Portinscale
| Portinscale | |
|---|---|
 Portinscale |
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 Portinscale
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| Portinscale shown within Cumbria | |
| OS grid reference | NY248237 |
| Civil parish | |
| District | |
| Shire county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | KESWICK |
| Postcode district | CA12 |
| Dialling code | 017687 |
| Police | Cumbria |
| Fire | Cumbria |
| Ambulance | North West |
| EU Parliament | North West England |
| UK Parliament | |
Portinscale is a village in Cumbria, England. It is situated close to the western shore of Derwentwater and within the Lake District National Park. It is some 1.5 miles (2.4 km) by road from Keswick. For administrative purposes, Portinscale lies within the civil parish of Above Derwent, the district of Allerdale, and the county of Cumbria. It is within the Copeland constituency of the United Kingdom Parliament, and the North West England constituency of the European Parliament. The village covers approximately 0.15 square miles (0.39 km2). At the 2011 census the population totalled 560.
The name of the village means "the harlot's hut", deriving from the Old English "portcwene" (harlot) and Old Norse "skáli" (hut). The scholar Eilert Ekwall cites an undated early spelling of the name as "Portquenscale".
The antiquary W G Collingwood, commenting on an archaeological find at Portinscale, wrote that it showed that "Stone Age man was fairly at home in the Lake District". The remains of the workshop of a prehistoric tool-maker were discovered in 1901 by workmen digging out a fish-pond near the village, about 150 yards (140 m) from the north-west shore of Derwentwater. A later find was a mould dating from about 1400, used to make crucifixes for the use of religious pilgrims. Hardwicke Rawnsley, co-founder of the National Trust and vicar of Portinscale's parish church, Crosthwaite, theorised that the mouldings were sold to people en route to St Herbert's Island from Nichol End, Portinscale's embarkation point on Derwentwater. From medieval times until the 20th century, according to records at Carlisle Castle, a Court leet met periodically and appointed constables for Portinscale. In the 17th century the village was a centre of Quakerism, and for preaching without a licence several local Quakers suffered the prescribed penalty, "ye Spoiling of their goods and imprisonment of their bodys."
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