Solway plain - past and present

Allonby and its buildings

Holme St Cuthbert History Group

Allonby, early 1900s

For such a tiny village, Allonby contains a remarkable number of interesting and historic buildings. These are four of the best.

Allonby, Reading Room circa 1900

The Reading Room was erected around 1862 at a cost of £1,500. £200 was raised locally and the rest was donated by Joseph Pease, a Quaker Industrialist from the North East of England. It was designed by Alfred Waterhouse, a promising 32-year-old from Liverpool. Waterhouse went on to become one of the country’s most distinguished architects. He was responsible for the Natural History Museum in London and the ornate office buildings of the Prudential Insurance Company in Manchester and many other British cities.

As well as a library, it contained a billiard room. By the early 1970s, it was used very little and the trustees put it up for sale. It was bought by a local property developer but became derelict. It has recently found new owners and is being converted into a private residence.

Allonby, North Lodge, circa 1920

North Lodge was built about 1840 by Thomas Richardson of Darlington. The central pavilion provided him with a summer home. At each side of this were three smaller cottages which were occupied, rent free, by local widows or spinsters each of whom also received a yearly pension of £5. The building is still owned by The Society of Friends and used as low-cost housing.

Allonby, The Square in Victorian times
The Square, with the baths on the right, as
it may have been in Victorian Times.

Allonby Baths have a fine classical portico and are located in ‘The Square’, a cobbled area behind the main road. They opened in 1835 on land donated by Mrs Sarah Brockbank Satterthwaite-Clark, a member of the Quaker shoe manufacturing family.

There was an upstairs meeting room and, on the ground floor, nine private cubicals which could be hired by the day or week by those desirous of ‘taking the waters’. The building is now privately owned.

Allonby Church

The Church dates from 1845 and replaced an earlier building on the same site. The adjoining Sunday School was originally used as the village school. This rather plain, undistinguished building fits particularly well with its landscape.

 

Thomas Richardson

Thomas Richardson

Thomas Richardson, the builder of North Lodge was a Quaker married an Allonby girl. He was a banker and held shares in both the Stockton & Dalington Railway and Stephenson’s Locomotive Works. He was one of the original proprietors of Middlesborough Docks and founded the nearby Ayton Friends’ School.

Hotels

Allonby has always had a number of hotels. This is the largest of them, The Ship, in coaching days.

Thanks

We are very grateful to Bobby Watson, a life-long resident of Allonby, for his help in preparing this page.

Kippers


An unusal postcard from Allonby, postmarked 1913

Click here for more postcard views

Links

The 'Visit Cumbria' site - some fine pictures of the village today

A walk along the coast from Allonby

More about Thomas Richardson

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