Visit Workington
There has probably been settlement at Workington since humans first came to the area, possibly several distinct settlements which coalesced into the modern town. The town lies at the mouth of West Cumberland’s main river, the Derwent, and How Michael, then an island in the estuary, provided shelter for a harbour from which it is a short sea crossing to Isle of Mann, Galloway, and Ireland, journeys more frequently undertaken when sea was a much better and quicker transport method than land. Much of that harbour has now been reclaimed from the sea, but St Michaels Church and the Burrow Walls fort site at Northside both once stood at the water’s edge. Workington was then, as it is now, West Cumberland’s main port.
When the Romans arrived here, they found a people living in Cumberland that they called the Carvetii, who were part of the Brigantian federation covering Northern England and Southern Scotland. Apart from that, we know nothing about them. The frontier defence system which the Romans established extended from the end of the continuous Wall, down the West Cumberland coast to Ravenglass with a harbour fort at Burrow Walls; the current ruins are post-Roman. The pattern of Roman frontier defences suggests a fort also where Workington Hall now stands, overlooking the first crossing point of the river; another where St Michael’s church now stands; another at How Michael, possibly where St Michaels Mount Chapel stood until buried under a million tons of steel works slag in the Second World War, and then another in the Salterbeck area, but there is no trace of any of these today. Camden described the ruins of the coastal defences in his 16thC gazeteer “Britannia”, and described Workington as a “pretty little fishing town”.
The name “Workington” suggests a very early settlement of Roman auxiliary soldiers, probably Frisian, placed there by the Commanders of the Roman frontier zone (the Reget) to strengthen defences against Pictish and Ulster sea raiders.
The Roman standing army finally left Britain in 410AD, but Roman rule continued in the Frontier Zone (Reget) under the commanders of auxiliary forces, mostly cavalry. A diplomatic offensive under Patrick (who was probably from Ravenglass) secured the north Irish Sea from raiders by Christianising Ulster, thereafter the dominant power in the Irish Sea province, and Workington and the rest of Cumberland (which included southwest Scotland but not Westmorland) later became part of the Anglo-Gaelic middle kingdom of Northumbria in the 7th C AD, in cultural and military alliance with Ulster. Nothumbria covered roughly the same territory as the old Brigantian federation.
The archaeological dig at St Michaels Church, following the fire of 1994, showed the earliest burials, of the 7th C, were done according to the usages of the Irish, rather than the later Roman church, and there was probably a continuing Christian presence in Workington from the days of imperial Rome. St Michaels may have been upgraded to a “Minster” by Cuthbert (Cudbrict) who led the Anglo-Gaelic Northumbrian church in the 7th Century. The monastery may lie under the present and former Rectories but it was not possible to dig there.
The name “Derwentmouth” was used in the later story of the monks of Lindisfarne, fleeing Viking raiders, taking ship from Workington to Ulster with St Cuthbert’s body, but being shipwrecked just off the coast. They managed to get back to shore with the body, but lost their holiest book, which was miraculously found on the shore some time later. The Lindisfarne Gospels in the British Museum show signs of immersion in salt water: Workington’s miracle?
Northumbria broke up under the pressure of the Northmen in the 9thC, and the surviving Roman prefecture of Strathclyde was able to expand into “Cumberland” (Dumfries Galloway and modern Cumberland). But they and the Northmen were squeezed between the new kingdoms of England (based on Wessex) and Scotland (an offshoot of Ulster), and Northumbria was partitioned between them in 10thC, with Cumberland (that is SW Scotland and English Cumberland) in the Scottish sphere, dominated by Lords of the Conall family originally from West Ulster, but then based at Dunkeld in Athol. The Lordship of Allerdale (Duddon to Waver) was their southern base, and Workington a key strategic location, because it blocked the sea/land route between the Norse territories of York and Dublin, via the Isle of Mann, Solway Firth, Ellen Valley, High Ireby, Eden Valley and Stainmore.
Perhaps the most well-known of the Conall Princes of Cumberland is Donncha (Duncan) who became King of Scotland in 1034 and was killed in battle by MacBeth who disputed the throne for the Pictish interest. Duncan’s brother Maldred is the paternal grandfather of Gunhilde, the first known “Lady of Workington”, who married a man called Orme, a grandson of one Ealdred; we have no idea who Ealdred was, but the name frequently appeared among Northumbrian royalty and aristocracy. What was very unusual about the family we later knew as the Curwens is that they had no Norman ancestry: they were rare survivors of the old native aristocracy.
Gunhilde’s father, Guaspatric, was likely the last Conall to have overlordship of “all the lands of the Cumbrians”. Gunnhilde was paternal grandmother of Patric de Culwen, who took that name after marrying the heiress of Cuilbhean (now Colvend) in Galloway, and who built the original Curwen residence at Workington Hall.
David 1 of Scotland, in his capacity as Prince of Cumberland, visited his cousins in the 1130s at the other Curwen family manors of High Ireby and Lamplugh on his way to take the submission of another descendant of Guaspatric, the rebellious Lord of Egremont; it is not recorded whether he visited Workington.
Control of what became the English county of Cumberland switched a few times though it was not until the Treaty of York in 1237 that English sovereignty over English Cumberland was finally recognised and it split from Scottish Cumberland. Even then Allerdale (Waver to Duddon) retained certain palatine liberties and links to the crown of Scotland until the 19thC, At the Battle of Falkirk in 1298 (at which William Wallace was defeated), it has been suggested that Sir Gilbert de Curwen, Lord of Workington, waited until he saw how the battle was going before pitching in on the winning (English) side; he had family and friends in both camps, and was another survivor.
Marie Stuart, Queen of Scotland, would have expected a warm welcome when she fled Kirkcudbright seeking refuge with the Curwens in 1568. She was to be met here by an armed force sent by the Earl of Northumberland. Whether this force was to march into Scotland to restore her throne, or march to London to depose Elizabeth (Marie was her heir) is unknown. Whatever, the Curwen’s old rivals the Lowthers got to her first, took the Queen into captivity and handed her over to Elizabeth and eventual execution. Henry Curwen is believed to have been “away” that day: the Curwens were survivors.
Workington’s connections cross border, and by sea with Ulster, continued after Marie’s son, James VI of Scotland became also James I of England, and put an end to the Border Reivers, many of whom were transported from Workington to be settled in Ulster.
Later, the migration was the other way when the Curwens recruited workers from Ulster for their fast expanding coal mines, which were exporting coal to Ireland from a dock developed in the 1760s. By 1800 there were 37 pits in and around Workington. The Irish connection was strengthened when Manxman John Christian (Ewan Mac Cristen) married the heiress of Henry Curwen and took the Curwen name; he could speak their language. Many of their new workers were Catholics, and the Curwens allowed them to use the old St Michaels Chapel at How Michael (Chapel Bank) before providing land at Banklands for a Chapel (now Banklands Hall) and a Priests House (still in use). JC Curwen – the only man to have sat in both British and Manx Parliaments - campaigned for the removal of restrictions on Catholics and was a prominent parliamentary supporter of the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829.
JC Curwen was involved in agricultural improvement too, establishing the Workington Agricultural Society and developing the model farm at Schoose, which had a national reputation for innovation in the agrarian revolution which took place alongside the industrial revolution.
Workington also had an early form of welfare state, led by the Curwens, providing healh and social care for the townspeople. Workington quickly expanded into a major port and town, reliant on the coal trade. A Georgian “new town” developed on land south of Workington Hall, where many of the streets are named after Curwen’s Whig party colleagues at Westminster: Portland, Carlton, Cavendish, Fox. Before that, the main street straggled along Ladies Walk, Brow Top, Derwent St and Church St, between the Hall and the Parish Church
In 1837 disaster struck when the roof of Chapel Bank Pit collapsed and 27 miners and 28 horses drowned as sea water inundated the mine. The Curwens suffered heavy financial losses as a result of this incident and made renewed attempts to find fresh sources of coal by sinking Jane Pit in 1843 followed by Annie Pit in 1864.
The ready availability of coal, iron ore and limestone gave rise to several iron and steel works on the Cumberland coast. The low phosphorus content of the iron ore was highly suitable for use in the Bessemer converter - a means of producing a higher grade of steel by blasting air through molten pig iron to drive off any impurities. By the 1870s, most of Workington's ironworks had converted to this process.
The mines, ironworks and docks were linked by a network of railways that transported the coal and steel to other parts of the country and overseas via the ports. Notable in this network was the Cleator & Workington Railway, the track of which is now known as the “Line” where it runs through Workington. It was built as their own railway by the ironmasters of Workington to get ore from Cleator Moor to Workington without paying freight charges to the LNWR: and built without modern construction machinery in the space of two years from an idea to a functioning railway, opening in 1879.
The major expansion in steel making came in 1885 when the entire Dronfield Steelworks (near Sheffield) relocated to Workington. Over the latter part of the century, the population of Workington grew from 5000 to 25000, with many migrants from Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and Cornwall, as well as the “Dronnies” from Dronfield, many housed in the Victorian “new town” to the south of the existing settlement.
The expansion of industry and population led to the granting of a Charter of Incorporation to the citizenry of Workington in 1888, as part of the late Victorian revolution in English local government. The first Mayor was the Curwen Lord of the Manor (another survivor), but the new democratic Borough effectively replaced the old feudal system, and the history of Workington since then is for another article.