Bradbury - Chapter 1 Geology, Geography and Climate
Chapter 1
The Background. Geology, Geography and Climate
Some knowledge of the geological and geographical background of the Cockermouth area will help in understanding why a town developed on this particular site and why that development followed certain lines. The results of alternating periods of submersion and elevation, of heat and pressure and of the weathering of higher layers are summarised in Figs. I and 2.
The details of these processes are beyond the scope of this book, but we may note geological features which are peculiar to the area. A great earth storm of some 300 million years ago brought desert-like conditions to Cumbria under which rocks were broken down and swept away as debris. In only three areas is this debris found, one of them being the band of the Cockermouth lava. This extends for some seven miles in a SW-NE direction, including the NW bank of the Derwent above the town. There are four or five flows of this hard, dark green basalt (similar to the Giant’s Causeway) in the 300 feet thickness of the band, and these are exposed in places by streams entering the river from the NW.
In places near the town the limestone crags convey some idea of the great dome which preceded the Lake District as we know it, before erosive forces wore it down. The view of Pardshaw Crags (OS 103 256) is an example.
The appearance of the land around Cockermouth has been affected more recently by the glaciations of the last three million years. The U-shaped valleys of Embleton and Crummock Buttermere, with the falls from hanging valleys along their sides, were shaped by ice. Enormous quantities of rock were transported considerable distances and finished the journey in one of three ways, deposited along the sides of the glacier to form lateral moraines, because the ice moving more slowly here (compare the speed of water near the banks of a river with that in the centre) could not support it; deposited to form terminal moraines when the foot of the glacier melted and the rock pieces sank; or ground down during the journey to form boulder clay. Erratics unearthed during the building of Derwent School were left on the site by ice.
About 20,000 to 15,000 years ago the ice began to retreat, a retreat interrupted by partial re advances. A tree-covered moraine near Armaside probably marks the melting point of a glacier temporarily halted during its retreat up the valley.
By approximately 11,000 BC most of Cumbria was free of ice, the mountains being surrounded by a tundra-like landscape of badly drained boulder clays. During this period of melting great glacial lakes were formed, which eventually burst out of the hollows in which they were trapped to scour wide channels down to the coast, valleys now dry or occupied by only a small stream. The Embleton valley is an example. A feature of this valley is the flat-topped sand and gravel delta near High Netherscale, formed when the nearby lake was considerably higher than now and which forced the River Derwent to find a new route to Cockermouth. The great glacial lakes in our area gradually shrank to Crummock-Buttermere and Bassenthwaite-Derwent, to be separated later by debris washed down from the neighbouring hills.
Ice flowing north from the Lakeland dome met that flowing south from the Scottish Uplands, with the result that part of both streams were turned eastwards and the rest westwards, where the two flows travelled side by side along the coastal plain to Morecambe Bay and beyond. The majority of the hills north and west of Cockermouth are long cigar-shaped banks of clay (drumlins) built up in the direction of the ice stream. In the Gilcrux area these show clearly the NE to SW drift of the Scottish ice, while nearer the town the long axes of the hills indicate the direction of the Lakeland flow changing from E-W to N-S. Looking south from Cockermouth there can just be seen the central dome of bare Borrowdale Volcanics, rugged and jagged in contrast to the rounder grass-covered fells of Skiddaw Slate of almost all the Buttermere-Lorton valley. West and north of the town lies the local section of the carboniferous limestone which almost rings the Lake District (Fig. 2) and the clints and grikes of limestone pavements may be seen on Tallentire Hill and elsewhere.
In the valleys and on the Cumbrian Plain the basic rocks are covered with material carried down and dropped by the ice or washed down by streams and then deposited as the land became level and the water lost its speed the sands and gravel, silt and soil, but mostly boulder clay which have made this an agricultural district.
A band of Skiddaw Slate grits crosses Cockermouth in roughly an E-W direction, its line being broken by faults and the grits overlaid by clay and alluvium, but the basic rock may be seen in the Cocker just above the railway arch (OS 122 304) and in the lower end of Tom Rudd. It is greatly contorted and folded and has minor faulting. It is exposed here in an anticline -a fold arched upwards.
The geology of the area has given rise to quarrying and a little mining around the town and these industries will be considered later.
Many Cumbrian towns are built of the local available stone, slate, limestone or sandstone. [3] In Cockermouth one building stone does not obviously predominate. Walls of river cobbles are a feature of much of the older property still standing, door and window openings being framed in dressed stone. Limestone and freestone from the Brigham and Broughton quarries have been used extensively for later buildings, such as the Court House and the auction marts. Rendering is common on houses of every period, including the recent estates ofbrick and manufactured blocks.
The actual site of the town was settled by the river system and the ridge of glacial gravel in the castle area referred to above. A settlement developed beneath the castle, erected in this defensive position as an improvement on Papcastle. It is not clear whether the rivers always joined at this point, for there is a tradition that in the time of Edward I (1272-1307) the Derwent was diverted to pass under the castle promontory, thus increasing its defences. Previously, tradition states, the river followed a fairly straight course from below Wood Hall along the foot of Mickle Brow to just beyond the Gote. Askew claimed that in 1866 many traces of the old channel were still visible and E.R. Denwood said that the old bed of the Derwent could be seen in 1946 behind the tarn which lay east of the foot of Gote Brow. The discovery of river gravel in this area when digging the foundations of James Walker’s factory supports the tradition. If this theory is correct then the present line of the Derwent from the castle to Papcastle would at one time be the course not of the Derwent but of the Cocker.
Referring to the wealth of water power in Cockermouth, Mannix and Whellan observed in 1847
The two are Tom Rudd Beck, rising on the north of Kirk Fell, and Bitter Beck which drains the Elva Plain area. The two becks and the two rivers turned a considerable number of water wheels.
Fig 104 The Cockermouth river system
There was “a prodigious flood at Cockermouth, which carried away several houses, mills, etc.”, on or about the 21st November 1761 [5], followed ten years later by a great flood caused by the sudden melting of snow on the hills. There was another severe one in 1852 and in 1874 the local press recorded extensive flooding of industrial premises – Mr. Fletcher’s tannery was useless, Mr. Smethurst’s hat factory and Messrs. Pearson’s tweed mill on the opposite side of the Cocker were flooded, while in Pearson’s other factory near Cocker Bridge the water lifted beams, vats and boilers. Mr. Wyndham’s brewery and Messrs. Herbert’s foundry also suffered. Goods were ruined in many shops, sheep were drowned at a butcher’s, Main Street was under water and, as always, the Gote was flooded. [6] This was a fairly common picture, even into this century. A particularly severe flood occurred in early October 1918 (Plates 28 & 29).
In spite of the efforts of 1936 the town suffered severe flooding during August Bank Holiday weekend in 1938. Water reached parts of Cockermouth never previously affected. Thirty hours of rain raised the Cocker to 15 feet above normal at Cocker Bridge and the river cascaded down a fall of six feet into the lower Derwent. Barrel Bridge collapsed as debris built up behind a wedged tree. As it did so Isaac Wordsworth, a county council workman, slipped into a crack but was grabbed in time and rescued. Quaker Bridge lost railings and masonry. A section of the main sewer which passes under Cocker Bridge was found a hundred yards away. Pavements were lifted in Challoner Street as the Cocker took a short cut through the town. Sewers backed up, water entered the gas main and houses suffered extensive flood damage -. the water was eight feet deep in one court off Market Street. Documents were destroyed as the river poured through the vaults of the Midland Bank and Huddart’s shop on the opposite side of the bridge was also severely damaged, to the extent that it had to be demolished and the business transferred next door. The vacant plot may be seen on the river bank.
Improved river maintenance appears to have been beneficial to the town, the only post-war flood of any consequence being in August 1966 when a freak storm over and to the east of the town caused the two becks to rise rapidly. A culvert at Butts Fold collapsed, blocking the channel, so that water poured down St. Helen’s Street flooding about fifty houses and shops as far as Cocker Bridge and causing thousands of pounds worth of damage. No. 9 Kirkgate, now demolished, had water four or five inches [100-125 mm] deep in the bedrooms and the height of the flood water in the Market Place is recorded on the door frame of the ironmonger’s shop of J.B. Banks by a line 31 inches [780 mm] above pavement level. Tom Rudd Beck also flooded the Skinner Street area.
On 8th January 2005, Cumbria suffered a tremendous storm with hurricane force winds (120mph recorded at Workington) and excessive torrential rain – with the worst flooding on record since at least 1822. With a month’s worth of rain falling in 24-hours, the flood defences were over topped, causing about 3,000 properties across the county to flood. More than 1,700 of these properties (houses and businesses) were in the city of Carlisle. There were spectacular photographs taken of such as Hardwicke Circus, Brunton Park Football Ground and Caldewgate all under feet of water. Cockermouth, along with other towns such as Keswick and Appleby, was also flooded with some over 100 properties being badly damaged and out of use for several months subsequently. Waterloo Street, the Gote, Main Street were flooded but fortunately the businesses there were not severely inundated. Tree damage throughout the area was severe with an estimated loss of something like 500,000 trees in Cumbria as a whole. There is still the hope that low flood prevention walls along five stretches of river banks in the town can be built.
‘It is put in pain that Rd. Uriell shall dress the gutter between the highway and his own Tarn Close 6s.8d.[12]
A Cockermouth meteorologist, H. Dodgson, kept records for the town for the fifteen years (1862-76) [14] and we may compare his readings with those made at the Grammar School for the twelve years (1966-77), 100 years later. The average annual rainfall for the two periods respectively was 44.5 in [1130 mm] and 42.0 in [1070 mm], the mean temperature 48.6 and 47.7 degrees F, showing little difference. Over ten of Dodgson’s years, Cockermouth’s rainfall was 44 inches, while Whinfell Hall had 55 and Keswick 62, showing how the town benefits from not having high land on the side of the prevailing winds. Moving further from the hills Silloth had 34 inches and Carlisle 29.
