25 years ago – 1996
Eden Valley
Rail enthusiasts are hoping a lottery windfall will help them in their ambitious plans to rebuild an Eden Valley line.
Members of the Eden Valley Railway Society have cleared the first hurdle in their bid for £12 million of lottery money to rebuild the line linking Appleby with the Pennines, and now they are hopeful their bid for money from the Millennium Commission will be successful by the end of the year, allowing their ambitious £24 million plan to go ahead.
An Eden family have their own special family tree – in five generations ranging in age from 97-year-old great-great-grandmother Mrs. Sarah Elizabeth High to 10-week-old Bradley Hall.
Mrs. High was born at Brampton, Appleby, in 1899 and is the last survivor of a family of 12.
She worked until the age of 73. Bradley, the newest member of the family, was born at Penrith Hospital’s maternity unit at the end of October, and is said to be “a pleasure to all the family”.
Orton
Workers at a company making chocolates in an Eden village will be going back to school later this month.
Kennedys Fine Chocolates, founded in the village of Orton in 1991, will move to larger premises which are being refurbished with help from the Clydesdale Bank and the Rural Development Commission.
The firm’s new base is the former village school, which has been empty since 1991. The building was a school from about 1750 to the early 1970s.
Langwathby
County councillors are being asked to support a bid from Langwathby Parish Council for money to build a new bridge over the Eden into the village.
The parish council have applied to the Millennium Commission for a cash award to replace the “temporary” structure, which has been in place since 1968, with a new bridge costing in the region of £3 million.
Members of Cumbria County Council’s economy and environment committee will be told that the parish council’s initial bid was successful, and they have been invited to make a more detailed submission, with details of of the sources of matched finance.
Penrith
Members of Penrith Civic Society have raised concerns over proposals for new mixed changing facilities at the town’s swimming baths.
As part of Eden Council’s plan to create a new learner pool, the existing separate changing rooms are to be abandoned in favour of a “changing village” with open-plan facilities.
Society chairman Peter Copus said: “We fell a lot of people won’t be happy with this when they realise what is planned.
For modesty reasons it may put people off using the baths, but also from a practical point of view.”
Alston
Young farmers on Alston Moor have taken action to fill a void in the social and community life of the area, by relaunching their own club some 20 years after the winding up of the former group.
More than 20 members have joined the club so far and officers elected to head the new YFC are: Chairman, Joseph Brown; secretary, Sarah Raine; treasurer, Emily Wright; and club leader, Liz Walton, all of Alston.
50 years ago – 1971
Ullswater
An accusation that the National Trust had deliberately removed recreational facilities for the public at Glenridding on Ullswater by stopping access to a popular picknicking area was made by Lord Wakefield of Kendal at the weekend.
Lord Wakefield was speaking at the annual meeting of the British Water Ski Federation, of which he is President.
He said the Trust had acquired the large area of gravel near the steamer landing at Glenridding, which was extensively used by the public to picnic by the water and to launch boats, and had stopped use of the land.
In reply, the Trust’s Information Officer, Mr. Christopher Hanson-Smith, issued a statement saying the ban on power boats and water ski-ing from the delta of Glenridding Beck was imposed largely because of the bad behaviour of members of a water ski club.
Penrith
Penrith may soon have only one cinema, as the result of a plan to provide bingo sessions in the town on five nights a week.
Following the acquisition of the Regent Cinema in Old London Road recently, the theatre and cinema owning company Graves (Cumberland) Ltd, who already owned the Alhambra in Middlegate, are formulating a scheme to make the Alhambra a full-time bingo hall.
This week-end, the Regent is to close for at least two weeks while a major renovation programme is carried out.
Work has begun on a £32,000 sports hall in Penrith which will become part of a complex incorporating gymnasia, a swimming pool, playing fields and the recently opened youth centre.
The sports hall is being built on a site between Tynefield School and the A.6 road and it is expected that it will be completed in the next twelve months.
Alston
A public inquiry is to be held next month to hear objections to British Rail’s plan to close the Haltwhistle to Alston line.
Consent to close the line was refused by the Minister of Transport after a previous hearing in 1962 and the line is now grant supported.
The new closure proposal was made after the Minister announced that he might not continue the grant support after 1971.
100 years ago – 1921
Penrith
Mr. Edward Spruce, Penrith, who drove the car containing the police officers when Toplis was killed, was awarded £1 by the Cumberland Standing Joint Committee.
Threlkeld
Damage estimated at £1,000 was done by a fire which destroyed a stable, coach-house, store-room and barn at the Blencathra Sanatorium.
A maid, Miss Hilda Knight, spotted the blaze and the coachman, Mr. J. Devine, rescued a horse before Keswick Fire Brigade arrived.
Appleby
Members of the Co-operative Society held a public tea and concert in the Market House.
The Rev. T. Clarke, Rector of Ormside, presided, and Mr. Leslie, the secretary, gave an account of the operations of the Society which, in 24 years’ existence, has turned over £7,395.
