Map 1866 All Saints Church Methodist Chapel Croft Mills

Click for zoomable map:  https://maps.nls.uk/view/229913832

1863 map from the National Library of Scotland online. In 1863 the building we now know as Town Hall was the Methodist Chapel (Wesleyan Sitting for 850 including 250 free.  Above the Methodist Chapel is All Saints Church described in 1866 as Sittings for 650 including 50 Free. Below the Methodist Chapel is Mount Pleasant ironically named terrace without yards, built into the hillside, where after washing the clothes would be dried on a communal clothes line. However the Drying Ground on the left of the Cocker was for the cloth produced in Croft Mills, which is now housing flats. At the top of this section of map is New Market and to its right and above it are houses that show how congested this area was  until demolition in the 1960s to make way for the Town Hall car park.

If you click on the link to the National Library of Scotland online map you can zoom out and see that Challoner Street was the main route from Main Street to South Street, which was the edge of the town at that time. At the top of the map note a weighing machine in Main Street. Can you see the problem where Main Street goes to the Post Office, that is not yet Station Street because the railway has just been built, and there is no through route from Main Street to South Street for horse drawn traffic, except for narrow Challoner Street. The orchard opposite the Post Office will be expanded to become Cockermouth Antiques – ask to see their hidden window (and buy something there!).

Eventually today we have Station Street and behind the Post Office and its eventual row of shops, there is a narrow lane that on this map is a ropery; rope was spun and intertwined along a long length so needed a long lane.  Can you spot what is now the car park behind what was Walter Wilson then was Wilko, originally it was the timber yard with saw mill and horses brought tree trunks from the railway goods terminal where Lakes Home is now, and trundled along Main Street to turn right at the Bush Inn under the archway. One of our chapel members remembers that the horse sometimes turned too early and the cart scraped the edges of the arch by the Bush pub, you can still see the groove marks on the pillar stones.

Starting from the top left of the map, the Blue Bell Inn has a photo on this site before being demolished for the new building for Cleeland furniture and carpets, perhaps the Spur Inn was also demolished for the same.  The Bush Inn still welcomes you, but the Appletree Inn was renamed the Wordsworth Hotel after the Wordsworth Tavern was demolished to widen the Sullart Street Crown Street Main Street junction – and now is an office building.