Last updated at 10:51, Tuesday, 10 July 2012

THE coastal fringe from Millom up towards Carlisle is packed with history, scenery and some great characters.

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These elements have been woven together in a new book called Cumberland’s Rum Butter Coast by writer and broadcaster Bob Orell.

Millom features strongly in the book, including the sad tale of Emily Barratt, the last ship to be built in the town.

His look at the town sweeps through the medieval era of knights, wars and castles to the Victorian pioneers Nathaniel Caine and John Barratt who came in search of iron ore.

He writes: “It was like a Klondike gold strike and workers poured in from all parts of the country to get a job with the newly-formed Hodbarrow Mining Company, and the population of Millom soared from 356 in 1841 to over 5,000 in the 1870s.”

His tour of the town resulted in pen pictures of some of its real characters – including fisherman George ‘Brab’ Davies who gave up fighting for religion.

He writes: “Fist fighting came a close second to his love of fishing and in his youth he had been the scourge of Millom.

“Whenever there was a drunken brawl and bones were broken, blood flowed and bodies lay around like a battlefield, Brab would be in the thick of it.

“His vicious temper and drinking and fighting bouts were legendary, but one night while staggering home from the pub he fell into the doorway of the local Salvation Army hall and was ‘s.

Few will know that people in nearby Kirksanton cashed in on the demand for rigging for ships in 1798 by growing hemp and turning it into rope on a ‘rope walk’ on the village green.

The village also had a salt works and a brewery but is best known for a Giant’s Grave and stone circles which were first recorded in 1309.

He writes: “In amongst the stone circles is the Giant’s Chair, and legend has it that someone slew the unfortunate colossus and buried him a field north of the hamlet, marking the spot with two vertical slabs of pointed stone.”

His eagerness to see everything even involved a tour up narrow country lanes to see Frith Hall in the Duddon Valley – a ruined hunting lodge for the Huddleston family of Millom Castle.

It was later an inn and in 1730 is said to have arranged 17 weddings for eloping couples.

Further up the coast he looks at the rescue of the crew of the Finnish steam-powered coal ship Esbo in 1939 and the explosion of a train near Bootle in March 1945.

First published at 10:46, Tuesday, 10 July 2012
Published by http://www.nwemail.co.uk