Arnside, formerly a hamlet in this parish, was formed into a separate parish 8 Feb. 1870.

ARNSIDE, formerly a hamlet in the township and parish of Betham, was formed into an ecclesiastioal parish Feb. 8, 1870, and into a civil parish April 1st, 1897, by Local Government Board Order No. 35,407; it has a station on the Carnforth and Ulverston section of the Furness railway, which here crosses the estuary of the Kent on a Viaduct of 50 piles: it is 3 ½ miles south-west from Milnthorpe, in the Southern division of the county, Kendal ward, petty sessional division and union, county court division of Kendal, rural deanery of Kirkby Lonsdale, archdeaconry of Westmorland and diocese of Carlisle. The village is charmingly situated on an arm of Morecambe Bay, which here receives the waters of the river Kent, and is lighted with gas from works the property of the Arnside Gas Co. Limited. The church of St. James, built in 1869, at a cost of about £1,600, is an edifice of stone in the Early Gothic style, from designs by the late Myles Thompson esq. architect of Kendal, and consists of chancel, with organ chamber, nave and south aisles; the church was enlarged in 1905, by the addition of a north, aisle and vestry, from designs by Mr. R. Morton Rigg, architect, of Arnside, at a cost of £1,100, and now affords 400 sittings. The register dates from the year 1866. The living is a vicarage, net yearly value £220, with residence, in the gift of the vicar of Beetham, and held since 1904 by the Rev. Robert Hartley Law M. A. of Brasenose College, Oxford. Here is a Wesleyan chapel, erected in 1875-6, and seating 200. There is a good hotel, and many well-built and well fitted up lodging houses, and these, together with the delightful landscape presented from almost every point, its beautiful woods and invigorating atmosphere, makes it a favourite and growing seaside resort. The cemetery, half of which was consecrated by the Bishop of Carlisle, was opened in 1901, and is under the control of the Parish Council acting as a burial board. The Arnside Institute, erected in 1890, consists of reading, billiard and lecture rooms. The Arnside Golf Club, opened in 1906, has about 100 members. Stonycroft is the property and residence of Thomas William Worsdell esq. Arnside Tower, the ruins of which stand conspicuously on rising ground to the south of Arnside Knot, is an oblong structure of limestone, dating probably from the latter part of the 15th or the early 16th century, and may be described rather as a fortified mansion than as a peel tower, although presenting externally the features of defensive buildings of that class: the long sides of the tower, externally about 48 feet in length, face nearly north and south, and the general breadth is 33 feet, but at the northwest angle is a turret about 17 by 13 feet, with projecting bartizans, and on the south-east a smaller garderobe turret; the exterior walls are over 4 feet in thickness, and the north wall encloses a spiral staircase leading to the various floors above: a great part of the south-west angle of the tower was blown down during a violent winter storm about 1884, and the debris lies as it fell: the interior, now dismantled and roofless, consisted originally of a basement, divided into unequal portions by a cross wall, and three storeys above it, the roof over the upper storey being surrounded by battlements carried on bold open machicolations, but these are now gone: the turrets rose still higher, and the larger of the two contained a series of small chambers communicating with each separate floor. Hazelslack, or Helslack Tower, which stands on rising ground in a somewhat remote spot, about one and a half miles north-east of the village, is a structure of early 15th century date, rudely built of local materials, and once formed the defensive portion of a residence, the remaining buildings of which appear to have extended from the tower northwards: it measures on the exterior about 30 feet from east to west by 24 from north to south, and has a square projecting turret at the east end of the north front; the interior consists of a basement with three floors above, all divided into two unequal compartments by a cross wall rising through the whole, but only the corbels which supported the flooring now remain; the parapet, especially on the south side, is broken down, and the battlements have consequently disappeared: the entrance is on the north side, through the turret into the smaller compartment of the ground floor, from which a stair at the southeast angle leads to the upper storeys: the tower is now occupied for farm purposes. Arnside Knot, one mile distant to the south-west, is an eminence 522 feet in height; the summit, which is planted with larches, affords a fine prospect. Hawes Tarn, a small lake, 2 ½ miles distant south-east, in the parish of Silverdale, Lancs, is remarkable for the fine marine shells which are found on its banks. Sir Maurice Bromley-Wilson bt. of Dallam Tower, Beetham, and the trustees of the late Roger Barker esq. are the principal landowners.

The soil is gravel and blue clay; subsoil, limestone. The chief crops are oats, turnips and pasture land. The area is 2,057 acres of land, 51 of tidal water and 381 of foreshore; rateable value, £8,739; the population in 1901 was 844 in the civil, and 1,092 in the ecclesiastical parish.

Public Elementary Schools

Arnside (mixed), erected in 1880, for 121 children; average attendance, 70; Charles Yates, master; Mils Julia Moorhouse, assistant mistress Storth (mixed), erected in 1875, for 70 children; average attendance, 50; Francis Herbert Booth, master Railway Station, William P. Atkinson, station master.