Garsdale

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This website has been established to celebrate the valley of Garsdale.

Local events will be advertised here (free), as will local businesses and services.       

Events:

See the Village Hall page for future events at the Village Hall.                  Garsdale Webcam and weather: >>>>

Garsdale has formed a First Responders group.  If you are interested, the details are here: >>>>>

For further details of what is going on in the Sedbergh area, see the "Lookaround" available in Sedbergh shops,
       or try this link: http://www.sedberghlookaround.org.uk

This page will feature the history of various houses in Garsdale.

The pictures show Slack Cottage as it was 50 years ago and as it is now. It was also known as West Slack, Billies, Bilses or Billows.  In the late 1600s, John Thistlethwaite lived here.  When he died in 1691, he left his house in trust for his young son, Henry, but Henry seems never to have lived here.  William & Isabel Nelson lived here from 1707 to at least 1713 with their children William & Hannah.  William Raw lived here at least 1738-41, William & Mary Nelson sometime before 1763, then William Raw’s son John and wife Isabella and children Ann & William at least from 1779 to 1783.  Other occupants include Hannah Raw and her daughter Mary (born 1798, father was Leonard Harker),  Dorothy Capstick in 1814, George Staveley, then Robert & Mary Crowney in 1818,  Edmund Winn in 1831, and Thomas & Eleanor Capstick in 1841.  The property was owned by James Hutchinson of Slack, then by his daughter, Sarah, who married Revd Matthew Parrington (was he a descendant of Thomas Parrington?).  James Inman was owner (but not occupier) of Slack Cottage from 1840 onwards, and it was let to Leonard & Isabella Dodd with children Eleanor, Isabella, Leonard and Sarah.  Leonard senior was a Methodist local preacher from the late 1830s to his death in 1879.  His gravestone can be found just inside St John’s church gates (on the right near the wall) with this inscription:
“For upwards of forty years as a Primitive Methodist Local Preacher, he travelled this and neighbouring dales preaching the gospel of salvation through Christ Jesus to his perishing fellow men, many of whom will doubtless be the crown of his rejoicing in the day of the Lord”.
In June 1853, daughter Eleanor married Rev James Jackson who became President of the Primitive Methodist Conference in 1897.  Their son James Dodd Jackson published two books of short stories set in Garsdale:  “Twixt Moor and Mead” and “The People of the Haven”.  The story about a big flood in Garsdale was written several years before the real flood of August 8th 1889.  
Read the fiction story here >>>>>>  It is surprisingly accurate in its depiction of flood conditions.
In 1881 Slack Cottage was uninhabited, but from 1891 to 1898, Amos and Sarah Richardson  lived here.  In the Great Flood of 1889, they suffered severe flood damage.  In 1901 the cottage was not lived in.  Occupants in the 1920s included William & Mrs Hunter with sons Andy & Billy; then Mrs Hall.  In 1939 Dick & Polly Handley moved here with their son Fred (brother of Frank at Longholme).  Duke Harper owned the property (probably his wife, Mary Haygarth’s money) and left it to Ellen Cowperthwaite when he died in 1950?  Dick & Ellen Cowperthwaite retired here from Thwaite Head Farm in 1955, and ownership passed to their son John when Ellen died in 1973.  The cottage was let to Kaare & Irene Bergerud, then was sold to Greg & Chris Williams who lived here from 197? to 1981.  The Maddocks family lived here from 1981 to 19??  Subsequent owners include Paul & Judith Beeley, with children Edward & Helena.  The property was sold in 2005 and has undergone substantial renovation inside, though the exterior of the original cottage has not changed much.