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News

The Prince of Wales visits Cumbria

5th February 2007

The Prince of Wales visited thriving rural communities in Cumbria today and showed his support for initiatives helping to maintain the vibrancy of village life.

The Prince’s first visit was to the Old Crown Pub in Hesket Newmarket, part of His Royal Highness’s Pub is the Hub initiative.

Pub is the Hub was initiated by The Prince of Wales through Business in the Community (BITC) of which he is President, in response to the closure of many British country pubs and other rural services such as shops and post offices.

Set up in 2001 through the Rural Action Programme of BITC, Pub is the Hub encourages breweries, pub owners, licensees and local communities to work together to help retain and enhance rural services in isolated rural areas using the pub, the traditional heart of many villages and hamlets.

The Prince last visited the Old Crown Pub three years ago, and it is believed to be the only example of a village pub owned by a co-operative, with a range of community services including a library and cash-back service in the village, which has no bank.

His Royal Highness paid tribute to the work being done by locals in Hesket Newmarket to keep village life alive.

He said: "I have been most interested to see what marvellous things can be achieved through community enterprise.

"What you can do here is now, I think, being noticed elsewhere and it gives hope and encouragement to others."

The Prince enjoyed a pint of local beer Great Cockup, a rich, dark porter ale, and a game of darts with landlady Mrs Richardson.

The Prince also visited the adjacent microbrewery, also run by a community co-operative, which is housed in a former cow-shed behind the 19th Century inn.

His Royal Highness saw the brewery’s new visitors’ centre and the new hand bottled range of beers which has enabled the brewery to sell its products more widely, before visiting the Post Office and village shop, currently up for sale, to hear about plans to establish a third co-operative in a bid to buy it.

Before leaving, The Prince met passengers who use the Northern Fells Group mini-bus.

Later His Royal Highness visited Booths Supermarket in Keswick to launch the new season of Herdwick lamb.

The family-run supermarket has been a long standing champion of local producers.

The Prince met two Herdwick farmers before the Town Cryer of Keswick formally pronounced the launch.

To mark the occasion, local poet Angela Locke performed a poem she had written especially for the occasion:

Ode to a Herdwick

Elemental creatures, standing stones upon the hill,
You draw your pigment from the fells,
Your pale eye the colour of slow lichen,
Your back grey as Skiddaw slate. However legend tells it,
I sense your lineage stretches back before those Vikings
Who named you, before the Romans,
Back to the Old Ones who once carved axes here.

Knock-kneed, hoar frost-faced, you defy
These flakes of snow whirling in the wind,
Patient, unbending with the seasons.
Generations of your kind are heafed onto this hill.
Your lambs, bound to the land,
Lie curled under thorn trees by the beck,
Pulled back by chains of DNA to this very spot.

Though you take my fodder, you are still half-wild;
Scorning my barns, your lambs, black-fleeced,
Black-hooved, are born beneath the wall.
You guard your offspring fiercely, standing up
Against the dog when danger threatens.
In autumn, your hogg lambs
Are still beside you, bunting for milk,
Their fleeces now the colour of old bracken in the rain.

These winter stars, wheeling above us, know things
These sheep know. They point the way
To ancient truths. A deep knowledge of mountains,
The language of rock and water, is woven in the landscape
Of this beloved country, a living tapestry;
All the poetry of this place, this dear spot,
Mirrored in your primeval eye.

Written by Angela Locke and by courtesy of Booths supermarket

Finally, the Prince visited Rosthwaite, a village in the Borrowdale Valley, to discuss the local affordable housing scheme.

This allows local people to live in the village despite house price increases and local homes being bought by non-residents.

Later, at the local village hall, His Royal Highness took part in a discussion on the local rural housing situation, local services, foods and agriculture.

After a further meeting in Rosthwaite at the Flock Inn Tea Rooms with rural affairs community leaders, The Prince retired to The Yew Tree Farm Guesthouse, run by Herdwick sheep farmers Joe and Hazel Relph.

The Prince will continue his visit to Cumbria tomorrow and will visit Manchester on Wednesday.