Talk. London: John Russell Smith; Carlisle: Geo. Coward.

Richardson, John. 1876: Cummerland Talk (Second Series). London: Bemrose and Sons; Carlisle: G. & T. Coward.

Carruthers, F. J. 1975. The Lore of the Lake Country. London: Robert Hale & Company

Darrall, Geoffrey. 2009. The Story of St John’s-in-the-Vale. Keswick: Piper Publications (available from St John’s Church)