The registers of Crosthwaite Church stated that there were 238 interments in 1623, believed to have been something between a twelfth and a tenth of the whole population of the parish at that time.[78] In the 1640s there was a sharp fall in population, brought on by the plague epidemic which affected Keswick, Carlisle, Cockermouth and Crosthwaite and other areas in 1645–47.[79]