Exploring Workington's hidden heritage

People may know that St Michael’s Church was burned down twice, that Portland Square is the jewel in the crown of the old Georgian town and that the gaol house was a holding pen for drunks in the 1800s.

But how much is known about Burrow Walls, Friars Well, the Peat Memorial and the Lamport Fountain?

Did you know that Workington appears on the medieval Bodleian Map?

And does the town do enough to celebrate its heritage, including its well-documented connection with Mary Queen of Scots?

According to author and local historian Helen Ivison, who takes me on a tour of some of the town’s more obscure historic gems, the answer is a resounding “no”.

She says: “It’s a problem across the board. We don’t have a heritage officer any more, with the last one four or five years ago.

“The civic trust and the museum and the history society work hard but it seems there is a general malaise.

“It’s like pushing out of a paper bag and nothing seems to get done.

“It’s as if somebody decided we are one kind of town and Cockermouth and Whitehaven are another.

“Mary Queen of Scots spent her last night of freedom in Workington Hall. If we were in America we would have it in lights over the gate.

“There are an awful lot of people with a great deal of knowledge and interest trying to do an enormous amount, but if anything it’s the tip of an iceberg.

“Workington is an industrial town. Bits have been knocked down, built over and built up which makes it all the more important to preserve and celebrate what we have left.”

Helen is familiar to anyone who has attended the Helena Thompson Museum’s popular night ghost walks and is passionate about the folklore of the town.

She wrote Supernatural Cumbria and is working on another book, The Derwent from Sea to Source, due out next year.

She is an active member of the Curwen Heritage Theatre, an amateur dramatic group which staged Shakespeare plays in Workington Hall before it was shut to the public amid health and safety fears.

Helen wants more done to promote and safeguard Workington’s heritage but admits she is not sure how best to accomplish this, particularly in a cash-strapped climate where arts and heritage are not always top of the agenda.

But she is quick to point out facts and features which could make Workington a thriving tourist destination.

Leading the way up Wilson Street, she says: “We are in the heart of the old Georgian town with streets that rival parts of Whitehaven but sometimes people walk through it without noticing it.”

For many in the town, the plight of Workington Hall is emblematic of the neglect of the town’s heritage.

But you don’t have to look far to see more evidence of decline, whether it is the boarded-up Georgian houses on Elizabeth Street, the Carnegie Theatre, or the Opera House, which faces demolition.

MARY Queen of Scots entered Workington Hall as a free woman on May 16, 1568 but two days left under armed escort.

The arch through which she passed, first an honoured a guest and then as a captive, stands to this day.

“It gives me goose bumps just to think about it,” says Helen.

You can still see the windows of the first-floor gallery of rooms where she penned one of the most famous letters in English history, a plea for help to Queen Elizabeth I, the woman who was to order her execution.

There is a harbourside plaque marking the place where she is rumoured to have landed following her flight from Scotland over the Solway Firth.

The Helena Thompson Museum and the Workington and District Trust organise a biannual tour, retracing her steps.

However, there is nothing in Curwen Park to indicate that the hall played host to such a high-profile figure.

FRIARS Well, tucked away on the bank opposite the town police station, is said to be where townspeople drew their drinking water before the construction of the first waterworks in the 1850s.

It is not strictly a well but a spring and what role (if any) friars played in its history is unclear, though there may have been a religious centre nearby.

A folk tale, probably apocryphal, has grown up around the name.

“It’s a story which makes me shudder,” says Helen. “A priest was travelling with a young companion. The young man disappeared and the priest went off to his next port of call.

“Locals reported that the water tasted particularly sweet and they thought it was to do with the priest’s visit.

“But then somebody found his young companion’s body in the well.

“Its historical date and name has always been a subject of speculation and rumour.”

Whatever the truth, the history of the spring goes back much further than the overgrown and crumbling brick cover which bears an escutcheon with the date 1872.

Helen believes it may have been an ancient “Clootie well” – where strips of cloth or rags were tied to the branches of a trees, each one representing a wish.

An old photograph shows what appears to be a Griffin-like gargoyle just outside the door which has been removed.

THE Lamport Fountain has been moved several times but now stands at the top of Wilson Street in front of a mural of the old Georgian town in its heyday.

The fountain was a gift to the people of the town to provide clean free water which became important to combat outbreaks of cholera in the 19th century.

The fountain, which dates from 1859, was originally where the old Midland Bank building now stands.

AN OBELISK known as the Peat Memorial stands prominently in Portland Square.

It was raised as a tribute to a doctor who risked his life to treat a cholera epidemic after many of his colleagues had made a beeline for the Isle of Man.

The plaque reads: “Erected by public subscription in memory of Anthony Peat, surgeon, who, during a life spent in incessant toil for the relief of human suffering, won the love and esteem of all classes.”

Peat died in 1877, aged 57.

Helen, who was one of those responsible for getting the monument listed, said: “That it was erected by public subscription is quite something.”

Nearby is The Green Dragon, a former coaching inn, and the old covered market, now overgrown and roofless.

THE Glendinning Gravestone in St Michael’s Churchyard is a permanent reminder of a 200-year-old whodunit.

Joseph Glendinning, of Frostoms, was killed in a field on 13 July, 1808 but his murderer or murderers were never brought to justice.

An inscription on the headstone, which stands against the churchyard wall, reads:

“You villains, if this stone you see,

“Remember that you murd’red me!

“You bruised my head and pierced my heart,

“Also my bowels did suffer part.”

Glendinning’s body was found under a hedge by a passer-by who identified the victim and raised the alarm.

The motive is not known but the ferocity of the attack would suggest that the killer was either a maniac or out for vengeance, although some have suggested it may have been a case of mistaken identity.

A reporter from The Cumberland Pacquet claimed that “a more cruel and barbarous murder has not been heard of in any country”.

Mr Glendinning’s next of kin offered a reward of £50 for information leading to the arrest of his killer but to no avail.

“I CAN think of no more forgotten a piece of heritage than Burrow Walls,” remarked one disgruntled archaeologist.

“Its treatment is nothing short of a disgrace.”

Professor Clifford Jones was talking about a Roman fort in a field outside the Northside estate on the eastern edge of the Siddick Ponds nature reserve, which was last excavated in 1955.

Prof Jones thinks that a major excavation could help put Burrow Walls on the map.

Nothing much remains above ground of the old fort. The impressive walls are not Roman but mark what’s left of a medieval keep occupied by ancestors of the powerful Curwen family before they moved over the river to Workington Hall.

Experts think the Roman fort was called Gabrosentum and may have played a key role in Roman frontier defences.

The area now occupied by Siddick Ponds, Dunmail Park and Iggesund Paperboard would have been under water, with the sea lapping the edges of the fort.

Altar stones, like those found at Maryport, were discovered here but their current whereabouts are not known. The site can be reached via a cycle path.

There are signs to tell people what it is, and Hadrian’s Wall Heritage Limited does not record the site on its guides.