Lake District towns
There is no evidence for the existence of towns in and around the Lake District until well after the Norman conquest, although it is clear from the sites of several that there were pre-existing settlements of some sort in the area Roman forts and associated civil settlements at Penrith and Kendal, for example, and an early Dark Age village close to Keswick. The impetus for urban development came from the establishment of markets and fairs, and indeed a great rash of market charters punctuates the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The layout of many of these towns reflects their former importance as market centres.
Penrith the Lake District
Penrith has a whole series of open market places. Keswick, too, is built around a widened main street which functioned as the market place during its period of rapid expansion in the late medieval period.
The development of these towns can readily be appreciated on a walk around their medieval cores, particularly since the buildings which survive, constructed of local stone in most cases, have a very distinctive personality and character. Penrith, for example, exudes the confidence of a successful medieval market town with the solidity of its red sandstone, a solidity much needed in facing up to the Scots border raiders to whom it was peculiarly vulnerable.
Kendal Hawkshead and Coniston
Kendal, its buildings derived from the local grey limestone, and Hawkshead and Coniston ¬the latter two, constructed largely from the dark Silurian slates, are really large villages with some pretension to town status are other examples of the importance of locally available building materials in setting the style of a town.
The development of the major towns in the National Park, and those on the fringes which play an important role for Park residents and visitors alike, is sketched below, with further notes in the Gazetteer on these towns and the other important settlements such as Hawkshead. But it is also worth considering the settlements which attempted the transition between village and market centre in the medieval period, but which failed to achieve it.
There are a surprising number of them, and an exploration of the reasons for their failure also throws some light on the reasons for success of the main towns, perhaps better located, or with access to crucial raw materials or to water power, or backed by more powerful vested interests, or simply favoured by luck.
Perhaps the most interesting of these failed market towns is Hesket Newmarket, now a delightful large village on the northeastern fringes of the Lake District. The name itself betrays the pretensions of the place, and the layout of the village, with cottages dispersed around a wide green, is similarly revealing. The market cross is still there, too, though the markets and fairs ceased by about the middle of the nine-teenth century.
Not far away, Ireby still has a Moot Hall, butter cross and spacious market place to serve as reminders of its former status, which can be traced back to the grant of a Thursday market and annual fair in 1237. Market charters also existed at places as diverse, and nowadays as quiet, as Bootle, Flookburgh and Staveley, and at Shap, where the charter dates from as recently as 1687.
Ravenglass the Lake District
A final example of a settlement which tried without success to achieve urban status in the Middle Ages is Ravenglass, which is not only well worth exploring on account of its attempted medieval expansion but which also, as the site of a Roman fort and port, has a history unrivalled amongst this clutch of failed towns. Ravenglass was granted its first market charter in 1209, and for some time the Saturday markets and annual fair were highly successful, especially while the town also functioned as a port and trade with Ireland was substantial.
Towards the end of the seventeenth century decline set in, however, and the three-day fair petered out; an attempt by Lord Muncaster to breathe new life into the place by obtaining a new charter in 1796 for two markets a week and three annual fairs met with success for only a short while and now the annual fair is merely a tourist attraction.
Ambleside and Grasmere
Though it has been a market centre since the seventeenth century and has more recently become highly important as a tourist centre, Ambleside has a longer history than this, having originated in medieval times as a small settlement at the edge of Grasmere parish.
Its origins were modest, with nothing more than a few farmhouses and a chapel in the area known as Above Stock, well above the flood plain of the River Rothay. This is still the most pleasant part of Ambleside, away from the tourists and the traffic and with steep, narrow streets leading up to How Head (partly constructed with stones from the Roman fort of Galava and with an interior still with sixteenthcentury features) and St Anne's Hall, the former church.
The early growth of Ambleside owed much to the fast flowing waters of Stock Ghyll, which were pressed into service to power at least half a dozen mills, including a bobbin mill, a corn mill, fulling mills, bark mills and a paper mill. The former corn mill on the north bank of the beck has been restored recently and has a reproduction overshot waterwheel; the mill originated in the fourteenth century, was in the hands of the Braithwaite family by 1639, and was still being used to grind corn in the early years of this century. A little further upstream a former bobbin mill has been converted into holiday flats.
Ambleside was granted its market charter relatively late, in 1650, when the Countess of Pembroke was granted a charter to hold a Wednesday market. The market place, with its cluster of inns and shops, is still the focal point of the town, though the sheep have long gone and been replaced by tourists. Many of the nearby cottages date from the eighteenth century, when Ambleside had a considerable reputation for its wool sales.
Windermere and Waterhead
By 1800, however, the market was in decline and the town was saved only by the growth of another industry, that of tourism. Close to Windermere and with very easy access to the central feils in particular Langdale Ambleside was popular with rich manufacturers in the nineteenth century and their villas spread out around the town, at the head of Windermere and towards Waterhead, where there is a steamer service on the lake. Today Ambleside has a strongly Victorian flavour, but caters almost exclusively for tourists and is almost overrun with gift shops and guest houses.
Cockermouth the Lake District
As with many settlements in the Middle Ages, Cockermouth grew into a town with the construction of a castle and the subsequent grant of a market charter, in this case to William de Fortibus in 1221. The castle was built in about 1140, partly with stones robbed from the nearby Roman fort of Derventio at Papcastle, and the town grew in its shadow at the confluence of the Derwent and Cocker. Its early growth was slow and it was not until the seventeenth century that the weekly horse and cattle fairs spawned a physical expansion of the town, with blue slated town houses built of stone around the Moot Hall, Market House, Corn Market and Shambles.
Industrialisation followed in about 1800 and resulted in growth north of the River Derwent, around Derwent Mills, and also south of the medieval centre, close to corn, tweed, hat and fulling mills. This early nineteenth century expansion transformed Cockermouth from a small market town into a busy industrial centre (though still on a comparatively small scale) and its legacy is very much to be seen in the character of the town today.
The Cockermouth commons, known as The Sand, were enclosed in 1816 and replaced with workshops and warehouses between Main Street and the River Derwent, and the lasting visual impression of the town is of the Georgian and early Victorian buildings which accompanied this development.
Cockermouth and William Wordsworth
Examples include the Town Hall, dating from 1841 and first used as a Methodist chapel, and, from a slightly earlier period, the house on Main Street which has achieved fame as William Wordsworth's birthplace. Though it is just outside the National Park Kendal acts as a centre for much of the south-eastern quadrant; it was formerly the biggest town in Westmorland.
Sited close to the Roman fort at Watercrook, Kendal achieved urban status under the Normans, with a busy town stretching out along roads such as Stricklandgate, Stramongate and Kirkgate from its central market place. The first market charter the first granted to any Lakeland town was granted by Richard I to Gilbert fitz Robert fitz Reinfred in 1189 and bestowed the right to hold a Saturday market and three fairs a year in the barony of Kendal.
The massive circular motte and bailey castle, perched on top of a drumlin to the east of the River Kent, dates from the early thirteenth century; three centuries later it was already in decay, and the remains of towers and the curtain wall are a little disappointing.
The history of Kendal
The medieval prosperity of Kendal was based on wool from the surrounding fells, not just brought to market here but woven into the heavy cloth known as Kendal Green; Flemish weavers settled here from the fourteenth century onwards. The long, narrow 'burgage' plots of the weavers and the other burgesses of the medieval town can still be traced running in both directions from the main north south streets, while at the end of alleys leading from these streets the traditional style of buildings clustered around yards can still be found.
Though this was also medieval in origin (and timber framed houses from this period still exist, some disguised by the application of rendering) most of the surviving houses in this style date from the great expansion of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
This expansion followed the construction of the Lancaster and Kendal canal, which opened in 1819, and resulted in the creation of an industrial suburb on the east bank of the Kent, immediately below the ruined castle. The new industries, largely using water power from the river, included carpet making, the manufacture of railway rugs and coat linings, snuff manufacture, and marble polishing. Terraces of cottages, built in the local grey limestone, also appeared in the early nineteenth century close to Stramongate bridge, together with St George's church in 1841, though the parish church remains Holy Trinity in Kirkgate.
Places to visit in the Windermere and accommodation
If you are planning to visit the Lake District, one of the best places to base yourself is Windermere, with its wide range of hotels, guesthouses, bed and breakfast accommodation and places to stay. Bowness also offers some excellent hot tub hotels plus some of the most famous attractions in the Lake District, including the Beatrix Potter Attraction and the Aquarium of the Lakes, plus several boat trips and walks around Windermere.
Penrith the Lake District
Penrith has a whole series of open market places. Keswick, too, is built around a widened main street which functioned as the market place during its period of rapid expansion in the late medieval period.
The development of these towns can readily be appreciated on a walk around their medieval cores, particularly since the buildings which survive, constructed of local stone in most cases, have a very distinctive personality and character. Penrith, for example, exudes the confidence of a successful medieval market town with the solidity of its red sandstone, a solidity much needed in facing up to the Scots border raiders to whom it was peculiarly vulnerable.
Kendal Hawkshead and Coniston
Kendal, its buildings derived from the local grey limestone, and Hawkshead and Coniston ¬the latter two, constructed largely from the dark Silurian slates, are really large villages with some pretension to town status are other examples of the importance of locally available building materials in setting the style of a town.
The development of the major towns in the National Park, and those on the fringes which play an important role for Park residents and visitors alike, is sketched below, with further notes in the Gazetteer on these towns and the other important settlements such as Hawkshead. But it is also worth considering the settlements which attempted the transition between village and market centre in the medieval period, but which failed to achieve it.
There are a surprising number of them, and an exploration of the reasons for their failure also throws some light on the reasons for success of the main towns, perhaps better located, or with access to crucial raw materials or to water power, or backed by more powerful vested interests, or simply favoured by luck.
Perhaps the most interesting of these failed market towns is Hesket Newmarket, now a delightful large village on the northeastern fringes of the Lake District. The name itself betrays the pretensions of the place, and the layout of the village, with cottages dispersed around a wide green, is similarly revealing. The market cross is still there, too, though the markets and fairs ceased by about the middle of the nine-teenth century.
Not far away, Ireby still has a Moot Hall, butter cross and spacious market place to serve as reminders of its former status, which can be traced back to the grant of a Thursday market and annual fair in 1237. Market charters also existed at places as diverse, and nowadays as quiet, as Bootle, Flookburgh and Staveley, and at Shap, where the charter dates from as recently as 1687.
Ravenglass the Lake District
A final example of a settlement which tried without success to achieve urban status in the Middle Ages is Ravenglass, which is not only well worth exploring on account of its attempted medieval expansion but which also, as the site of a Roman fort and port, has a history unrivalled amongst this clutch of failed towns. Ravenglass was granted its first market charter in 1209, and for some time the Saturday markets and annual fair were highly successful, especially while the town also functioned as a port and trade with Ireland was substantial.
Towards the end of the seventeenth century decline set in, however, and the three-day fair petered out; an attempt by Lord Muncaster to breathe new life into the place by obtaining a new charter in 1796 for two markets a week and three annual fairs met with success for only a short while and now the annual fair is merely a tourist attraction.
Ambleside and Grasmere
Though it has been a market centre since the seventeenth century and has more recently become highly important as a tourist centre, Ambleside has a longer history than this, having originated in medieval times as a small settlement at the edge of Grasmere parish.
Its origins were modest, with nothing more than a few farmhouses and a chapel in the area known as Above Stock, well above the flood plain of the River Rothay. This is still the most pleasant part of Ambleside, away from the tourists and the traffic and with steep, narrow streets leading up to How Head (partly constructed with stones from the Roman fort of Galava and with an interior still with sixteenthcentury features) and St Anne's Hall, the former church.
The early growth of Ambleside owed much to the fast flowing waters of Stock Ghyll, which were pressed into service to power at least half a dozen mills, including a bobbin mill, a corn mill, fulling mills, bark mills and a paper mill. The former corn mill on the north bank of the beck has been restored recently and has a reproduction overshot waterwheel; the mill originated in the fourteenth century, was in the hands of the Braithwaite family by 1639, and was still being used to grind corn in the early years of this century. A little further upstream a former bobbin mill has been converted into holiday flats.
Ambleside was granted its market charter relatively late, in 1650, when the Countess of Pembroke was granted a charter to hold a Wednesday market. The market place, with its cluster of inns and shops, is still the focal point of the town, though the sheep have long gone and been replaced by tourists. Many of the nearby cottages date from the eighteenth century, when Ambleside had a considerable reputation for its wool sales.
Windermere and Waterhead
By 1800, however, the market was in decline and the town was saved only by the growth of another industry, that of tourism. Close to Windermere and with very easy access to the central feils in particular Langdale Ambleside was popular with rich manufacturers in the nineteenth century and their villas spread out around the town, at the head of Windermere and towards Waterhead, where there is a steamer service on the lake. Today Ambleside has a strongly Victorian flavour, but caters almost exclusively for tourists and is almost overrun with gift shops and guest houses.
Cockermouth the Lake District
As with many settlements in the Middle Ages, Cockermouth grew into a town with the construction of a castle and the subsequent grant of a market charter, in this case to William de Fortibus in 1221. The castle was built in about 1140, partly with stones robbed from the nearby Roman fort of Derventio at Papcastle, and the town grew in its shadow at the confluence of the Derwent and Cocker. Its early growth was slow and it was not until the seventeenth century that the weekly horse and cattle fairs spawned a physical expansion of the town, with blue slated town houses built of stone around the Moot Hall, Market House, Corn Market and Shambles.
Industrialisation followed in about 1800 and resulted in growth north of the River Derwent, around Derwent Mills, and also south of the medieval centre, close to corn, tweed, hat and fulling mills. This early nineteenth century expansion transformed Cockermouth from a small market town into a busy industrial centre (though still on a comparatively small scale) and its legacy is very much to be seen in the character of the town today.
The Cockermouth commons, known as The Sand, were enclosed in 1816 and replaced with workshops and warehouses between Main Street and the River Derwent, and the lasting visual impression of the town is of the Georgian and early Victorian buildings which accompanied this development.
Cockermouth and William Wordsworth
Examples include the Town Hall, dating from 1841 and first used as a Methodist chapel, and, from a slightly earlier period, the house on Main Street which has achieved fame as William Wordsworth's birthplace. Though it is just outside the National Park Kendal acts as a centre for much of the south-eastern quadrant; it was formerly the biggest town in Westmorland.
Sited close to the Roman fort at Watercrook, Kendal achieved urban status under the Normans, with a busy town stretching out along roads such as Stricklandgate, Stramongate and Kirkgate from its central market place. The first market charter the first granted to any Lakeland town was granted by Richard I to Gilbert fitz Robert fitz Reinfred in 1189 and bestowed the right to hold a Saturday market and three fairs a year in the barony of Kendal.
The massive circular motte and bailey castle, perched on top of a drumlin to the east of the River Kent, dates from the early thirteenth century; three centuries later it was already in decay, and the remains of towers and the curtain wall are a little disappointing.
The history of Kendal
The medieval prosperity of Kendal was based on wool from the surrounding fells, not just brought to market here but woven into the heavy cloth known as Kendal Green; Flemish weavers settled here from the fourteenth century onwards. The long, narrow 'burgage' plots of the weavers and the other burgesses of the medieval town can still be traced running in both directions from the main north south streets, while at the end of alleys leading from these streets the traditional style of buildings clustered around yards can still be found.
Though this was also medieval in origin (and timber framed houses from this period still exist, some disguised by the application of rendering) most of the surviving houses in this style date from the great expansion of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
This expansion followed the construction of the Lancaster and Kendal canal, which opened in 1819, and resulted in the creation of an industrial suburb on the east bank of the Kent, immediately below the ruined castle. The new industries, largely using water power from the river, included carpet making, the manufacture of railway rugs and coat linings, snuff manufacture, and marble polishing. Terraces of cottages, built in the local grey limestone, also appeared in the early nineteenth century close to Stramongate bridge, together with St George's church in 1841, though the parish church remains Holy Trinity in Kirkgate.
Places to visit in the Windermere and accommodation
If you are planning to visit the Lake District, one of the best places to base yourself is Windermere, with its wide range of hotels, guesthouses, bed and breakfast accommodation and places to stay. Bowness also offers some excellent hot tub hotels plus some of the most famous attractions in the Lake District, including the Beatrix Potter Attraction and the Aquarium of the Lakes, plus several boat trips and walks around Windermere.
Labels: Ravenglass
posted by Windermere Boutique Hotels | 07:50
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