Appleby

St Lawrence's Church

River Eden

Tufton Arms Hotel on Boroughgate

Thursday, 1 March 2012

Appleby was the County town of the County of Westmorland which was absorbed into the new Cumbria Council in 1974 along with Cumberland and that part of Lancashire that reached into the Lake District from Morecambe Bay. It has always intrigued me since I memorised the county towns and capital cities in childhood. I was driving down to Sheffield to attend a course and as I was on the A66 to Scotch Corner I saw the sign to Appleby. Time was on my side, so I detoured to visit the town for the first time since the 1960s before the M6 had been built over Shap.  

I had assumed that it would be a bustling prosperous market town with traditional hotels and solid citizens.  The main street has been described as the finest in England and the local comprehensive school retains the title Appleby Grammar, its buildings that would grace any public school. I was surprised to find a place that was in a time warp and beginning to peel at the edges. There are few visitors and the mainly independent shops have a limited range of goods.

The hotels were obviously struggling and the menus did not stir the appetite so I bought some food and sat by the river on a warm March day amidst the daffodils and crocuses watching the life of the town ripple past. Apart from the school pupils raiding the fast food outlets, it seemed like a place dominated by older generations. A couple of elderly fishermen were dabbling on the river and some agricultural workers and tradesmen provided the scanty footfall on the main street. It was a douce town in decline. The house prices confirmed this, unlike the nearby towns in the Lake District where house prices are being driven upwards by the baby boomers retreating from the cities.

I began to think about what towns like this are for in the twenty-first century. If it was located within an hour of London or other major cities it would be a much sought-after place to live but it is remote from Britain's major cities and off the tourist trails of the adjacent Lake District or the Yorkshire Dales National Parks  However, with the price of travel and work becoming 'what you do, not where you go', places like Appleby could be resuscitated. It is finely sited on the river Eden, sits amidst pleasant rolling countryside, boasts some splendid historic buildings and has that most elusive quality of being away from the bustle and commercialism that has destroyed the fabric and social networks in much of urban Britain. It has a well-performing school and is close to Penrith which is thriving sitting on the main railway and the M6 motorway. 

Appleby needs to develop a vision for its future. I am not sure that the current descriptor 'lots of interest and old world charm' will do much to dispel the impression that I had - a small town in need of a new purpose and a bit of excitement and not just during Appleby Horse Fair, the biggest Gypsy Fair in the UK.