Penrith has a charter dating back to 1223. It is a popular shopping destination in Eden, known for its sophisticated arcades and traditional markets.
The castle of Penrith is situated, logically enough, in Castle Park, and dates mainly from 1390. It was built by Strickland...Bishop of Carlisle, who, it should be added, was also fortifying Rose Castle. It was the one time residence of Richard III, then Duke of Gloucester. He lived in the castle when he served as Lord Warden of the Western March. He married Anne Neville. History shows that he died in 1485 at Bosworth.
Just down the street is Great Dockray, with the Two Lions Inn (home one time of Gerard Lowther) overlooking the Gloucester Arms dating back to the 15th century. An overnight stay here on one ocassion for Richard III.
The parish church of St Andrew cannot boast of being such an age having been built in the early 1720s...though its tower is much older. The alleys around it and the shops form the pleasantest part of town. The church has an interesting collection of relics including mediaeval tombstones, old crosses, together with many other pre-Norman items. Legend has it that the grave of Owen Caesarious, the 10th King of Cumbria is here too. The body of the church is 18th century. The lowest oarts of the tower are 13th and the top was probably built two centuries later by Warwick the Kingmaker, who was Lord of the manor of Penrith. His sign was the ragged staff, and of the eight he put on the tower as pinnacles only one is left now. The interior has all the dignity of its day. The pillars supporting the panelled gallery are remarkable because each is a single stone ten feet high and four feet round, from a Cumbrian quarry worked by the Romans. The chancel walls are decorated with very dark paintings done about a century or more ago by Jacob Thompson who was born at Penrith and became known in London as a landscape painter. Many treasures older than the present building are in it. There are two old fonts and stone figures of a 17th century lawyer and his wife, in the vestry wall there is a striking row of fine Tudor memorials carved with shields and letters, one being the stone of a border hero whose name was used to frighten the children. One is a king wearing his crown, the other two are Richard, Duke of York, with his yellow hair and beard, and his wife Cicily Neville with jewels in her hair, and a remarkable pair they were. He was the Yorkist heir slain at Wakefield, after which his head was crowned in mockery and impaled on the walls of York. She was the 23rd child of Ralph Neville, Shakespeare's Earl of Westmorland. Two of their children bacame kings of England, a third married Henry VII, making this old couple the ancestors of every British sovereign. Two of their grandchildren were the little princes murdered in the Tower.
The Penrith Grammar School was re-founded in 1564 by Queen Elizabeth I having originally been a medeaval school attached to Bishop Strickland's chantry in 1395. The school today is part of the comprehensive.
Penrith Museum is well worth visiting. It is housed adjacent to the Tourist Information Centre, in the 300 year old Robinson's School. The lintel over the door of the School shows a date of 1670...though many local historians believe the building itself goes back much further than that. The name Robinson relates to one locally born William Robinson who made his fortune in London. He left £55 a year to the town when he died in 1660 of which £20 was specifically for 'education and upbringing of girls'. The poorest scholars here used to wear badges with the letters PS which permitted them to beg on the streets. Reports of thos days show that the pupils had a misrable time at school suffering frequent beatings,...often without reason, and eleven to twelve hour working days. The school continued until as recently as 1970 (presumably without the beatings).
Walking around town visitors will notice the variety of little squares which, like Kendal, could be blocked off in time of crisis...Scottish raids for example. A square plague stone, looking rather like a great font in which the townsfolk washed their money in vinegar when paying for produce brought in from the countryside, stands in the garden of old people's homes in Bridge lane. The stone would be in use about 350 years ago.
Plague hit Penrith at the end of the 16th century killing, we are told, some 2,260 people.
Look for Arnison's store. At one time this was the site of a Moot Hall which consisted of five shops with courtroom and prison underneath. A plaque on the wall today states that William Wordsworth's grandparents, William and Ann Cookson, lived here. When William Wordsworth was five years old, he attended Anne Birketts Dame School in St Andrew's Place. It was here that he first met a local tobacconist's daughter, one Mary Hutchinson, who was to become his wife some 27 years later.
Musgrave Hall, opposite Robinson's School, was the one time town house of the Musgraves of Edenhall. Today, it is a British Legion Club...though the family coat of arms can still be clearly seen on the building.
Other well known names associated with the area are John McAdam who was well known for his contribution to road safety and lived at Cockell House, in Drovers Lane. Anthony Trollope was a regular visitor to the town staying at Carleton Hill.
And overlooking the town is the famous Penrith Beacon, which dates back to the Border wars and one time blazed out a warning of marauding Scots. It was last lit in 1745.
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