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May 21, 2015

Great Salkeld, Cumbria – St Cuthbert

We’re over the border in Cumbria, and stopped at Great Salkeld to have a look at St Cuthbert’s church – NY552368. The guide leaflet has a quotation from Ernest Barker, LLD, King’s College, London: “The village church has been the very core and symbol of the deepest life of the English nation – continuous still – dead knit to living, man knit to God”. I don’t know who the honourable gentleman is, but what a smashing quote. It seems appropriate if the first photo is of the war memorial. (This Sunday in Ponteland we are commemorating three men who...
Categories Cumbria/Outside Northumberland/World War 1 Comments: 2
February 26, 2015

Carlisle Cathedral

Monday 26 January 2015, and we had had a drive to the Cumbrian coast. We returned to Carlisle and parked near the Cathedral. We like the city, have visited the Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery – website, and some good bookshops. For some reason we have not been into the Cathedral for many years. Their cafe was shut, but we had a good explore of the Cathedral. My photos are not brilliant as it was quite dark. Let me start by quoting Pevsner (my lovely wife bought me the Cumbria and Durham Pevsners for Christmas – I’m sure my...
Categories Cathedrals/Cumbria Comments: 0
January 10, 2015

Kendal Parish Church, Cumbria

Kendal Parish Church – the church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity. I had a job interview here in 2008 and didn’t become Vicar – I bear them no ill-will. It was nice to have a wander round the church today knowing I wasn’t about to be interviewed! The church is situated in the south of the town at SD517922 with a car park – I had a smile that when parking on church business you can only stay for ½ hour (how many walk out during the sermon because they have been parked too long?). Very good website –...
Categories Cumbria Comments: 0
July 27, 2014

Brough, Cumbria – St Michael

Driving south over the Teesdale hills en route from Ponteland to steam trains in North Wales we stopped in Brough for a loo, then saw a sign for an ice cream parlour in Church Brough – website. The parlour is next to the castle (EH, but a free property). We had ice cream, then I left Julie and had a wander. There was a roman fort here commanding Stainmore Pass, then the castle was built. The keep is C12, and was frequently raided by the Scots. Later more comfortable living quarters were later added by the Clifford family, only to...
Categories Cumbria/Outside Northumberland Comments: 0
July 6, 2014

Bewcastle, Cumbria – St Cuthbert

Bewcastle is a long way north of Brampton, a long way north of Hadrian’s Wall. Very good village website with pages for the church, the castle, the museum, etc. When the Wall was built in 122 AD this was one of the outpost forts, probably known as Fanum Cocidii, adopting the  name of the local god Cocidius. It was built of turf and wood and, very unusually, had six sides. It was manned (saying a roman fort was “staffed” seems too pc) by the First Nervan Cohort of Germans. It was rebuilt in stone, and lasted until 367. You can pick out...
Categories Cumbria/Outside Northumberland Comments: 0
December 11, 2013

Barton, Cumbria – St Michael

The Cumbrian Tourist Board will hate me, but I don’t really do the Lakes. Every time we head that way it rains. Today (30 September 2013) we’d spent the morning in Carlisle, visited Wreay about lunchtime, had a leisurely tea beside the railway, and found very narrow roads to explore. We came down by Ullswater, then followed the B5320 to the south of Penrith. Entering the hamlet of Barton – I grew up in Barton, Cambridgeshire – we followed the sign to the church … and what a church! Part of a benefice with Pooley Bridge et al. NY488263, Grade 1...
Categories Cumbria/World War 1 Comment: 1
December 11, 2013

Wreay, Cumbria – St Mary

A trip outside the Diocese of Newcastle for the next couple of churches. St Mary’s Wreay is just south of Carlisle – NY435489 – and has an excellent church website. I have now learned to embed – be impressed! I read Jenny Uglow’s book “The Pinecone; the story of Sarah Losh, forgotten Romantic heroine – antiquarian, architect and visionary”. Julie, who reads lots of book blogs, came and explored with me. The first church in the village is recorded in 1319 and in post-Reformation times there was a building which served both as a chapel and a schoolhouse. It was consecrated...
Categories Cumbria Comment: 1
August 19, 2012

Happy Birthday Me

Last October, when I walked from the South Tynedale Railway Station down to Kirkhaugh church – and then dashed back so as not to miss the train – I wondered if it might be a good venue to celebrate my birthday in 2012. A Big Birthday – one of those with a 0 at the end (50 …). “The years between fifty and seventy are the hardest. You are always being asked to do things, and yet you are not decrepit enough to turn them down”, T.S. Eliot (apparently). The day after I was born Eleanor and Peter were...
Categories Cumbria/Northumberland/Railway History Comments: 0
July 12, 2012

Nenthead – St John

After lunch at Alston I left the engine driver and headed down the A689 to Nenthead, also in Cumbria. The afternoon was grotty and I didn’t see Nenthead at its best. It is England’s highest village at 1,500 feet, and has been a major centre for lead and silver mining. The London Lead Company was formed by Quakers in 1704, and they recognised the moral responsibility they had to their workers. It is probably the first purpose-built industrial village in England and laid the foundations for today’s social welfare system. The Quakers built decent housing, a school (compulsory schooling for all...
Categories Cumbria/Outside Northumberland/Railway History Comments: 3
July 12, 2012

Garrigill – St John

It is a wet, horrid summer and seems to have been grotty for the last few months. On Thursday 31 May Gareth was driving at Alston, so I went too. After one train ride down their new extension, I went for a drive.  These lovely buttercup meadows are on the very narrow road along the slopes of Alston Moor – round about NY705428. Garrigill, although in the Diocese of Newcastle, is in Cumbria – so my Pevsner is no good. Typing “St John’s Garrigill” into google, the first hit is “St John’s heated swimming pool”, the highest heated swimming...
Categories Cumbria/Outside Northumberland/Railway History/World War 1 Comments: 5