Gote Road Low Gote Mill
Streets Menu
Turning off Gote Road to Papcastle Road leads to an excellent example of tasteful modernisation of the old Low Gote Mill. The building can be accessed along Spital Ing Lane where you will pass the building that was once the drying shed when wet linen cloth that had been made in Low Gote Mill was hung in a building without glazed windows so the wind would dry the cloth. A photo elsewhere on this site shows a field beside the factory that Harris family built that is now called Derwent Mills, and in the phots you will see linen cloth drying on the adjacent field.
“On the right bank of the Derwent is an industrial area which has developed in recent times from the first mill building of 1834. The Quaker family of Harris began linen manufacture in Cockermouth in Low Gote Mill early last century and built Derwent Mill for their expanding business in 1834, enlarging it considerably in 1847 and 1855. (Plate 15) The ‘hospice’ building near Low Gote was erected in the firm’s early days for drying flax (it appears on the 1832 map) and a compulsory purchase order made by the County Council in 1975 has ensured its preservation. Harris embroidery thread, produced in over 200 different shades, became famous. The firm also wove linen and at times employed 800 people.
Bradbury Chpt 32
After swinging round the Sandair field the Derwent comes back to just below Low Gote Mills. William Jackson wrote in 1878
“It may well be that the well-known mill called ‘Goat Mill’ dates from this period a very respectable age of seven centuries, but I am much disposed to ascribe it to an origin eight centuries earlier, and to believe that we have here a mill occupying the very site of a predecessor, which ground corn for the garrison of the neighbouring Roman fort The name of Goat… is. it seems, the equivalent of the Icelandic ‘gioto’, a drain; technically ‘goit’, the channel which takes the water from the mill wheel back to the parent stream.” [8]
The term may have a wider meaning covering the whole of a mill race. Its use in Cockermouth is variously spelt ‘goat’ and ‘gote’.”
Bradbury Chpt 32
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.
In the centre of the photo is the wrongly named “hospice” with the windows appearing black because there was no glass – it was open to allow the flax to dry, that was made by the Harris family in their water powered Low Gote Mill .
On the left is the waterworks chimney for pumping water to the header tank on Tallentire Hill to supply drinking water to Maryport.
“A mill was built here for corn in 1609, rebuilt for textiles in 1779 and reverted to corn in 1858. The two mills were probably of different dates. A map dated 1727 [11] labels them ‘Logwood mill. Wheat mill. Corn mill.’ Wood shows them both as flax mills in 1832, the upper one belonging to Thos. Mawson and the lower to Jona. Harris, who was here until 1847. The first OS map (1863) labels the whole area, including High Gote across the main road, as ‘Goat Mills (Corn)’.”
“The hamlet of ‘The Gote’ which grew in this area from the early 19th century was an isolated community separated from the town by fields, in one of which flax was spread to dry. ‘Bleach House’ near High Gote Mill is a reminder of this practice. The inhabitants of the Gote found work not only in the various Gote mills but also in the Fitz Mill complex across the Derwent. A variety of activities took place in the Fitz Mills, which belonged to the Senhouse family. Wood gives nothing beyond ‘Fitz Mill. Capt. Senhouse’ in 1832 and the first OS map 30 years later marks it ‘Flax’. A map shows a corn mill in 1774. [13]
In 1883 Richard Senhouse leased [14] to Allan Banks of Cockermouth the cottage, garden, dye house, drying loft, bleaching house, bleaching green and out offices at Fitz Thread Mill for £1-4s 8d. a month. The mill and engine house were not included. In March 1893 Banks was given notice to quit and the following year the premises were leased to a syndicate for “manufacturing woollen goods and the spinning of carpet and other yams”. In the agreement (which did not include the bed of the Derwent and its fish and gravel) everything was listed in the greatest detail, even the number of wooden props supporting the floors. The document refers to the old mill, new mill, boiler house, engine house, dye house, store room, thread shop, old store room and old cottage. [15]”
Bradbury chapter 32
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. 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. 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. 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. 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.
Fitz Park rugby ground looking north over the railway line that ascends to Cockermouth station. The chimney centre left is by the right bank of the Derwent river, powering the pumping station that took water from a borehole to pump to the top of Tallentire Hill for Maryport. The chimney on the far left is for Fitz Mill that was on the left bank of the Derwent on the sharp bend, where once there was a weir to provide for the mill, the site is accessed to the right of Lakes Home Centre car park.
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.
Above is Spital Ing Lane that leads to the old pumping station for Maryport’s water supply and the first water powered mill of Harris family who built the huge Millers factory.
Gote Road descends down Gote Brow at the top of the map, passes the turning to Papcastle at Goat Mills where today on the right side is James Walker factory, and Goat Mills on the right is Lawsons Haulage yard.
Sandair is the local name for the land enclosed by the curve of the Derwent river and today includes the land shown here as a tree nursery; this area is now Cockermouth Cricket ground. Carnivals and public events once took place here, as these accompanying photos show. A hydrogen filled balloon took off from here, I think that there may be an aerial photo on this website that was taken from the balloon.
The Lowther Arms Inn is not a private house and retains the attractive panel on the front of the house that once had the name painted on it. Goat Well and the stream Goat Dub are no longer evident. The road to Papcastle and buildings by the junction were demolished to widen the junction and a new bungalow built there. The building beside the word Spital of Spital Ing Lane had window openings without glass so the air could pass over the newly woven linen that was manufactured in Goat Mills by the Harris family before they built the Derwent Mills. On the bottom right corner is Bleach House naming unknown, though when the Derwent Mills was built by the Harris family, they continued to make linen from flax plant fibres and this cloth retains water from its manufacture so requires drying and photos on this site show the linen spread out on adjacent greens, to dry in the sun and perhaps to be bleached in the sun, perhaps thus giving the name of Bleach House to the building.
On the left bank of the Derwent is Fitz Mill that can be seen in the background of festivities on Sandair. This once had a weir with a fish pass but it was all demolished, though some of the large stone blocks can still be seen on the right bank in the undergrowth, past today’s fishing shed. This area used to be one of Cockermouth’s refuse disposal places, even though the river regularly washes over the surface. Photos of Fitz Mill show a chimney and further research may explain if the weir was for water supply rather than water power.
After one of the major floods of Cockermouth in recent times some “flood attenuation tanks” were built, one in Main Street at the cross road with Station Street and High Sand Lane, and another at the bottom of the Goat, approximately where the word Goat is printed in bold. One of the engineers working on this said the intention is to keep the tanks empty and catch a sudden increase so the water drainage system is not overwhelmed.
This map is from National Library of Scotland NLS 121144250 https://maps.nls.uk/view/121144250
