http://www.derwentfells.com/society.html

Lorton & Derwent Fells Local History Society, Yew Tree Hall, High Lorton, Cockermouth (2026)

18/06/2026

𝐏𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐚𝐧 𝐄𝐥𝐞𝐠𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐋𝐚𝐝𝐲: 𝐒𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐡 𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐞𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐤𝐢𝐫𝐤
by Adam Baker

Some of you may know the magnificent white marble memorial to Sarah Hervey (pronounced Harvey) just inside the entrance door of St Bridget’s church, Bridekirk. The urn is a particularly fine carving and would have required a great deal of skill to produce. It would have been relatively expensive and is in addition to Sarah Hervey’s grave stone in the cemetery.

The memorial inscription reads ‘Sacred to the memory of Sarah wife of the Revd. H. A Hervey, vicar of this parish, died Novr. 3rd 1827, aged 55 years. “The memory of the just is blessed”. “And the Spirit shall return to God, who gave it”.’

Rev Humphrey Archer Hervey was the vicar at Bridekirk for nearly 50 years from 1795 and married Sarah Mawson, aged 22, the same year. They lived in the vicarage next door to the church. Their first child, Mary Anne, was born in March 1796. While the average number of children to a family at the time was five, Humphrey and Sarah had eight in total over 15 years! With names like ‘Jane Hephzibah’ and ‘Thomas Lamplugh’, their children’s names reflected both their vocation and geographic locality. Married life must have been intense for Sarah but she probably had help looking after the children; the Mawsons, Sarah’s parents, were a large, local family.

Rev Hervey was a well-known figure at the time and at a period in history when a parish vicar was a very well regarded figure in the community. He must have been a man of means, not only supporting his large family and household but able to pursue other interests. He and Sarah were instrumental in mentoring and sponsoring 𝐅𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐨𝐧 𝐅𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐬 (the other son of Cockermouth) who went on to be His Majesty’s (George IV) first astronomer of the Astronomical Society, establishing the observatory in Cape Town. But before he went, he married the Hervey’s eldest daughter, Mary Anne. So Rev. and Mrs Hervey became Fearon’s father and mother-in-law respectively.

As was fashionable at the time, in fact de rigueur for people of standing, there would have been family portraits.

We live in an artist’s, Georgian ‘painting house’ – and as featured on the Cockermouth history wall on the Old Kings Arms Lane in Cockermouth. The artist in question was 𝐉𝐨𝐬𝐞𝐩𝐡 𝐒𝐮𝐭𝐭𝐨𝐧 𝟏𝟕𝟔𝟐-𝟏𝟖𝟒𝟑, a local painter, whose patrons included aristocracy and the great and the good of Cumberland. Sutton studied at the Royal Academy and became a very successful portrait, landscape and domestic animal painter as well as being an excellent copy artist. At one point he had six apprentices working for him.

Arguably Sutton’s best copy hangs in Muncaster Castle – Charles I in Three Positions by Van D**e. In fact the painting is so good, it was specially examined to see if it was a Van D**e. Sutton has a number of pictures hanging in Muncaster, some huge, where he was commissioned to paint a variety of family portraits, copies and even a naval battle. Other paintings adorn Mirehouse and Hutton-in-the Forest.

Living in Sutton’s old ‘painting house’ meant we were on the lookout for a painting of his. That’s the great thing about the internet; you can set alerts for things like paintings in auctions and when something comes up, anywhere in the world, you get automatically emailed. And out of the blue an email popped up with a painting by Joseph Sutton entitled ‘A portrait of an Elegant Lady’. That’s how the listing appeared in the catalogue at an auction near Boston, Massachusetts. As it turned out, the painting cost very little comparatively – people don’t seem to want large, old oil paintings. Once we had the painting in our possession, we researched the ‘elegant lady’ – it has Sarah’s name on the back with a date of 1808. It’s a very good painting, in good condition and Sarah is certainly ‘an elegant lady’. Once we learnt who ‘Sarah Hervey’ was, a trip to St Bridget’s opened up all the research above.
And so the portrait below is Sarah Hervey in June 1808, aged 35, after six children. Do have a look at Sarah’s memorial next time you’re in St Bridget’s (it’ll be 200 years since her death in November 2027) – you’ll now be able to put a face to the name.

Joseph Sutton would have certainly painted the Rev Hervey and possibly the Hervey children as a group, around the same time. We’d also like to think there’s an undiscovered portrait of Fearon Fallows (there are none known) somewhere. So if anyone knows the whereabouts of a fine portrait of Rev Humphrey Archer Hervey, we’d be very pleased to hear from you!

Published in our periodical the 𝐖𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐫, 𝐌𝐚𝐲 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟔 which can be accessed on our website at http://www.derwentfells.com/pdfs/wanderer/wanderermay26

06/06/2026

𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐒 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐒: 𝐂𝐮𝐦𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐚 𝐈𝐥𝐥𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐄𝐚𝐫𝐥𝐲 𝟏𝟗𝐭𝐡 𝐂𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐲 𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐬
𝗔 𝘁𝗮𝗹𝗸 𝗯𝘆 𝗗𝗿 𝗠𝗶𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗲𝗹 𝗪𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗹𝗲𝘆
𝐓𝐡𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟏 𝐉𝐮𝐧𝐞, 𝟕.𝟑𝟎 𝐩𝐦 following a short AGM
𝐘𝐞𝐰 𝐓𝐫𝐞𝐞 𝐇𝐚𝐥𝐥, 𝐋𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐨𝐧 𝐂𝐀𝟏𝟑 𝟗𝐔𝐐

Developments in printing techniques made mass reproduction of artworks possible. Prints quickly became popular with the artists and the public. Who were the artists and publishers behind them? How were they produced? Why were so many produced at that period? What can they tell us about life in the region at the time? Dr Michael Winstanley was Senior Lecturer in History at Lancaster University until his retirement. His research interests focus on the history of the North-West.

All welcome, visitors pay £4 cash incl. refreshments, or you could take advantage of the half-year subscription available on the day for £6 per person. This would include the three talks remaining this year and a subscription to our periodical the Wanderer.
Below: Harrington Harbour by William Daniell, 1816, British Museum collection Old Workington

23/05/2026

𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐒 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐒: 𝐂𝐮𝐦𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐚 𝐈𝐥𝐥𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐄𝐚𝐫𝐥𝐲 𝟏𝟗𝐭𝐡 𝐂𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐲 Prints
𝗔 𝘁𝗮𝗹𝗸 𝗯𝘆 𝗗𝗿 𝗠𝗶𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗲𝗹 𝗪𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗹𝗲𝘆
𝐓𝐡𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟏 𝐉𝐮𝐧𝐞, 𝟕.𝟑𝟎 𝐩𝐦 𝐟𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐭 𝐀𝐆𝐌
𝐘𝐞𝐰 𝐓𝐫𝐞𝐞 𝐇𝐚𝐥𝐥, 𝐋𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐨𝐧 𝐂𝐀𝟏𝟑 𝟗𝐔𝐐

This talk looks at the profusion of prints which appeared from the late 18th until the mid-19th century which played a major role in formulating the public’s visual conception of the Lake Counties. Dr Michael Winstanley will present the artists who depicted Cumberland and show examples of prints local to our area with a focus on Thomas Allom among others.

Developments in printing techniques made mass reproduction of artworks possible. Prints quickly became popular with the artists and the public. Who were the artists and publishers behind them? How were they produced? Why were so many produced at that period? What can they tell us about life in the region at the time? Dr Michael Winstanley was Senior Lecturer in History at Lancaster University until his retirement. His research interests focus on the history of the North-West.

All welcome, visitors pay £4 cash incl. refreshments, or you could take advantage of the half-year subscription available on the day of £6 per person (or £10 for two people at the same address). This would include the three talks remaining this year and a subscription to our periodical the Wanderer.

Image: Loweswater from Water End (cropped) by Thomas Allom

26/04/2026

THURSDAY 14 MAY 2026 AT 7.30 PM
𝐁𝐎𝐑𝐃𝐄𝐑 𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐒: 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐓𝐮𝐫𝐛𝐮𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐇𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐥𝐞 𝐂𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐥𝐞
𝐘𝐞𝐰 𝐓𝐫𝐞𝐞 𝐇𝐚𝐥𝐥, 𝐋𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐨𝐧 𝐂𝐀𝟏𝟑 𝟗𝐔𝐐
𝐈𝐥𝐥𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐤 𝐛𝐲 𝐃𝐫 𝐌𝐚𝐤𝐬𝐲𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐋𝐨𝐭𝐡-𝐇𝐢𝐥𝐥

Instantly recognisable as one of Cumberland’s most iconic buildings, Carlisle Castle still lowers over the city it was built to defend some nine centuries ago. No comfortable stately home but rather a fortress in the truest sense of the word, the castle’s long and storied past is full of tales of violence, scheming and derring-do.
This illustrated talk will feature a rich cast of characters including kings, queens, soldiers and reivers, and will span Anglo-Scottish border clashes through to treason, civil war and rebellion. It will shine a spotlight on the turbulent heritage of one of the most besieged places in Britain, highlighting the vital role it played in both local and national history, and bringing its dramatic past to life.
Dr Maksymilian Loth-Hill is a cultural historian of modern East-Central Europe and an Honorary Fellow of Durham University. He is keen to promote engagement with history beyond the world of academia.
All welcome, members free, visitors pay £4 cash at the door (including refreshments).
Rebellion
Reivers

03/04/2026

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐆𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭 𝐄𝐱𝐡𝐢𝐛𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝟏𝟖𝟓𝟏 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐌𝐫 & 𝐌𝐫𝐬 𝐒𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐛𝐨𝐲𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐁𝐮𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐞
𝐛𝐲 𝐆𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐚 𝐄𝐝𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐬
𝙥𝙪𝙗𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙝𝙚𝙙 𝙞𝙣 𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙤𝙙𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙒𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙧, 𝙁𝙚𝙗𝙧𝙪𝙖𝙧𝙮 2026
Henry Mayhew (1812-1887) is most commonly known for his social investigation into the lives of the London poor, portrayed through a series of interviews with people in London Labour and the London Poor, 1851. He was, however, a writer of fiction of all kinds. And that same year also saw the publication of a satirical and highly amusing story: 1851: or, The Adventures of Mr and Mrs Sandboys and Family who Came up to London to ‘enjoy themselves,’ and to see the Great Exhibition.

The book was beautifully illustrated by George Cruikshank, a caricaturist, whose satirical style blended perfectly with Mayhew’s text. His story describes the Sandboys family, caught up in the national excitement about the Great Exhibition, travelling down from Buttermere in Cumberland. The family encounters one misadventure after another and, ironically, Mr Sandboys arrives just as the Great Exhibition has closed.

So why was there such excitement nationally about visiting an exhibition? The Great Exhibition, which ran from 1 May to 15 October 1851, was planned chiefly to be a celebration and showcase for the industry of Britain and her Empire, but also included displays from other countries. To house it a huge glasshouse was constructed from iron and glass. Known as the Crystal Palace, it stood in Hyde Park, London. The Exhibition – more specifically, ‘The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations’ - was to be open to people of all classes. The idea for it came originally from Prince Albert, who was heavily involved in the project throughout. Prince Albert was President of the Royal Society of Arts, and the idea for it grew from a smaller exhibition of industrial design. Albert, together with Henry Cole and others in the RSA, developed the idea, and the Great Exhibition was opened by Queen Victoria on 1 May 1851. By the time it closed there had been more than six million visitors. They came from all over Britain, and special excursion trains were laid on to ferry factory workers and agricultural workers to view the spectacle.

Henry Mayhew describes how Cursty Sandboys and his wife Aggy, along with daughter Elcy and son Jobby, find themselves travelling to the capital. This fictional family live at Hassness, Buttermere. Cursty is described as having one hundred acres for his sheep, a man contented with his lot. He spends his evenings reading newspapers, learning of the horrors of places outside his beloved part of Cumberland, never having travelled further than Keswick or Cockermouth. He reads about the: ‘long catalogues of robberies and murders that filled his London weekly and daily sheets … that all out of Cumberland was in a state of savage barbarism, and that the Metropolis was a very caldron of wickedness’.

All places round about, no matter how small, had their ‘shilling clubs’, so that people might save to undertake the journey down to London to visit the Exhibition’. Interestingly, Mayhew uses the names of actual families in the Buttermere area in 1851: Fleming, Clarke, Cowman, Nelson are all mentioned, but Sandboys is fictional. Sandboys is an interesting choice of surname for Cursty, and hints at Mayhew’s sense of humour: a sandboy in Victorian times was a boy who took sand to establishments such as butchers’ shops and alehouses to spread on the floor and soak up blood, beer, etc. It is the origin of the phrase ‘happy as a sandboy’, surely ironic back then, since sandboys received very little money for hard, physical work, and were often paid partly in ale! Cursty’s neighbours all seemed to belong to the Buttermere Travelling Club – but not Cursty, who was determined that neither he nor his family would travel to the ‘heart of darkness’ that was the great metropolis. No amount of argument would persuade him otherwise and, on the day appointed, villagers set off to join the Travellers’ Train at Cockermouth. In the real Cockermouth of that period the town did not have its passenger station until 1865, so the fictional journey took them from Cockermouth to Workington via goods railway, and then on to Carlisle.

𝗕𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗶𝗻 𝗕𝘂𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗺𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗹𝗶𝗳𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘀 𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴𝗹𝘆 𝗱𝗶𝗳𝗳𝗶𝗰𝘂𝗹𝘁 for the Sandboys’ family: with no-one left to ply their trades, supplies of tea, bread, candles, coal and soap are running out; no beer because the Jennings’ brewer has gone; the horse needs shoeing but no blacksmith to do the job; shoes are needed desperately for the servant but none available; the ‘porker’ needs butchering and no-one to attend to that. A series of mishaps, compounded by the effect of Mrs Sandboys’ increasingly insistent reproaches and encroaching misery, wear Cursty down and he agrees the family should leave the safety of Buttermere and venture to London, upon the condition that everyone should ‘enjoy themselves’. They set off from Cockermouth, accompanied by ‘twenty-three packages’, for the station at Workington:

The journey from Cockermouth to Workington per rail is by no means of an agreeable character. The line being in none of the most flourishing conditions, every means for economizing the ‘working expenses’ have been resorted to. The men engaged upon it have been cut down to boys; so that the establishment has very much the look of a kind of railway academy, where the porters on the platform are ever playing at marbles or leapfrog, where the policeman all wear pinafores, and where the clerks are taken to the station in the morning, and ‘fetched’ in the evening by the maids of their anxious parents … READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE on our website at http://www.derwentfells.com/pdfs/wanderer/wandererfeb26

17/02/2026

𝐂𝐔𝐌𝐁𝐑𝐈𝐀'𝐒 𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐒𝐓 𝐅𝐀𝐑𝐌𝐄𝐑𝐒
𝐈𝐥𝐥𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐤 𝐛𝐲 𝐃𝐫 𝐆𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐇𝐞𝐲
𝟓 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟔 𝐚𝐭 𝟕.𝟑𝟎 𝐩𝐦
Yew Tree Hall, Lorton CA13 9UQ
All welcome, £4 payable at the door including refreshments.

Around 6,000 years ago, the way of life for people living in Cumbria changed dramatically. Hunting, gathering and living in the natural environment were replaced by farming, clearing woodland and constructing burial and ceremonial monuments. These are changes that occurred throughout Britain but recent work in the North West is providing particularly good evidence for understanding this transition. Was it as abrupt as first seems? Did it involve an immigrant population and, if so, what happened to the native Cumbrians?

Gill Hey’s research interests focus on settlement and landscape in the late Mesolithic, Neolithic and early Bronze Age, and particularly on the interaction between people and their changing environment. Dr Hey is the President of CWAAS and the former CEO of Oxford Archaeology. She is the co-editor of 'New Light on the Neolithic of Northern England' (with Paul Frodsham, 2020).

03/02/2026

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐁𝐑𝐄𝐖 𝐅𝐀𝐌𝐈𝐋𝐘 𝐎𝐅 𝐋𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐎𝐍 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐂𝐊𝐄𝐑𝐌𝐎𝐔𝐓𝐇
𝐛𝐲 𝐒𝐡𝐞𝐞𝐧𝐚 𝐃𝐞𝐧𝐰𝐨𝐨𝐝, published in the Wanderer, November 2025
http://www.derwentfells.com/pdfs/wanderer/wanderernov25

Last year the Kirkgate Heritage Group had two exhibitions about ‘Off Comers’ and Jennings Brewery. I decided to write a small article about my great, great, grandfather, John Willine Brew, whose life was connected with both the exhibitions.
I have known for many years that my father's grandmother, Margaret Brew, was born on the Isle of Man and came to live in Lorton in 1873 with her parents and siblings. My knowledge of the family was limited and so I contacted Simon Bondsfield (a Brew relative) to ask if he had any information. The following information is from Simon and other family members who have helped me with the family history and provided photographs.

𝐉𝐨𝐡𝐧 𝐁𝐫𝐞𝐰 𝐢𝐧 𝐋𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐨𝐧
John (Willine) Brew was born on 6 September 1833 in Castletown, Rushen, Isle of Man. He married Eleanor Kermeen on 6 February 1858 in Ramsey, Isle of Man. They had eleven children.

Jennings Brewery in Lorton sent staff over to the Isle of Man to recruit seasonal labour. John Brew transported the Jennings Brewery representatives around the island to talk to potential employees. In 1873 John Brew was offered a position at Jennings Brewery as a drayman, which he accepted. He and his family came to live in Lorton in November 1873 and resided at No 2 Yan Yak Cottages, Lorton next to the brewery.

According to the 1881 census John (aged 46 years) and Eleanor (aged 43 years) lived with four of their children – Mary Ann (aged ten years), William (aged seven years), Joseph (aged five years) and Catherine (aged two years) at No 2, Yan Yak Cottage. Eleanor Brew (aged twenty years) had married Thomas Beattie and they lived in the cottage next door. Thomas Brew (aged 22 years) had married Mary Lennox (aged nineteen years) and they were living with her parents John (he was a blacksmith) and Ann Lennox in High Lorton.
Margaret Brew (aged eighteen years) was a servant at Tenters House, High Lorton. Robert Brew (aged fifteen years) was an agricultural servant at Boon Beck Farm. The farmer there was John Walker. As a boy Robert Brew worked with his father John Brew (Snr) and a brother, for Jennings at High Lorton Brewery.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐫𝐞𝐰 𝐟𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐲 𝐢𝐧 𝐂𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐡
The Old Brewery in Cockermouth, which was then owned by Horace Robert Wyndham and Co., was for sale in 1873. The Jennings brothers bought the brewery in 1874 and built up the brewery at Cockermouth, now known as Castle Brewery. They wound down the brewery in Lorton which closed in 1881. The Brew family moved sometime after this to Brewery Cottages, Cockermouth.

The 1891 census states that John Brew's and Robert Brew's families were living in Castle Tannery Cottages. Robert worked as a drayman too. He told a West Cumberland Times reporter in 1938 that Jennings made ‘the finest beer in the world’. His job was to distribute it by a dray drawn by two horses to pubs from Egremont to Wyemoor. Often he was away from home two or three days at a time.

Robert Brew moved to Workington with his family in 1899. His wife was Sarah Simon, whose father was a farmer from Loweswater. Robert worked in the blast furnaces of the steel-works until he retired aged 69 in 1933. John's son Thomas Brew was living with his family in Mackreth Row Cockermouth. The 1891 census gives his occupation as a brewer's maltster.

My great grandmother, Margaret Brew, married Isaac Pingey Denwood (related to the Denwood authors) in 1886, and they emigrated to Sydney, Australia, that same year. They came back to live in Cockermouth in the late 1890s with their two daughters Alice and Eleanor. My grandfather, Isaac Henry Denwood, was born in 1899. It is fortunate from my perspective that they returned to Cockermouth. I wouldn't be writing about them now! John Brew's grandson (Jackie Brew), a nephew and a granddaughter's (Annie Mary Brew) husband (John Doughty) worked at Jennings Brewery. John Doughty had an accident and lost his right foot in 1926. He was offered the job of night watchman at Jennings Brewery. When that job finished he was offered a job on the wagons (drays).

𝐉𝐨𝐡𝐧 𝐁𝐫𝐞𝐰’𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭
John Brew continued to work for Jennings (Castle) Brewery as a drayman until about 1899, when he had to retire due to health problems. A newspaper cutting dated 1908 carries a report of a Golden Wedding:

“Mr and Mrs John Brew of Brewery Yard Cockermouth have this week celebrated their Golden Wedding. They belong to Manx land and were married at Ramsey on February 6th 1858. They crossed the water 34 years ago and settled at Lorton, where John Brew entered the service of the late Mr John Jennings, brewer, as drayman. When the firm removed to Castle Brewery Cockermouth, he continued in their employ and served Messrs Jennings Bros. faithfully up to about nine years ago, when he became incapacitated owing to a trouble in the legs which made it difficult for him to move about and he retired on a well-earned pension. With the exception of this he is hale and hearty and Mrs Brew also enjoys good health.

They have passed by a few years the allotted span of life and have reared a family of eleven children, seven of whom survive and all are married. They are a happy and cheery couple, highly esteemed by many friends, who combine with their congratulations the hope that they may yet see many years of happiness together”.

There is a photograph of Robert and Sarah Brew's Golden Wedding Anniversary in the Times and Star on 31 December 1938. In the newspaper article it states that ‘Given a prominent place in the Brew's kitchen is a framed card, on which is inscribed the following: “This card and a gratuity of £5 was presented by Messers Jennings Bros to Mr John Brew as a special recognition of his faithful services to the brewery”’.

John Brew died in 1916 and Eleanor his wife in 1917. They are buried in Cockermouth Cemetery with other family members.

𝐀𝐜𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰𝐥𝐞𝐝𝐠𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬
I would like to thank the following family who helped me with the information and photographs - Simon Bondsfield, Elizabeth Litt, Susan Ferguson and Helen Peachy. If any other family have more information I would like to hear from you. I've wondered why Jennings representatives travelled to the Isle of Man to recruit seasonal staff. It was really good news this year when Jennings Brewery was bought and opened again after its closure in 2022.

Below: Jenning Brewery workers c. 1892; The Brew Family photograph.

27/01/2026

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐈𝐒𝐓 𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐉𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐄 𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐅𝐈𝐄𝐋𝐃 𝐑𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐌𝐁𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐃
by Lena Stanley-Clamp, published in the 𝙒𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙧, November 2025, http://www.derwentfells.com/pdfs/wanderer/wanderernov25

Marjorie Arnfield was at an early stage of her artistic career when she came to live in Lorton with her husband and their young sons Robin and Nick in 1962. The rural and industrial landscapes of Cumbria would inspire many of her works over the years. She became best known for her mining art which portrayed the demise of the mining communities of Nottinghamshire.

Marjorie Arnfield was born in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1930. Her father Dr K. V. Milburn was a GP and her mother Helen Milburn was a nurse. Marjorie grew up in Sunderland where her paternal grandfather and uncles were well-known architects responsible for many public buildings in the North of England. Marjorie was struck by juvenile chronic arthritis at the age of four and suffered from this condition for much of her life. But she never let her illness limit what she wanted to do.

She attended Sunderland College of Art and King’s College at Durham University. Her tutors included eminent British artists Lawrence Gowing and Victor Passmore as well as art historian Quentin Bell. After obtaining design and art teacher’s diplomas she returned to teach at her old school in Sunderland. She would later teach in the adult education departments of Nottingham and Glasgow Universities, as well as Cumbria and Nottinghamshire Adult Education Authorities, the WEA, the Maryport Educational Settlement, the art room at King’s College, Cambridge, and painting schools in Britain and abroad.
Haig Colliery Mining Museum
𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗔𝗿𝗻𝗳𝗶𝗲𝗹𝗱 𝗳𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗹𝘆 𝗶𝗻 𝗖𝘂𝗺𝗯𝗿𝗶𝗮
Marjorie’s husband Ronald Arnfield (1927- 2006) was born in Leeds. His parents were German Jewish immigrants to the UK. After graduating with a first-class degree from Leeds University he worked in the chemical engineering industry. The couple met in 1956 on a beach in Menton where Marjorie was successfully wooed by Ron’s sense of humour. Eleven weeks later Ron proposed by a tarn in the Langdale Pikes. The first years of their married life were spent in Cheshire and were marked by the birth of their first son Robin, the resurgence of Marjorie’s juvenile arthritis, and financial difficulties.

It was Ron’s new job - teaching a course in chemical engineering at Whitehaven Technical College to graduate chemists working at Sellafield - that brought the family to Cumbria in 1960. After initially living in Greysouthen, during which time their son Nick was born, the family came to live in Lorton. They rented the picturesque Kirkfell Cottage; it was a small home with very basic amenities. Later on Ron and Marjorie bought a building plot in an idyllic location in Braithwaite and moved there in 1963 after the new house was built. Marjorie continued to paint local scenes and exhibit her work as well as teach part-time art classes to adults.

The Arnfields and their children remained in Cumbria until 1966 when Ron was offered a position at Strathclyde University and they moved – in Marjorie’s case reluctantly – to Scotland. They settled for a few years in Drymen, near Loch Lomond, and Marjorie continued to teach as well as paint and exhibit. They built a holiday home in Applethwaite in the late 1970s and Marjorie would paint there until the end of her life. She was drawn to scenes of Cumbria’s industrial heritage and its natural landscapes. Her last exhibition in the county was held at the Upfront Gallery in Hutton in-the-Forest in October-November 2000 and was devoted to works inspired by the Cumbrian poet Norman Nicholson.

𝗡𝗼𝘁𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴𝗵𝗮𝗺𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗿𝗲, 𝗮 𝗻𝗲𝘄 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗽𝘁𝗲𝗿
The Arnfields uprooted again in 1969 when Ron was appointed Director of Industrial Liaison at Nottingham University. They made their home in Westhorpe, Southwell. In 1980 Marjorie became a part-time tutor in the Department of Continued Education at Nottingham University and remained in that post until 2000. In her classes she combined the teaching of the history and practice of art, a new approach in art adult education at the time. She was a talented teacher who knew how to encourage and inspire.
Despite debilitating health problems – two spine operations, knee replacements and polymyalgia rheumatica – Marjorie’s career continued to flourish. This was achieved with the assistance of Ron who acted as her ‘art roadie’ as he termed it – a general helper with her classes and busy exhibition schedule. ‘After my retirement in 1992, I was able to repay Marjorie for her support with my own career’ – he wrote.

The Nottinghamshire years were a very creative time in Marjorie’s life. She and Ron travelled extensively in the South of France, Spain, Greece and Italy on working holidays where she would paint en plein air alongside a group of her students. She was inspired by the Mediterranean light and landscapes. In an interview for Artists & Illustrators (1998) she described her palette in those paintings as ‘colours that sing’. In a catalogue for an exhibition in Newark in 1996, Arnfield wrote of her passion for the Mediterranean and the images she saw and felt. Her style of painting was reminiscent of post-impressionists. She was at ease with a variety of media: acrylic, oil and watercolour. A review in the Guardian of an earlier exhibition in 1964 commented on ‘a series of broad, fell country watercolours held together by a lyrical and febrile line’.

𝗠𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗿𝘁
It was for her mining art that Marjorie Arnfield achieved a national reputation. She had been fascinated by scenes from the North-East mining villages during her student years in Sunderland in the 1950s when she produced a series of sketches of miners gathering sea coal along the beach. In the 1990s, distressed by the closures of coal mines and impending privatization of the British coal industry, she decided to record the work of the miners and the way of life of their communities. She visited collieries, even descending underground in a wheelchair. She took inspiration from the stories of D.H. Lawrence and used archival photographs as a source. As the pits closures accelerated, she recorded scenes of demolition.

An exhibition of these works was held in 1994 at Nottingham University under the title Coal Mining in Nottinghamshire – A Tribute honouring all those who dedicated their lives to the mining industry. The exhibition was sponsored by the British Coal Board. It was a great success that attracted much press coverage. Reviews
of this evocative tribute to mining communities commented on the paintings’ vitality and lack of sentimentality. Arnfield’s paintings depicted a variety of scenes: miners at work and at leisure, a Miners’ Gala Day, women hanging their washing, or protest demonstrations. Marjorie Arnfield continued to show this body of work over the following years in a touring exhibition 𝑰𝒎𝒂𝒈𝒆𝒔 𝒐𝒇 𝑪𝒐𝒂𝒍 that travelled across the country to many mining centres including South Wales, where the tour was supported by the Arts Council of Wales.

The extensive tour included Sunderland Art Gallery where the BBC journalist Kate Adie, who was once a pupil in the school where Marjorie was the art teacher, joined Marjorie at the opening. Kate Adie was also present at the launch in Nottingham and at the opening of Marjorie Arnfield’s exhibition at Woodhorn Colliery Museum in Ashington, the location of what was once the largest pit village in the world.

Marjorie Arnfield was awarded an MBE for services to art in the 2000 Millennial Honours. She travelled to Buckingham Palace to receive the award from the Queen in January 2000 accompanied by Ron. The following year, besides making the front pages in Sunderland for capturing match scenes for the Sunderland Association Football Club, she was busy preparing to mark her 70th birthday with an exhibition at Nottingham University.

The Arnfields’ younger son Nick studied art history at King’s College, Cambridge. He was a gifted artist, jazz and blues musician, and art teacher. He was also passionate about climbing. Tragically, he died in 1999. A posthumous exhibition of Nick Arnfield’s work was held at the St Ives Tate Gallery in 2000. Two examples of his paintings can be seen on the website Art UK, the catalogue of art in public collections.

Marjorie Arnfield died on 26 April 2001. In keeping with her Anglican faith, the funeral service to celebrate her life was held at Southwell Minster and was attended by hundreds of people whose lives she had touched. A major exhibition titled 𝙈𝙖𝙧𝙟𝙤𝙧𝙞𝙚 𝘼𝙧𝙣𝙛𝙞𝙚𝙡𝙙, 𝘼 𝘾𝙚𝙡𝙚𝙗𝙧𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙤𝙛 𝙃𝙚𝙧 𝙇𝙞𝙛𝙚 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙒𝙤𝙧𝙠 was held at the Djanogly Art Gallery at the Arts Centre of Nottingham University in July–September 2001. Among the most recent artworks on show were Marjorie Arnfield’s studies of the Cumbrian landscape: rocky outcrops, abandoned quarries and iron works. A review in The Times said that Marjorie Arnfield’s commemorative exhibition was among the best one-person art exhibitions in the UK that month.

𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗷𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗲 𝗔𝗿𝗻𝗳𝗶𝗲𝗹𝗱’𝘀 𝗹𝗲𝗴𝗮𝗰𝘆
Marjorie Arnfield’s work is held in many public and private collections. Seventeen of her paintings are included in the online Art UK catalogue of works in public collections. She exhibited her work in countless solo and group exhibitions all over the country. Early in her career, her painting Landscape, County Durham was selected for the 1958 Northern Young Artists Exhibition at the Graves Art Gallery in Sheffield, where it attracted the attention of L.S. Lowry, who was on the selection panel. Her exhibitions in Cumbria included the Lakes Artists Society, Grasmere, the Netherhall Centre, Maryport (1965), the Beacon Museum, Whitehaven (1999), and the Up Front Gallery, Penrith (2000). In 2025, Marjorie Arnfield’s work Haig Pit was one of the highlights of the Inspired by Industry exhibition at The Beacon Museum in Whitehaven. Those writing about her work noted Marjorie Arnfield’s strong sense of place and sympathetic observation of people. Her pictures embodied ‘a spirit of vitality, optimism and sheer aliveness to it all’.

Below: Haig Mine, The Beacon Museum, Whitehaven; Cadaques, Spain; Miners' Gala Day Band; Save Our Pits.

𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘳 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘬 𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘮𝘭𝘺 𝘙𝘰𝘣𝘪𝘯 𝘈𝘳𝘯𝘧𝘪𝘦𝘭𝘥 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸𝘭𝘦𝘥𝘨𝘦, 𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘧𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘺 𝘱𝘩𝘰𝘵𝘰𝘴 𝘰𝘯 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘭𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘣𝘢𝘴𝘦𝘥.

Lorton & Derwent Fells Local History Society

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