Hilton is a village in
Cumbria
Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial county in North West England. It borders the Scottish council areas of Dumfries and Galloway and Scottish Borders to the north, Northumberland and County Durham to the east, North Yorkshire to the south-east, Lancash ...
, England, in the civil parish of
Murton, about east of
Appleby-in-Westmorland
Appleby-in-Westmorland is a market town and civil parish in Westmorland and Furness, Cumbria, England, with a population of 3,048 at the 2011 Census. Crossed by the River Eden, Appleby is the county town of the historic county of Westmorland. ...
and at an elevation of . In 1870-72 the
township
A township is a form of human settlement or administrative subdivision. Its exact definition varies among countries.
Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, this tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Canad ...
had a population of 253. It has a
rural economy, with much grazing of sheep, though the past was also home to
lead mining
Lead () is a chemical element; it has symbol Pb (from Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cut, lead ...
.
History
Hilton was the birthplace of
Christopher Bainbridge
Christopher Bainbridge ( 1462/1464 – 14 July 1514) was an English cardinal. Of Westmorland origins, he was a nephew of Bishop Thomas Langton of Winchester, represented the continuation of Langton's influence and teaching and succeeded him in ...
(c.1464–1514), Cardinal and
Archbishop of York
The archbishop of York is a senior bishop in the Church of England, second only to the archbishop of Canterbury. The archbishop is the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of York and the metropolitan bishop of the province of York, which covers the ...
(where he was the direct predecessor of
Thomas Wolsey
Thomas Wolsey ( ; – 29 November 1530) was an English statesman and Catholic cardinal (catholic), cardinal. When Henry VIII became King of England in 1509, Wolsey became the king's Lord High Almoner, almoner. Wolsey's affairs prospered and ...
). Bainbridge was closely related to the local families of
Langton, Machell and Blenkinsop.
By the end 19th century, Hilton had a population of around 300 in an area of 4,984 acres there were many lead mines nearby and a
smelt mill
Smeltmills were water-powered mills used to smelt lead or other metals.
The older method of smelting lead on wind-blown bole hills began to be superseded by artificially-blown smelters. The first such furnace was built by Burchard Kranich at ...
was situated in the village.
In 1856 the ''St. John the Baptist Church'' was constructed in the area between Hilton and
Murton which features a three-tier
pulpit
A pulpit is a raised stand for preachers in a Christian church. The origin of the word is the Latin ''pulpitum'' (platform or staging). The traditional pulpit is raised well above the surrounding floor for audibility and visibility, accesse ...
. Since the 1980s much of the previously
common land
Common land is collective land (sometimes only open to those whose nation governs the land) in which all persons have certain common rights, such as to allow their livestock to graze upon it, to collect wood, or to cut turf for fuel.
A person ...
of the village has been owned by the
Ministry of Defence
A ministry of defence or defense (see American and British English spelling differences#-ce.2C -se, spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is the part of a government responsible for matters of defence and Mi ...
as part of the
Warcop Training Area
The Warcop Training Area (WTA) is a UK Ministry of Defence military training area near the village of Warcop in Cumbria. Part of the Defence Training Estate, the area consists of approximately of MoD freehold land.[< ...]
which has been expanded extensively over the years.
Watercourses
Hilton
Beck
Beck David Hansen (born Bek David Campbell; July 8, 1970), known mononymously as Beck, is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer. He rose to fame in the early 1990s with his Experimental music, experimental and Lo-fi mus ...
flows through the village. It combines water from Scordale, with its head at Hilton Fell, and Swindale, with its head at Burton Fell. Although the water quality is good on several measures, it is polluted with lead from former mining activities. Water from the beck powered a smelt mill at and a corn mill at .
The mill bridge across the beck is
Grade II listed
In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...
.
[
]
Hilton Mine
Some to the northeast of Hilton, between Hilton Fell and Murton Fell in Scordale, is the Hilton Mine . Initially it worked for galena
Galena, also called lead glance, is the natural mineral form of lead(II) sulfide (PbS). It is the most important ore of lead and an important source of silver.
Galena is one of the most abundant and widely distributed sulfide minerals. It crysta ...
(lead ore) in the nineteenth century by the London Lead Company
The London Lead Company was an 18th and 19th century British lead mining company. It was incorporated by royal charter. Strictly, it was The Company for Smelting Down Lead with Pitcoal.
Origins
The company was chartered in 1692 to investors who ...
, it was later worked under different owners for barium
Barium is a chemical element; it has symbol Ba and atomic number 56. It is the fifth element in group 2 and is a soft, silvery alkaline earth metal. Because of its high chemical reactivity, barium is never found in nature as a free element.
Th ...
minerals, baryte
Baryte, barite or barytes ( or ) is a mineral consisting of barium sulfate (Ba S O4). Baryte is generally white or colorless, and is the main source of the element barium. The ''baryte group'' consists of baryte, celestine (strontium sulfate), ...
s and witherite
Witherite is a barium carbonate mineral, Ba C O3, in the aragonite group. Witherite crystallizes in the orthorhombic system and virtually always is twinned. The mineral is colorless, milky-white, grey, pale-yellow, green, to pale-brown. The spec ...
in the early twentieth century. It also was a rare source of yellow coloured fluorite
Fluorite (also called fluorspar) is the mineral form of calcium fluoride, CaF2. It belongs to the halide minerals. It crystallizes in isometric cubic habit, although octahedral and more complex isometric forms are not uncommon.
The Mohs scal ...
in the UK.The Pennines and Shap
section "Hilton Mine", ''www.rock-site.co.uk''
See also
*
Listed buildings in Murton, Cumbria
References
{{authority control
Villages in Cumbria
Murton, Cumbria