West Cumbria: On the Edge

Silloth, the first time I visited, also reminded me of a place where I had once stopped when I was driving through New South Wales in Australia, travelling between Melbourne and Sydney. It was a Victorian town called Cessnock, which I had visited on a quiet Sunday when the streets were empty and – perhaps it was for this reason – the place also seemed to have been abandoned, its wide streets emphasising the absence of people and traffic. Silloth’s own wide streets are very interesting and unusual, and one wonders why the town was laid out with so much space. It’s as if some follower of Baron Haussmann, the designer of modern Paris, drew the map of Silloth’s main connections, taking care to keep them straight and as wide as possible. In fact, what began with an idea to build a port for Carlisle in this location, connected by rail (the port still operates to this day, but the railway to Carlisle was closed in 1964), was overtaken by its obvious potential as one of those ‘watering places’ – a holiday resort of the kind that grew increasingly popular in the Victorian age.

The Carlisle and Silloth Bay Railway and Dock Company had bought up land around the railway terminus and port and provided the infrastructure of the new resort, laying out the streets, sewers and gas pipes on top of which the town would rise, seeing it as a means of generating revenue through the new railway network that was being laid down all over West Cumbria.3 Beattie’s 1842 guide to the Ports, Harbours, Watering Places, and Coast Scenery of Great Britain, makes no mention of Silloth, although a place named ‘Silluth’, probably an estate of some sort, can be seen on Christopher Saxton’s 16th-century map of Cumberland in roughly the same geographical location. In retrospect, a scheme to erect such a place in this location – close to where medieval monks had settled for its remote wilderness qualities – seems like it would have been a promising initiative. With Carlisle on the main line between England and Scotland just a few miles to the 74