The parish of Grasmere also embraced three townships. One was Grasmere proper, situated in the basin-shaped vale that catches the sources of the Rothay, Langdale; the sister valley formed the second township, which extended to Elterwater; the third was Rydal-and-Loughrigg (often called Loughrigg and Beneath-Moss) which included all the rocky mass between the converging rivers, the compact village of Rydal with part of Ambleside. From three sides of the parish then, by mountain path and "horse-trod," the folk wended their way for worship to Grasmere Church. Those of the vale of Grasmere proper would gather in units or little groups from all the scattered farmsteads, from Far Easdale and Blindtarn Gill, from Town Head, Gill Side, and all the houses that lay "Aboon Beck" as far as How Head and Town End, till they met at their lych-gate on the north side of the church. From Loughrigg and Beneath-Moss they would collect by many a devious track, starting as far back as Clappersgate and Ambleside. From Ambleside ancient "trods" passed Nook End, and rose from Scandale Bridge by easy grade to Nab Lane (where Rydal folk would join them) and White Moss, and thence descending to cross the church bridge to enter the garth by the present gate, which was specially their own. The third stream of worshippers flowed from the farthest sources west, from the recesses of Little Langdale, from Blea Tarn, and Fell Foot, from Forge and Hackett and Colwith they came, on through Elterwater, and across Walthwaite Bottom. Mounting the brow, they would meet a tributary stream of fellow-townsfolk, that gathered right from Steel End and Wall End, increasing as it flowed down Mickle Langdale, till it crossed the ridge of Hunting Stile. Dropping steeply into the vale, they would at Nichols (where stood an inn) meet a third contingent (from Loughrigg) which, starting at Skelwith, mounted by Foul Step to Little Loughrigg, passed by the Fold, the Oaks and Scroggs, to descend by Red Bank to the level of Grasmere Lake.[36] From Nichols onward the united groups would travel by the lake, and past the Holy Well, to enter the church garth by a gate at the north-west angle, now gone, called the Langdale gate.[37] Here, at Church Stile, stood an important inn, long owned by the Harrison family. Shelter and a fire must indeed have been often needed (as well as something for the inner man) after the long travel--especially at funeral gatherings, when the corpse had to be borne through ford and flood, or through the storms and deep snows of winter time. The Ambleside folk, when in 1674 they petitioned their bishop for the right of burial in their chapel, stated that "by reason of the heat in summer and the great snowes and sudden inundations of water in winter it is very difficult and dangerous to carry their dead thither [to Grasmere] for burial";[38] yet their distance from the church was nothing like that of the Langdale folk.