Embleton is a small village and

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. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

located in the

Cumberland Cumberland ( ) is an area of North West England which was historically a county. The county was bordered by Northumberland to the north-east, County Durham to the east, Westmorland to the south-east, Lancashire to the south, and the Scottish ...

district in

Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial county in North West England. It borders the Scottish council areas of Dumfries and Galloway and Scottish Borders to the north, Northumberland and County Durham to the east, North Yorkshire to the south-east, Lancash ...

, England. It is located east of

Cockermouth Cockermouth is a market town and civil parish in the Cumberland unitary authority area of Cumbria, England. The name refers to the town's position by the confluence of the River Cocker into the River Derwent. At the 2021 census, the built u ...

on the

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. The road has been progressively ...

, and within the boundaries of the

Lake District The Lake District, also known as ''the Lakes'' or ''Lakeland'', is a mountainous region and National parks of the United Kingdom, national park in Cumbria, North West England. It is famous for its landscape, including its lakes, coast, and mou ...

National Park A national park is a nature park designated for conservation (ethic), conservation purposes because of unparalleled national natural, historic, or cultural significance. It is an area of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that is protecte ...

. The hamlet of Wythop Mill is within the parish about a mile south of the village, close to the boundary with Wythop civil parish.

History

Sometime around 1854 a schoolmaster digging in common land at Embleton came across a hoard of weapons dating to the 1st century AD, the transition between the

Late Iron Age The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progr ...

and Early

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

period. It comprised three iron spearheads and two swords, one of which was in a decorated copper-alloy scabbard. The latter object can now be seen in the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

. Embleton railway station opened in 1865, on the

Cockermouth, Keswick and Penrith Railway The Cockermouth, Keswick and Penrith Railway (CK&PR) was an English railway company incorporated by act of Parliament (UK), act of Parliament on 1 August 1861, to build a line connecting the town of Cockermouth with the London and North Western ...

, and was closed by

British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. Originally a trading brand of the Railway Executive of the British Transport Comm ...

in 1958 although the railway through the village survived until 1966. The trackbed has now been used for the route of the A66 road.

Governance

There are two tiers of local government covering Embleton, at parish and

unitary authority A unitary authority is a type of local government, local authority in New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Unitary authorities are responsible for all local government functions within its area or performing additional functions that elsewhere are ...

level: Embleton and District Parish Council and

Cumberland Council Cumberland Council is the local authority for Cumberland, a local government district in the ceremonial county of Cumbria, England. It is a unitary authority, being a district council which also performs the functions of a county council. The ...

. The parish council is a

grouped parish council A parish council is a civil local authority found in England, which is the lowest tier of local government. Parish councils are elected corporate bodies, with variable tax raising powers, and they carry out beneficial public activities in geogr ...

, covering the three civil parishes of Embleton, Setmurthy (in which the main settlement is Dubwath), and Wythop. The parish council meets at Embleton Village Hall. The parish is wholly within the Lake District National Park, and so some functions are administered by the Lake District National Park Authority, notably

planning Planning is the process of thinking regarding the activities required to achieve a desired goal. Planning is based on foresight, the fundamental capacity for mental time travel. Some researchers regard the evolution of forethought - the cap ...

. Embleton is within the Penrith and Solway UK Parliamentary constituency.

Administrative history

Embleton was historically a

township A township is a form of human settlement or administrative subdivision. Its exact definition varies among countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, this tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Canad ...

in the

ancient 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. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

of Brigham, which formed part of the historic county of

. The township of Embleton took on civil functions under the

poor laws The English Poor Laws were a system of poor relief in England and Wales that developed out of the codification of late-medieval and Tudor-era laws in 1587–1598. The system continued until the modern welfare state emerged in the late 1940s. E ...

from the 17th century onwards. As such, the township also became a

in 1866, when the legal definition of 'parish' was changed to be the areas used for administering the poor laws. When elected parish and district councils were established in 1894, Embleton was included in the

Cockermouth Rural District Cockermouth was a rural district in Cumberland, England, from 1894 to 1974. It was created by the Local Government Act 1894 based on Cockermouth rural sanitary district. It entirely surrounded but did not include the towns of Cockermouth and ...

. Cockermouth Rural District was abolished in 1974, becoming part of the borough of

Allerdale Allerdale was a non-metropolitan district of Cumbria, England, with Borough status in England and Wales, borough status. Its council – Allerdale Borough Council – was based in Workington, and the borough had a population of 96,422 at the ...

in the new county of Cumbria. Allerdale was in turn abolished in 2023 when the new Cumberland Council was created, also taking over the functions of the abolished Cumbria County Council in the area.

Demography

At the 2021 census the parish had a population of 278. At the 2001 census the population was 297, and in 2011 it was 294.

References

External links