General history: Civil and ecclesiastical divisions

Division of the County, Civil and Ecclesiastical.

The county of Cumberland has from an early period been divided into five districts, called Wards, a term peculiar to the border counties. These wards have always been distinguished by their present names, the Wards of Allerdale above Derwent; Allerdale below Derwent; Cumberland-Ward, Leath-Ward, and Eskdale-Ward.

The ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Carlisle, and a circuit of 15 miles round, was given to St. Cuthbert, Bishop of Durham, and his successors, by King Egfrid, in 685. In the year 1133, King Henry I. erected Carlisle into a see; giving its bishops the jurisdiction of the greater part of Cumberland and Westmorland. The ward of Allerdale above Derwent, is in the diocese of Chester, which see was erected by King Henry VIII. in 1541. The parish of Alston-moor is in the diocese of Durham, and that of OverDenton, is said to have been formerly in the same diocese. There is only one archdeacon under the see of Carlisle, who is styled archdeacon of Carlisle.

In the Liber Regis, that part of Cumberland which is within the see of Carlisle, is divided into only two deaneries, Allerby, Alnedale or Allerdale, and Carlisle; there are now three deaneries, Carlisle, Penrith, and Wigton, and it appears by Mr. T. Denton's MS. that this division had taken place before 1686. The deanery of Carlisle includes the whole of Cumberland and Eskdale wards, except Wigton and Kirkbride; the deanery of Wigton comprises those parishes and the whole ward of Allerdale below Derwent. The deanery of Penrith includes the whole of Leath-Ward except Alstonmoor, which is in the diocese of Durham and deanery of Corbrigg. Camden, on the authority of Wolsey's list, gives the number of parishes in this county as 58. Many chapelries have since that time been deemed parishes. Mr. T. Denton makes the number of parishes 108, including Ennerdale, Eskdale, and Loweswater, which are still deemed chapelries of St. Bees; Cockermouth, Embleton, and Lorton, which are esteemed chapelries to Brigham; and Flimby, but omitting the depopulated parishes of Carlatton and Kirk Cambock.

The following table, which makes the number of parishes 104, corresponds with Nicolson and Burn, except that they treat of Over and Nether-Denton as one parish.

Flimby has been by some esteemed extra-parochial, by others a member of Holme-Cultram. Nicolson and Burn esteem it as a chapel of Camerton, and it is so called in the Liber Regis.