Cleator - Cumbria

Cleator

Map - Google
Map - Ordnance Survey - NY 015135

Cleator
Cleator main street, with St Leonard's church lower left, Kangol top right.
The River Ehen is on the right

St Leonard's church is first mentioned in the reign of King Henry I (1100 –1135). The present chancel dates back to the beginning of the XII century and has been used for the celebration of Divine Worship for about 900 years.

St Mary 's Roman Catholic Church, opened in 1872, was designed by E.W. Pugin. Within the grounds is the Grotto, built in 1927, when international travel was difficult for most people, as a shrine in honour of Our Lady. It was built with stone from the local mine pit banks and made to represent the Grotto at Lourdes, France.

Just outside Cleator, on the way to Egremont, is Longlands lake, on the site of the former Longlands iron ore mine, and nearby the Clints Quarry Nature Reserve, a scheduled Site of Special Scientific Interest and of considerable botanical and geological importance.

Cleator Moor
Cleator main street, with St Leonard's church lower left, Ehen Hall lower right.

Looking over Cleator to Cleator Moor, the coast, Solway Firth and Scotland.

Cleator Moor
Ehen Hall.

Ehen Hall is a fine stone building, standing in about eight acres of ground, once the property of Jonas Lindow, J.P. and D.L.

Between Cleator and Cleator Moor is The Flosh, once the seat of David Ainsworth, J.P. and D.L., a handsome mansion of stone. The Flosh is now the Ennerdale Country Hotel.

Cleator Moor
Meadley reservoir, between Cleator and Ennerdale.

The KANGOL hat company was started up in Cleator in 1938 by Jakob Henryk Spreiregen, who was born in Russia, to make berets. The name KANGOL come from silK, ANGora and woOL. The factories in Cleator and nearby Frizington used to employ hundreds of people, making fashion hats, and fashion and military berrets. The factories have closed, with manufacturing now in China. There is a factory shop remaining on the site.

An old Kangol hat display

The Coast to Coast Walk, devised by A Wainwright. traverses what he described as 'the grandest territory in the north of England'. The walk starts at St Bees on the West coast of Cumbria, then continues through Cleator on its way towards Ennerdale and beyond.

Aerial photos by Simon Ledingham.