There are written reports that the monks of Holme Cultram Abbey in the year 1179 were allowed to mine ore at Langhorn farm in Bigrigg, It is now believed by local historians that outcrop iron was mined in the Bigrigg area by the Romans.

Before the stone built houses were built at Bigrigg it is believed that the people lived in wooden cabins.

In 1864 the author E. Lynn Linton wrote in the publication THE LAKE COUNTRY his view of his time in the area :“When you leave Ennerdale you pass along pretty Country roads until you come to the new order of things, in the villages of Cleator and Bigrigg formal and ugly with evil faces and squalid looks haunting every door and window, with ragged children ; girl and women unkempt, flaring and untidy ; men lounging and vicious, sometimes brutal,  they all look sodden and hard worked in the two villages you will pass through, you will not perhaps see one well-looking woman or cared for child.

The very colour of the earth is altered from Lakeland proper, the rich browns and pure grays of the mountains have given way to a course hard red, everything is the same ocher colour, the roads are red, the housed are red, the horse and carts are red, the slouching canvas clothed men and children are red, at the Big Rigg works the redness is offensive, then you come to the last hill leading to St Bees and you are in another world”.

Before the Railways came to Bigrigg The Pit Road as we know it was used by pack horse and carts to take the ore to Whitehaven for shipment to Scotland and Wales and we now know it was also used in the slave trade, iron goods were carried to Africa—slaves to the Americas and sugar, rum and spices back to

Whitehaven.

We are almost certain that the road was used as a church road to the St Leonard’s Church at Cleator.

The start of which was next to the vicar’s house and would have been used by the Ponsonby family after they built Springfield Mansion in 1738, up until the 1960’s the Pit Road was in good condition until the E.R.D.C. removed the houses from Bigrigg and outlying area which led to the disuse of the road.

In this area we have the site’s of at least 32 Iron Ore Mines, five of which are on the pit road, the Mines Research group have recently opened the Gutterby Pit for access and investigations into 1900 century pit workings.

They have found that the pit is flooded from 190 feet below Ground level, there are two levels not flooded and can still be accessed.

The present and future use of The Pit Road is to re-locate any Coast to Coast walkers who have missed there way to reconnect them with their route at Cleator, it could also make a safer cycle route for all ages to join the successful C to C route from Whitehaven to Sunderland as opposed to cyclists having to navigate the dangerous A595 to join it at either Linethwaite or Woodend.

It also makes for a pleasant walk for all ages in all seasons.

NEIL HODGSON 2007