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Bampton is a fairly widespread parish in the valley of the River Lowther about 7 miles south of Penrith and 4 miles north of Shap. There are two main settlements, at Bampton and Bampton Grange on either side of the river and smaller hamlets at Bomby, Burnbanks, Butterwick and Knipe. The area of the parish is almost 10,900 acres (4,400ha) but much of it is unpopulated except for isolated farmsteads. Haweswater reservoir, made in the 1930s to provide clean water for Manchester, is half in Bampton parish and half in Shap. Burnbanks, the village constructed for the work force building the dam, has recently been re-developed with the remaining original cast-iron houses being demolished and new ones built on their foundations. The village church stands near the river at Bampton Grange. Dedicated to St Patrick it dates from 1726 but it was built on the site of a medieval church attached to Shap Abbey. Close to it was a renowned Grammar School whose pupils (all boys) were said to have been so well educated that they 'ploughed in Latin and swore (or reaped) in Greek'. The school was relocated to the other side of the village at Bampton in the 1890s and flourished there until 2005 when it had to close because of the falling numbers of children in the parish. A history of the parish, titled 'Ploughing in Latin', written in 2001 to commemorate the Millennium was commended at The Lakeland Book of the Year competition. An earlier history was written by Miss Noble who lived at Beckfoot in the early twentieth century. Bampton: Before its division into Bampton Patrick and Bampton Cundale the manor is said to have been held by one Bomba. Mr Denton speaks of Villate Bemba or Bomba. Bomby, Bomba-by, is practically the same word as Bampton, Bomba-ton. Extract taken from the book Shappe in Bygone Days published in 1904 by Joseph Whiteside, M.A.
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