As to the population of those days, the Rev. Wm. Walker makes the following interesting comments: “In the year 1760 A.D. it contained 164 houses, 766 souls and buries its inhabitants in about fifty years. On this account I make the general reflection: Our Parish is far more opulent than formally, the houses neater and better supported and maintained but 20 years ago the Parish was far more populous. In times of vassalage, there were far more cottages and beggars”. Included in the above figures were Sandside, Storth and Hazelslack with 36 houses and 156 inhabitants.

It has been difficult to account for St. Johns Cross. Funeral parties, on their way to Beetham may well have forded the estuary here, at some far distant time, and would probably halt at St. Johns Cross for rest and refreshment. It is said that they used to kneel here to give thanks for safe arrival after what must have been, at times, a difficult and dangerous crossing. It seems likely that a cross stood here at one time and also that it had some connection with the old Saxon Chapel of St. John’s at Beetham. This Chapel stood near the River Bela, a few hundred yards south-east of where St. Michael’s now stands. That it had a burial ground is evident by the large amount of bones dug up on the site many years ago. There was another St. Johns Cross, which stood between the Chapel and the river. Little more is known of this old Chapel other than it fell to ruin about nine hundred years ago.

It is known that the dead were for many years, brought from Witherslack to Beetham for burial at St. Michael’s but in this case, the crossing would probably be made by ford or boat from Foulshaw to Dixies at Sandside. Such interments went on until 1669 when Witherslack obtained its own church burial ground, thus bringing to an end the need for any crossing of the river.

Arnside and Hazelslack Towers, also a former Dallam Tower, were described as “Military holds”. Traditionally, they are said to have been built between 1370 and 1500 by Lucy, Margaret and Katherine, sisters of Thomas de Thweng, a wealthy family who shared amongst them a fourth part of the Barony of Kendal, Thomas being also at one time “Parson of Beetham”. Some modern antiquarians class them with fifteenth and sixteenth century towers, while others believe them to belong to much earlier time. All that is definitely known about Hazelslack is that it was never completed, and was in ruins by 1811. Dallam is said to have been ruinous in the reign of Henry VIII that is before 1541, and a manor house was built on its site in front of where the present house stands and looking down the Bela towards Whitbarrow Scar. These towers were no doubt intended as protection against the incursions of the Scots and would afford a temporary shelter at such times for the people with their cattle who lived around them.

Storth Sea Bank was built in 1776 along the lower part of the estuary in order to preserve the mosses from the sea and protect a considerable area of land out towards Silverdale. Its first cost of £120 which was paid, in proportion to their holdings, by the owners of “March, moss and turbary grounds within Storth, Arnside and Helslack.” Owing to a fall in the level of the estuary, it no longer serves any purpose, but a part of it may still be seen on the left hand side of the road from Carr Bank to Arnside.

In 1500, a sum of money was raised for the founding of a school at Beetham, but must have proved inadequate. A subscription list dated 25^th April 1620, gives the names of seventeen inhabitants of Storth and Helslack who contributed the sum of £1.6s.3d towards a total of £32.19.1d for the “Building of a school and the use of the master”. The school was eventually built, after some further donations had been acquired in the year 1663, and must have served a wide area. Certain “Tithes of wool and lamb” including those from Sandside, Storth and Helslack went to its upkeep. In 1735, Richard Fell of Storth left £20 to the school. The name survives in “Dick Fell Cottage” at the foot of Guard Hill Road. It is said that this cottage was occupied by a railway guard who worked on the Ulverston-Carnforth railway when it first opened, and thus, unintentionally gave a name to the road.

Storth itself in the seventeenth century was no more than a small fishing village with a few farms lying around it. The “Repository” gives a fairly good picture of life in this and the following century. Occupations were fishing and the gathering of cockles and mussels. Salmon was noted for its quality. We are told “there are shrimps in the sands if they would get proper nets to take them” also that “herrings sometimes visit this coast”. Oats were extensively grown, while hemp and flax were raised for cloth, twine and rope making. Potatoes and other root crops were unknown and hay had to be carefully saved to feed the cattle during winter, though it is worth noting in a district where there is so much holly, that the less prickly leaves formed on the upper part of this tree proved quite a useful source of food for the cattle. Most of them, however, had to be slaughtered in the autumn and some of the beef was salted down for use in the winter.

Sheep were all important and the spinning and weaving of wool were carried out by the women who provided all the clothing. Clogs were the universal footwear. Fuel was peat and wood. Main foods were haverbread and poddish (i.e. oatcakes or oatbread and a sort of porridge). Home brewed ale was drunk at all meals. Other occupations were quarrying and wood and peat cutting. Much of the wood was used for charcoal burning and many of the woods around were bought by the owners of Leighton Furnace which lays a little to the south of Hazelslack. The furnace site does not show evidence of very ancient origin, but it is thought that there may have been a primitive “Bloomery” or charcoal furnace on this spot for some centuries. To quote again from the “repository” “Near St. John’s Cross at the side of the sand, there was an attempt to many years ago to get copper. It was renewed lately and what they did find was very good but it lies in small veins and the shafts go below the level of the tides, so that the expense was great and the scheme frustrated.” This place appears to have been below where “Waterdale” now stands in the region of “Bummesha Bay”. The time would probably be between 1700 and 1750.

From the coming of the Normans, ownership of land and property lay in comparatively few hands, including the crown and various Religious Houses. Wars and political events resulted in it changing hands very frequently but in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries there evolved a new type of landowner in the yeoman or statesman who became enfranchised by the purchase of the rights of ownership, including tithes, etc. The death roll from the bubonic plague (the Black Death) had caused a great shortage of labour and many owners found themselves obliged to sell their land, having no labour to work it.

These Yeomen played an increasingly important part in the affairs of the country, particularly in the north. Much land, however, was still owned by the lord of the manor and continues to be up to the present day.

Among popular pastimes of these days were cockfighting and wrestling. The site of the cockpit is believed to be in a field by “Kellet Cottage”. This ground was formally uncultivated and part of the fell. A primitive type of football was also played and card games were enjoyed in the winter evenings.

There was much intermarriage and little communication with the rest of the country hence the dialect retains a greater number of Saxon words. Though it now appears to be little spoken, a goodly number of dialect words survive in the speech of today. Many old family names still exist, amongst them being Burrow, Fell, Hudson, Newsham, Nicholson, Pearson, Wilson and Woof.

We find in the “Repository” that “Helslack gave to the writer of this book a good wife, Mary, the daughter of Mr. John Hutton. God took her from him in 1768. She and her only Son died martyrs to consumption.” Mary died at the age of 29. Her memorial can be seen in Beetham Church.

The estuary has been a source of interest from earliest times and one quaintly worded description of long ago, reads “Beetham Sands are well adapted for bathing and though there is only water sufficient for this health recreation during three of four of the highest tides of each fortnight, many visitors come here in summer, the air being remarkably salubrious and the scenery in the neighborhood beautifully diversified. The sands are about one mile in length and are sometimes covered with carriages and pedestrians, though, at regular intervals, old Neptune assumes his sway and vessels of varied burthen ride on the flowing tide.”

There was a road over the sands at low tide from Foulshaw to Dixies Inn, which was situated at the end of the road from Milnthorpe and was owned by Misses Wilson of Dallam Tower. Horses and carts crossed regularly and were sometimes caught by the tide with loss of life. An old saying runs … “Kent and Keer have parted many a man and his meer.” A ferry also ran at this point, probably for some hundreds of years and wedding and funeral parties from Witherslack came by this route on their way to Beetham. A ferryman was employed by the Wilsons of Dallam Tower and the charge for crossing, when last in regular use, was3d at low tide and 6d at high tide. In September 1905, a disaster occurred here when the boat carrying ten passengers was swamped, resulting in the loss of six lives. It was heavily loaded and the sea was rough at the time. The victims were members of a party of holidaymakers who had been staying at Low Foulshaw and were returning to Oldham.

There was also a ford at St. John’s Cross connecting Meathop and Ulpha. Presumably this would be made unusable by the erection of the Arnside Viaduct in 1857. There was an alternative right of way provided for pedestrians over the viaduct but this right was abolished many years ago owing to the danger from increased rail traffic.