Antiquaries tell us that the name Cartmel is of British origin,[46] and signifies the entrenched camp of fortification among the fells, an opinion that is in some measure borne out by the number of British as well as Roman antiquities that have been discovered at different times. The site of the camp is supposed to have been in the fields on the bank of the little river Ea, now called the Beck, a little to the north-west of the church, and which to this day are known as the Castle Meadows. The earliest mention we have of it is in the Life of St. Cuthbert, written by one of the monkish historians, from which it appears that some time between the years 677 and 685, Ecgfrith, King of the Northumbrian Angles, having conquered Cumberland, Westmoreland, and the adjoining districts, gave to Cuthbert, whom he had caused to be consecrated Bishop of Lindisfarne, "the whole of the lands called Cartmel, with all the Britons in it," a phrase which goes to show that, though the aboriginal Britons had been reduced to slavery by their Saxon oppressors, they had for two centuries and a half been permitted to retain their ancient home among the hills of this wild and almost insulated tract of country. From this time a chasm of something like five centuries occurs in the history. Whether the monks retained possession of the lands after the death of Cuthbert, or whether the place was ravaged by the Danish invaders, is not known with certainty, but, as no mention of it occurs in the Doomsday Survey, it is not unreasonable to assume that the place had been laid waste during some of the Danish incursions, and the church which Cuthbert reared destroyed. There is, however, undoubted evidence that a religious establishment existed at Cartmel before the priory church was founded, several of the deeds conveying lands to the neighbouring Abbey of Furness being attested by ecclesiastics of Cartmel; for example, in 1135 the name of "Willelmus Clericus de Kertmel" appears as witness to a deed of gift, and in 1155 that of "Uccheman, Parsona de Chertmel," occurs in a like capacity.