Hilton

“A little boy at Hilton dwelt,
Oft at his mother's knee he knelt:
Was taught his earthly home to love,
Was told about a Home above.
And while in youth that boy did roam,
He thought he scarce could leave his home.
So hard a task it seemed to be,
He thought, "Sweet home" -- I'll cling to thee.”

…Such was the description of home by Great-Grandpa Christopher Gelder.

Home. Of the Gelders.

Hilton is a very small village near Appleby, in what was then Westmorland, and now Cumbria. The Anglian suffix ‘tun’ of ‘Hilton’ meant ‘farmstead’; the word Hilton thus may mean something like ‘hill settlement’.

The pictures included here are of Hilton during my visit there on 10/10/10. The first two are not actually of Hilton proper, but the countryside on the drive there was so beautiful I had to stop the car to take the photos. Both photos are within a mile or two of Hilton.

The mountains in the background of this picture are ‘Murton Pike’, and ‘Mell Fell’. Hilton is further down the road beyond the right-hand side of this picture

 

 

Here we are at Hilton. The village to the left of the bridge is Murton, and Hilton is to the right.

 

These are dry stone walls, constructed without any adhesive. They are all over the north part of England.

 

 

 

 

 

This street is basically the entire village.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hilton and Murton, as seen from Roman Fell.

 

 

Homesick

By Christopher Gelder

There's a land today that is far away,
Yet a land my eyes have seen.
And I fain would stand in my native land,
But an ocean rolls between.
People used to say -- go to U.S.A.
And a fortune quickly glean,
So I took a ride on the rolling tide
From the land where the fields are green.

How I loved to roam in the fields at home,
Where the sweetest flowers are seen,
And my heart still clings to the flowing springs
And the brooklets pure and clean.
When the blizzards blow, and I'm melting snow
Where no water can be seen.
Then I want the rills from my native hills
In the land where the fields are green.

When the hailstones drop and destroy the crop
Or the locusts strip them clean,
Then I want to sail where there is no hail,
And the plagues are never seen.
When there is no rain for the wilting grain
And the stock are starved and lean.
Then I want to ride on the rolling tide
To the land where the fields are green.

I've been hit with rust, nearly blind with dust,
And the worms have stripped my trees,
And it is no dream that our sluggish stream
Has a smell that makes one sneeze.
So I long to go where the rivers flow
With the water pure and clean;
I would kneel and drink on the river's brink
In the land where the fields are green.

I would climb once more as in the days of yore
Far up to the mountains crown --

At the Bethel there where God answers prayers
I would lay my burdens down;
Where the mountain high seems to touch the sky
One is nearer God, I ween,
And the shrine is dear for Heaven seems near
In the land where the fields are green.

When the time is nigh for the last good-bye,
And the end of the trail is seen --
Let my body rest in a little nest
In the land where the fields are green.
Let my Spirit fly to the home on high
Where my loved ones long have been --
May we meet and stay through Eternal Day
In the fields of Living Green.