Map 1863 Gote Road Derwent Mills before Weavers Arms demolished for Bridge Street NLS 229913844
Map 1863 On the left is Goat Road after it has crossed the Derwent at Gote Bridge (aka Derwent Bridge). The blue shaded Mill Race passes Derwent Mills where a building that straddles the mill race may be a waterwheel, though a chimney was erected shortly after this new factory was built. Workers had to walk from town, over Gote Bridge and along the track that crosses the mill race. The Derwent Mills were built by the Harris family who were Quakers and cared for their workers so much that they shortened the walk to work and built a footbridge, first called Quaker Bridge, later owners resulted in it being called Millers Bridge.
To give acces to this footbridge over the Derwent, the Harris family bought the Weavers Arms on Main Street, demolished it and other buildings so that they could construct a new lane called Bridge Street, to their new bridge to save their workers, who mostly would wear clunky clogs, from walking the extra distance over Gote (Derwent) Bridge.
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Map 1863 Gote Road Millers to Derwent to Weavers Arms pub no footbridge
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To the left of Goat Road is an extensive Nursery, not marked as an orchard that was later cleared into a grassed area and known as Sandair, and later became Cockermouth Cricket Club grounds. Opposite the Nursery is the building marked Lowther Arms, now a private house but the facia has the shape on which would have been the name of the pub. Next door was a smithy. The waterway behind the Lowther Arms seems to be a stream or pond that comes from a spring marked Goat Well and this flows under Blackfriars Bridge along Goat Dub; Dub seems to be an old Scottish or borders word for stream and seems to be a spring from Goat Well. Mill Race channel for the water to power High Gote Mill and Low Gote Mill.
On the right is Derwent Mills Linen thread manufactory with thread wound in the Reeling House and cloth processed in the Dyeing House and Drying Shed. The graphic below the Drying Shed may have been Tenterhooks or drying frames. Derwent Mills did not use the Mill Race, it was powered by coal boilers with its chimney which was demolished by Fred Dibnah 1994 by replacing a section of the base with timber then setting fire to the supporting timber so the chimney fell down (nearly pre-ignited by some local youths the night before!). The main building was converted into apartments and the Drying Shed area is now Derwentside Gardens.
Note there is no footbridge across the Derwent at this time. Note Low Sand Lane at the bottom of the map with the trees marked in the garden of Wordsworth House. Further to the right is Timber Yard which later became Walkers Builders yard and had access to the Main Street by a passage under the building marked with a long X, beside the Independent Chapel now URC. If you are using the National Library of Scotland zoomable maps you can see at the bottom Weavers Arms Inn which was demolished by the Harris family so that Bridge Street could be built to their new footbridge over the Derwent for clog wearing workers to get to the Harris Mill, closed to the public at that time.
The map shows Independent Chapel (Calvinist) sitting for 550 all free and this church has had different names, see photos. It is currently the United Reformed Church. Teetotal Lane has now been demolished and new flats built with access from Waterloo Street but the street name has been preserved. The Warehouse was Graves Mill and was demolished and replaced with a modern block. Fortunately the local authority in 1960s were persuaded to give grants to renovate much of the remainder of the area – see the photo record and survey of Waterloo Street elsewhere on this site.
1863 Cockermouth – Cumberland LIV.4.17 Surveyed: ca. 1863, Published: ca. 1866.
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Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland visit https://maps.nls.uk/
