Cockermouth owes it existence to the river system. The nearby Roman camp of Dervenitio, modern Papcastle, was situated at the northern end of a crossing of the river Derwent, which flows from east to west just north of the present town centre. Here was an important road junction in the back-up to Hadrian’s Wall. Also originating in the central Lakeland fells, the Cocker flows from the south to enter the Derwent here, hence the name of the town. At this confluence grew the normal and medieval settlements, a natural administrative and trading centre for a number of converging valleys.
Little happened after the Romans left about AD 400 until the Normans arrived, but place names and Anglian remains in nearby churches prove the continued existence of communities in the area. Governing the district first from the former Roman site, the Normans soon moved to the present castle site on the end of a ridge between the rivers at their confluence. The town developed below the castle and for some distance west along the line of the present main street. In 1260 about 180 burage properties were listed, in addition to the mills, workshops, etc of an active and growing community. Excavations in 1980 proved habitation at the western end of Main Street by 1300.
Cockermouth developed as a typical medieval town, having a broad main street of burgesses’ houses, each with a burgage plot stretching to the usual ‘back lane’ – the Derwent bank on the north and Back Lane,(now South Street) on the south. This basic layout of streets and plots still largely remains one reason for the town’s inclusion as one of the fifty one ‘gem towns’ selected in 1965 by the British Council for Archaeology as being worthy of special care in preservation and development, ‘so splendid and so precious that ultimate responsibility for them should be a national concern'.
No comments:
Post a Comment