A parish east of Lune, close to the A.683. It is two hamlets actually...High Casterton and Low Casterton.
The name 'Casterton' comes into one of the most famous books in the world, and beautiful as it is, it was remembered with bitterness by Charlotte Bronte, who spent twelve unhappy months at Cowan Bridge close by, where her school can still be seen. She was only nine years old when she left, but she never forgot how wretched she had been, as she tells us all in Jane Eyre.
Casterton has been a community long before its entry in the Domesday Book. For example, at Overburrow two miles south of Kirkby Lonsdale a Roman fort can be clearly seen in the narrow, deep valley. At one time it housed an infantry battalion of 500 men within its three acres. It was first explored in 1883 when gateways and remains of a Roman bridge were discovered.
Early evidence of man here is the Druids Circle on Casterton Fell, which is thought to date from the Neolithic Period about 1400 BC. The next arrivals were the Celts in 600-400 BC who called the river 'Al-iam' or 'White Water'. The Romans arrived in about AD 78 and built a road through the area along the bottom of the fell, which remains to this day. The Romans left in AD 410 and were eventually followed in about AD 890 by Norsemen. After 1066, Casterton became Crown Property and was granted at times to various noblemen until comparatively recently, when it was sold to the Earl of Lonsdale. In the wake of the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, the Scots devastated the area, but Casterton recovered well, for in 1492 a fulling mill was in use and a corn mill erected.
Coal mining was carried out on the Casterton Fell from 1620 to 1850. Communications improved in the 18th century and in 1777 a pack-horse track up the valley was made into a road, followed by the railway in 1847. The railway, incidentally, only opened after strong opposition to the original route would have taken it through the garden of the Clergy Daughter's school.
The name Carus-Wilson figures frequently in Casterton history. The Carus family acquired the manor of Kirkby Lonsdale in 1558, and later a descendant of the family married Elizabeth Wilson and adopted the name Carus-Wilson. In 1823, his eldest son founded the Clergy Daughters School at Cowan Bridge and later moved it to Casterton...where today it is a boarding school for 360 girls. The schools register of 1824 incidentally contains the names of the four Bronte sisters - Charlotte, Emily, Elizabeth, and Maria. The junior department of the school is known as Bronte House which is a building also founded by Carus-Wilson originally as a school for servant girls.
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