25 years ago – 1995
Penrith
Penrith-based Cumbrian Industrials Limited have been awarded the first contract for the Whinfell Forest holiday village development.
Worth almost £1 million, the contract, awarded by the Rank Organisation, covers site preparation and preliminary infrastructure work. Work is scheduled to start within the next few weeks.
Troutbeck
Little Mell Fell, one of the last privately owned hills in the Lake District, has been bought by a Borrowdale farming family for £103,000.
Situated to the south of the A66 Penrith to Keswick road near Troutbeck, the 203-acre property was purchased by Martin Weir and his sons Joe and Jason, of Highlore, Borrowdale, at a sale at Penrith Farmers’ and Kidd’s Skirsgill mart, Penrith.
Lazonby
The traditional annual “harvest of the fells” from Alston Moor and the northern hills resulted in Lazonby being the venue for the largest one day sheep sale in the country.
The sale of 26,801 Mule gimmer lambs began at 9.30am and continued non-stop for almost 12 hours, with auctioneers Gordon Teasdale, Stuart Bell and Richard Morris wielding the gavel in turn.
A renewed confidence in sheep and the end to the drought in the south of England resulted in the average price increasing by £4.82 on the year to £58.08.
Glenridding
One of the Lake District’s best known family farming partnerships are to give up their tenancy at Glencoyne, near Glenridding, at the end of this year.
Brothers George and Norman Wilson are ending a family association with the farm which goes back to 1928, when their grandfather, Richard Wilson, moved to Glencoyne from Wasdale Head in West Cumbria.
The farm was then owned by Lady Mabel Howard and was later acquired by insurance magnate Sir Samuel Scott, who gave it to the National Trust.
Kirkby Stephen
Kirkby Stephen’s auction mart was filled with animals of a different sort to those usually seen there when the first dog and pet show in the town was held there.
The show was judged by dog lover Audrey Heaton and by Dick Frost, journalist and founder of the Kirkby Stephen Messenger. The organisers were Gill Alderson, Mary MacIntosh and Dorothy Dixon.
Skelton
More than 50 villagers attended a meeting convened by Skelton swimming pool committee at the Toppin memorial hall to debate the future of the pool.
Chairman Mrs. Barbara Hope said the pool had reached a crisis point and the meeting was to decide whether it should continue to operate or be dismantled and the area reinstated as a school playground.
Mr. W. R. Huntley, who for 25 years was head at the school, said it was his firm conviction that every child should be able to swim, and he described how a massive community effort had brought the pool into being 20 years ago.
50 years ago — 1970
Appleby
Condemned by the Government under a re-organisation plan, Appleby Assizes began on Monday morning for the last time — 714 years after the first recorded Assize held in Appleby Castle to settle a squabble over land.
The colourful ceremony of the Assize service, attended by the scarlet robed Judge and his officers in St. Lawrence’s Church, and the stately procession with the Judge in his Rolls-Royce over the River Eden to his Assize in the Shire Hall by the side of the busy A6 road, while traffic is held up, will be seen for the last time next week and large crowds are expected.
Brough
A sign of the times at the ancient Brough Hill fair was the fact that, although the gathering of North-country gypsies was well attended, with over 200 caravans and more than 1,000 people present, there was only a solitary horse!
And there were no horse-drawn caravans at all.
Shap
Mr. George Blenkinship, Lynedene, Shap, when taking up some of his potatoes for Sunday lunch, unearthed one weighing only half an ounce short of four pounds.
Sunday not really being a “chip day”, the potato got a reprieve and is now on view in the local butcher’s shop, owned by Mr. Tom Steadman.
Penrith
Members of the Penrith Co-operative Society have voted against a proposal by the management committee that the Society should amalgamate with other societies to form a Co-op to cover the whole county.
At a special meeting attended by 97 members, the voting was 83 against and only 14 for the proposal to amalgamate.
Penrith, in addition to town branches, has shops at Keswick, Braithwaite, Shap and Glenridding.
Clifton
The Department of Transport has reviewed the timing of the development of a motorway service area East of Clifton and decided to defer it indefinitely, state minutes of the Westmorland County Council Planning Committee.
It is proposed to leave the scheme in abeyance until the adequacy of the service areas at Southwaite, Tebay West and Killington can be assessed.
100 years ago — 1920
Penrith
The threatened strike by the street sanitation and refuse department of Penrith Urban Council has not come off, the Union having accepted an offer of 5s. a week on the men’s behalf.
The Rev. George A. Campbell Bell, Vicar of Tresmeer, Cornwall, son of Mr. William Bell, late of Argyll House, Penrith, has died, aged 52.
Before going to St. Edmund’s Hall, Oxford, he was educated at his father’s private school at Penrith, and in his early ministerial career Mr. Bell took services at Christ Church.
Askham
Parishioners of Askham and Helton have shown their appreciation of the services of Miss Gladys Maud Bamber, as voluntary organist at Askham Church, by publicly presenting her with a marble timepiece on the occasion of her marriage. Mr. Chas. Wheeler presided at the presentation.
