“The ladies of Wasdale they formed a Committee

“Some knitting and sewing to do.

“Was there no khaki? They thought it a pity,

“Our soldiers should be clad all in blue.

This is the first verse of an amusing ditty, entitled The Ladies’ Committee, written at the start of World War One by the Rev John Hodgson, who was vicar of Nether Wasdale 1892-1920.

He also wrote two further poems – The Wasdale Brigade and Soldiers Farewell to Wasdale – and over 100 years later Philip Windsor, of Wasdale, had set these words to music and performed them for those gathered in the old schoolroom at Netherwasdale to mark the first Wasdale Day, held in October.

The poems give the names of all the men from Wasdale Head who, like so many others, had left their home towns and villages to go off to fight in the battlefields of France and Belgium.

This first Wasdale Day, organised by the local history society, began with a visit to Wasdale Hall, built in 1829 on the shores of Wastwater, in the domestic Tudor style, by Yorkshire banker Stansfield Rawson. National Trust rangers gave a talk about the history of the hall, now a Youth Hostel facility, but once occupied by Whitehaven solicitor John Musgrave (1816-1912). He, along with others, had been instrumental in the establishment of the Cleator and Egremont railway, with the aim of developing iron ore mining in the district.

Then there was a visit to the listed mid-18th century Stang Ends Farm, also owned by the National Trust, which has many original features.

Another highlight of Wasdale Day was the talk by Ann Cooper of Gosforth, who began by asking her audience: “Did you know we once had medieval coin forgers operating in the Wasdale Valley?” It was a reference to a discovery, made in April 1865, when a labourer, building a dry-stone wall and looking for stones, came across moulds, fashioned from plumbago, that had once been used for casting coins.

Sterling English money was hammered or milled, and not cast, so it was apparent, someone had been aiming to defraud the system by imitating, in base metal, the coin of the realm. The moulds were for a groat, a half-groat and silver pennies and the dates were from the 1400s. To forge the Latin inscriptions in reverse would point to the culprit being a man of some education, perhaps from Furness Abbey which at that time owned the wad mines in Borrowdale. The moulds are currently kept in Tullie House Museum, Carlisle.

John Meeks gave an interesting talk about the Wharton bibles and prayer book, part of the Wasdale collection, which came from the Yeowart family of the Wasdale Valley. Lord Wharton’s Charity, founded in 1696, provided bibles to children and young people to encourage their use in study – and still continues today. Children had to learn and recite two psalms before they could have a prayer book.

There are now hopes Wasdale Day may become an annual event.