Methodist Churches in Cockermouth
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1751 John Wesley visits Cockermouth
1751 John Wesley visited Cockermouth on Wednesday. 17th April 1751. Braving a keen, north-easterly wind, he stood on some steps at the end of the market-house, and proclaimed “The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ” to his audience-some of whom had followed him from Clifton. Wesley however, found a different type of congregation in the Castle-yard at Cockermouth, of whom he declares, somewhat archly -“they behaved with decency, none interrupting nor making any noise.” A year later, he found “well-nigh all the inhabitants of the town” waiting to hear his preaching.
On Whit-Sunday, 1757 Wesley was again in Cockermouth: “I rode over to Lorton, a little village at the foot of a high mountain. Many came from a considerable distance, and I believe, did not repent of their labour: for they found God to be a God both of the hills and valleys – and nowhere more present than in the mountains of Cumberland.“
Two years later again, Wesley records in his “Journal”: “I preached, about five, at Cockermouth, on the steps of the market-house. Even the genteel hearers were decent; many of the rest seemed deeply affected. The people of the town have never been uncivil: surely they will not always be unfruitful.” That prayer of Wesley’s was soon to be answered, for two years later – in 1763 – we have a record of the first Methodist society to be established in the town.
1796 The first Methodist meeting house in Cockermouth
1796 George Robinson, a cooper, bought some old malt kilns in Sand Went (High Sand Lane). The derelict buildings were demolished and Mr Robinson built a meeting house which he sold to Methodist Trustees for the sum of £70. [WoB] [KR] Map is extracted from online zoomable maps of National Library of Scotland Link here
This property still exists and is owned by the Town Council and used as a business centre. Once known as the Victoria Gospel Hall – once the meeting-place of the local society of the Plymouth Brethren, now known as The Vicky and is a business centre.
Map section from National Library of Scotland NLS 121144250 https://maps.nls.uk/view/121144250
1841 Methodist Market Street Chapel built
1841 The building and opening of the Methodist Market Street Chapel in Cockermouth. [This building became the Town Hall after the Methodists built and moved to the current church and hall in Lorton Street in 1932.]
The whole Methodist society marched from the Methodist chapel in High Sand Lane [now the Vicky business centre] to Market Street. where the opening services were conducted by the Rev. Joseph Beaumont. M.D. – one of very few Methodist ministers ever to become also Doctor of Medicine, and thus able to tend both the souls and bodies of his people. [WoB p10].
High Sand Lane was rented to the Primitives for £10 a year later reduced to £5 a year and then the Primitives bought the building from the Wesleyans in 1851 for £95.
A slightly vernaculous entry in the Trust account book of the Wesleyan society shows the sum of £95 being received from the sale of the old Chapel to “The Ranters.” [WoB p13]
1866 Ordnance Survey map below is from the National Library of Scotland map at https://maps.nls.uk/view/229913832 It shows the original use of what we now know of as Cockermouth Town Hall. The map text states “Methodist Chapel (Wesleyan) Sitting for 850 Including 250 free“
1875 The Town Hall we recognise today was the Methodist church, identified in the centre of the map above.
Today’s car park behind the Town Hall has an elevated bank of earth that in the 1866 map shows Mount Pleasant. This was a terrace of houses with no back yard nor washing facilities. Other photos on this site show communal clothes drying areas. Mount Pleasant was demolished in 1875.
There was a similar row of houses, without back yards, along Sullart Street which were demolished in living memory so that Sullart Street could be widened and eventually Wordsworth Court built.
1901 aerial photo, possibly taken from a hydrogen balloon that had taken off from Sandair (cricket ground).
Located below the spire of All Saints is the Methodist church (now the Town Hall).
To the right is woodland and the curving road of Lorton Street, crossing Victoria Jubilee Bridge over the river Cocker and bending left up Victoria Road.
On Lorton Street at this time is a row of houses, the last one ends at the Victoria Jubilee Bridge over the river Cocker. Look closely at the carved stone on the edge of the last house, it is inscribed Ashgrove 1884. There are no other building on Lorton Street – today’s Methodist church does not exist.
Methodist Chapel becomes Town Hall surrounded by changes
This 1929 Aerial photo of Cockermouth shows on the bottom right, the Methodist church in Market Street, built in 1841. The Lorton Street Methodist church will not be built until 1932 and in 1934 the Methodist Market Street building became the Town Hall.
To the right of the Methodist church above the black trees is Market Place with the Old Hall in the centre. All the buildings around the Old Hall were demolished in 1974 to make way for the Market Street car park.
Leaning against the Methodist/Town Hall building is the Weavers Arms public house, long since demolished to make way for the Town Hall car park.
Follow the river Cocker past the Town Hall to where the river is hidden by a building on the left. On the opposite bank is the four storey hat factory of Thomas Wilson now demolished and all the smaller houses adjacent to the Cocker were also demolished.
Bottom centre is Croft Woollen Mill which remains nowadays as flats, but the adjacent two storey building were demolished; adjacent is Croft Bowling Green.
A lot of the buildings in the centre middle of the photo were demolished to make way for Council flats.
In the centre of the photo is Main Street starting from Cocker bridge by the Old Courthouse
At the extreme left is the three storey building with warehouse doors (now Tarentella) that Joshia Hall used as a warehouse as well as his grocery shop, (see a photo of him outside it).
Joshia Hall was a Quaker who noted that people waded over the Cocker by a ford at the end of South Street, a wet and dangerous thing to do in order to get to Quaker meetings. So in 1887 Joshia Hall was responsible for building a footbridge over the Cocker now called the Quaker Bridge by locals, or South Street Bridge by some.
Note the evidence before a great flood! This is in 1929 but in 1938 a great flood came down the Cocker and demolished the left side of Huddart’s shop that can be seen to the right of where Cocker bridge is hidden by the ex Midland Bank (vacant in 2025) building.
Market Street leads to the Town Hall seen here with the archway (that still exists) leading to the drying ground of Sandersons Mill.
When the new Methodist Church on Lorton Street was opened in 1932 Cockermouth UDC took over the building that had been the Methodist church.
Below the rear wall of the Methodist / Town Hall is the gable end of the Hatters pub.
The buildings beyond the archway became Town Hall car park in the 1970s.
The building on the left is disused Thomas Wilson’s hat factory that was demolished in 1970s. c 1970
The buildings on the right and the lean to on the left were demolished to make way for the road that goes under the archway into the car park below the Town Hall, that had been the Methodist church. The river Cocker is on the right. The row of houses top left is top of Market Street and lead to the Town Hall. The two storey building was The Armory used by the Cumberland and Westmorland Yeomanry before they moved to the Drill Hall St Helens Street which is now part of the Sports Centre. 1986
The overgrown area is now the car park behind the Town Hall.
The Town Hall had been the Methodist church until the new Methodist church was built in Lorton Street in 1932. Ironically, leaning against the wall of the Methodist church was the Hatters Arms, sometimes known as the Hatters beer house. It may have gained its name because its patrons came from Cockermouth’s largest hat factory by Cocker bridge.
To the right, above what is now the car park, was Mount Pleasant, which you will see on the 1866 map from National Library of Scotland. These houses had no rear yard and used communal washing and drying places.
The overgrown area was the drying ground for Sandersons Mill, and is now Town Hall car park. c 1960
Lorton Street Methodist Church built 1932
1900 This photo of Lorton Street before the Methodist church was built on the left in 1932 and moved from the building that then became the Town Hall.
The row of houses ends at the Victoria Jubilee Bridge over the river Cocker. Look closely at the carved stone on the edge of the last house, it is inscribed Ashgrove 1884. This photo was taken before 1918 when the Tweed Mill was demolished.
This row of houses in Lorton Street ends at the Victoria Jubilee Bridge over the river Cocker. Look closely at the carved stone on the edge of the last house, it is inscribed Ashgrove 1884.
Lorton Street cattle pens on Lorton Road with Ashgrove terrace, built 1889.
These pens were made for a group of farmers in opposition to Mitchells mart but were eventually taken over by Mitchells c 1910
1932 Lorton Street. Laying the foundation stone for Methodist Church.
Centre second row behind the dignitaries is Glover Denham who was the Managing Director of Thomas Armstrong Ltd who built the new Methodist church.
Lorton Street Methodist church and hall was built for £7,000. The Methodists church in Market Street that had been built in 1841 was sold to Cockermouth Urban District Council for £325 and became Cockermouth Town Hall.
In September 1937 Keswick and Cockermouth Wesleyan Circuit and the Cockermouth Primitive Methodist Circuit became merged into one. [WoB p20]
Lorton Street Methodist Church before Abbeyfield housing built beside it c 1960
METHODIST Churches
The first Wesleyan Society in Cockermouth was formed in 1763 with 19 members, in the Haworth Round of Yorkshire under Wm. Grimshaw of Haworth as superintendent. Six years later it became part of Whitehaven Circuit, which extended from Penrith to UIverston and the Isle of Man. [17]
The present Victoria Hall in High Sand Lane was the first Methodist chapel in the town. In 1796 the buildings called the Maltkins in Sandwent, with a garden and yard, were assigned to George Robinson, a Cockermouth cooper. The following year Robinson assigned to Matthew Smith, gentleman of Cockermouth, and other trustees, a newly erected building for worship by the Methodists. [18]
John Wesley (1703-1791), one of the founders of the Methodist Church, is reputed to have preached here, but the dates show that it must have been elsewhere in the town. He records in his journal 19 visits in the period 1751-88, usually on his way to Whitehaven, [19] and wrote of one visit
“About eight I began preaching in the market house at Cockermouth. I was surprised to find several of those that are called ‘the best of the town’ there, and they were all serious and attentive; so we had a solemn parting.”
The Methodists left Sandwent in 1841 for a new building which is now the Town Hall, of a design common to Methodist churches of that period – square, with a gallery round the four sides, the front portion containing the choir and organ, and with a schoolroom below the church. It had seating for 850 and cost £1800. [20] The gallery was later converted into an upper floor by the UDC. The vacated building in High Sand Lane was purchased by the Town Council and opened as the Victoria Hall in 1984, providing a much-needed and well used venue for small gatherings. It is still used by religious groups on Sundays.
In 1810 the Methodist Church split into the Wesleyan and Primitive Methodists and it was the Wesleyans who built this chapel. A comment towards the end of the century was
“There cannot be much said in favour of the present Chapel, though itis better than the one in Sand Lane; but the principal objection to the one now worshipped in is that the school under it is dark, cheerless, and difficult to ventilate.” [21]
This view gained increasing support resulting in the opening of the Lorton Street church in 1932. This was the year of Methodist union, when the Wesleyan and Primitive Churches, together with a smaller body of United Methodists (not having a branch in Cockermouth), became the Methodist Church. ‘Lorton Street’ seats 450 and has a hall accommodating 300, with a wing of smaller rooms added later. The interior of the church was redesigned in the late 1980s.
When the Wesleyans left High Sand Lane in 1840/1 the Primitive Methodists bought it for £95 worshipping there until they acquired the National School in New Street in 1885. Here, for a total cost of £1300, they had much more room· 400 seats and a Sunday School. [22] ‘New Street’ remained open after union until shortly after the war, although the churches in the Cockermouth area formed one Methodist circuit in 1937. After its closure the building was used for a time by Millers shoe factory as a training centre for machinists, then in 1982/3 it was converted into six small houses.
The Primitive Methodists for much of their history held annual ‘camp meetings’, great open air gatherings. In the 1870s such meetings were held next to the auction mart, but they moved later to Harris Park.
From Bradbury History of Cockermouth chapter 28 The Non Anglican churches
