Finsthwaite

The village of Finsthwaite dates back to Viking times. It lies to the west of Windermere in hills surrounded by woodland.

Over the centuries, these woodlands have supplied the furniture and building trades and the local bobbin mill.

There were a number of similar small factories in the area turning millions of wooden bobbins for the Lancashire cotton industry.

With the opening of the nearby bobbin mill in 1835, the forests were converted from the original oak, birch and hazel trees to smaller coppice trees.

Smaller pieces of wood were ideal when producing charcoal, a viable commodity in times past, in the manufacture of gunpowder and smelting iron.

Bark Peeling

Bark from oak trees was used in the tanning industry, and at some points in history, this would have been the biggest economy in the coppice woods.

The tannins – natural chemicals- in oak bark were
vital to the process of treating animal skins to make leather.

The woods around Finsthwaite would have been hives of industry as bark peelers, charcoal burners, and other
woodsmen went about their business with their families.

Finsthwaite is reached via the winding road from the Swan Hotel at Newby Bridge.

In the centre of the village is the church of St Peter, dating from 1874, replacing an earlier church built in 1724.

The design originated as one of the architects’ winning entries to a competition for ‘mountain chapels’ held in 1873 by the Carlisle Church Extension Society.

The church contains a cross made from a plank of wood cut from a pontoon bridge over the river Piave in Italy.

In this lesser-known corner of the Lake District lies a tale filled with romance and mystery.

The tale and intrigue surrounding the churchyard’s most interesting grave is that of the mysterious ‘Clementina Johannes Sobiesky Douglas of Waterside’ who died in May 1771.

After the Jacobite Rising in 1745, a young woman named Christina Johannes Sobieski was taken to the remote Waterside House, just a quarter-mile from Newby Bridge.

She was rumoured to be the illegitimate daughter of Prince Charles Edward Stuart and his mistress, Clementina Walkinshaw.

It is said that Jacobite supporters placed her there for her protection, though their identities were kept secret.

Interestingly, she never tried to hide her name or her royal connection, and was known both then and now as the “Finsthwaite Princess.”

Christina came to live at Waterside House in 1745 and lived there until she died in 1771. You can still visit her grave, marked by a white marble cross in the churchyard at St Peter’s Church, Finsthwaite.

The grave is marked “Clementina Johannes Sobieski Douglas of Waterside”, Some believe she might have been a Polish princess, but many suggest she was indeed the illegitimate daughter of Bonnie Prince Charlie.

The truth about her life and lineage remains a mystery, resting quietly with her.

Nearby, in the woods high above the village, is Finsthwaite Heights capped on the summit by a tower.

Finsthwaite Tower, built by James King of Finsthwaite, ‘To honour the officers, seamen and mariners of the Royal Navy, whose matchless conduct and irresistible valour decisively defeated the fleets of France, Spain and Holland, and promoted and protected liberty and commerce, 1799’.