Lorton, a parish in the

district A district is a type of administrative division that, in some countries, is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or counties, several municipalities, subdivisions o ...

Allerdale Allerdale is a non-metropolitan district of Cumbria, England, with borough status. Its council is based in Workington and the borough has a population of 93,492 according to the 2001 census, increasing to 96,422 at the 2011 Census. The Bor ...

of the English county of

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. Cumb ...

, consists of two adjacent villages: Low Lorton and High Lorton. Both nestle at the northern end of the Vale of Lorton, surrounded by

fell A fell (from Old Norse ''fell'', ''fjall'', "mountain"Falk and Torp (2006:161).) is a high and barren landscape feature, such as a mountain or Moorland, moor-covered hill. The term is most often employed in Fennoscandia, Iceland, the Isle o ...

s such as

Grasmoor Grasmoor is a mountain in the north-western part of the Lake District, northern England. It is the highest peak in a group of hills between the villages of Lorton, Braithwaite and Buttermere, and overlooks Crummock Water. Grasmoor is distingui ...

Hopegill Head Hopegill Head is a fell in the English Lake District in Cumbria. It is located nine kilometres (5½ miles) west of the town of Keswick and is well seen from the B5292 road which crosses the Whinlatter Pass. Topography Hopegill Head is the ...

and

Whiteside Whiteside may refer to: Places ;Australia * Whiteside, Queensland, suburb in the Moreton Bay Region, Queensland ;Canada * Whiteside, Nova Scotia ;United Kingdom * Whiteside (Lake District), a fell in the west of the English Lake District * Whitesid ...

. They are about 4 miles (6.5 km) from

Cockermouth Cockermouth is a market town and civil parish in the Borough of Allerdale in Cumbria, England, so named because it is at the confluence of the River Cocker as it flows into the River Derwent. The mid-2010 census estimates state that Cocke ...

, which gives access to the main

A66 road The A66 is a major road in Northern England, which in part follows the course of the Roman road from Scotch Corner to Penrith. It runs from east of Middlesbrough in North Yorkshire to Workington in Cumbria. Route From its eastern termi ...

. Other nearby places include

Loweswater Loweswater is one of the smaller lakes in the English Lake District. The village of Loweswater is situated to the east of the lake. Geography The lake is not far from Cockermouth and is also easily reached from elsewhere in West Cumbria. Th ...

and Brigham.

Tourism

Lorton is relatively untouched by tourism, but many pass through on the way to the

Buttermere Buttermere is a lake in the Lake District in North West England. The adjacent village of Buttermere takes its name from the lake. Historically in Cumberland, the lake is now within the county of Cumbria. Owned by the National Trust, it forms p ...

valley. There are several hill walks available. For instance, Hopegill Head can be climbed from High Lorton and

Fellbarrow Fellbarrow is a low hill in the north west of the English Lake District. It is not far from the town of Cockermouth, near to Loweswater and can most easily be climbed from Low Lorton, or Thackthwaite. From the summit there are views across the ...

from Low Lorton. Of interest are the 12th-century St Cuthbert's Church and the 1663

pele tower Peel towers (also spelt pele) are small fortified keeps or tower houses, built along the English and Scottish borders in the Scottish Marches and North of England, mainly between the mid-14th century and about 1600. They were free-standing ...

, but the latter is closed to the public. Lorton's ancient Yew Tree is the subject of a poem by

Wordsworth William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication ''Lyrical Ballads'' (1798). Wordsworth's ' ...

. The

Whinlatter Pass The Whinlatter Pass is a mountain pass in the English Lake District. It is located on the B5292 road linking Braithwaite, to the west of Keswick, with High Lorton to the south of Cockermouth. To the north the pass is flanked by Whinlatte ...

road connects Lorton with

Braithwaite Braithwaite is a village in the northern Lake District, in Cumbria, England. Historically in Cumberland, it lies just to the west of Keswick and to the east of the Grisedale Pike ridge, in the Borough of Allerdale. It forms part of the civ ...

. The main road passing through Lorton links Cockermouth with

and

The villages

The villages have 114 households, on an area of 5,501 acres (2226 ha). Lorton has a small primary school, St Cuthbert's Church, a re-opened shop and coffee bar, a tennis club, and an award-winning pub, ''The Wheatsheaf Inn''. It has had a community in

Fairfax County, Virginia Fairfax County, officially the County of Fairfax, is a county in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is part of Northern Virginia and borders both the city of Alexandria and Arlington County and forms part of the suburban ring of Washington, D.C. ...

, United States, named after it.

Population

At the 2001 census, Lorton had a population of 250: 114 male and 136 female. The dominant age groups are 45–64 (71 persons) and 25–44 (61 persons), and the mean age 44.72 years. The figures changed little at the 2011 Census. Lorton is fairly isolated: residents travel an average of 17 miles (28 km) to their jobs; 102 people aged 16–74 are economically active and only 6 unemployed.

History

Etymology

The second element in the name "Lorton" is from the

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

"tūn" meaning farmstead or village, but the first is enigmatic. Experts have suggested the

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...

river name "Hlóra", meaning roaring, as with the Norwegian "Lora". The roaring may refer to the Whit Beck or to the River Cocker.

Agriculture and brewing

In 1811, Lorton peaked in prosperity and population due to high demand for farm products as England recovered from the

Napoleonic Wars The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...

(1803–1815). Most residents were employed across the six farms, including one attached to the 17th-century New House. These were powered by fast-flowing tributaries of the River Cocker, running the length of the valley. Most houses and cottages started as barns and mills. Church records indicate a post-war depression from 1816 to 1830, with a population decrease of about 50 and smaller numbers of marriages.

Jennings Brewery Jennings Brewery was established as a family concern in 1828 in the village of Lorton, between Buttermere and Cockermouth in the Lake District, England. The brewery was started by John Jennings Snr, son of William Jennings (a maltster). Jennings ...

was set up in Lorton in 1828 by John Jennings and brewed here exclusively until 1874. Lorton Park is a Grade II Listed Regency House owned in the 19th century by Richard Harbord, a Liverpool shipping magnate buried in the parish church. In 1863, Prince Arthur visited Lorton Park and planted a commemorative chestnut tree in the gardens. The novelist and agricultural writer and activist

Doreen Wallace Doreen Eileen Agnew Wallace, (married name Rash; 1897 – 22 October 1989) was an English novelist, grammar school teacher and social campaigner.Norfolk Women in HistorRetrieved 17 September 2018 In more than 40 novels she is seen to explore exam ...

(1897–1989) was born in Lorton.

Historical mentions

Lorton features in the ''Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales'' (1870–1872) by John Marius Wilson as "a village, a township, and a parish in Cockermouth district, Cumberland". Wilson gave some early key statistics on the value of real property (£3,288), the head count (456) and the area (5264 acres, 2130 ha). Lorton was mentioned some 15 years later in the ''Gazetteer of the British Isles'' (1887) by John Bartholomew, whose figures show some changes: the population down by 59 at 397 and the area up by 54 acres at 5318 acres (2152 ha).

William Wordsworth William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication ''Lyrical Ballads'' (1798). Wordsworth's ' ...

, the poet born in Cockermouth, immortalised the Lorton Yew Tree in his poem "Yew Trees" in 1804. It is judged to be at least 1000 years old, but was severely damaged by a storm shortly after the poem was written.

References

External links

*
Cumbria County History Trust: Lorton
(nb: provisional research only – see Talk page) {{authority control Villages in Cumbria Allerdale Civil parishes in Cumbria