Column by historian Roger Bingham of Ackenthwaite:

IN 1694, the ‘Antiquary on Horseback', the Reverend Thomas Machell, visited Levens Hall and speculated on the origin of its name.

‘It was’, he fancied, once called ‘Lewyns, from the plenty of Whyns in this place for which we should imagine plenty of vines in this place’.

More factually, he described the hall as ‘a fair building and noble seat, though in no way regular and of late much improved by Col. Graham, the present proprietor'.

He did not mention the tradition that he had won the house in a game of cards, though he referred to the previous owner, Allan Bellingham, as ‘that ingenious but unhappy young man who consumed a vast estate in his youth with the rest of the lands in the barony of Kendal'.

As with all subsequent writers, he admired the setting: "The court is surrounded with lawns, and between the Kent were many stately and large-grown elms, a rarity in this part of the country (for I have not seen one anywhere else) which Mr Graham was cutting down to open the prospect by which this fine seat will be rendered more pleasant, but I fear more cold than it was formerly."