Gote Road
Gote Road Menu
Gote Road Lowther Arms protrudes onto cobbled pavement by the gravel road with cartwheel tracks. Postman with his bicycle on left. Gable end of Hospice in centre of photo. Named Goat but today known as Gote Road.
A feature of market life which disappeared between the wars was the sale of Irish geese, landed at Silloth or Whitehaven after harvest time. They were driven through melted tar and then sand to prevent sore feet during their long marches. This ‘shoeing’ was done in Cockermouth at the foot of Gote Brow, near the entrance to ‘Senhouse Park’.[30] They were sold as they passed through villages or to and those intended for the Cockermouth market on Monday usually reached the town on Saturday to be rested in Deer Orchard or the field where the hospital now stands. Bradbury chpt 18
Gote Road shows the Lowther Arms serving Lion Ales, one of two of Cleator Moor brewery.
The building nearest the photographer has a bricked up doorway, next to what appears to be a shop window. Compare with the photo below of today.
Gote Road. The Lowther Arms built 1741 is now a private house and the end property is now rebuilt.
Gote Road. The Esso garage that later became car repair workshop and currently is a car sales place. Opposite is the Lowther Arms pub.
In the centre of the photo is the hospice with the windows appearing black because there was no glass – it was open to allow the flax to dry.
Above the roof of the Esso is the chimney on the Papcastle road and was the waterworks chimney for pumping water to the header tank on Tallentire Hill to supply drinking water to Maryport.
Gote Road to Papcastle Junction Improvements
At the bottom of Gote Brow is the junction for the road to Papcastle and Seaton, before the days of the bypass. The Papcastle road was very narrow, blocked by buildings, and Gote Road was very narrow, as seen from this photo. Eventually James Walker factory would be built to the left of the photographer.
To widen the road, the block of houses in the centre of the photo were demolished. Also the single storey houses along the Papcastle Road were demolished and the road junction widened and the approach to Gote Brow made three lanes wide, with the potential for better road access to land on which James Walker factory was later built.
The tall chimney was from the pumping engine that took water from a borehole and pumped it to the top of Tallentire Hill header tank from where it supplied Maryport.
