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White Hart Yard was first recorded back in 1720 as containing a notedcoaching inn, the old White Hart Inn. The Griffin Inn was also situatedwithin the yard and became famous for its landlord, William Jameson, aretired wrestling champion (many of his trophies still exist and can beseen in the Penrith Museum).

Millennium Trail

Musgrave Monument was built in remembrance of Philip, son ofSir George and Lady Musgrave.

Cornmarket was the site of many inns centralto the trading of all types of commodity.Landlords were also farmers, joiners, slaters,dealers in butter, bacon, cattle and tea, a coalmerchant, monumental mason, stone quarryowner and veterinary surgeon. Barley wassold outside the Griffin, oats by the White Hartand wheat at the Black Lion (note date stoneon the present Board and Elbow 1624). In1907 it was recorded that the population ofPenrith was 9,182 with 57 licensed houses inthe town. Today beer is sold once more in the

Black Lion premises, part of the Board and Elbow, but of the otherfive hostelries not one survives. Across the road from the BlackLion was the Black Bull (now Zebedee Pine) and in the mid 19thcentury the innkeepers were cornmerchants. Like most of theCornmarket inns, the Black Bullwas very old and is mentioned inthe 1790 directory when ThomasMurthwaite was the victualler. Afterhim came Joseph Rookin, a maltster and in 1834 the newinnkeeper was Joseph Irving. Irving set up a small brewery in theBlack Bull in competition with four big breweries in thetown. His brew must have been good to stand up to thecompetition. Strangely, by the end of the century theBlack Bull had become a temperance hotel.

On Cornmarket’s right side, the White Hart,mentioned as early as 1720 was a noted coaching innwith coaches arriving and departing twice daily toand from West Cumberland. Through the archway atthe side of the former inn runs a lane called WhiteHart Yard. Adjacent was the Griffin Inn where aformer landlord, Mr William Jameson was of greatrenown as a wrestler. In 1867 The Pall Mall Gazettereferred to “A certain gigantic Jameson, of Penrith,who was more like a polar bear on its hind legs in agrey flannel shirt than a human being”. The Griffinwas the Mecca to which wrestlers, athletes andsportsmen of all kinds made their way when inPenrith. White Hart Yard is to be a new housingdevelopment, retaining its old character.

Clint Mill. The mill, originally built forPattinson and Winter, a local Seed Merchantsand millers in 1878, was occupied for thegreater part of the twentieth century byNickerson’s Seed Merchants. In the early

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1990’s it was converted into offices and a gymnasium.

Poets Walk, site of the Fish Hotel, leads to the foot of Castlegate.

Market cross, site of one of Penrith’s first gas lamps. In 1850, 57gas lamps were tended by stokers from Penrith Gas Light andCoke Co. Each evening a stoker ran up the ladder which hecarried with him, lit the gas jet from his lantern, slid down theladder and dashed off to the next lamp.

The former Dockray Hall, now theGloucester Arms, where it is reputed thatRichard III as Duke of Gloucesterresided. His arms oftwo boars rampantappear above themain entrance, whilst

above the other door are the initials of John deWhelpdale, one of the five original governorsof the Queen Elizabeth Grammar School.

Great Dockray, the largest of Penrith’s market spaces, is still astreet market every Tuesday. In the past it was used, along withSandgate, for the twice yearly Hiring Fairs, when those farmservants who were not ‘stopping on’ hired themselves to theirnew employers for the next half year. This transaction was sealedby the giving and taking of a token coin and was as binding as alegal contract, important as a good wage. At the far end of GreatDockray, the Two Lions Inn dating from 1585 was formerly thehome of Gerald Lowther, a forbear for the Earls of Lonsdale.

It is not certain whether Angel Lane gotits name from the Angel Inn (now shoeshop). The Angel was kept by MaryWestmorland for over 40 years. Directlyopposite was another old inn The Dukeof Cumberland. Ann Pickering, landladyin the 19th century also carried on thetrade of tea and coffee dealer.

Angel Square, a modern development oftraditional shops designed to harmonisewith the town centre, was built in 1987.It was about here that the Waggon HorsesInn was situated. For 30 years during themid 19th century this inn was kept byHenry Gasgarth, a cooper by trade. In1878 the Exchange Hotel was built byThomas Hodgson and Andrew Bell as atemperance hostelry. Thomas Hodgsonalso founded the Cumberland andWestmorland Herald. Yet another inn onthis side of the lane was the King ofPrussia, first mentioned in 1790. In theearly 1820s it was the headquarters ofPenrith’s Unanimity Lodge ofFreemasons. The landlord was a maltster

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by profession and his customers were of the greyhound racingand Cumberland wrestling fraternity.

On the site of The Bewick Coffee House was the PresbyterianChurch, opened in 1785, also the site of the ancestral home of theNelsons of Virginia. Thomas Nelson of Penrith emigrated toVirginia about the year 1705 and his son, Thomas, was one of thesignatories of the American Declaration of Independence.

The narrow Rowcliffe Lane, only nine feetwide, linked the market place withNetherend (now King Street). There wereseveral yards leading off this narrow street tosmall courts behind the shops, in whichthere was perhaps a pump. Wells andpumps both public and private were the onlymeans of obtaining a clean water supply until a public pipedsystem was introduced in 1854. Water for washing clothes wasobtained from the River Eamont, at Eamont Bridge, a mile southof the town and transported into Penrith in large barrels betweenthe shafts of a horse drawn cart, to be sold for a half penny atubfull.

In King Street the Robin Hood Inn is where the poet WilliamWordsworth stayed during 1794-95 nursing his friend RaisleyCalvert, who died on 12th January 1795. Also on King Street isthe shop front of J Cowper Ltd, Chemist, a business started in1889 by Joseph Cowper. The adjacent No. 52 between the years1922-28 was the premises of the first branch office of BarclaysBank in the town.The premises were then taken over by TomGuest maker of shoes, boots and clogs. His son Johnsubsequently took over the business until 1997. Note the three-storey business premises (Penrith Building Society) standing onthe site of a row of stone cottages and shops where the town’sfirst victim of the Great Plague died in 1597. Some of the victimsof the plague were buried in Bishops Yard, the churchyard andothers in their own gardens. A relic of those days, the PlagueStone, now stands not far from its original position in theforecourt of the Greengarth Home for the elderly in Bridge Lane,some half mile from the town centre going south towards EamontBridge. It is a large block of freestone hollowed in the centre likea trough. It contained some form of disinfecting liquid (probablyvinegar) into which the townspeople put their money whenpaying for farm produce brought in by the country folk.

On the site of the present British Heart Foundation shop was asaddle and trunk maker/Wesleyan preacher, Robert Gate. J & JGrahams earlier also occupied these premises.

Two hundred years ago James Clarke, landlord of the White Swan(Nat West Bank) would have had an excellent view of the bustlingcommercial life of the town. “The markets here are disposed in amanner truly astonishing in so small a town, the wheat market isin one part of the town, rye and potatoes in another, oats andpease in another, cattle, horses and hogs have also their distinctmarkets”. (A Survey of the Lakes: Clarke 1787).

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Musgrave MonumentCornmarketWhite Hart YardClint MillPoets WalkMarket CrossGloucester ArmsGreat DockrayAngel LaneAngel SquareBewick formerly Presbyterian ChurchRowcliffe LaneKing StreetBritish Heart FoundationNat West Bank formerly White Swan

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Former drinkingtrough and

fountain, originallysurmounted by agas street light.

Armorial bearing Richard III,Duke of Gloucester.

Situated above main entranceto Gloucester Arms.