Beckfoot is a hamlet in the
civil parish
In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...
of
Holme St Cuthbert
Holme St Cuthbert (occasionally Holme St Cuthberts; pronounced and occasionally written Holme Saint Cuthbert) is a small village and civil parish in the borough of Allerdale, in the county of Cumbria, United Kingdom. The village is located approx ...
in
Cumbria
Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in North West England, bordering Scotland. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local government, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. C ...
, England. It is located on the
B5300 coast road, three miles south of
Silloth-on-Solway and two miles north of the village of
Mawbray
Mawbray is a village in the civil parish of Holme St Cuthbert in the Allerdale borough of Cumbria, England. Historically part of Cumberland. It is located on the Solway Plain, south west of Silloth, north of Maryport, and west of Carlisle. ...
. The
county town of
Carlisle is twenty-five miles away to the east.
History and etymology
The name "Beckfoot" is derived from the
Old Norse
Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlemen ...
''bekkr-futr'', meaning "the mouth of a stream".
Beck is a local word in
Cumbrian dialect
The Cumberland dialect is a local Northern English dialect in decline, spoken in Cumberland, Westmorland and Lancashire North of the Sands, not to be confused with the area's extinct Celtic language, Cumbric. Some parts of Cumbria have a ...
for a
stream. Such a beck empties into the
Solway Firth
The Solway Firth ( gd, Tràchd Romhra) is a firth that forms part of the border between England and Scotland, between Cumbria (including the Solway Plain) and Dumfries and Galloway. It stretches from St Bees Head, just south of Whitehaven ...
at the southern end of the hamlet, and it is this watercourse which gives the settlement its name. There are two known recorded variant spellings: Beck and Beckfoote.
The area around Beckfoot was fortified during
Roman times
In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 BC ...
, as a series of
milefortlets were constructed to guard the coast beyond the western end of
Hadrian's Wall. The remains of milefortlets
14 and
15 are located nearby. In 2010 a broken pottery vessel containing 308 Roman coins was discovered by a local archaeologist using a metal detector.
During the 14th century, a castle was built at
Wolsty, approximately one-and-a-half miles to the north, to guard the vulnerable
Holmcultram Abbey at
Abbeytown from raids across the Solway Firth. The castle had been demolished by the year 1700, and not much remains today, but an archaeological survey was carried out in July 2013.
In the 16th century, shifting sands and severe storms on the Solway Firth saw many houses in the hamlet destroyed or severely damaged. Many people lost their homes, and it was this event which prompted the Lord and Steward of Holme Culterham to construct the town of New Mawbray, today known as
Newtown, three-quarters of a mile inland from Beckfoot. Also during this era, Scots continued to raid this section of the Solway coast. A system called the "seawake" - a night watch along the coast - was created, and residents of coastal communities including Beckfoot would have participated in guarding against such raids.
A
Quaker meeting house was built in Beckfoot in the year 1745, exactly 100 years before the parish church at Holme St. Cuthbert was built. A mill and dam were built at the end of the eighteenth century to aid in local wool production, but the mill was not a financial success and closed a few years later. In 1925, Beckfoot had two
council houses
A council house is a form of British public housing built by local authorities. A council estate is a building complex containing a number of council houses and other amenities like schools and shops. Construction took place mainly from 1919 a ...
constructed - the only council houses in the whole parish.
The hamlet today
There are two attractions in the vicinity - Bank Mill Nursery and Visitor Centre, which includes a garden, nature reserve, play area, and restaurant,
and the Gincase near
Newtown, a farm park with a gift shop and tea room.
A bus service runs between
Silloth-on-Solway and
Maryport
Maryport is a town and civil parish in the Allerdale borough of Cumbria, England, historically in Cumberland.
The town is situated just outside the Lake District National Park, at the northern end of the former Cumberland Coalfield.
Location ...
and stops approximately once every two hours in either direction.
Beckfoot is within the
Solway Coast
The Solway Coast is a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in northern Cumbria, United Kingdom. It incorporates two areas of coastline along the Solway Firth, the first running from just north of the city of Carlisle, at the estuary ...
Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty
An Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB; , AHNE) is an area of countryside in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, that has been designated for conservation due to its significant landscape value. Areas are designated in recognition of ...
,
and its sand dunes, together with those at Mawbray and Wolsty, form a
Site of Special Scientific Interest.
See also
*
Listed buildings in Holme St Cuthbert
References
{{Reflist
Hamlets in Cumbria
Populated coastal places in Cumbria
Roman sites in Cumbria
Holme St Cuthbert