heritage of keswick...
Keswick Town Trail
Comprehensive guide covering architectural and historical features of Keswick, along with maps and three trails to follow. Available from the National Park Information Centre, Keswick.
Moot Hall, Keswick
The present building (1813) replaced an earlier courthouse dating from 1695. The hall has been variously used as a dairy market, prison, copper store, museum and town hall. Today, it functions as a National Park Information Centre and meeting room.
Keswick Museum & Art Gallery, Keswick
A Victorian ‘cabinet of curiosities' including a set of musical stones, a mummified cat, Napoleon's teacup, the skin of a giant cobra and a man trap! The museum also holds original manuscripts by Wordsworth, Southey and Walpole. Free admission. Open April to October.
Crosthwaite Church
The church is dedicated to St Kentigern (also known as St Mungo) who came to Keswick in 553 A.D. An early chapel was built on the spot, followed by a Norman church in 1181. The churchyard holds the grave of Canon Rawnsley (co-founder of the National Trust) who died in 1920 and the tomb of Robert Southey.
Threlkeld Quarry and Mining Museum, Nr Keswick
Photographs, displays and artefacts on the mineral heritage of Cumbria. Underground tours of a reconstructed working mine. Mineral panning.
St John's Church
The only red sandstone building in Keswick. Built in 1838 in the early English style, with a fine spire added later. The church was paid for by John Marshall, a wealthy mill owner from Yorkshire, who also owned Derwent Island and Tarn Hows (near Coniston). Sir Hugh Walpole is buried on the terrace graveyard overlooking the lake.
Keswick Mining Museum
Displays on Cumbria's mining history from the Stone Age to the present day. Geological and mineral exhibits and various mining artefacts. Museum shop. Mine heritage walks every month from March to October. Museum is fully accessible by wheelchair. Open Mar-Nov. Admission charge.
Honister Slate Mine, Borrowdale, Nr Keswick
Experience England's last working slate mine. Guided tours through underground passages explain how the slate was extracted from inside the mountain. Outside, the newly opened Via Ferrata follows the old miners' path to work over Fleetwith Pike.
Mirehouse, Nr Keswick
Historic house and gardens on the shores of Bassenthwaite Lake. Lakeside walks, woodland playground, poetry walk, heather maze and rhododendron tunnel. Literary connections with Tennyson, Southey and Wordsworth. Home-cooked food in the Old Sawmill tearoom nearby.
Castlerigg Stone Circle
A ring of 38 stones on a grassy plateau surrounded by a magnificent mountain panorama The stones are glacial erratics, dragged here on log rollers and levered into position about 3500 years ago. Another 10 stones form a rectangular enclosure on the southeast side. The circle is thought to be 1000 years older than Stonehenge, and dates from around 3000 BC. It is thought the stones were linked to the seasonal movements of the sun and moon.
