Ganthwaites

A settlement of four households and under thirty people on Gant Fell, keeping sheep and in every ordinary particular an upland family; they appear in the tithe book from its opening, marry within the upland and bury at Harrowgate.

Ties

• attend the March Muster and pay tithe to Harrowgate Priory
• the priory has taken the pact-family view in writing

At the table

The March disputes what they are: the priory holds they are an ordinary pact family with a very old concord; the upper dale says the terms have changed them; a few say they were never a family at all—no evidence separates the three. They leave something on the fell four times a year, keep about two hundred acres unstocked, ring a bell from the house at dusk every day, and never discuss the hill. They courteously turn parties off their standing ground; hired for hard passages in bad weather.