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Caldbeck. Cumbria's second best known village.
A typical stone-built Cumbrian village situated at the most northerly point of the Lake District National Park. There are extensive views to the south over the Caldbeck fells at the 'back o' Skiddaw. In earlier times, Caldbeck was a largely self-sufficient village and supported a considerable amount of industry. It boasted a brewery that supplied 16 inns and ale-houses, and had 13 mills which were powered by the Cald Beck from which the village takes its name. Many of these buildings survive as handsome relics of a bygone era...for example The Brewery...the handsome old building near the bridge.
The village is a parish on the northern slope of the Skiddaw group of mountains. The two villages are some eight miles south-east of Wigton and is said to have grown up around a hospital (or hospice) built originally by Cartmel Priory, for travellers through Inglewood.
In the past bobbin, cloth, clog making, brewing, farming and mining have given Caldbeck an air of prosperity. Today, only the clog making and farming survive...the clogs being available from one of Britains few remaining cloggers. Still very busy even in this day and age, Stongs of Caldbeck find their clogs are still very popular with Cumbrian farmers, postmen, County Council workmen, motor wagon drivers, and of course Clog dancers.
The dedication of Caldbeck's parish church to St Kentigern (or Mungo), together with the nearby Mungo's Well suggest a missionary visit by the saint who was the Bishop of Glasgow in the 6th century. Tradition has it that he baptised the first Christians of the village here in the 6th century. Nowadays, children are still brought to be accepted into the Christian family at St Mungo's Well beside the little arched bridge which crosses from the church to Friar Row.
The churchyard is the resting place of Mary Harrison (the beauty of Buttermere) and of John Peel, the famous huntsman. As related by the well known novelist Melvyn Bragg, Mary, wife of farmer Richard Harrison had been the innocent victim of a scandal of the early 19th century through her 'marriage' to John Hatfield the bigamist...he was later hanged in Carlisle...not for bigamy however..for forgery!
John Peel (1776-1854) was,as most people will know, was made famous by the song written by mill-manager John Woodcock Graves, at whose Caldbeck Mill the 'hodden grey' of Peel's coat was woven.
The church, in itself, is somewhat of a celebrity, having been written about by William and Dorothy Wordsworth, Coleridge, the Lambs, and Thomas deQuincey.
At least ten major mines have been worked in the nearby fells. Tunnels and shafts penetrate for a great way beneath the hillside. Visitors should call at the Caldbeck Mining Museum, which additionally specializes in guided walks to the mine sites. Early in the 12th century the area around Caldbeck had such a reputation for being a wild place, frequented by roques and vagabonds, that a licence was granted to the Prior of Carlisle, by the Chief Forester of Inglewood, to build a hospice for the relief of distressed travellers, probably on the site now occupied by the Rectory, next to the church. The monks who ran the hospice probably lived in the vicinity of Friar Row. Caldbeck seems now to be a quiet place, but in Elizabethan times there was a saying; - 'Caldbeck and Caldbeck Fells Are worth all England else'. This was when the silver, lead and copper mines up on the fells were producing wealth for the country.
Hesket-Newmarket, one and a half miles to the east, has a fine wide street with many 18th century houses and a central market cross on the well kept village green. It still has its market cross and bull-ring though the market established in 1751 was discontinued in the mid-19th century. Foods peculiar to this area is 'Tatie Pot'...rum butter and herb pudding, plus Caldbeck rolled gingerbread.
Caldbeck is the home of Chris Bonington, the well known mountaineer.
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