Lancelot 'Lanty' Slee (1800/1802–1878) was a

Lake District The Lake District, also known as ''the Lakes'' or ''Lakeland'', is a mountainous region and National parks of the United Kingdom, national park in Cumbria, North West England. It is famous for its landscape, including its lakes, coast, and mou ...

farmer, quarryman and notorious

smuggler Smuggling is the illegal transportation of objects, substances, information or people, such as out of a house or buildings, into a prison, or across an international border, in violation of applicable laws or other regulations. More broadly, soc ...

. The name 'Lanty' is a diminutive for Lancelot used in the Lake District.

Life

Slee, a 'stiff, fresh faced man of great endurance', was of Irish descent but originally came from

Borrowdale Borrowdale is a valley and civil parish in the English Lake District in Cumberland (unitary authority), Cumberland, England. It is in the ceremonial county of Cumbria, and is sometimes referred to as ''Cumberland Borrowdale'' to distinguis ...

and lived in

Little Langdale Little Langdale is a valley in the Lake District, England, containing Little Langdale Tarn and a hamlet also called Little Langdale. A second tarn, Blea Tarn, is in a hanging valley between Little Langdale and the larger Great Langdale to the n ...

for most of his life. He is variously reported to have been a farmer and a

quarryman A quarry is a type of open-pit mining, open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock (geology), rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some juri ...

as a day job but also had a thriving business in smuggling. Slee operated multiple illicit

still A still is an apparatus used to distillation, distill liquid mixtures by heating to selectively Boiling, boil and then cooling to Condensation, condense the vapor. A still uses the same concepts as a basic Distillation#Laboratory_procedures, ...

s for production of

moonshine Moonshine is alcohol proof, high-proof liquor, traditionally made or distributed alcohol law, illegally. The name was derived from a tradition of distilling the alcohol (drug), alcohol at night to avoid detection. In the first decades of the ...

whisky Whisky or whiskey is a type of liquor made from Fermentation in food processing, fermented grain mashing, mash. Various grains (which may be Malting, malted) are used for different varieties, including barley, Maize, corn, rye, and wheat. Whisky ...

which he sold for 10

shilling The shilling is a historical coin, and the name of a unit of modern currency, currencies formerly used in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, other British Commonwealth countries and Ireland, where they were generally equivalent to 1 ...

s per

gallon The gallon is a unit of volume in British imperial units and United States customary units. The imperial gallon (imp gal) is defined as , and is or was used in the United Kingdom and its former colonies, including Ireland, Canada, Australia ...

, or smuggled with pack horses via

Wrynose Pass The Wrynose Pass is a mountain pass in the Lake District National Park in Cumbria, England between the Duddon Valley and Little Langdale. Etymology The unusual name of the pass is taken from that of the adjacent Wrynose hill, also called Wr ...

and

Hardknott Hard Knott is a fell in the English Lake District, at the head of Eskdale. The northern and western slopes of Hard Knott are in the civil parish of Eskdale, while the southern and eastern slopes are in the civil parish of Ulpha. Both are i ...

Ravenglass Ravenglass is an English coastal village in west Cumbria that lies between Barrow-in-Furness and Whitehaven, on the estuary of three rivers: the Esk, Mite and Irt. It is the only coastal village in the Lake District National Park. Formerly in ...

. He transported smuggled tobacco on the return journey. The whisky was sold to "discerning local gentry and professional classes" including a local

magistrate The term magistrate is used in a variety of systems of governments and laws to refer to a civilian officer who administers the law. In ancient Rome, a '' magistratus'' was one of the highest ranking government officers, and possessed both judi ...

. One of his many stills and stores throughout Langdale and the surrounding area was in a cave in Moss Rigg quarry in Little Langdale; the cave is now walled up. Another was hidden in a quarry scar on the route up to Betsy Crag where remnants of his equipment still survived until the 1960s. A still beneath Low Arnside Farm was connected to an underground pipe so that the steam produced seemingly emanated from a hedge in a nearby field. 'Lanty's Cave', his largest still, was in a field at Arnside. In 1840 Slee built Greenbank Farm in Little Langdale where he then lived for some time before subsequently moving to Low Arnside. He was convicted at least twice although his stills and stashes of moonshine were hardly ever found by the

excise file:Lincoln Beer Stamp 1871.JPG, upright=1.2, 1871 U.S. Revenue stamp for 1/6 barrel of beer. Brewers would receive the stamp sheets, cut them into individual stamps, cancel them, and paste them over the Bunghole, bung of the beer barrel so when ...

men and his wit led to hilarious episodes in the

Ambleside Ambleside is a town in the civil parish of Lakes and the Westmorland and Furness district of Cumbria, England. Within the boundaries of the historic county of Westmorland and located in the Lake District National Park, the town sits at the ...

courtrooms. Lanty fathered a son named Joseph in 1850 when he was living at Low Arnside. His occupation listed on the baptism register at that time was a farmer. Another son named Adam lived to be more than 100. William Pattinson, Lanty's business partner, informed on him to the local

s after a quarrel relating to the business. Slee was convicted of illegal distillation of liquor in May 1853 and fined £150. Pattinson fled the area. In 1855 he is listed as still living at Low Arnside but subsequently Slee moved back to Little Langdale and set up new stills. He died at Greenbank Farm in 1878.

Legacy

The Lanty Slee Liquor Company was registered in 2018 at

Companies House Companies House is the executive agency of the British Government that maintains the Company register, register of companies, employs the company registrars and is responsible for Incorporation (business), incorporating all forms of Company, co ...

for "Distilling, rectifying and blending of spirits " and "Wholesale of wine, beer, spirits and other alcoholic beverages". They produce a range of distilled drinks inspired by Slee, saying "We discovered his ingredients from 1841 court records and ... using historic production methods we have reimagined his Moonshine Vodka ... It is from this very valley that we source our water and botanicals, just as Lanty did ...". and they operate two bars named "Lanty Slee" in

Elterwater Elterwater is a village in the English Lake District and the county of Cumbria. The village lies half a mile (800 m) north-west of the lake of Elter Water, from which it derives its name. Both are situated in the valley of Great Langdale. E ...

village and in the

National Trust The National Trust () is a heritage and nature conservation charity and membership organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Trust was founded in 1895 by Octavia Hill, Sir Robert Hunter and Hardwicke Rawnsley to "promote the ...

-owned Sticklebarn in

Great Langdale Great Langdale is a valley in the Lake District National Park in North West England, the epithet "Great" distinguishing it from the neighbouring valley of Little Langdale. Langdale is also the name of a valley in the Howgill Fells, elsewhere ...

References

External links

Cumbria Magazine - The legend of Lancelot Slee (p19-22)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Slee, Lanty 1800s births 1878 deaths Smugglers 19th-century English farmers