CLIFTON, a village and a parish in West Ward district, Westmoreland. The village stands adjacent to the Lancaster and Carlisle railway, near the river Lowther, 2 miles SSE of Penrith; and has a station on the railway, and a post office under Penrith. The parish comprises 1, 520 acres. Real property, £2, 404. Pop., 342. Houses, 76. The property is divided among a few. Lowther Castle, a seat of the Earl of Lonsdale, stands near the village. An old turreted mansion, now a ruin adjoining a farm-house, was the seat of the family of Wyberg. Clifton moor, about a mile south of the village, was the scene of a sharp skirmish, in 1745, between Prince Charles Stuart and the Duke of Cumberland, and described in "Waverley. " The living is a rectory in the diocese of Carlisle. Value, £150.* Patron, the Bishop of Carlisle. The church is early English, has some stained glass, and is good.

(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))