Main Street 61 - 63 Leslie Cleeland Furniture Carpets
Main Street 61 63 Leslie Cleeland outside his Furniture and Carpets shop that replaced the Blue Bell Inn and the shops beside it and this new building became the established home of Cockermouth’s Cleeland Furniture and Carpets.
Leslie Cleeland had been the manager of the furniture store in Station Street that had been part of the Maryport Cooperative Industrial Society.
Click to see Station Street Maryport Coop and Station Street Coop
Main Street Blue Bell Inn south side was demolished and rebuilt and now Cleelands furniture and carpets.
Note the sign on the wall advertising “GOOD STABLING” was an important attraction when horse and cart were the only transport available, before cars were available.
The archway to Lowther Went would be where the horses would go to the stables behind. Note the number of wooden beer barrels which is an indication of the amount of work to make and move them. The barrels were rolled over “barrel bridge” over the Cocker to the brewery.
Note that weak beer was a normal and safe drink because in early days, water was not piped from municipal water treatment plants, thus weak beer may have been a safer drink than water from a well. Hand coloured mono photo. c 1890
Main Street 63 advert J Nelson Liveries and Costumes. This shop was beside 61 Blue Bell Inn and both were demolished for a new building for Cleeland furnishing and carpets. This picture from an advert from a theatre program of 1906
Main Street 61 – 63 after the Bluebell Inn was demolished and this store built for Leslie Cleeland carpets and furnishing. Leslie Cleeland had been the manager of a branch of Maryport Co-op in Station Street. c 1970
Guides on route to Harris Park to lay daffodils as a commemoration to Wordworth at the Wordsworth Memorial Fountain in April 1950. (Bradbury p133):
In 1950 the town celebrated the centenary of the poet’s death. The Urban District Council appealed for money to buy 10,000 daffodil bulbs to plant on the approach to the town and the response was sufficient to buy 27,000.
Behind the parade of young ladies are shops in Main Street. Main Street 57, with the man standing on its right, and the gate in its doorway, is an empty shop in this photo. Today the premises is The Paper Shop.
To the right is Main Street 61, the Blue Bell Hotel. A tinted photo shows the Blue Bell in its former day. 61 and 63 were demolished to be replaced by the current Leslie Cleeland carpet and furniture shop. Leslie Cleeland had been one of the managers of the Co-op in Station Street and then opened his own popular furniture and floor covering shop on this Main Street site.
Tom Winter also had been a manager of one of the Co-op shops in Station Street and he also opened his own shop.
April 1950
