DARK DEEDS AND DECLINE: FRITH HALL, ULPHA.

Photograph by Bill Birkett

Standing high above the Duddon, dark and jagged against the skyline, the ruins of Frith Hall lie within the shadowy territory of the Gothic novel. From late mediaeval hunting lodge to farmstead and hostelry of infamous repute finally crumbling into picturesque ruin, its history remains elusive, the subject of speculation, tall tales, rumours of smuggling, intrigue and death. Situated on the northern shoulder of Ulpha Park, overlooking the middle and lower sections of the Duddon and northwards to the grey ramparts of the high fells, it gives the impression of having emerged from the native rock, its west gable with towering chimney stack rising defiantly to three storeys.

Built probably in the late 16th century by the Huddleston family of Millom Castle, it served as a hunting lodge, overlooking the deer park of Ulpha, which itself was established considerably earlier. The first recorded mention is in the schedule of the property of Alicia de Hudleston, in 1337, in which it is stated, ‘Alice holds the Manor of Millom of the said John (her son) . . . including a Park and another Park called Ulpha.’ The name ‘frith’ in Old English refers to a wood or a clearing in a wood. It is also linked to ‘keeping frith’ the practise of giving fields a rest by taking animals to rough frith fields for a time in the spring.

Ulpha Park was part of the great Forest of Millom which covered the entire Duddon valley, extending from Hardknott, under Scafell Pike to where it marched with the Forest of Copeland. However, by the 18th century the process of woodland clearance was well advanced. The antiquarians Joseph Nicholson and Richard Burn, in their 1777 account of the Counties of Westmorland and Cumberland, describe the ground to the west of Frith Hall, the manor and township of Thwaites, as being mountainous and stony ‘but in several parts and parcels… inclosed by the inhabitants from the barren waste of the fells… and were of old called thwaites, sometimes with the addition of their quality, as Brackentwaite, of bracken or ferns growing there, Sieveythwaite, of sieves or rushes, and such like: and in general denotes any parcel of land from which the wood has been grubbed up, inclosed and converted into tillage.’ Even so, the remaining forest was still extensive and provided the raw materials for a number of important industries.

The absence of records relating to Frith Hall have caused some debate amongst historians, not least concerning its relationship with Ulpha Old Hall, the ruins of which lie a kilometre to the north west, strategically situated above the ravine of Holehouse Gill at the foot of the Dunnerdale Fells. The Old Hall was probably built in the early 16th century, later than the days of the pele towers, but bearing some echo of their form. All that now remains is an east-facing wall with doorway and three other walls at ground floor level only. It is possible that Frith Hall replaced Ulpha Old Hall when the later became too old and austere for comfort.

The wide and unchallenged power of the Huddlestons as lords of Millom and masters of Ulpha Park came to an end with the victory of the Parliamentary forces in the English Civil War. Their Royalist sympathies resulted in a sudden and severe decline in their fortunes. By the close of the 17th century Frith Hall was occupied as a farmhouse and tavern for traffic on the packhorse roads, while Ulpha Old Hall became a quarry for new buildings in the area. Members of the locally important Casson family are recorded as being established at Frith Hall in the early 18th century and in 1756 William Singleton leased Commonwood Quarry and gave his residence as Frith Hall. At this time Singleton held the lordship of the manor and the manorial court was held at Frith Hall ‘the hostelry on the old coach road from Mill Bridge at the bottom of Holehouse Gill to Millom’.

It is curious that a bridle way that leaves the Duddon Valley below Frith Hall and winds its way over the shoulder of Great Stickle to Broughton Mills is termed Gauger Gate on the Ordnance Survey map of 1860. A ‘gauger’ was the 18th century name for a collector of taxes, particularly associated with the tax on whiskey, and suggests that this was the route taken between the Blacksmiths Arms and Frith Hall. Like all routes to and from the coast, it was used by smugglers as well as honest carriers. The main commodity was wool but many diversified into contraband. The Isle of Man was then a notorious centre for smugglers presenting the Board of HM Customs with an impossible task in defending the more isolated stretches of the Cumbrian coastline from the persistent and ingenious approaches of the denizens of that 'warehouse of frauds'. The Board's Whitehaven representative reported that the town and country were 'mostly supplied with brandy, rum, tea, tobacco, soap and other high duty goods illegally imported'. It is therefore safe to assume that strong drink was liberally and cheaply available at Frith Hall, with accounts that midnight revels occasionally descended into violence. In 1736 it is reported that ‘William Marshall, sojourner, dyed at Frith Hall on the 10th October’. By all accounts his death was either the result of a drunken brawl or murder, with popular belief favouring the latter. Rumours that his remains had failed to reach consecrated ground in Ulpha churchyard, but instead had been unceremoniously deposited close to the Hall, inevitably led to whispers that his inebriate spirit now haunts the spot.

Frith Hall had also gained notoriety as a local ‘Gretna Green’ where runaway marriages were casually performed. The origins of this probably lie in the well-known story of how, in 1730, a parson gathered together seventeen couples at Frith Hall to perform the wedding ceremony. Rather than elopements, this suggests that an earlier customary practice of forming marriage contracts, without the participation of the church, was still in full swing in the fells of Furness and indeed elsewhere, and was no doubt compounded by the fact that Ulpha was one of the poorest curacies in north west England. In a letter from Henry Holmes of Drigg to the Bishop of Chester he reports that the church at Ulpha ‘…has been without a curate for the space of ten months past, during which time (I hear) the Sabbath has not been kept so holy as it ought but many of the inhabitants (as I am informed) have lived more like heathens than Christians’. Wordsworth speaks of Ulpha as ‘an unwealthy mountain benefice’ where parsons eked out their stipend by a little farming and teaching, and Harriet Martineau as late as 1860 described Ulpha as ‘one of those primitive places where the old manners of the district may be traced more clearly than in most roadside settlements.’ By this date, however, Frith Hall had been long abandoned.

Standing within the ruins of Frith Hall today, it is difficult to imagine the fine 16th century house, its rendered walls rising to three storeys, surrounded by native woodland from which the gentlemen of the Huddleston clan rode out to the chase. Perhaps less so the Frith Hall of the 18th century, windows glowing with the light from the vast fireplaces. No doubt by now a little decrepit, but a welcome sight to the overladen packhorses arriving under cloak of darkness. Slow decades of decay followed and by the mid 19th century the slates had fallen and the masonry been plundered. The roofless shell has since been colonization by ivy and elder, jackdaws nest in the alcoves and wrens creep mouselike through the spaces in the walls. A place that was three centuries ago central to the community now sits at the margins, not only an intriguing relic, but also a quiet and compelling presence within the landscape.

First published in ’Cumbria’ magazine January 2023.