Keswick 1860 - 2012 GAZ Keswick

Economic Activity:  The arrival of the Cockermouth, Keswick & Penrith Railway in 1864, with the Keswick Hotel of 1869, in Underskiddaw Township, provided the stimulus for further tourism-based growth, including excursions. Closure of the line to Penrith in 1972 reflected a switch of tourism back to roads and private motor vehicles, supported by the A66 trunk road, approved in the same year. The tradition of travelling theatre companies continued with the seasonal Century Theatre being accommodated since 1976 in an ex-mobile auditorium, the Blue Box, at Lakeside, replaced by the Theatre By The Lake in 1999.

Pencil manufacturing was the second largest source of employment. Key manufacturers were Hogarth & Hayes, at Southey Hill, and Robert Wilson & Co., becoming the Cumberland Pencil Co. in 1899 at Greta Bridge. These two companies had merged, under the Cumberland Pencil Co. name, on the Southey Hill site by 1916. When that company moved to Lillyhall, Workington, in 2006, the Pencil Museum remained to remember Keswick’s pencil making.

At Briery Cottages, in 1867 there was a woollen mill, closed by 1900, and a substantial bobbin mill which closed in 1958, served by a railway halt from 1922.

From the 1860s the town developed significantly to the north of the Greta, including municipal parks, but the principal residential development was to the east of the town. Building land was generally not made available on the estate towards Derwentwater, excepting the Heads from the 1870s.

The Keswick Electric Light co. was in operation before 1938. The new Post Office in Main Street opened in 1891.

Any post-1944 expansion and economic development of the town has been constrained by its inclusion in the national park from 1951. In 2012 Keswick concentrates almost wholly on its role as the principal provider in the English Lake District of visitor accommodation, attractions and retail facilities for tourism. Over 60% of employment is in tourism.

Places of Worship: The annual Keswick [Christian] Convention was started in 1875 and continues in 2012. A dedicated Quaker meeting house in was opened in Church Street in 1921, replaced by the present house in 1994. From 1928 the Catholics of Keswick were served by a church in Underskiddaw township, and by the late C20th use of the redundant national school as St Herbert Social Centre.

Schools and Other Institutions: The school at St John’s gained a new infants school building in 1873, as did its branch at Brigham in 1895. Keswick School, the free grammar in Underskiddaw, moved to a new site on the Keswick side of Greta Bridge, opening in 1898 as a co-educational school. A later building, behind the original, allowed that 1898 building to become the Rawnsley Hall in 1940.

The school system was redeveloped following the 1944 Education Act. In 1951 a new secondary modern school was built at Lairthwaithe in Underskiddaw. In 1980 Keswick School purchased Lairthwaite to combine as the single comprehensive secondary school, initially on a split site but combining during the 1990s at Lairthwaite.

A lack of space precluded development of primary and infant/nursery provision at the two St John’s sites. A new green field site near the Windebrowe housing estate allowed the building of Trinity School for juniors in 1974. The building of the adjacent St. Kentigern’s School for infants and nursery in 1993 allowed the closure of the older schools. Trinity and St. Kentigern combined in 2005 as St Herbert’s School.

The Police station and magistrates court buildings in Bank Street date from 1902. Fitz Park (1887) and the new museum (1897) were in Underskiddaw township. The Keswick Literary Society was formed in 1869.

Compiled by: Derek Denman, Keswick History Group