Cumberland

The Border city and county town of Carlisle was a castellated borough at the confluence of the rivers Caldew and Eden. It comprised two parishes (St. Mary and St.

Cockermouth, the birthplace of the poet William Wordsworth and Cumberland’s election town, lay in the parish of Brigham at the confluence of the Rivers Cocker and Derwent, eight miles east of Workington and 25 south-west of Carlisle, with which it shared the quarter sessions. Dominated by its ruined castle, its boundaries were co-extensive with those of the ancient barony of Allerdale. The main employment was in weaving shops or factories and tanneries, and Quakers and Independents had been influential locally since the early eighteenth century. Parl.