Grasmere, from West's Guide to the Lakes, 1778
Swinside stone circle
Bewcastle
From Mogg's 1829 edn of Paterson's Roads (orig engraving by Paas, c.1784)
Duddon Furnace, from Alfred Fell, The Early Iron Industry of Furness, 1908

History of the VCH in Cumbria

Date the event has passed:

Professor John Beckett of Nottingham University, and former director of the VCH, has kindly allowed us to post his article ''The Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society and the Victoria County History', which was originally published in CW3, XI (2011). The article reconstructs the development of the VCH in Cumberland and Westmorland, and examines the role of CWAAS members and officers in working on the project. The failure to progress beyond volume II in Cumberland, and to publish even one of the two projected Westmorland volumes is explained, mainly from material in the VCH archives.

Volunteers' Visit Waberthwaite 27 August

Date the event has passed: 28/08/2019

For our 2019 volunteers' field trip we made our first and long overdue visit to the west coast, to the ancient parish of Waberthwaite. Our guide for the day was Alan Clegg, who recently joined as a volunteer researcher and is making great progress on the history of Waberthwaite.

Cumbria Census

Date the event has passed:

Census data for Allerdale Below and West wards are now available on the members-only part of the website. These documents can be found under 'Work in Progress'. Other wards will be made available as soon as data collection has been completed.

We have a winner!

Date the event has passed:

Many congratulations to K. Cook who submitted the winning entry for the Christmas Quiz. The prize is a copy of the commemorative publication, The Victoria History of the Counties of England: A Diamond Jubilee Celebration, 1899-2012.

The answers were:

Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society