Whitehaven Walk: Town Centre & Harbour【4K】

Located on the west coast of Cumbria (although historically in Cumberland), and around 35 miles southwest of Carlisle, is the town of Whitehaven.

From around 1120 the Priory of St Bees owned the small fishing village of Whitehaven, up until the priory's closure in 1539 as part of Henry VIII's Dissolution of the Monasteries. In 1630 the merchant Christopher Lowther purchased the monasterial estate and began to transform Whitehaven into a port town.

In 1634 the first quay was built, which was originally used for the export of salt and coal to Ireland. Christopher Lowther's son John acquired a market charter for Whitehaven in 1660. A phase of urban expansion began in the 1680s when the rectangular grid of streets that makes up the town today was first laid out.

By the beginning of the 18th century, Whitehaven was importing large quantities of tobacco from Virginia and Maryland in exchange for manufactured goods. To keep up with trade, a second quay was built. It is claimed that, by the mid 18th century, Whitehaven had the deepest coal mines in the world, and was the second busiest port of England by tonnage behind London.

In 1778 the last invasion of England occurred when Scottish-born U.S. navy commander John Paul Jones raided Whitehaven. He knew the town well since he had started his career as an apprentice here at the age of thirteen. During the raid, Jones began to set fire to the wooden ships in the harbour. A fire alert was sounded and large numbers of people came running to the quay where they forced the Americans to retreat, and managed to extinguish the flames.

In 1847 the railway arrived in Whitehaven. The station was opened by the Whitehaven Junction Railway as the terminus of their line from Maryport. Today it is situated on the Cumbrian Coast Line which runs from Carlisle to Barrow-in-Furness.

The coming of the railways effectively brought about Whitehaven's decline as a port since its initial advantage was its proximity to the coalfields. Other ports such as Bristol, Liverpool and Glasgow outgrew Whitehaven around the 19th century since they could, by this point, transport coal by rail. By the 1980s coal mining in Whitehaven had ceased entirely with the closure of the last mine - Haig colliery. Today the main industry in the town is the nearby Sellafield nuclear complex.

In 1974 the historical counties of Cumberland and Westmorland, along with the Furness Peninsula of Lancashire, merged to form the ceremonial county of Cumbria. Since then, Whitehaven has been part of the Borough of Copeland in Cumbria.

Whitehaven is represented in sport by rugby league team Whitehaven R.L.F.C. They play their home games at the Recreation Ground.

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Filmed: 19th May 2022

Link to the walk on Google Maps: https://goo.gl/maps/LNaEzNmZJ656bL6Q9

Filmed on a Sony FDR-AX700 with a Zhiyun Crane 2 and a Sony ECM-XYST1M Stereo Microphone.

TIMESTAMPS:

0:00 Whitehaven Castle (built 1769, now converted to private accommodation)
0:10 Flatt Walks
0:28 Lowther Street
0:34 Whitehaven Cenotaph
0:40 Lowther Street
0:51 'Man with Dog' Sculpture
0:56 Lowther Street
3:48 St Nicholas' Church
3:58 Lowther Street
5:41 Strand Street
6:54 Duke Street
8:14 Church Street
8:45 Church Street / St Nicholas' Church
8:58 Church Street
10:51 Roper Street
12:01 'Two Sailors' Sculpture
12:06 Market Place
12:09 Market Hall
12:14 Market Place
13:06 James Street
13:15 Whitehaven United Reformed Church
13:22 James Street
13:42 Irish Street
14:12 Swingpump Lane
15:46 Quay Street
16:51 West Strand
19:35 Whitehaven Harbour