Whinfell

Is a thinly populated parish containing about 1,747 acres, the ratable value of the land being £931, and of the buildings £265. The gross estimated rental reached £1,316. According to the census of 1891 there were 95 inhabitants, as against 115 in 1881. Agriculture is the chief employment of the people. The soil is various, but chiefly a gravelly loam. Around the base of the Fell, which rises to a height of 1,000 or 1,200 feet above the sea level, the soil is of a very good quality, but on the high ground it is poor and intermixed with patches of gravelly clay and peat. The township has received its name from the whins which once grew so profusely on this Fell.

The Manor, as a parcel of the honour of Cockermouth, has descended with that barony to Lord Leconfield. In the reign of Henry VIII, it was held conjointly by Christopher Curwen, J. Eaglesfield, and Ambrose Middleton. Eaglesfield's portion passed to Anthony Barwis, who held the same on the payment of one halfpenny per annum. The manor was afterwards the property of the Wharton family, and, being sold to the Seymours, has descended through the Earls of Egremont to the present owner. A moiety of the manor was enfranchised at the enclosure of the common in 1828; it was formerly held by. Lieut.-Col. Thompson, and is now the property of A.J.S. Dixon, Esq. The principal landowners are Lord Leconfield; A.J.S. Dixon. Esq., Lorton Hall; Allan Peile, The Beeches; Wilson Robinson, Whinfell Hall; John Dover Pearson, Rogerscale; William Walker Dixon, Toddell; and J. Wilson, Esq., Fairfield.

The parish is comprised within Derwent ward and petty sessional division; the county council electoral division of Derwent Fells; the county court district of Cockermouth; and the union and rural district of Cockermouth.

The tithes were commuted in 1841 for a rent charge of £14, payable to the Earl of Lonsdale as impropriator of the parish of Brigham. The township has no village of its own name, but contains the small hamlet of Rogerscale, and a few scattered houses built on the skirts of the Fell, 4½, miles S. of Cockermouth.

Mr. Sutton, a local painter of no mean celebrity, resided on his own estate at Rogerscale for several years. He erected himself a house on the banks of the Cocker, commanding extensive and varied views of mountain and vale, and here he prosecuted his art through a long, period of years. He was a member of the Royal Academy, and his pictures adorn the walls of many Cumbrian mansions.

Bulmer's History & Directory Of Cumberland, 1901

30 July 2006

© Steve Bulman