Puzzle Description

During the 18th century and into the 19th, turnpike trusts were established and major roads in Cumberland were greatly improved. With the Lake District now accessible by coach the area attracted well-off visitors, particularly at times of war in mainland Europe, which made the aristocratic Grand Tour impossible there. Regular public coach services were established in the 1760s, but they were expensive. The ten-hour journey from Whitehaven to Penrith via Keswick cost 12 shillings (equivalent to 60 pence), at a time when country labourers typically earned 10 shillings a week or less, and the annual income of even the most prosperous tenant farmers was rarely more than £200. Nonetheless, by the 19th century the number of tourists visiting Keswick during each season was estimated at between 12,000 and 15,000.

19th-century drawing of a factory worker at a pencil-making machine Pencil-making at Keswick in the 1850s. The construction of the railways in the mid-19th century made the Lake District, and Keswick in particular, more accessible to visitors of modest means. The original impetus for building the Cockermouth, Keswick and Penrith Railway (CKP) line came from heavy industry: the new Bessemer process of steelmaking brought a great demand for the rich iron ore from west Cumberland and the coking coal from Durham on the east side of the country. The CKP was built to enable ore and coal to be brought together at steel foundries in both counties. The line opened for goods traffic in 1864, and the following year it began to carry passengers. Fares varied, but holidaymakers could buy excursion tickets at discounted prices, such as six shillings for the 170-mile return journey from Preston to Keswick.

In addition to its growing importance as a tourist centre, Keswick developed a reputation for its manufacture of pencils during the 19th century. It had begun on a modest scale in about 1792, as a cottage industry, using graphite mined locally. This developed on more industrial lines in factories purpose-built by several companies. Pencil making was the town's most important manufacturing industry by the mid-19th century, textiles and leather goods having declined.

The Moot Hall in Keswick was rebuilt in 1813, and the lower floor was used as a market house on Saturdays. Coal gas was supplied by a gas works from 1846; the Keswick library opened in 1849; a water works began operation in 1856; and Keswick police station opened in 1857. The local weekly newspaper, The Keswick Reminder was founded in 1896, and in 2019 continues to be published every Friday. In an article in The Observer in 1978, Christopher Brasher wrote that as long as the Reminder flourishes, "there will be one corner of these islands that is forever England."