Cockermouth History
Main Street was known as Below Bridge. Market Place has the Moot Hall standing in 1775 and the road continues to Ouze Bridge but a turnpike gate would charge a fee to cover the cost of maintenance of that road.
The road from Market Place goes up Kirkgate and then to Keswick (via Whinlatter) with another turnpike gate at the top of Kirkgate by the Quaker Meeting house.
Back Lane became South Street and led to the Cocker where there was a ford over to Cocker Lane. This lane bends to the right slightly and the houses on the right of the lane still exist, with All Saints church on the left, and the lane joins Kirkgate and turns right to the toll cottage beside the Quakers Meeting house. The very narrow entrance restricted access to Long Croft Lane so buildings were demolished in the 1930s to give access to the new Windmill Lane estate etc. Note the lines that indicate evidence of the medieval strip field system.
From Market Place the road up Castlegate to Park Lane which in the 1950s was renamed Isel Road and continues to Isel Hall, the seat of the family that owned a lot of the land in the area.
Chandler Lane with fields and gardens behind its houses joins Back Lane (later renamed Challoner Street). There is no Station Street until after the railway was built in 1864 and required breaking into the houses opposite “Sand Went” which we now know as High Sand Lane, and Station Street would then demolish the Sunday School on Back lane to join South Street and continue up the hill. Note Sullart Went becomes Sullart Street.
Sources and thanks and permissions and copyright are shown on appropriate pages and/or in the About section. If someone can prove they have sole copyright and ownership of all rights to the negative and positive prints of a photo and its digital copy, and if they then want to have their name acknowledged after providing their clear evidence of ownership of sole copyright then I will acknowledge that right. Otherwise this personal project, made at my own expense, is my voluntary, free to access website made with goodwill to the community, so that the site gives free access to our community’s historic information. For those who desire to stop some photos being seen, review your motives; some photos were given to the local history centre and have been hidden for 20 years – why? I don’t have access to them. Surely when the community give photos to a local centre for free, the photos should be available to the public to view with free access and free sharing by digital reproduction on which we can add our own descriptions on our own websites and Facebook pages and other sharing sites? Please read the acknowledgements and thanks on the About section – there are some astounding links including the National Library of Scotland’s (NLS) zoomable historic maps, and sites of rail and coal historic sites and … see About. Perhaps the links will stimulate you to do your own research for your own personal education like this site that I made for personal research and education.