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Whitewell is a hamlet within the civil parish of Bowland Forest Low and Ribble Valley borough of Lancashire, England. It is in the Forest of Bowland Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Historically, the village is part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, but was transferred to Lancashire for administrative purposes on 1 April 1974, under the provisions of the Local Government Act 1972. It stands above a bend in the River Hodder. The hamlet comprises Upper and Lower Whitewell. Lower Whitewell is the site of St Michael's, a Chapel of Ease built in the late medieval period, certainly no later than 1400, which comes under the Lancashire parish of Whalley. The restaurant and hotel, ''The Inn at Whitewell'', is also situated in Lower Whitewell.〔http://www.innatwhitewell.com〕 ==History== From the late fourteenth century, The Inn anciently housed the Forest courts of the Forest of Bowland and provided lodgings for the Master Forester. There is evidence of Master Foresters in Bowland dating back as early as the late twelfth century.〔(The Lordship of Bowland )〕 It is thought that the ancient administrative centre of the Forest was at Hall Hill, north-north-east of the current hamlet. It is conjectured that this motte - now merely an earthwork mound surmounted by trees overlooking the old keeper's cottage at Seed Hill Farm - formed the centre of an early medieval hunting ''laund'' (enclosure) known as Radholme which is mentioned as a vill in Domesday.〔MC Higham, “The Mottes of North Lancashire, Lonsdale and South Cumbria”, Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmoreland Archaeological & Antiquarian Society, Vol 91: 79-90 (1991)〕 Sir Walter Urswyk was Master Forester to John of Gaunt, 11th Lord of Bowland and it is Urswyk who seems to have been responsible for the shift to Lower Whitewell sometime between 1372-1403.〔(Portrait of a Master Forester )〕 Bowland appears to undergone wholesale manorial reorganisation in the second half of the fourteenth century, a process that may have been driven by a fall in population resulting from the Black Death (1348–50) and the absorption of Bowland into the Duchy of Lancaster after 1360. After 1660, the office of Master Forester fell into abeyance. The Forest courts at Whitewell - a ''swainmote'' and a ''woodmote'' - were presided over by a Chief Steward or more often his deputy, one of whose duties was to appoint a Bowbearer (or more often two Bowbearers) on behalf of the Lord of Bowland. The responsibilities of the Bowbearer were akin to those of a chief verderer – an unpaid official appointed to protect vert and venison and responsible for supervising and assisting in the enforcement of forest laws.〔R Cunliffe Shaw, "The Royal Forest of Lancaster" (Guardian Press: Preston 1956)〕 The Parkers of Browsholme Hall have traditionally claimed the office of Bowbearer as an hereditary right〔http://www.browsholme.co.uk〕 but this claim was an early nineteenth fabrication and has now been discredited. The family were certainly Bowbearers for successive generations between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries but the right of appointment was always a prerogative of their local lord, the Lord of Bowland,〔M Greenwood & C Bolton, "Bolland Forest and the Hodder Valley" (Landy Publishing: Blackpool 2000; orig. pub. 1955)〕 the so-called Lord of the Fells. Although the Forest courts at Whitewell fell into disuse in the first half of the nineteenth century, the 16th Lord of Bowland chose in April 2010 to appoint Robert Parker of Browsholme Hall his Bowbearer of the Forest of Bowland, the first Parker to be so appointed in more than 150 years.〔Official Forest of Bowland AONB website http://www.forestofbowland.com/node/1923)〕〔Clitheroe Advertiser & Times, 15 April 2010: http://www.clitheroeadvertiser.co.uk/valleynews/First-39Bowbearer-of-the-Forest39.6229215.jp〕 On an official visit by the Lord of Bowland to the Forest in April 2011, his Bowbearer was in attendance.〔Making Every Bowlander Proud http://www.prfire.co.uk/press-release/making-every-bowlander-proud-lord-of-bowland-official-visit-51743.html〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Whitewell」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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