Welcome to 2010 & I hope that it proves to be a good one for you, certainly better than the back end of 2009! I know that some of you have been directly affected by the trauma of the flooding & the sympathy of all of the members of the Civic Trust goes out to you. All of us, however, have been affected by the aftermath. At one level, this includes the loss of the local shops, restaurants & businesses, access restrictions to the town because of damaged or broken bridges and those traffic jams! At a more subjective level, we are all suffering from having the heart of our gem town torn out, & this is bound to adversely affect our general sense of collective ‘well-being’ over the coming months as Cockermouth struggles to recover. It is therefore important that we all ‘think positive’ & look forward to a ‘better Cockermouth’.

With this in mind, we have given some thought to what the role of the Civic Trust should be in respect of the floods and their aftermath. Clearly we are not an emergency organisation and do not have the facilities or infrastructure to directly support the community in the way that the churches can, for example. However, we do have a direct interest within our core values in ensuring that the fabric of the town is returned to at least as good a state, if not better, than before the floods. In fact, we have concluded that there is a golden opportunity here to make a step change for the better, particularly within the historic town centre and conservation area. To this end, Darren Ward our architectural adviser, has already been leading this process. For example, in early December, he chaired a meeting of councillors, planners, architects, Churches Together, National Trust, Allerdale Regeneration and others about co-ordinating, supporting and encouraging enhancements to shop frontages rather than installing simple replacements. The outcome of this meeting was very positive and it was agreed that support and encouragement in this vein would be provided to every individual and business affected by the floods, with the potential for some additional grant money being made available. A guide to best practice has been produced and displayed at the Flood Support Centre. That initial meeting has now evolved into the Co-ordination Meeting for the Refurbishment of the flood damaged buildings, which now meets regularly with the chair & secretary from the Civic Trust.

The optimism and progress towards a better Cockermouth has continued and Darren has since met with Edwin Booth, [Chief Executive Officer  (CEO) of Booths], who has been sent to offer help and advice on how to deal with the immediate and long term repair/regeneration of the whole area. Whilst Edwin Booth doesn’t appear to have any money to offer he does have the ear of cabinet members and other CEOs of national businesses involved in the clean up. He also has had the personal backing from Prince Charles to ‘do what is necessary’.

Darren has also met with 4 academics/directors of the Princes Foundation for the Built Environment who worked with the New Orleans authorities following the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. They also have direct access to Prince Charles and have been ‘sent’ to offer help where possible. There have been other more low key meetings with the planners to deal with some of the new shop fronts being proposed and numerous other things as they crop up.

So far we have 2 new shop fronts that are definitely going ahead with planning permission already applied for,  Mills and Strolling4Shoes, with positive interest from 5 others. To help this process, Allerdale have made a top up grant scheme available, so far only £50,000, which can be used for building work, but not professional fees as these can be covered separately.

In support of this work by Darren Ward for the benefit of Cockermouth, we have applied for a grant to cover at least part of his professional time. This has now been agreed.

To date the focus has been on shop frontages, but clearly this focus can potentially develop with time to cover the wider infrastructure such as bridges!

Donations:
Although we do not have a large fund, we thought it appropriate that we should support the Cumbrian Flood Appeal and have accordingly made a donation of £100. We were also minded that it may become appropriate to fund something specific for Cockermouth as the recovery plans progress.

We believe that Cockermouth has a significant dept of thanks to pay to the emergency services for the avoidance of serious injury or loss of life during the emergency in Cockermouth. The Mountain Rescue service in particular had a major role and we are aware that they lost a significant amount of equipment during the rescue operation, estimated to be to the value of over £20,000. We have therefore made an additional donation of £100 to Cockermouth Mountain Rescue in recognition of their, & other emergency services work, during the flood response.

Best Wishes:
You may be aware from the Cockermouth Post that we received a very kind letter of sympathy from Morpeth Antiquarian Society following the floods, and we have subsequently exchanged Christmas Cards. Morpeth of course was severely flooded in 2008 & had to go through its own recovery phase before we had a members’ visit there in July 2009. We are hosting their return visit here in June, so we are hoping that we will be show them a town still to be proud of.

We also received a letter from Lancaster Civic Society expressing their ‘concern and sympathy over the damage caused by the recent floods’.

History of Cockermouth Floods

(by John Dent)
Residents of Cockermouth, especially in the Waterloo Street and Gote areas, may be forgiven if they thought that their experiences in January 2005 would be a once in a lifetime event. How wrong we were! November 19/20th 2009 will go down in history as the days of probably the worst floods in our history hit our town.

But there has been severe flooding in Cockermouth before. Do you remember August 1966 when a freak storm to the east of the town caused the Bitter Beck and Tom Rudd Beck to rise rapidly? A culvert at Butts Fold collapsed, blocking a channel, and water flooded St Helens Street and Market Place. The height of the flood water is recorded on a brass plate on the front of Banks Ironmongers at 31 inches. Time to fix a new mark now, much much higher!

An inspection of the river system around Cockermouth gives an insight into why flooding of the town occurs. Two tributaries, Bitter Beck and Tom Rudd Beck flow into the Cocker, which then flows into the Derwent. The water from a number of considerable catchment areas, (including six lakes), therefore meet at the town. It seems that flooding from time to time is inevitable without major flood defence works.

Flooding on or about 21st November 1761, (note the date!), carried away several mills and houses. This was followed ten years later by a flood caused by snow melting on the fells. Severe floods followed in 1852 and 1874 when extensive flooding of industrial premises was recorded – a tannery, hat factory and tweed mill were affected. Main Street was under water and the Gote was flooded. A particularly severe flood was recorded in October 1918. Then on the 3rd of December 1931 Main Street, High Sand Lane, Waterloo Street and the Gote were under water. On 18th December the following year , Main Street from the Police Station to Wordsworth House was flooded. Thirty hours of rain during the August Bank Holiday weekend in 1938 resulted in the Cocker being 15 feet above normal at Cocker Bridge and the Brewery Bridge, (known as the Barrel Bridge then), collapsed. Quaker bridge lost railings and masonry. The water is reputed to have been eight feet deep in one court off Market Street and a shop on the opposite side of the bridge to the HSBC, (then Midland), Bank was partially swept away and had to be demolished.

So flooding in the town is nothing new and it is almost certain that the rivers will rise to dangerous levels in the future. Let’s hope that this time something is done to alleviate this future risk and save us all having to go through the misery of flooding again.

Lecture Programme
Don’t forget that our lecture programme resumes on February 3rd with a talk by Duncan Lightfoot on Cockermouth First Responders. Hopefully by then the artic conditions that we are currently enjoying will have receded. The programme continues with Patrick Burke of English Heritage on 3rd March on ‘making the historic environment accessible’, and on 7th April Roy Yeoman of Impact Housing will talk about energy efficiency and renewable energy for local housing.

Those of you who came to the November lecture on Roman Archaeology at Papcastle by Frank Gieco will know that we had a major technology hiccup with the projector. I am pleased to say that Frank has agreed to return & give us a full lecture on Wednesday February 17th – usual place & time. Please put this in your diary.

Visit to Workington Courts
At the end of our October lecture on the Magistracy, Pat Smith invited us to make a follow up visit to the courts in Workington to learn more about how they work. We have provisionally arranged this for late spring but cannot confirm the exact date yet, (for their reasons they would like it to be after the temporary road bridge is installed at Workington). We will use our own transport for this & there will be no charge, but I’m sure we can make arrangements to share transport. We will need to know the approximate numbers coming, so there will be a visit request form with the next newsletter. Arrangements will be 18.45 meet up at the Courts for a 1900 start, finishing by 21.30.

Annual Dinner
We are arranging our annual dinner for Wednesday 28th April at Hundith Hill, 7pm for 7.30pm, cost £19 per head for a 3 course meal with coffee. Billy Bowman has agreed to be our after dinner speaker. More details in the next newsletter but please mark it on your calendar.

Civic Trust Initiative
We have been following closely the development of the ‘Civic Trust Initiative’ – a process to identify what should replace the national civic trust following its demise last year. A national workshop was held as part of this process in October at Blackpool. Feedback from the workshop was central to the agenda for both the October meeting of the Cumbrian Federation of Amenity Societies at Keswick and the November meeting of NWACTS, (North West Association of Civic Trusts), at Lancaster. Both meetings were attended by members of our committee.

There now appear to be two schools of thought. The main drive from the centre is to create a strong central organisation with the ability to influence government and national organisations in respect of policy and statute. This would need to be funded from the individual civic societies on a head count basis, potentially at the higher end of the range £1 to £3 per member. The alternative approach is to establish regional associations, very much along the lines of what we have now, with a very small coordinating function at national level. This latter approach appears to be supported by the regional chairman of the Civic Societies and was clearly favoured by the meeting of the Cumbrian Association of Amenity Societies.

Your committee feels that the regional approach is more appropriate for a small society like ours where we are primarily seeking to influence local policy rather than national. Our small funds should consequently be focused on local issues.

The debate continues, but it is not clear at present whether or not we will choose to become affiliated to any new national organisation. We will however be asked to make a decision one way or another in February so that the new arrangements can come into place by April. If you would like to see any further information on the debate, pros & cons of affiliation, etc, please contact a member of the committee.

Mining & Minerals in Cumbria.
The meeting of the Cumbrian Federation in October had its key note talk on Mining & Minerals in Cumbria by Ian Tyler, Director of the Mining & Mineral Museum in Keswick. It was a very interesting and entertaining talk & I’ve tried to produce a few highlights here.

It was also very apparent that not many of us there had visited the Museum in Keswick – something I intend to put to right because I understand it is very interesting. Why is it that we visit all the attractions when we are away on holiday but fail to visit some close to home?

I did know that mining in Cumbria was important to Cumbria before the talk but I hadn’t realised how important – and how important to the country as a whole.  One example is that there were 20 different minerals mined in Cumbria, compared to 15 in Cornwall.

Mining became particularly important around the 16th Century. Elizabeth 1st needed the revenue and issued a proclamation that mining was allowed anywhere. A large number of Germans were brought over to Cumbria to help develop the mines – they were 150 years ahead of us in mining expertise and there was a significant German community here for over 100 years, inter-marrying to some extent. The Germans protected their ‘trade secrets’, covering their machinery in tarpaulins!

In 1570, Cumbria had the biggest smelt mill in Europe.

Graphite was about the most valuable mineral mined. Miners had to strip naked before leaving the mine to avoid them taking some home in their pockets. Even so, this wasn’t 100% fool proof and this is where the term ‘black market’ originated.

Cumbrian slate is acknowledged to be the best in quality, being formed around 450 million years ago. So if you have a Cumbrian slate roof, it should last awhile! At Honister, barrow men took their barrows of slate from the mine at the top down a zig zag path to be loaded onto carts at the bottom, 1000feet below. They then had to take their barrows back up for the next load. The record for one shift was apparently 15 round trips – 15,000 feet of climbing, half the height of Everest!

Lead was used for roofing. It was particularly valuable to thieves because of the silver ‘impurity’ that it contained.

Coins in Elizabethan times had been historically made of silver. However, there was a problem to the State in that coins gradually got smaller as people ‘milled’ silver off the circumference. A solution found was to add copper, another Cumbrian product. Technology at the time did not allow the silver to be separated back from the copper.

Iron was another significant product, supporting the development of the local shipbuilding and railway line manufacturing industries. Where are they now?

Obviously coal has been very important to Cumbria over many years. The coal pits were some of the most dangerous to work in, extending out under the sea and there were many accidents. Human life had less value than now – in fact the pit ponies were valued higher. Their loss had a bigger impact on pit output than the loss of men – or children.

These are just snippets, if you want to find out more, you will have to go to the museum itself and/or buy one of Ian Tyler’s many books on the subject.

Tour of Cockermouth Town Trail (9 & 10):
(by Shirley Campbell)
Points 9 & 10 on the Town Trail are Old King’s Arms Lane and Cocktons Yard. Both these were originally burgage plots behind properties on Main Street and would have run down to the river, as all plots on that side of Main Street would have done. The burgage plots on the other, south, side of Main Street went down to the medieval Back Lane, now South Street.
Old King’s Arms Lane was the burgage plot behind No. 60 Main Street, named for the King’s Arms Public House which existed here for much of the 19th century. It was more recently called Lucini’s Yard after the snack bar there. Between 1987 and 1989, it became the two level precinct we see today.
Cocktons Yard is behind Nos. 68 & 70 Main Street and is named after the boot and shoe shop of Cockton brothers. New houses were built in this yard in the early 19th century, some with additional top windows to give extra light for weavers. They were still occupied in 1954, but as people moved out the yard became increasingly derelict and by the 1980s was overgrown with shrubs and weeds.
In 1987, the cottages were restored by the North West Buildings Preservation Trust with financial assistance from English Heritage, Allerdale District Council and Cumbria County Council. There is still a public right of way between Main Street and Waterloo Street through the Yard.
A Pictorial History of Cockermouth Amateur Theatre:
Over the last 15 years, the Museum Group has built up a collection of photographs from plays, musicals and operas staged in the town. They have recently acquired a grant to support research into the photographic history of amateur theatre in Cockermouth over the last 100 years and to compile and publish this history on a web site linked to Cockermouth’s official web site, recording names, dates and other relevant historical information. The Civic Trust supported the Museum Group in seeking this grant.

Cockermouth Eco-Teams:
I guess that most, if not all, members of the civic trust would consider that they have a strong regard for the environment and would like to minimise their own adverse impact, but how good are each of us at taking actual action to improve things? You may therefore be interested to know that the ‘Riversmeet’ group are establishing a number of informal ‘Eco-Teams’ within Cockermouth to do just that. As a member of a team you agree to record your own impact for a 6 month period through recording your own household energy usage, rubbish disposal, recycling, water  usage and vehicle mileage, & to share this information with other team members. Each team meets monthly on an informal basis & discusses the topic of the month,  which includes rubbish & shopping, energy, water, travel. If you are interested in joining a team, please contact Frank McGrath on 823650 – the earlier the better as the current teams are about to get underway!

Words by the Water:
You may be interested to know that the Theatre by the Lake’s ‘Words by the Water’ Festival this year in early March contains a number of ‘events’ that may be of particular interest to members of the Civic Trust. In particular, the theme in the Studio Theatre on Saturday 13th March is ‘Buildings’ with presentations on such as ‘Ingenious Builders’, ‘13 Buildings: Their Story’, ‘England’s Heritage’, ‘Hierarchy of the Country House’. Maybe we will see some of you there.

Web Site:
And also don’t forget to visit our web site.

Phil Campbell, Chairman.