Today is Westmorland Day, so 10 facts about this historic English county.
Westmorland is a historic county in North West England, which included parts of the Lake District and the Vale of Eden. The town of Kendal was also part of the county.
It was originally called Westmoringaland, meaning 'the land of the people of the western moors,' which was meant to distinguish them from the people of the eastern moors on the other side of the Pennines. However, the modern name is actually from Westmerieland, a name used in the 12th century, referring to meres (lakes) rather than moors.
It existed as a county between the 12th century and 1974, when it was subsumed into Cumbria.
It isn’t in the Domesday Book. In 1086, the area was considered to be half in Yorkshire and half in Scotland.
The county town was Appleby-in-Westmorland, known at the time simply as Appleby. Today it is a market town with a population in 2011 of 3,048. There is a Norman castle there (privately owned) and a Grade I listed church. A Horse fair is held there on the first weekend of June.
The highest point in Westmorland is Helvellyn, with an elevation of 950 metres/3,116 ft. Helvellyn is the third highest mountain in England and the name means “pale yellow moorland”. William Wordsworth and John Keats wrote poetry about it, and a stone tablet on the summit commemorates the occasion when a small plane landed there in 1926.
In the same year, the area was granted a coat of arms and a Flag. Both feature two red lines from the arms of the de Lancaster family, barons of Kendal, and a stylised Apple tree from the thirteenth-century seal of the Borough of Appleby. The coat of arms includes the head of a ram belonging to the local Herdwick breed. On its forehead, the ram has a shearman's hook, a tool used in handling wool.
According to the 1971 census, Westmorland was the second least populated administrative county in England, after Rutland.
Notable people from the area include Sir Thomas Strickland, known for carrying the Flag of St George at the Battle of Agincourt, and William Parr, 1st Baron Parr of Kendal, who was Catherine Parr’s grandfather.
The name still survives in the area as Westmorland and Furness unitary authority which covers the Lake District and Cumbrian coast; local newspaper the Westmorland Gazette, Westmorland General Hospital in Kendal and numerous sports teams and associations.
Beta
(Combat Team Series #2)
Steff was abducted by an evil alien race, the Orbs, at fourteen. Used as a weapon for years, he eventually escapes, but his problems are just beginning. How does a man support himself when his only work experience is a paper round and using an Orb bio-integrated gun?
Warlord is an alien soldier who knows little but war. When the centuries-old conflict which ravaged his planet ends, he seeks out another world where his skills are still relevant. There are always wars on Earth, it seems. However, none of Earth's powerful armies want him.
Natalie has always wanted to visit England and sees a chance to do so while using her martial arts skills, but there are sacrifices she must make in order to fulfil her dream.
Maggie resorted to crime to fund her sister's medical care. She uses her genetic variant abilities to gain access to the rooms of wealthy hotel guests. The Ballards look like rich pickings, but they are not what they seem. When Maggie targets them, little does she know that she is walking into a trap.
Hotel owner Hamilton Lonsdale puts together a combat team to pit against those of other multi-millionaires. He recruits Warlord, Natalie, Maggie and Steff along with a trained gorilla, a probability-altering alien, a stockbroker whose work of art proved to be much more than he'd bargained for, a marketing officer who can create psionic forcefields, a teleporting member of the landed gentry, and a socially awkward fixer. This is Combat Team Beta.
Steff never talks about his time with the Orbs, until he finds a woman who lived through it, too. Steff believes he has finally found happiness, but it is destined to be short-lived. He is left with an unusual legacy which he and Team Beta struggle to comprehend; including why something out there seems determined to destroy it.
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