What was the Sun Inn, Torpenhow - geograph

Blennerhasset and Torpenhow ( and ) is a

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 ...

in the Allerdale district 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. C ...

, England. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 437, reducing to 423 at the 2011 Census. It includes the villages of Blennerhasset and Torpenhow at and the smaller settlement of Kirkland Guards at . It is located just outside the Lake District National Park. Baggrow railway station was immediately north of Blennerhasset. The local pronunciation of Torpenhow is , rather than the more intuitive (). Blennerhasset is pronounced () instead of () as would be expected outside of Cumbria. St Michael's Church, Torpenhow has a Norman chancel arch with a remarkable carving of interlocking human figures, and a painted wooden ceiling.

Toponymy

Blennerhasset is of uncertain etymology, one possible source is that it comes 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 ...

''heysætr'' 'hay shieling', which has been added to a Brythonic place-name containing ''blaen'', 'top'. The ''-er-'' part in the middle " is asserted by Ekwall on the supposition that the full first element corresponded to Welsh ''blaen-dre'', 'hill farm' ". However ''sæt'' is also found in place names of

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 settlers in the mid-5th c ...

origin as a term for a settlement and may also be influenced by

''sīde''. 'Hay' is also found in

in both placenames and literary sources with a variety of different spellings and variations such as ''hēg'', ''hīeg'', ''hīg'', ''hew'', ''heġe'' and ''ġehæġ'' along with

Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English ...

''haye'' and ''heye''. These words range in modern translation as being ''Hay'', ''Hedge'' and referring to open plains, fields or farms. Interpretations of Torpenhow have developed over time''.'' In ''Place-Names of Cumberland'' (1950) Torpenhow was etymologized as "Tosti's howe" (with ''howe'' deriving from

''haugr'' 'hill, mound'), against a tradition identifying the name as an example of tautology in place-names, first proposed by Denton (1688). Denton interpreted ''tor'', ''pen'' and ''how'' as three elements all with the base meaning "hill". Ekwall's ''Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-names'' (4th ed. 1960) accepted Denton's ''torr+pen+howe'' etymology (against the 1950s "Tosti" proposal), but notes that ''torr+penn'' is not tautological. He expresses the idea of "top or breast of the hill", to which ''howe'' was added in a (single) tautology. The most recent published etymology is the '" cky summit" to which was added "hill-spur"', the three elements of Torpenhow deriving from, Old English ''torr'' 'a rock, a rocky outcrop, a rocky peak', Primitive Welsh ''penn'' 'head, end, top, height, a hill', and Old English ''hōh'' 'a heel; a sharply projecting piece of ground'. It is also possible that the name ''Torpenhow'' might simply be entirely Brittonic and composed of the elements ''tor'' ("heap of rocks") + ''pen'' ("a summit") and the plural suffix ''ou'' (Welsh ''torpenau''). The local pronunciation of Torpenhow Village is , though the more intuitive pronunciation is also used.

Governance

Blennerhasset and Torpenhow is part of the

Workington Workington is a coastal town and civil parish at the mouth of the River Derwent on the west coast in the Allerdale borough of Cumbria, England. The town was historically in Cumberland. At the 2011 census it had a population of 25,207. Locat ...

constituency of the

UK parliament The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative suprema ...

. The current

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members o ...

Mark Jenkinson Mark Ian Jenkinson (born 28 January 1982) is a British Conservative Party politician serving as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Workington since 2019. Early life and career Jenkinson was born in Whitehaven and raised in Workington. He was ed ...

, a member of the Conservative Party. Prior to the 2019 general election, the Labour Party had won the seat in every general election since 1979; the Conservative Party had previously only been elected once in Workington since

the Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

: in the

1976 Workington by-election The 1976 Workington by-election was a parliamentary by-election held in England for the House of Commons constituency of Workington in Cumbria on 4 November 1976. It was won by the Conservative Party candidate Richard Page, who became the fir ...

. For

local government Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of public administration within a particular sovereign state. This particular usage of the word government refers specifically to a level of administration that is both geographically-l ...

purposes it is in the Boltons

ward Ward may refer to: Division or unit * Hospital ward, a hospital division, floor, or room set aside for a particular class or group of patients, for example the psychiatric ward * Prison ward, a division of a penal institution such as a pris ...

Allerdale Borough Council 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 Boro ...

, which is represented by Malcolm Grainger (Conservative), and the Bothel and Wharrels ward of

Cumbria County Council Cumbria County Council is the county council for the non-metropolitan county of Cumbria in the North West of England. Established in April 1974, following its first elections held the previous year, it is an elected local government body respon ...

, which is represented by Joseph Bowness (Conservative). Its parish council is Blennerhasset and Torpenhow Parish Council.

Blennerhasset Mill

Blennerhasset Mill (at ) is on the south bank of the River Ellen.

Roman fort

A Roman fortRoman Britain
is situated on the old Roman Road between Old Carlisle and

Papcastle Papcastle is a village and civil parish in the borough of Allerdale in the English county of Cumbria. The village is now effectively a northern extension of Cockermouth, which lies to the south of the River Derwent. It has its own parish counc ...

References

External links