Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for COCKERMOUTH

COCKERMOUTH, a town, two chapelries, a sub-district, and a district in Cumberland. The town stands at the confluence of the Cocker and the Derwent rivers, and at the termini of the Cockermouth and Workington and the Cockermouth, Keswick, and Penrith railways, 8½ miles E by N of Workington. Many antiquities, Roman, Saxon, and Scandinavian, have been found in its neighbourhood: but they belong properly to Papcastle, about a mile to the west. A strong castle was built at it, soon after the Conquest, by Waldeof, Lord of Allerdale; and passed to the Umphravilles, the Multons, the Lucys, the Percys, the Nevilles, the Wyndhams. The castle was surprised by Douglas in 1387; it became the prison of Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1568; it stood a siege of about a month, in 1648, for Charles I., but was captured and dismantled; and excepting a small portion fitted up as a private residence, it never was restored. The ruin occupies a bold elevation between the Cocker and the Derwent; comprises two courts within the outer walls; and indicates great military strength of both structure and position. One part of it, including the great tower, stood on the brink of a precipice overhanging the rivers: other parts were defended by moat, drawbridge, and portcullis; the chief parts remaining are clad with ivy and look imposing; and a subterranean chamber, 30 feet square, has a groined roof, upheld in the centre by a single octagonal pillar. Wordsworth, the poet, was a native of the town, and spent much of his boyhood in it; and, in one of his sonnets, he represents the spirit of the castle as thus addressing him:-

Thou look'st on me. Dost fondly think,
Poet ! that, stricken as both are by years,
We, differing once so much, are now compeers,
Prepared, when each has stood his time, to sink
Into the dust? Erewhile a sterner link
United us-w hen thou, in boyish play,
Entering my dungeon, didst become a prey
To soul-appalling darkness. Not a blink
Of light was there; and thus did I, thy tutor,
Make thy young thoughts acquainted with the grave,
When thou wert chasing the wing'd butterfly
Through my green courts, or climbing, a wild suitor,
Up to the flowers whose golden progeny
Still round my shatter'd brow in beauty wave.

The town is cut in two by the Cocker; contains two principal streets, besides minor ones; and is irregularly built, but has undergone great recent improvement. A public walk, about a mile in length, extends along the Derwent from the base of the castle to the base of lofty wooded cliffs. A one-arched bridge, erected in 1828, crosses the Cocker; a two-arched one, 270 feet long, crosses the Derwent; and a high level one has been built since 1860. The market-place and the moot-hall are neat recent erections. A fine old church was destroyed by fire in 1850; and the new church, built afterwards, is a handsome edifice, with a memorial window to Wordsworth. Another church, on a site in the lower part of the town, was erected in 1865. There are five dissenting chapels, a grammar school with £24, a mechanics' institute, a library, a dispensary, a workhouse, a head post office, ‡ a railway station, two banking offices, and two chief inns. Thread is largely manufactured; and the old trades have very much declined. Markets are held on Mondays and Saturdays; a horse fair on 18 Feb.; and other fairs on Whit-Monday, the Wednesday after the first Monday of May, and 10 Oct. The town is a seat of petty sessions and a polling-place; and it sent two members to parliament from the time of Charles I. till 1867, but it now sends only one. Its electoral limits include the chapelries of Cockermouth, and the townships of Brigham and Eaglesfield, in the parish of Brigham; and the townships of Bridekirk and Papcastle, with a detached uninhabited par t of Dovenby township, in the parish of Bridekirk. Direct taxes in 1857, £3, 368. Electors in 1868, 356. Pop. in 1841, 6, 420; in 1861, 7, 057. Houses, 1, 543. The chapelries comprise 2, 326 acres. Real property, £22, 423; of which £4, 019 are in railways, £300 in mines, and £200 in gas-works. Pop., 5, 388. All Saints is a p. curacy, Christchurch a vicarage. Value of the former, £132.* Patron, the Earl of Lonsdale.

The sub-district contains the parish of Isell, the parochial chapelry of Loweswater, two townships of the parochial chapelry of Lorton, all the parliamentary borough of Cockermouth, and seven other townships in the parishes of Brigham and Bridekirk. Acres, 44, 560. Pop., 10, 546. Houses, 2, 257. -The district comprehends also the sub-district of Keswick, containing the parish of Bassenhwaite, a township of Brigham parish, a township of Torpenhow parish, a township of Lorton parochial chapelry, seven townships and a chapelry of Crosthwaite parish, and the extra-parochial tract of Greta-Mills; the sub-district of Workington, containing the parishes of Workington, Cammerton, and Dean, a township of Brigham parish, a township of Bridekirk parish, and the extra-parochial tract of Cloffocks; and the sub-district of Maryport, containing the parishes of Cross-Canonby, Dearham, Flimby, Gilcrux, and Plumb-land, two townships of Bridekirk parish, one of Torpenhow, and one of Aspatria. Acres, 156, 025. Poor-rates in 1862, £12, 191. Pop. in 1841, 35, 681; in 1861, 41, 292. Houses, 8, 784. Marriages in 1860, 306; births, 1, 426, -of which 152 were illegitimate; deaths, 978, - of which 348 were at ages under 5 years, and 29 at ages above 85. Marriages in the ten years 1851-60, 2, 540; births, 13, 538; deaths, 8, 856. The places of worship in 1851 were 31 of the Church of England, with 11, 794 sittings; 2 of the English Presbyterian Church, with 840 s.; 1 of the United Presbyterian Church, with 630 s.; 6 of Independents, with 1, 576 s.; 4 of Baptists, with 565 s.; 5 of Quakers, with 1, 290 s.; 20 of Wesleyan Methodists, with 3, 479 s.; 5 of Primitive Methodists, with 1, 038 s.; 3 undefined, with 400 s.; 1 of Latter Day Saints, with 60 s.; and 2 of Roman Catholics, with 550 s. The schools were 47 public day schools, with 3, 197 scholars; 79 private day schools, with 2, 141 s.; 49 Sunday schools, with 4, 261 s.; and 5 evening schools for adults, with 91 s.


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

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a town, two chapelries, a sub-district, and a district"   (ADL Feature Type: "cities")
Administrative units: Cockermouth Ch/CP       Cockermouth RegD/PLU       Cumberland AncC
Place: Cockermouth

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