SEBERGHAM, a parish in the ward of CUMBERLAND, and county
of CUMBERLAND, comprising the townships of Church,
or Low Sebergham, and Castle, or High, Sebergham,
and containing 903 inhabitants, of which number,
338 are in the township of Church-Sebergham, Similes,
and 565 in that of Castle-Sebergham, 6 miles,
(S. E. by E.) from Wigton. The living is a perpetual
curacy, in the archdeaconry and diocese of Carlisle, endowed
with £200 private benefaction, and £400 royal
bounty, and in the patronage of the Dean and Chapter
of Carlisle. The church, dedicated to the Virgin Mary,
occupies the site of an ancient hermitage; it was repaired
in 1774, and again in 1785. In this parish a
considerable quantity of limestone is quarried and
burned} there are also extensive mines of coal, and a
powerful mineral spring. Near the church, the river
Caldew is crossed by a bridge, erected in 1689, by Alexander
Denton, one of the justices of the common pleas;
and about a mile below it is Bell bridge, a structure
of one arch, built in 1772, near the site of an ancient
one demolished by a great flood in 1771.