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workhouse, Keswick
Keswick Workhouse
locality:-   Keswick
civil parish:-   Keswick (formerly Cumberland)
county:-   Cumbria
locality type:-   buildings
locality type:-   workhouse (ex) 
coordinates:-   NY26562352
1Km square:-   NY2623
10Km square:-   NY22


photograph
BOP28.jpg  Plaque on the site of the workhouse.
"THIS BUILDING STANDS ON THE SITE OF THE 'WORKHOUSE' FOUNDED BY SIR JOHN BANKES WHO WAS BORN IN THIS TOWN IN 1589, BECAME LORD CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE COMMON PLEA, AND DIED AT OXFORD IN 1644, HIS LOVE FOR HIS NATIVE PLACE AND HIS WISE AND GENEROUS SYMPATHY FOR THE POOR AND NEEDY, ARE SHEWN BY THE ENDOWMENT, WHICH HAPPILY STILL ENDURES, AND IS KNOWN AS 'SIR JOHN BANKES' CHARITY.'" (taken 8.2.2008)  

evidence:-   old text:- Clarke 1787
placename:-  Poor's House
source data:-   Guide book, A Survey of the Lakes of Cumberland, Westmorland, and Lancashire, written and published by James Clarke, Penrith, Cumberland, and in London etc, 1787; published 1787-93.
image CL13P101, button  goto source
Page 101:-  "The poor's house is a very commodious and substantial building, founded by Sir John Banks, whom we mentioned in speaking of Borrowdale; he expended large sums of money upon it, and the poor to this day feel the good effects of his generosity. It is capable of lodging a much greater number of paupers than the parish contains: behind it is a large garden, cultivated by the poor, who in return are supplied with vegetables from it, besides the wholesome air and exercise they there enjoy. The ground, however, is more than sufficient for these purposes, and a large quantity of vegetables are every year sold out of it, and the money applied towards the maintainance of the house. The timber of this building is prodigiously massy and strong; some say it came, together with some very large chests, from the Lord's Island; others, from the Dutch Huts. I cannot, however, agree to either of these opinions, and imagine that it rather came from Monk's Hall. I cannot help remarking, that though the poor's house was built within the memory of the grandfathers of some persons now living, there is no tradition relating to these beams; nor is there any date or letter upon the chest, or any part of the building, that can give light in this affair."

evidence:-   old print:- Green 1822 (plate 20) 
placename:-  Keswick Work House
item:-  chimney
source data:-   Print, uncoloured soft ground etching, Keswick Work House, Keswick, Cumberland, by William Green, Ambleside, Westmorland, 1822.
image  click to enlarge
GN0820.jpg
Plate 20 in Forty Etchings from Nature. 
printed at bottom:-  "KESWICK work house. / Etched from Nature by William Green, &Published at Ambleside, Feby. 1, 1822."
item:-  Armitt Library : A6644.20
Image © see bottom of page

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