![Whitehaven Castle](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3c/Whitehaven_Castle.jpg)
Whitehaven Castle is a historic building in
Whitehaven
Whitehaven is a town and port on the English north west coast and near to the Lake District National Park in Cumbria, England. Historically in Cumberland, it lies by road south-west of Carlisle and to the north of Barrow-in-Furness. It is th ...
,
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 ...
. It is a Grade II
listed building
In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
.
History
The building was constructed for
Sir John Lowther as his private residence; it was originally known as Flatt Hall and was completed in 1769.
[ In 1924, the ]Earl of Lonsdale
Earl of Lonsdale is a title that has been created twice in British history, firstly in the Peerage of Great Britain in 1784 (becoming extinct in 1802), and then in the Peerage of the United Kingdom in 1807, both times for members of the Lowth ...
sold Whitehaven Castle to Herbert Wilson Walker, a local industrialist, who then donated the building to the people of West Cumberland
Cumberland is a U.S. city in and the county seat of Allegany County, Maryland. It is the primary city of the Cumberland, MD-WV Metropolitan Statistical Area. At the 2020 census, the city had a population of 19,076. Located on the Potomac River, ...
, along with £20,000 to convert it into a new hospital. Later, a second new hospital, the West Cumberland Hospital
West Cumberland Hospital is a hospital in Hensingham, a suburb of Whitehaven in Cumbria, England, and was the first district general hospital to be built in England following the creation of the National Health Service. It is managed by the Nort ...
was opened in 1964 by the Queen Mother
A queen mother is a former queen, often a queen dowager, who is the mother of the reigning monarch. The term has been used in English since the early 1560s. It arises in hereditary monarchies in Europe and is also used to describe a number of ...
, and Whitehaven Castle then became a facility for the elderly and has since been converted into apartments.[
]
References
{{coords, 54.5454, -3.5831, display=title
Country houses in Cumbria
Grade II listed buildings in Cumbria
Whitehaven