Cockermouth Heritage Group

Our group was formed in 1992 with the intention of establishing a town museum within the local Kirkgate Centre.

Because the room intended for use as a museum needed to be rented out to provide revenue for the Centre, it has not been possible to establish a museum. We now have a storeroom at the Centre with a large collection, used for annual exhibitions, as well as answering local/family history queries.

The collection comprises of: around 3,000 photographs (many original) and several hundred slides, a filing cabinet full of paper documents/booklets, an oral history/transcription collection, many large maps, several hundred objects, several publications produced by members – all relating to the history of Cockermouth and surrounding villages. The collection relates mainly to the Victorian period and beyond.

We have made a start on cataloguing our collection, using Modes, but there is still a long way to go, and we are a tiny group! Our aim is to develop as a community archive, enabling the local community to access our collection for interest, or for local/family history research.