St John's Church, Croglin 

Skirting the Pennines leads the way to Croglin, on the swiftly flowing river of that name. Wordsworth wrote:

Down from the Pennine Alps,
how fiercely sweeps
Croglin, the Eden's tributary!

The name CROGLIN (the river) is Scandinavian and is derived from krokr - 'bend' and linn - 'pool'. There were people living in Croglin in the Bronze Age times (1600 - 600 B.C.). One of the moulds they used for making spear heads was found in 1883 (and is now on display at Tullie House). The village was burned by the Scots in May 1346. It has had a church since Norman times, and its Rectors can be named since 1294. Croglin was originally apart of the Barony of Gilsland. Its lordship passed through the family of Robert de Vallibus and was held by the de Hastings family from 1214 until it came to the Whartons (of Wharton, Westmorland) in 1330. The Whartons were great Puritans and during the Commonwealth period nominated John Rogers, a Presbyterian, to the Living. At the Restoration (1662 A.D.) he refused to conform to the Prayer Book and became the Minister of Parkhead Chapel in the parish of Kirkoswald.

The Churches

The old church which had some Norman stonework in it, was very dilapidated and demolished in 1878, (See the photograph of the old Church to your right as you enter the church). The architect for the old Church was J. Howison of Edinburgh. The present Church to St. John the Baptist was built in 1878 at a cost of £900. and built slightly to the North of the old Church. Outside the present church is the tomb of Robert, the Bishop of Carlisle who died in 1278. The Church Registers go back to 1644, but the first pages are palimpsest (that is to say, ones in which older writing has been erased and the page re-used). There is also a very old and interesting Churchwardens' Book, with records of the Accounts of the Wardens in the days before Parish Councils came into being. (The older records are now deposited at the County Records Office, Carlisle).

Things to note are:- as you enter the porch, notice there the list of Rectors going back to 1293. Entering the inner porch door you will find a grave slab of a woman named 'Hisabella' (Probably late Norman, 1250-1300). The other stones came from the old Church. The East Window, featuring the Ascension of our Lord, by Lavers Westlake is a Memorial to the Rev'd Edward Bowman who was Rector here from 1848 to 1875. In the Churchyard (S. E. of the Chancel) is a grave slab found during building operations, and assumed to be from the tomb of Robert de Chause, Bishop of Carlisle, who died in 1278 and who is said to have had family connections with Scarrowmanwick. Near to this slab is the stone effigy of a lady who is thought to be one of the Wharton family, who were Lords of the Manor from the 14th Century until 1731. There is a very similar effigy in Cumrew Parish Church. The two Bells in the Bell Tower bear the date 1772. The Fitzroy Prints

The Prints in Croglin Church were probably, when they were first purchased, thought of as an economical way of decorating the Church, but they are the work of very fine designers, and are now quite rare, so they are something to be treasured. The Fitzroy Pictures were published by George Bell but were produced by the Fitzroy Picture Society, which was founded by A.H. Mackmurdo (1851-1943) in the 1890's. It was associated with the Century Guild, also started by Mackmurdo in 1882 "to render all branches of art the sphere no longer of the tradesman, but of the artist". Associated with him were Selwyn Image (1849 - 1930), Heywood Sumner, Christopher Whall, Louis Davis etc. They were deeply influenced by John Ruskin and William Morris, they all designed stained glass, and they form an important element in the Arts and Crafts Movement.

Some of the Fitzroy Prints are to be seen at the William Morris Gallery, Walthamstow, London, coming to them as part of the Mackmurdo Gift in 1942. They also have a brochure advertising the prints, dated October 1896. This shows that the triptych of the Nativity is by Heywood Sumner and reproduced in colours by Jas. Akerman. The price was 16s, 6d. for the set of three pictures, and it was to be ready in January 1897. It was designed for use in churches and mission rooms. 'Jesus Hominum Salvator' (Jesus the Saviour of Men) was a set of three designs by Selwyn Image, the Annunciation, the Sermon on the Mount and the Agony in the Garden (the last to be ready in February). These cost 4s. 6d. each on stout paper but mounted one stretcher and varnished they were 7s. 6d. each. They could also be purchased mounted on linen, eyeletted and varnished for 5s. 6d. each. They could be framed (as at Croglin) with 1 inch black reed and glazed for about 9s. Mackmurdo was a famous architect and an early exponent of Art Nouveau. Image was a priest, stained glass designer and writer of carols (two in the Oxford Book of Carols). Other village buildings

Opposite the church is an old rectory pele-tower. The 1914-18 war memorial is just outside the church door. The pub is 'The Robin Hood Inn' and down the road from it is the wooden hut which serves as a village hall. In the quarry beyond the church was found, in 1883, a mould for making spearheads, probably dating back to about 2000 B.C. It was Croglin Watty who, in the dialect poem by Cumberland's bard Robert Anderson, was hired at Carlisle Fair by the Carlisle miser Margery Jackson.

The most famous story connected with Croglin is that of the Croglin Vampire. It appears in Augustus Hare's The Story of my life and purports to have been told by Captain Fisher, whose family owned Croglin Grange. The house was let to two brothers and a sister who were excellent tenants. One summer night the sister was attacked by a creature with 'a hideous brown face with flaming eyes' which got into her room and bit her in the throat. She screamed, and the creature fled. The three went to Switzerland while she recovered but returned later to Croglin. The following March the creature again appeared at her window. One of the brothers managed to shoot it in the leg as it fled, but it scrambled over the churchyard wall and disappeared into a family vault. The vault was opened the next day and the contents of many coffins were discovered, horribly mangled and distorted, scattered over the floor. Only one coffin remained intact, and it, as might be expected, held the brown, withered, shrivelled, mummified and hideous figure with the marks of a recent pistol shot in one leg.
Only Augustus Hare records the strange tale of the Croglin Vampire, and no Croglin Grange ever stood near the churchyard wall!