"I remember being struck for the first time by the town and port of Whitehaven, and the white waves breaking against its quays and piers. . . . "
William Wordsworth
What an introduction, here you have a town that is by and far one of the most Beautiful Towns in the United Kingdom if not the world.
Some how the Town has escaped from Modernism and Achitectural suicide in the Seventies.
Whitehaven was just a small fishing village - merely an adjunct to the religious settlement at St. Bees. When the Normans invaded they put their castle in the area at nearby Egremont and before them the crosses at Gosforth indicate the Norse Vikings had inhabited the area and it seems likely the name Whitehaven came from them. Only legends indicate the area's history during the dark ages but the Romans left more tangible remains and had a fort at Moresby just on the outskirts of modern Whitehaven.
Once the Lowther family developed coal mining other industries followed. Ship building was needed to help deliver coal to its principle market of Dublin and as iron-ore could also be mined locally Whitehaven was well equipped for industrialisation. As the harbour was developed and stocked with ships, horizons broadened for the town's merchants and trade with America and the Caribbean followed. This lead to involvement with the slave trade but resulted in Whitehaven becoming a major importer of rum, sugar and tobacco.
It was the huge tonnage of coal shipped from the Port of Whitehaven (which at that time included the harbours along the Cumbrian coast) which created the boast that it was the next biggest port after Bristol during 18th century. Once competing with Liverpool and Newcastle the significance of Whitehaven at the time has since been hidden by its halted development in the 19th century when most other towns superseded it.
Today, it is a surprise then to find the number of important characters associated with the town. Mildred Washington the grandmother of the first president of the United States of America was buried here. His father was educated locally. John Paul Jones a founder of the American navy started his career in Whitehaven and later returned during the War of Independence to carry out his infamous raid on the town. Benjamin Franklin the American statesman visited local scientist William Brownrigg, a member of the royal society. William Wordsworth visited and wrote poems about it as his uncle lived here and even the celebrated artist JMW Turner came to paint one of his famous seascapes.
Whitehaven generated many great characters of its own such as Carlisle Spedding the great engineer whose ingenuity helped to put Whitehaven at the forefront of technology. The Whitehaven Lowthers themselves became the richest commoners in the land and had much power in parliament. Several families became wealthy from the transatlantic trade including the Lutwidges, tobacco merchants, Jeffersons, rum merchants and the Brocklebanks who started to build ships here and later at Liverpool formed a famous shipping line that eventually merged with Cunard.
Eventually, the bubble burst due to the loss of the tobacco trade caused by the war with America, the harbour being too small to accommodate the ever increasing size of ships and the remoteness of overland communication with the rest of England. Whitehaven struggled through the 20th century with a declining mining industry and the Marchon chemical plant as the main stays of employment. Thus the town suffered such poverty that much of the architecture was frozen in time until today when historical research has thrown light on former glories and careful restoration helped create a tourist destination.
Sir Robert Smirke and Sydney Smirke Royal Architects
There were amongst others, two very important architects that helped make Whitehaven the great town that it is today. They were incidentally brothers, one was a lot older than the other and became a teacher and mentor to his younger sibling. Their names were Robert and Sydney Smirke formally of Wigton and then London.
They both became members of the Royal Institute of British Architects. And both won respectively the RIBA gold medal for architecture. Between them they designed and built some of the most memorable buildings in Great Britain and luckily for us a few of them were in Whitehaven and surrounding areas.
Amongst their most famous building are The British Museum, which Sir Robert first started and then Sydney took over. (But the famous circular reading room is credited only to Sydney.) Sir Robert designed The Covent Garden Theatre and Sydney the Imperial War Museum.
Remembering where their roots were and their family and friends. They designed a few buildings in Cumberland and of course Whitehaven! Robert himself designed Lowther Castle in 1806 and then Whitehaven Market Hall 1814.
Sydney designed one of the most significant and noted monuments that you can see from all directions in the town. The Wellington Pit surface buildings and these of course include our beloved Candlestick. (which was originally the ventilation shaft).
Sydney also designed one of the most beautiful buildings Whitehaven has You should go take a walk down Irish Street and stop at numbers 19- 20. With it's High Renaissance Italianate style it is a site to behold and one of national importance! We should feel ourselves very lucky to have had these two great Architects of their day putting us on the Architectural map of not only Cumbria but Great Britain.
