is a market town in the county of
Cumbria (historically
Cumberland ),
England . It is sited in the Eden Valley just north of the
River Eamont , and lies less than 3 miles outside the boundaries of the
Lake District National Park . Other local rivers bounding the town are the
River Lowther , and the
River Petteril . The Rivers Petteril and Eamont are connected by a partially man-made watercourse flowing through the centre of the town known as Thacka
Beck which, for many centuries, provided the town with its main water supply.
The local authority is
Eden District Council, which is based in the town and was formerly the seat of both Penrith
Urban and
Rural District Councils. Penrith has no
Town Council of its own, and is the second least populated
Unparished Area , after
Berwick-upon-Tweed . See below for a short history of the Penrith UDC.
The main church is
St. Andrew , built
1720 /
1722 in an imposing
Grecian style, abutting an earlier
13th Century tower. The church yard has some (possibly early
Anglo-Saxon ) standing stones in it, known now as the "Giant's Thumb" and
"Giant's Grave" .
The ruins of
Penrith Castle (
1300s -
1500s ) can be seen from the adjacent train station. The castle is run as a visitor attraction by
English Heritage . To the south-east of the town are the more substantial ruins of
Brougham Castle , also under the protection of English Heritage.
To the south of the town are the ancient
Henge sites known as "
Mayburgh Henge " and "
King Arthur's Round Table" . Both are under the protection of English Heritage.
In the centre of the town is the Clock Tower, erected in
1861 to commemorate
Philip Musgrave of
Edenhall .
Penrith has been noted for the number of
Wells in and around the town, and well-dressing ceremonies were commonplace on certain days in the month of May. Three miles south-east of the town, on the River Eamont are the "Giants' caves", where the well was dedicated to
St. Ninian . The caves are enlarged out of
Lower Permian Sandstone s and their associated breccias and purple
Shale s.
Just to the north of the town is the wooded signal-beacon hill, naturally named
Beacon Hill . It last use was probably in
1804 in the war against
Napoleon . Traditionally, the Beacon Pike was used to warn of approaching danger from Scotland. Today, the hill is a popular local and tourist attraction. On a clear day the majority of the Eden Valley, the local fells, Pennines and parts of the North Lakes can be seen. It is almost certain that the Beacon Hill gave Penrith its name - in Celtic - of "red hill". The modern Welsh name for Penrith is Penrhudd. This also means "red hill" and is pronounced almost the same.
The town is on the
M6 , and also the junction of the
A66 ,
A6 , and
A686 .
Penrith has a
Mainline Railway Station (dating from
1846 ) called 'Penrith North Lakes', which is served by express inter-city trains from
London ,
Stoke-on-Trent ,
Manchester and
Glasgow .
The
National Cycle Network 's major National Route 7 runs through the town, and National Route 71 stops just short of the southern edge of the town.
Penrith was the home town of
William Wordsworth 's mother, and the poet spent some of his childhood in the town, attending the local school with
Mary Hutchinson his later wife.
The
MP and social reformer
Samuel Plimsoll spent part of his childhood living at Page Hall in Foster Street. The row of houses at Townhead called Plimsoll Close is named after him.
Mary , the wife of the
British Prime Minister ,
Harold Wilson lived in Penrith for part of her life whilst her father was minister at the
Congregational Church in Duke Street.
The feature film ''
Withnail And I '' features the real Penrith very briefly, but most of the filming locations were actually in and around nearby
Shap . The famous "Penrith Tea Rooms" scene was filmed in
Stony Stratford ,
Milton Keynes .
Charlie Hunnam , British actor, attended Queen Elizabeth
Grammar School (QEGS) Penrith and lived locally in the area during his teenage years.
Penrith Urban District Council was the local authority for the town between 1894 and 1974 when it was replaced by Eden District Council.
The authority's area was coterminous with the
Civil Parish of Penrith although when the council was abolished Penrith became an unparished area.
The area had previously been an
Urban Sanitary District presided over by the Local Board of Health.
As well as the town of itself the district also contained the hamlets of Carleton (now a suburb of Penrith), Bowscar, Plumpton Head and part of the village of Eamont Bridge.
The district was divided into 4
Wards namely: North, South, East and West whose boundaries remained the basis of local government divisions in the town until the 1990s.
From 1906 the council was based at Penrith Town Hall which had previously been 2 houses believed to have been designed by
Robert Adam .
In the 1920s the council came into the possession of
Penrith Castle , the grounds of which it turned into a fine public park and also built the Castle Hill or Tyne Close Housing Estate nearby. Further pre-war
Council Housing was built at Fair Hill and Castletown and after
World War 2 at Scaws, Townhead and Pategill.
The district was surrounded on 3 sides by the
Penrith Rural District , the fourth boundary was with
Westmorland marked by the River Eamont.
The Penrith dialect known as Penrithian, is a diasystem of the
Cumbrian Dialect spoken around the Penrith and district area.
Penrith has the following
Schools :
Brunswick
Infants (formerly County Infants)
Beaconside
C.E. Infants (formerly Scaws Infants School)
Beaconside
C.E. Junior
North Lakes Junior (formerly Wetheriggs Junior)
St Catherines
Roman Catholic Primary
Hunter Hall, Primary (independent)
Ullswater Community College (formerly Ullswater High School)
Queen Elizabeth
Grammar School (selective)
The
University Of Central Lancashire has a campus just outside the town at Newton Rigg.
Former schools in the town include:
Girls National School
Boys National School or St Andrews School for Boys
Robinsons School (infants)
County Girls School
County Boys School
Tynefield
Secondary Modern (originally
Co-educational but later girls only)
Ullswater Secondary Modern (boys only)
Ullswater & Tynefield merged to create Ullswater High in 1980.
