Chapter 25

Leisure Activities

We regard life a hundred years ago as being more leisurely than today, and so it was if we think of the speed of living. Working hours were, however, longer and a five-day week unheard of, yet we have seen that there was a – considerable amount of time given to further education and various societies. In this chapter we will look further at the ways in which Cockermouth people spent their leisure and sought entertainment, at what has been ‘going on’ in the town during the last hundred years and at what is happening today.

In addition to the lectures mentioned when considering further education, there have for long been talks connected with church societies in the town. Over 100 years ago Christ Church ran a series of Lent Lectures, presumably of a religious nature, but groups like the Wesley (later Methodist) Guild, the Congregational Christian Endeavour and the Friends’ Adult School covered a wider field, as did Toc H which used to meet in the former WEA room in Regent House. The churches provided many societies and activities, and still do – missionary organisations, Bible classes, Band of Hope meetings, Sunday school treats, bell ringers’ suppers, choir outings, study groups, prayer groups, etc. Some of these continue to this day: others, such as the Wesleyan Field Club and the Wesleyan Cycling Club, have been superseded.

A number of the more cruel entertainments of earlier days have disappeared. Market Day brought a dancing bear to the town until the 1920s. a huge beer-drinking animal, “all of seven feet”, which toured the towns of West Cumberland. [1] The barrel organ monkey was a feature of town life until much later. (Plate 11). Cock-fighting, badger-baiting and bull-baiting were banned by law in 1855, although they lingered on in isolated places. Bull-baiting had a serious purpose in addition to its entertainment value. Baiting was considered to make the beef more tender. Boroughs and market towns were responsible for providing a bull-ring, usually set in a boulder. [2] The Court Leet in 1685 passed the sentence

• “We amerce: John Laverauke for slaughtering a bull without baiting 3s. 4d.”

and three years later the town was told

• “Whereas the Burrow is liable to an amercyment for want of a rope and furniture to Bait a Bull withal, we do order and appoint the BaiHffand Bailiffs successively to buy rope rings and what’s needful for the same. “[3]

Cockermouth’s otter hounds have been disbanded. The pack, formed about 1830, was kept in a small building to the north of the old railway track near Little Mill. Otter hunting was a summer sport. The ten couples of hounds in the Cockermouth pack in 1938 hunted on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays in the Keswick, Bassenthwaite Lake and Cockermouth areas respectively. [4]

The Beagles, which hunted the hare in winter, were kennelled in Well Field near Windmill Lane [5] and they too have been disbanded.

The local fox-hunting pack, the Melbreak, continues to work the Lorton, Buttermere and Loweswater area. They hunt from mid-September until the end of March and are available for call-out during April if young lambs are being taken. [6] During the season the hounds are kept at Miller Place in the Lorton Valley and at other times find homes with people in the area who take responsibility for exercising them.

Horse-racing was once a feature of town life. In 1681 the Court Leet ruled:

• “The 3rd. of May we appoint for the running of John Gee, Esq., free gift of a saddle on Harrot ten stone weight”. [7]

There was formerly trotting and a press reference in 1876 describes the Cockermouth Steeplechase as an annual event. [8] Hound-trailing, sheep dog trials and an occasional gymkhana are now held in a field east of Derwent School. In the same place the annual agricultural show took place, a longstanding event, but more recently moved to the Fjtz. In 1849, a prize of 30s was given at the show for “the farmer’s manservant who has lived the greatest number of years in one situation to the perfect satisfaction of his employer”. It went to Peter Murray, for 50 years at Ribton, and it spoke well for the farmer, Ostle Mordaunt, that the prize for the longest serving woman also went to Ribton, to Margaret Little with over 27 years. Another prize not awarded today was for “the labourer in husbandry who has brought up the greatest number of legitimate children without parish relief’.

The £2 was shared between James Kendal of High Mosser and Matthew Gregg of Gilcrux, who tied with 11 each. [9]

The Cockermouth Agricultural Show is an annual event, while more specialised are the Fur and Feather Society, the Beekeepers’ Association, the Gardeners’ Society (there was a Flower, Fruit and Vegetable Society back in 1879) and the Anglers’ association. Cockermouth residents may fish from Derwent (Gote) Bridge to Double Mills (YHA) at a concession rate of £3 a season.

The pools of the rivers have always been the centres for swimming. Bathing facilities in Harris Park were considered in 1908-9 and 1933 but it was not until 1978 that the town acquired a pool, built on Deer Orchard adjacent to the Drill Hall, now developed as a sports centre. This final success was due to the efforts of a voluntary group, the Swimming Pool Association, which consistently refused to be thwarted by financial difficulties and raised £60,000 towards the total cost of £187,000. Thomas Armstrong Ltd. completed the building in time for Princess Alexandra to open it on 18 May 1978.

The district lends itself to other natural outdoor pursuits such as fell walking and rock climbing. The Cockermouth Mountain Rescue Team was formed in 1953 to cover the Buttermere and Ennerdale valleys. Beginning with very little equipment and unreliable ancient transport, garaged in the Market Hall, the team of some 40 members now has state-of-the art facilities in a new purpose-built building on the Station Road car park adjacent to the new fire station – a move required by the arrival of Sainsbury’s supermarket and need for more space. The move in 2002 was substantially funded by Sport England but well supported by local donations. The team now operates with three well equipped vehicles, radio communication and search dogs. The new building received Cockermouth Civic Trust’s Award for development in sympathy with the town as a whole.

The running costs are currently about £25,000 per year (team members are unpaid, but the life of equipment is short) are provided by local councils, organisations and individuals as voluntary gifts. In its first 25 years Cockermouth Mountain Rescue Team was called out 233 times to a variety of incidents, from twisted ankles to fatalities, but the current call-out rate was 47 in 2004 alone (in two incidents the casualty was dead, in 20 cases injured). The tragic deaths of two of its members, Jock Thompson and Mike Stephenson, while on a training exercise near Buttermere in 1969, will long be remembered. [10]

Mockerkin Tarn is the local rendezvous for skating on the rare occasions when it is sufficiently frozen – an event of decreasing frequency. But up to about 1950 there was skating on Brown’s Tarn opposite Scales Fann on the Brigham road and early in the century on the frog pond, the clay pits in the trees beyond Wyndham House. In 1885 a very severe frost enabled an ice house to be built in Harris Park with blocks cut from the river.

Of other outdoor activities, cycling became popular and fashionable in the 1890s, for women as well as men, and at the turn of the century there was the Cockermouth Cycling Club, in addition to the Wesleyan Club already mentioned. There have been athletic sports on Fairfield, then on school fields, and now the Amateur Sports Association, a very successful club, has acquired its own purpose built track on the former town tip at Tarn Close. The Rugby Club celebrated its centenary in 1977-8 and originally playing at Laithwaite, in the western end of the town, now moved to the fields of the old Grammar School, where a modem club-house has also been built.

There has been a variety of soccer clubs, Deer Orchard being the present one, using the Wakefield Road ground; and the Cockermouth Cricket Club at Sandair was founded in 1823 and is the oldest in the old Cumberland County. One could play bowls (and quoits) at a number of inns and the public green at Town Head is recalled by the Bowling Green Inn in St. Helen’s Street – (now gone). The castle bowling green was once open to the public. Now one may bowl on the Croftside green or in Harris Park. Tennis courts formerly occupied the site of the Methodist Church and the garage in Lorton Street. Cockermouth Golf Club has a course on the hill-top between the Higham road and Embleton, but at one time golf was played below the new Riverdale Estate, on land recently added to the park. There was a pavilion in the centre of this area and” the course could be approached by a footbridge at Rubby Banks Mill. Also out-of-doors were a variety of picnics and works outings. The former involved sports, archery, dancing, bands, etc., and were often held on the Lands with the Earl’s permission, perhaps purely a gala day or planned to raise money for some project.

Outings tended to be to the Solway coast. For a short time regattas were held at the northern end of Bassenthwaite Lake, one of the entertainments being to ship horses to the middle of the lake in barges and then leave them to swim for the shore. [11] The first of these shows was in 1780, but they were soon superseded by Joseph Pocklington’s great displays on Derwentwater.

The men of the town might spend their spare time in the Volunteers. We have examined in an earlier chapter the methods of raising an army up to the passing of the Militia Act in 1757 which made service compulsory, a subsequent act in 1852 restoring the voluntary basis – hence ‘The Volunteers’. They were replaced by the Territorial or Reserve Forces in 1907, by which time the country had a standing army.

Locally we find in the 18th century notice being given in the press for the militia to report for 14 days’ training in August. under penalty of£20 fine or six months’ imprisonment. [12] The armoury of the local branch of the Cumberland and Westmorland Yeomanry was the small building until recently, used as the Information Centre [Plate 8], from which the men drilled on the neighbouring area now the Riverside Car Park or marched to the Lands below the castle. [13] Then in 1886 came the indoor accommodation of the Drill Hall.

The first records of a theatre in the town are of productions in the Sun Inn barn near the bottom of Kirkgate. Here Thomas Holecroft, famous actor and literary figure and friend of William Hazlitt and Charles Lamb, played in 1775. [14] A century later there was drama in the Freemasons’ Hall and in the Apple Tree Hotel. Travelling companies used to erect their own theatres in Fairfield. Early in the 20th century, in a large wooden structure, ‘Peg o’the Pavement’, ‘The Collier’s Dying Child’, ‘Maria Martin’ and other tear-jerkers were played to packed houses. [15]

Biddall’s cinematograph exhibition visited F airfield in 1910, the council charging 30s. a week for the two or three weeks it was here. In 1913 the UDC approved a plan for the building of a picture hall in High Sand Lane. This never materialised and the following year they passed the plans of the Grand Theatre and Cinema Co. Ltd. for the Station Road building. [16]

The silent films were accompanied on the piano for many years by Gladys Duffield, remembered by many for her playing at children’s dancing classes. (She walked from Keswick to London in 1913 with the National Non-Militant Women’s Suffrage Pilgrimage.) The first ‘talkie’ screened in Cockermouth was the all-talking, singing and dancing ‘Fox Movietone Follies of 1929’ on 19 May 1930. Later the same month a cow strayed from the auction and climbed the theatre steps. In 1913 Will Fyfe and Harry Lauder appeared on the stage. Films eventually shared the building with Bingo, then there was Bingo only, until even this finished late in 1978. The Grand Theatre was also used for variety shows and other events put on in the town, including for many years the Grammar School prize-giving.

Groups which have brought music into the life of the town and then ceased to exist include the Cockermouth Operatic Society, the Cockermouth Glee Society, the Tonic Solfa Class and the Cockermouth Male Voice Choir. [17] The Cockermouth Harmonic Society, which continues, presented its 66th concert in the Grand Theatre in 1921, which puts its formation in the middle of the 19th century. On this occasion there were 140 in the orchestra and chorus. Numbers are less now, but it is still an active group and after a winter’s practising takes part each year in the Cumberland Rural Choirs performance usually in Carlisle.

The Mechanics Band formed in 1875, was revived in the 1970s after a long lapse. By 1978 the membership had risen to 20 senior and 14 junior players and the band has again become a part of the life of Cockermouth. The town could at one time provide three bands – the Mechanics’, Borough and Industrial School. Hardly in the same class, but years ago part of Cockermouth’s entertainment, were the groups of travelling musicians and, before 1914, the German bands to be heard in the streets. [18] Two other recent developments in the musical life of the town must be mentioned. The Castlegate Singers, a ladies’ choir formed in 1976 and based on the Derwent Centre, has won considerable repute in a short time and is in demand for concerts in the district. Also at the Centre instrumental teaching is available and many Cockermouth residents now learn the piano, violin, cello, flute, clarinet, etc. The schools Music Centre brings together younger musicians on a Saturday morning.

The revived Band, the Singers and the instrumentalists, together with the ‘Music in All Saints’ evenings and the long-standing Harmonic, have brought music to a prominent place in the leisure time activities of Cockermouth.

Keep-fit classes are run for both sexes, no new thing, for there were PT classes for young people in the Assembly Rooms before the first war. [19] Sports in different centres in the town include badminton, squash and fencing. Between the wars one could play billiards in the Assembly Rooms, organised by Charnley of Lancaster who had halls in a number of West Cumberland towns. [20]

In 1779 ‘The Pacquet’ announced

• “COCKERMOUTH ASSEMBLIES. The Next ASSEMBLY at the SUN INN, Cockermouth, will be on Tuesday the 26th. of JANUARY inst. and the other Three Assemblies which finish the Season, will be on the 2nd. and 30th. of March, and 27th. April, being the Tuesdays nearest the Full Moon; which, it is hoped, will he a convenience to the neighbouring Ladies and Gentlemen, who may choose to honour the Assembly with their Presence. Every Endeavour will be used to render the Meeting perfectly agreeable.” [21]

Some activities were restricted in their membership, such as the numerous annual dinners or suppers for employees in mills or shops and the trade associations such as the Grocers’ Association. The town’s Chamber of Trade was inaugurated at a dinner in 1934. [22] There are clubs of many kinds – British Legion (recently moved from the Skinners Arms in Kirkgate to the Sun in Market Place), Young Farmers, Drivers, etc. Of the political associations, the Conservatives had an office in Station Street and a reading room in Main Street moving to the larger premises at 7 Main Street (formerly a bank and offices) in 1925. The Liberal Association was once based in Market Place and the Labour Party used the former premises of the Boot and Shoe Operatives Union in Lorton Street.

There have been or still are Cubs and Scouts, Brownies and Guides, Boys Brigade and Girls’ White Ribbon, and the usual groups found in towns of Rotary etc. One may serve the community of women through the Women’s Voluntary Service or by giving time to Oxfam, Save the Children, Age Concern etc. One may serve by joining first-aid classes and associations, as one could as early as 1907 by paying 2s-6d [12p] for a course taken by Dr. Mitchell.

In the town’s large rooms – the Globe Assembly Room, the Freemasons’ Hall in Main Street and the Royal Assembly Room, and later the Public Hall – and in a number of smaller centres, there was obviously something to suit all tastes and still is. One could go to a ‘penny’ reading’ of recitations and solos in the schoolroom at Papcastle, listen to the Cockermouth Entertainment Society providing vocal and instrumental entertainment, attend the concerts of the Catch-my-Pal Society in the Bridge Street Rooms, take part in the spelling bees which became popular in the late 1870s, or watch a pantomime. One could help to provide an outing for the workhouse children by attending the Cockermouth Benevolent Society’s entertainment. One could from 1883 relax in the Convivial Club or between the wars use one’s mind in the League of Nations Union. [23] One may join the Bridge Club or visit the occasional exhibition. In 1936 there was an exhibition of relics and curios in All Saints Rooms [24] and more recently the Civic Trust staged a Wordsworth Exhibition in 1970 and a Bygones Exhibition in 1973 and several times since.

The Civic Trust, formed in 1967 with the aim “to make Cockermouth a better place in which to live, both now and in the future”, has a current membership of around 200. In addition to the lecture programme provided each winter, it has a special interest in the character, appearance and development of Cockermouth, working through the councils and the AlIerdale Planning Department. Its activities cover a wide field, including the founding of the information office (with the Chamber of Trade) a photographic record of the town, tidying up projects, tree planting and an annual outing for members. It has now taken on the responsibility for updating and publication of the author’s books as necessary.

Occasionally a circus would visit Cockermouth – Buffalo Bill’s, Bronco Bill’s, Smart’s, Sanger’s have all been. [25] (the last was in 1995). In June 1921 a passing attraction was a visit by Ingham and Little’s Aviation Co. who for a few days offered flights from Mr. Elliott’s field past the hospital. From lOam until dusk two passengers at a time were taken up for 10s-6d. [52 ½ p] each. [26] Then there were the celebrations – royal events, armistices, etc. – excuses for a town holiday and general enjoyment. 100 years ago there was an annual holiday on the Queen’s birthday, but this was a minor event compared with the excitement on 21st June 1887 in honour of her Jubilee.

A committee of ratepayers arranged church services, processions, bands, food and games a concert in the Public Hall and a ball in the Drill Hall. Add to these the firing of a salute, speeches and toasts, bellringing, nuts, Jubilee mugs and medals, bunting and flags and Cockermouth’s celebration was complete. [27] Unfortunately the day was sultry and uncomfortable and when late at night thousands assembled in the Castlegate and St. Helen’s area to see the fireworks and beacon fires, the latter were hardly visible because of haze and the lightness of a June evening.

Over the signature of lsaac Mitchell, chairman of the committee, a telegram was sent to the Queen

• “The inhabitants of Cockermouth. in public meeting assembled, congratulate her Majesty on this day, and wish her long life and happiness.”

Also a Jubilee Anthem, set to the tune of the National Anthem, was written by Rev. J. T. Pollock.

More substantial reminders of the occasion are the two bridges opened in that year -the Quaker Footbridge on Jubilee Day and Waterloo Bridge three days earlier, Also on Jubilee Day the foundation of Victoria Jubilee Bridge was laid.

This day set the pattern for similar events in later years -Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee [Plate 31], George V’s Silver Jubilee (when floodlighting of the town hall, the war memorial and All Saints tower was an added feature and ‘Miss Cockermouth’ took a hand in the celebrations), [28] coronations, etc.

A country town never finds a shortage of things to celebrate and, in common with the rest of the country, Cockermouth had hiring fairs, Halloween, young folks’ days, etc., which we cannot describe here. Some purely local events are however worth noting. In 1937 a pageant of 2,000 years of the town’s history was opened by Sir Hugh Walpole and many people still living took part in one or other of the episodes -the Romans. the Normans, Robert Bruce at Cockermouth Castle, the visit of Mary Queen of Scots, Cockermouth Fair and Election in 1831, T’Shepherds’ Meet and the concluding Epilogue. [29]

Wordsworth has given the town opportunities to celebrate. On his birthday, 7 April, in 1896 the band, councillors, M.P. and many townspeople gathered in Harris Park on a dull and showery afternoon for the unveiling of the granite drinking fountain surmounted by the bronze figure of a child, a memorial to the poet and his sister Dorothy. [30] (Plate 30)

In ] 950 the town celebrated the centenary of the poet’s death, then in 1970 came the 200th anniversary of his birth. A gathering in Wordsworth House was followed by the unveiling of a bust of William on a plot of ground facing the house. This was a gift to the town by Rotary, Round Table and the Lions Club and the unveiling was by the poet’s great-great-grandson Lt.-Col. J. G. Wordsworth. (In 1986 the Round Table was responsible for landscaping the surrounding area) In the afternoon primary school children walked from Fairfield to the memorial in the park carrying daffodils which they placed at the foot of the statue, as their predecessors had done over 70 years earlier.

The U.D.C. appealed for money to buy 10,000 daffodil bulbs to plant on the approaches to the town as part of the celebration. The response was sufficient to buy 27,0001 These were planted by school children and are enjoyed every spring. Unfortunately they were not enjoyed on 7 April 1970, for one of three things that went wrong in the commemoration was that the bulbs flowered about three weeks after the birthday. The following year they bloomed a week before the 7th April! The other mishaps were that the BBC filmed the ceremony in the park but the programme appeared on BBC 2 which could not be received in the town at that time; and the Post Office celebrated the event by a commemorative stamp which carried a picture of Grasmere -for which they apologised.

Each year the town has a carnival. At the beginning of the century this was Cousin Charley’s Day. There were queens and sports, and the day was rounded off with evening entertainments in the Drill Hall and the Public Hall. [31] In 1901 an added attraction was a balloon. The place which this carnival held in the life of a Cockermouth child is illustrated by the reply given to a schools inspector who asked which were the principal towns and what they were celebrated for, to receive the reply that Carlisle was noted for its mills, Workington for its ironworks, Whitehaven for its collieries, Cleator Moor for its ore mines and Cockermouth for Cousin Charley’s Day. [32]

The present-day carnival begins with a Procession. from Fairfield via Lorton Street, Kirkgate and Main Street to the Memorial Gardens (until recently to Sandair) for sports, refreshments, etc.

In the 19th century many Cockermouth people had never been further than ten miles from home, some had never seen the sea. Now this isolation has completely broken down and, with the rest of the country, we holiday near and far. A Cockermouth man, Mr. J. Cook, pioneered the way when in 1905 he arranged the first tour of the Cumberland Travel Association, using the name ‘Derwent Allerdale’ to avoid confusion with a better known tour operator! He took 35 people from all over the county to Switzerland for a highly successful fortnight’s holiday based on Lucerne, so successful that immediately on his return he began planning an autumn tour to the Channel Islands. [33]

Coming to more recent times, the town never misses an opportunity to celebrate. The Wedding of Prince Charles and Diana in July 1981, was an excuse for Main Street dancing, races, etc., and for a bonfire on Skiddaw. Then in the spring of 1989 the town commemorated the bi-centenary of the Mutiny on the Bounty, in which Fletcher Christian, born at nearby Moorland Close, played a leading part. In April 1982 the television programme “It’s a Knockout” was staged in the Memorial Gardens and on and in the River Derwent alongside. The European Year of Tourism in 1990 was celebrated by various outdoor events. ‘The Carnival continues and since the mid 1980’s the Round Table ‘Donkey Derby’ held on August Bank Holiday Monday has been a regular feature. The Christmas lights have developed from 1985 onwards into a spectacular and much appreciated feature of town life, the 1986 ‘switch-on’ by pop star, David Essex attracting some 10,000 people to Main Street.

Some earlier activities have been revived. Since 1990 there have been occasional visits by a circus. Totally different, the Harmonic Society, founded in 1867, has become active again after a lapse of several years. In 1991 a passion play was staged by local people and is becoming an annual event.

Gatherings which continue include the Agricultural Show, the Gardeners’ Society Show, the Fur and Feather Society’s Show and Sheep Dog Trials. Amongst societies which continue are Rotary, Round Table and the Lions (with the corresponding ladies’ groups), the Soroptomists, Probus and the British Legion. Some of these groups, along with Age Concern, provide outings and entertainments for the elderly and others. Some women belong to Women’s Institutes in neighbouring villages.

A number of new societies have been formed in recent years – the Derwent Railway Society (based in Cockermouth), Castlegate Singers, the West Cumberland Lacemakers (based in Cockermouth), a local history group, Cockermouth Music Society, Kirkgate Cinema Club, etc. Outstanding has been the development of the Cockermouth Amateur Dramatics Society (CADS), staging a wide variety of drama winning county trophies. The first event in the new Kirkgate Centre was their performance of “Much Ado About Nothing” in January 1995.

Considered in Chapter 40 is a completely new kind of leisure activity for the town, resulting from its twinning with Marvejols.

Cycling

More recently there has been a resurgence nationally of cycling and the development of cycleways and cycle routes. Cockermouth is on the national routes developed by Sustrans – the coast to coast routes both directly route pass through the town. The line of the old railway has also been developed as a footpath and cycle route from Low Road to the cemetery and is now called the Greenway.