A small stream divides these two villages. Though both stand on the B5320 road two and a half miles from Penrith and three miles from Pooley bridge at the foot of Ullswater. Sufficient history is attached to these two villages to make them a 'must' on everybody's itinerary.
Astute visitors will discover a house built in 1699 originally for a Reginald and Elizabeth Dobson. History informs us that this property was later sold to one Richard Wordsworth (wherehave we heard that name before?) who at that time held the post of Receiver-General at the time "incidentally of the Jacobite Rebellion". Somewhat understandably the house has been re-named 'Wordsworth House'.
Also here is Sockbridge Hall, a 15th century Manor House believed to be standing on the earliest dwelling in the area...though these days it is a busy farm. Sockbridge Mill, also one time very active is on the banks of the river Eamont, and is today a successful fish farm where it is possible to buy (or catch) fish. Locals of the village of Tirril will tell you that it too has had its fair share of famous residents...the most important of which would certainly have been Thomas Wilkinson, the poet, a close friend of Wordsworth. He was apparently active in the Quaker movement. In 1773 a Quaker Meeting House was built here...though today it is a private house. Wordsworth's poem 'Fidelity' has links with Tirril, for in a graveyard next to this house is the grave for Charles Gough who was killed in a fall whilst climbing Helvellyn. It was his dog who stayed beside his body for three months and now is immortalised in Wordsworth's poem.
Visitors may notice a stone standing at the side of the B5320 road to Sockbridge bearing the inscription Big Jim R.I.P. 1773. Nobody knows who Big Jim was. Man, horse or dog?
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