PastPresented Cumbria

02/06/2026

Another oops day today. I've only brought one of the images I was going to scan! Instead, I'm starting with scans from old Workington Borough Council copies of Ordnance Survey (1925) sheets LIII.6 & 7, showing in red the outline of the proposed enlargement of the Lonsdale Dock (i.e. the eventual Prince of Wales Dock).
The third image is almost totally irrelevant, but a nice companion to yesterday's "sunset" view. It's an illustration for a Victorian edition of Walter Scott's "Redgauntlet" by Clarkson Stanfield, engraved by John Horsburgh. As I understand it we're looking south from the Annan estuary, with Skiddaw at left.
Finally, a taste of what was supposed to come today, from the Phoenix series of postcards, circa 1906.

01/06/2026

More Workington Harbour scenes from Valentines' of Dundee today. The first two images are details from their postcards looking at the same view on two different occasions. Number 46022, from the 1904 visit, shows substantial timber remains of the old Merchants' Quay (apologies for the fuzziness- it's from one of their decorative cards, with a small image surrounded by a wide border). By 1925, when postcard 96613 was produced, almost every scrap of wood was gone.
Briefly back to 1904 for Valentines' card 46031, showing the light at the end of John Pier.
Two postcards by local photographer W.C. Lawrie, which I have combined on a single image, show changes to the design of the light around 1911.
Finally, a later postcard from Workington stationer D. Richardson (postmarked 1938, but possibly produced in the 1920s) shows how the entire pier was replaced by a sturdy breakwater.

31/05/2026

Valentines' of Dundee sent photographers to Workington Harbour on at least three occasions. Today's first image, number 46034 in their series, is from a visit in 1904. The second and third, numbers 68721 and 68722, were photographed about 1911. I'll post an image from their 1925 visit tomorrow.
Postcard publishers seem to have been underwhelmed by the modern dock north of the Derwent estuary. We end today with a couple of anonymously-published cards, both unposted but probably from about 1930, soon after the Lonsdale Dock was enlarged to become the Prince of Wales Dock.

30/05/2026

Workington exists because the estuary of the River Derwent forms an excellent natural harbour. First image today is the relevant section from the town plan in William Hutchinson's history of Cumberland, published in 1794.
Second, slightly more up-to-date, the panorama of the harbour and town by Joseph Farington, from the Cumberland volume of "Magna Britannia" by S. & D. Lysons, 1816.
Third, an early postcard from the Wrench series, postmarked 1905.
Postcard 6502 in the Unique Series, by Walter Benton & Co. of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, is probably not much later.
Today's last image, postmarked 1907, is probably by a local photographer; there's no credit on the back, but if the photographer's initials appeared at bottom right, fading makes them illegible.

29/05/2026

Yesterday, I bought a copy of "Albright & Wilson The Last 50 Years" from a Cockermouth charity shop, and the section about Marchon reminded me of the extraordinary efforts made to rescue west Cumberland from the effects of the 1930s Depression. Today, therefore, as an introduction to industrial Workington, I'm featuring illustrations from two publications related to those efforts.
First, the large-format 1930s illustrated brochure "Wonderful West Cumberland" which has individual pages about each of the area's main towns. The Workington page begins with an Aerofilms view of the then newish Prince of Wales Dock, and continues with a more conventional photo titled "Ships berthed in the Dock".
Then illustration C is "The Workington Iron & Steel Company's modern Coke Oven and By-product Plant".
That leads us to an illustration titled "View of the new Solway Colliery, Workington. Upcast pit bottom" in the 1951 book "Cumberland with special reference to the West Cumberland Development Area. A Survey of Industrial Facilities" by G.H.J. Daysh and Evelyn M. Watson.
Finally continuing the theme of coal-based industry, part of a map from the same book showing gasworks (red rectangles), gasholders (red circles) and coke ovens (red triangles).

28/05/2026

Today I'm cheating. I showed numerous old postcards of Workington Hall as contributions to an FB Group (I think probably Old West Cumbria) early in 2025. Because my return journey from a lovely stroll to Coniston Copper Mines yesterday was severely disrupted by somebody's road accident on the A591 (and a completely separate incident made it impossible to catch a train from Windermere, and bus services still aren't running over Kirkstone Pass due to the landslip last November) I didn't have time in the evening to sort out a fresh batch …
All but the first & last of these images are anonymous, that first being another vibrantly-coloured production in the Nook Series of postcards, circa 1905 (there's an inferior version of the same scene in the Souvenir Series from about the same time).
The second and third images are not postcard but private photos, probably from the 1930s.
The fourth is an anonymous real-photo postcard, probably early 1920s.
Finally, back to J.R. Taylor's locally-produced Derwent Series for a look into the courtyard.

27/05/2026

There are also quite a lot of postcards of Workington's old Derwent Bridge. The earliest of today's selection is postmarked 1904, but has an undivided back which suggests it was published around 1901-2. It's half-tone printed, and anonymous.
However, close inspection reveals that the same image appears, with added tinting, on a postcard by Nicholson & Cartner of Carlisle (but "Printed abroad"), also postmarked 1904. It may be, then, that the half-tone card is an earlier attempt by N & C to test the postcard market.
The third image, unusually looking upstream, is anonymous, probably published by a local photographer. It's postmarked 1906.
The fourth image would be from about the same time; it's a detail of a postcard in the Derwent Series by Workington chemist J.R. Taylor.
Today's final picture is significantly later, a postcard in the Excel Series, possibly published in the 1920s but postmarked 1938.

26/05/2026

The obsession with publishing postcards of The Yearl does not pale into insignificance when compared with the coverage of the Hall Mill and Mill Field; it's more the other way round. Today's first image, from a postcard in the WB series, is a small portion of a photo captioned "The Millfield, Workington" which is really just a photo of The Yearl from slightly further west than normal. That slight change of viewpoint does, however, reveal the mill-race and its sluice-gate.
The second image, looking down the Derwent with the Mill Field at left, is a detail from a "Derwent Series" postcard by J.R. Taylor of Workington, probably published circa 1908.
Third, the mill itself, a card in the HHHH series, postmarked 1907.
Fourth, another Derwent Series card, posted in 1913 but I also have a slightly tattered copy posted in 1907.
Finally and symmetrically, another in the WB series shows the right-hand one of the Hall Mill's two waterwheels, in what seems to be full working order, unlike the Derwent card. That's odd, as this card was probably published in the 1920s.

25/05/2026

PS: An update on a fortnight's progress for the nesting pests in the backyard of the PastPresented shop in Whitehaven Market Place:

Here's an update on the last fortnight of (slight) activity by the birds in the back-yard of the PastPresented shop in Whitehaven Market Place, England.

25/05/2026

The obsession with publishing postcards of the Cuckoo Arch pales into insignificance when compared with the coverage of The Yearl, on the River Derwent just downstream from Seaton Mill. I picked samples by starting where I left off yesterday and working upwards.
Renney & Co. of Workington, some time in the middle of the Edwardian era, provide a cute but slightly green-looking dog.
Back to N in my catalogue, and the Nook Series outdid Renneys' by including a variety of random passers-by in their cheerfully-coloured image, probably published around the same time.
Nicholson & Cartner of Carlisle missed the passers-by trick in their "Lochinvar Series" postcard, my copy of which was posted in 1905.
The real-photo Excel Series is, I think a couple of decades later. This is a detail from number 2 in their Workington selection.
Finally, one of the town's most notable postcard publishers, J.R. Taylor's "Derwent" series provides an unusual view looking down the brow, postmarked 1913 but probably produced a few years earlier.