Named for a tragedy & rocked by a murder, serene Brothers’ Water hides its secrets below the majestic cliffs of Dove Crag. I walk up to the Priest Hole and tell Dovedale’s stories.
The northern finger of Brothers’ Water is a perfect mirror, reflecting the willowy trunks of silver birch and their billowing canopies of summer leaves. An impressionist study in myriad shades of green, backed by the silver elegance of the lake and framed by the lofty pyramids of Caudale Moor and Middle Dodd. The third sister in this sorority of steep chiseled hills, High Hartsop Dodd is just hidden by the shoreside trees of Low Wood. A trinity of roughly symmetrical pyramids is a familar sight to anyone ascending Kirkstone Pass from Patterdale, but the common view has Hartsop Dodd assuming the leftmost position. Here at the water’s edge, Hartsop Dodd is over my shoulder and the northwest ridge of Caudale Moor steps from its shadow to assume its position.
A finely rippled plate of polished pewter mottled yellow and green with reflections of sunlit grass and leaf, the cool expanse of Brothers’ Water is a tranquil idyll, but it owes its name to a tragedy. Originally known as Broad Water, it became Brothers’ Water to commemorate the victims of a drowning. Two siblings took a shortcut across its frozen surface, unaware that a thaw had set in, and the ice was no longer thick enough to support their weight.
According to Harriet Martineau (in her 1855 Guide to the English Lakes), it was a tragedy that played out twice, repeated later with another pair of brothers. An apparent dearth of evidence has led many to assume the story is little more than local folklore, but in his Scafell Hike blog, Raymond Greenhow makes a convincing case that the second set of brothers were John and George Atkinson, who fell through the ice in the winter of 1785/1786. Their father was watching and desperately tried to warn them off, but tragically, they failed to heed his frantic gesticulations. Raymond cites an article dating from the time of their funeral, which suggests the lake was already known locally as Brothers’ Water because a similar drowning had occurred centuries before.
Beyond the lake, the track leads to the oldest building in Patterdale, the sixteenth century farmhouse of Hartsop Hall. From this angle, it looks smaller than it is. Its southwestern wing is obscured by its whitewashed front, replete with narrow windows topped with rounded arches, like those in Norman churches. Two stone-carved rams’ heads above the door give the impression of gargoyles and add to the ecclesiastical air.
In 1835, Hartsop Hall was home to twenty-seven-year-old Thomas Grisedale. This track would have been his walk home after visiting the White Lion pub in Patterdale. On the fateful night of Sunday 8th March, however, he never made it back. His gravestone in Patterdale churchyard says he was “brutally murdered by an unprovoked assassin”.
In the Penrith Observer on Tuesday 22nd July 1952, a correspondent relates the story as told to him by the late Mr Nixon Westmorland.
“On March 8, 1835, two Alston men, Joseph Bainbridge and John Greenwell, went to the White Lion Inn, where they had a quarrel with some of the residents. They left the inn and, on the way back to the mine, they cut themselves thick sticks from the hedge to defend themselves against attack from assailants.
While they were doing this they heard footsteps, and Greenwell, thinking it was one of their opponents, rushed forward and, in the dark, stabbed the man who was coming towards them. He turned out to be Thomas Grisdale, who was returning to his home—Hartsop Hall, where he lived with his parents…
Greenwell and Bainbridge were tried at Westmorland Assizes at Appleby. The latter was acquitted, and Greenwell, who was sentenced to death, was later reprieved and transported.
Mr Westmorland’s mother went from Penrith to Appleby to take Greenwell a clean shirt, because the one he was wearing was bespattered with the victim’s blood, and she thought what a serious thing it was for a man to be tried in a blood-stained shirt.”
A beautifully written and diligently researched account of the story on the Grisedale Family History blog quotes an almost identical account penned in 1903 by Rev. W P Morris, Rector of Patterdale, but the blog then goes on to question whether this was what really happened, citing an eye-witness testimony from the court reports of the day. The witness, George Greenhill (Greenhow in some newspaper reports) was with Thomas Grisedale in the White Lion and testified to seeing Greenwell get into a fight with a man named Rothey. Grisedale stepped in to separate the pair. Bainbridge and Greenwell continued to utter threats and boasted they would fight any two men in the dale. The witness goes on:
“The deceased said very good-naturedly, that if it was daylight he would take both of them, and he would then in the house, if anybody would see fair play. After this Bainbridge and Greenwell became so troublesome, that the landlord put them out. In the course of a little time the latter returned, and was again thrust out, but in these matters the deceased did not interfere. In the mean time the witness and two lads went out of the house with the deceased. Soon after, they saw Bainbridge call Greenwell to the end of the house, and they procured each a stick, about a yard long, and a little thicker than a walking stick. They came running towards these three, who ran out of their way for some distance, when the deceased, having not retreated awhile, said, ‘I have not melt (meddled) with them, why should I run away?’ and stopped. The witness ran on about twenty yards further, and then stopped also. On turning his head, he saw the prisoner Greenwell run up to the deceased, and make a push at his belly, and then at his breast near the neck. The deceased seized the prisoner by the collar and pushed him away, and then put one hand to his belly, and the other to his breast, saying, ‘Oh Lord, I’m killed, he has stabbed me’”.
This statement was corroborated by two other eyewitnesses, John Chapman and Thomas Chapman. After the judge had advised the jury that the distinction between murder and manslaughter rested on provocation, they took just ten minutes to decide on a verdict of wilful murder.
The judge sentenced Greenwell to hang at Appleby on Mon 16th March. His reprieve must have come late indeed as the following Saturday both the Yorkshire Gazette and the Bolton Chronicle reported that his execution had taken place. However, eighteen days later, the Cumberland Pacquet announced that Greenwell’s sentence had been commuted to deportation to New South Wales. The judge had been convinced Grisedale’s death was manslaughter and not murder.
His decision may have been influenced in part by the cause of death. The doctor who attended Grisedale, reported that the victim’s bowels were protruding through the wound, and had been “strangulated” by a manual attempt to compress them. Presumably, a well-wisher or even Grisedale himself had attempted to push them back in. The doctor concluded that the resulting injury as much as the original wound may have been the cause of death.
Another factor may have been the reliability of the witnesses. The court report quoted in the Grisedale Family blog is taken from the Annual Register of the Year 1835, published in 1836, but an account of the proceedings in the Kendal Mercury from the week of the trial, attributes much of the detail to John Chapman’s testimony. This matters perhaps only because eleven days later the Chapman brothers were themselves brought before a magistrate accused of raping a girl on the night of Grisedale’s murder, before visiting the White Lion Inn. The magistrate threw out the capital case for insufficient evidence but fined the Chapmans and held them both to bail over their future good behaviour. Indeed, the report of this incident in the Westmorland Gazette on 28th March 1835 considers it “somewhat extraordinary that the affair did not transpire until after [Greenwell’s trial at] the Assizes at Appleby”.
A third factor might have been the question of provocation. The Kendal Mercury on 21st March 1835 reported:
“We are given to understand that the recent melancholy transaction in the village of Patterdale had its origin in one of those Lowther Treats which have been given throughout this county. The treat for that district was held on Thursday the 5th inst. on which occasion some friends of the opposite party partook of refreshments at another house. In the evening the opposing parties came in contact, and a fight or two took place. We are not aware that the deceased had any share in those broils, but Greenwell had; and the ill feeling engendered that night continued to exist until the Sunday when Grisedale was killed, most probably having been kept alive in the interval by continued drinking and idleness.”
The Lowther Treats were a series of feasts given throughout the county by Lord and Col. Lowther to shore up political support. They consisted of lavish spreads of roast beef and plum pudding and (presumably copious) quantities of home brewed ale. The Mercury damned such political turpitude as deplorable and insisted those responsible should shoulder moral responsibility for the consequences of the debauchery they promoted, urging all right-thinking people to withdraw their support for the Lowthers.
But a Lowther Treat was not the only reason for widespread drunkenness and local tensions. The weekend in question coincided with a payday for the workers of Greenside Mine. At the time, the miners collected their wages, twice a year, from the Angel Inn in Penrith. Many made the journey on foot. Payday weekends often resembled fairs where all the stresses that had built over six months of hard labour and atrocious on-site living conditions were given full vent. You can imagine the scene: scores of rowdy miners eager to let off steam, with half-a year’s wages in their pockets; Patterdale hostelries keen to take their money; but their local clientele, with far less brass to hand, perhaps a little less kindly disposed towards them. Grisedale’s brutal demise put a stop to the bi-annual pay days in Penrith. After that, wages were paid at the mine.
Beyond the hall, the terrain grows wilder. The path splits and I take the right-hand fork that climbs over the foot of Hartsop Above How. A verdant trod, lined with long-grass and bracken, stippled pink with foxgloves, and overhung with the leaves of ash and hawthorn. The gentle hiss of Dovedale Beck drifts up from the valley bottom. I hear that chatter of chaffinches and the sweet song of a blackbird. If you were to embody tranquility in a place, it would be right here right now. The rowdy violence that led to Grisedale’s untimely demise now belongs to another world—one long departed from Patterdale and especially Dovedale.
In 1946, the country received another kind of “Lowther Treat”. At the time, Brothers’ Water, High Hartsop Hall and some of the surrounding fells belonged to the Lowther Estate. Faced with paying death duties for the late Lord Lonsdale, the Estate put the land up for sale. The government took the opportunity to procure it for the nation, placing it under the care of the National Trust.
There is drama here still, but it is of a natural and inspiring kind. Across the beck, the long ridge of Stangs protrudes, green and gnarly like some gargantuan antediluvian crocodile, while above it, the sun spotlights the dale’s crowning glory—the breathtaking precipice of Dove Crag. Eventually, the path crosses the beck and leads up into the feral wilderness of Huntsett Cove, the terrain growing rockier and more mountainous. Here trees give way to large boulders and stone outcrops rise from the foliage like preludes to the sheer wall of cliff that rises ahead. Carved by ice and the passage of imponderable time, Dove Crag is a skyward ascension of pillars and ribbed vaults: temple-like—humbling and uplifting.
The path becomes a rocky ladder climbing steeply beside formidable crags into Houndshope Cove. Just before a tiny tarn, a huge boulder marks the junction with a much fainter path, not much more than a sheep trod, that seems to disappear into the precipitous rocks.
Two of the historic features which Hartsop Hall boasts are: a garderobe, a castle-style privy that suggests the house might once have been fortified; and a priest hole, which suggests that the Elizabethan owners were catholics, prepared to hide priests from the zealous protestant authorities hell-bent on their persecution. The Priest Hole is also the name given to a cave in the cliffs of Dove Crag. It is a natural feature, and its denominational associations are purely metaphorical, although undoubtedly would have made an excellent hiding place for clergymen of the Old Religion.
The cave is where this side path leads, climbing up among the boulders and traversing the steepening slope. After a short while, the way ahead looks blocked by a wall of crag. A narrow scree gully ascends to where a good path traverses above the wall, but the ascent looks steep and loose. Fortunately, straight ahead, there is a breach in the wall. A sketchy semblance of a path heads up to a rock step, which proves easy to scale. It leads to flatter grassier ground and climbs gently to the cave’s entrance.
The Priest Hole is no longer a well-kept secret. It is now a popular wild-camping spot and graces many a bucket list. Sadly, not all its visitors abide by the code and litter can be a problem. It looks magnificent from the outside, a small wall, narrowing the entrance and providing shelter for inhabitants. I approach with a little apprehension, hoping the romantic vision won’t be sullied by detritus. It contains a solitary sleeping bag and a mat, but the neatness of their arrangement suggests they haven’t been abandoned. It’s early yet. Perhaps the owner is about their morning ablutions, or perhaps a climber has bivouacked here overnight and is already scaling the cliff. I hope I’m right. I leave it undisturbed and perch outside to sip coffee and drink in the astounding aspect (half expecting the occupant to reappear at any moment).
The view sweeps down over Dovedale to the southern shore of Brothers’ Water with the steep straight edge of Hartsop Dodd rising beyond. To the northwest, I gaze over the green spine of Hartsop Above How to the slate-grey eminence of Place Fell. In between and hidden from view lie the village of Patterdale and the White Lion Inn. Nestled between Sheffield Pike, Greenside, and Raise, are the old mine workings. Greenside mine closed in 1962, but its heyday was long behind it. When the miners left the valley, its hostelries greeted a new breed of visitor, who came to explore these hills not for their mineral wealth, but for the physical and spiritual rewards exposure to such majestic natural wonders can bring. Many fellwalkers were, and still are, inspired by a set of guidebooks, produced as a love-letter to these slopes and summits—The Pictorial Guides to the Lake District. Alfred Wainwright began work on the first of these, The Eastern Fells in the autumn of 1952, and the very first chapter he wrote was the one on Dove Crag.
Sources / Further Reading
The Grisedale Family blog gives a beautifully written and diligently researched account of the Grisedale murder.
https://grisdalefamily.wordpress.com/tag/patterdale
Raymond Greenhow provides fascinating account of the truth behind the story of how Brothers’ Water got its name.
https://scafellhike.blogspot.com/2015/11/brothers-water-monument-in-landscape.html?m=1
Wainwright Archivist, Chris Butterfield tells the story of Wainwight’s first Pictorial Guide, The Eastern Fells.
Richard Jennings provides a great step-by-step guide to this magnificent route to the top of Dove Crag, and talks about some of the industrial features that can still be spied among the rocks and undergrowth. Richard’s route carries on over Little Hart Crag and High Hartsop Dodd. I went the other way over Hart Crag and Hartsop Above How. Both provide fine Dovedale circulars.