CLEATOR, a parish in ALLERDALE ward above
Derwent, county of CUMBERLAND, %\ miles (N.) from
Egremont, containing 818 inhabitants. The living is a
perpetual curacy, in the archdeaconry of Richmond,
and diocese of Chester, endowed with £200 private benefaction,
£600 royal bounty, and £800 parliamentary
grant, and in the patronage of T. R. G. Braddyll, Esq.
The church is dedicated to St. Leonard. The manorhouse
is stated to have been burnt, about 1315, by a
party of Scots under the command of James Douglas.
The parish contains coal, limestone, and iron-ore, a
great quantity of lime being burnt and sent into Scotland:
here are also two forges for the manufacture of
spades and other edged tools, besides an extensive establishment
for spinning hemp and tow, making sewingthread,
&c. The mine of iron-ore at Crowgarth is of
a superior description; it is twelve fathoms below the
surface, and the vein of solid ore is from twenty-four to
twenty-five feet in thickness: it was not much workeu
until 1784, but, about 1790 and a few years afterwards,
twenty thousand tons of ore were annually shipped
from Whitehaven to Hull and the Carron works/though
the produce of late has greatly declined. The village
is large, containing a few good houses, besides a number
of cottages occupied by the workmen employed in the
different manufactories: the inhabitants claim a right
of common on the adjacent mountain of Dent. A Roman
causeway formerly passed through the parish, from
Egremont to Papcastle, near Cockermouth, but few
traces of it are at present apparent.