Jubilee Digests [Hist]

Jubilee Digests

We aim to gather a set of historical facts for each of the 340 towns and villages into which Cumbria is divided for VCH purposes, using a limited set of specified sources. The aim is to summarise aspects of each community’s history from the earliest times to the present day. 

Each ‘Jubilee Digest’ will contain the following:

Name of place:  status (i.e. whether ancient parish, township or chapelry); parish, ward and historic county in which it lay; modern local government boundary changes

Acreage of administrative unit and extent of common moor or fell, with date of enclosure

Population: overview of number of inhabitants from 1801 to 2001

Landownership: summary of manorial descent (if known); other major estates (if known)

Economic activity other than farming (i.e. mines, quarries, manufacturing, markets etc)

Places of worship both Established Church and nonconformist

Schools and other institutions, such as libraries, almshouses, village halls

NEW: COMPLETED DIGESTS CAN NOW BE ACCESSED THROUGH OUR INTERACTIVE MAP OF CUMBRIA 

Writing a Jubilee Digest

Guidance on researching and writing the digests can be found in the Jubilee Digest Briefing Notes:

Jublilee Digests Briefing Note for Cumberland and Westmorland

Jubilee Digest Briefing Note for Cartmel and Furness

Jubilee Digest Briefing Note for Sedbergh and Dent

A number of sources required for producing a Jubilee Digest can be found on the CCHT website. This includes the Census figures for Cumberland and Westmorland, which can be accessed here.

To view the lists of enclosure awards and the availability of the 1851 Religious Census you will need to log-in and go to the members' home page. 

 Information for the digests should be entered on Form 3, using a separate for for each place. Please also complete the checklist of sources which follows the form: Form 3 & Sources Checklist

Volunteers can view the townships/parishes for which Jubilee Digests are being written. Those that have been allocated are highlighted in yellow.

 Anyone wishing to work on a place that has not been allocated should contact Sarah Rose.

Cary's Map 1816

Unless otherwise indicated, the Jubilee Digests are illustrated by extracts from Cary's New Map of England and Wales, with Part of Scotland, Second Edition 1816.  This map was printed at the scale of one inch to five miles, and was based on the surveys of Westmorland by Thomas Jefferys (surveyed 1768, published 1770) and Cumberland by Thomas Donald (surveyed 1770/1, published 1774), carried out at the scale of one inch to the mile.  Privately produced maps such as these, and Christopher Greenwood's one inch to the mile resurvey of  Cumberland (published 1823) and Westmorland (1824), were eventually superseded by those of the Ordnance Survey, which reached Westmorland in 1856.