WITHERSLACK, a chapelry in the parish of
BEETHAM, KENDAL ward, county of WESTMORLAND, 7
miles (W.N. W.) from Milnthorpe, containing 477 inhabitants.
The living is a perpetual curacy, in the archdeaconry
of Richmond, and diocese of Chester, endowed.
with £400 private benefaction, and £400 royal bounty,
and in the patronage of the Vicar of Beetham. The
chapel, dedicated to St. Paul, was built and endowed,
in 1664, by Dr. John Barwick, a native of the place, and
Dean of St. Paul's, London, who bequeathed the impro-.
priate rectory of Lazonby, to which his brother, Peter
Barwick, Esq., M.D., added an estate near Kirk-Oswald,
to provide an annuity of £26 to the curate for teaching
forty children, one of £4 for repairing the chapel, and
another of £10 for placing out apprentices and as a
marriage portion to poor maidens within the chapelry.
These allowances have been considerably augmented by.
the increased value of the lands, which now let for about
£400 a year, and the treasurers were enabled, in 1824, ,
to erect a girls' school on the same foundation, and have
given several marriage portions, of £30 and £40 each,
to deserving females. The fishery in the river Belo,
which passes through the chapelry, belongs to the Earl ,
of Derby, who holds his manorial. court at the Derby
Arms, on the second Tuesday after Trinity: the ancient
hall has been converted into a farm-house. About a
mile from the chapel a chalybeate spring was discovered,
and named Holy Well, in 1656, but it has since disappeared.