Drive and stroll with Ron Freethy

DESPITE the driving rain and sleet I still decided to brave the elements and to follow not the M6 but the A6.

I was in search of Milnthorpe and my own personal memories of motoring in the 1960s.

I wonder how many readers remember the days before high-speed journeys. Tell me about your favourite journeys and perhaps I can follow them again.

I have kept a diary for more years than I care to remember and on my journeys to the Lake District from Burnley my old Hillman was usually overheating and I was also ready for a rest and a cup of tea by the time I reached Milnthorpe.

This lovely old spot was underrated then and it is even more forgotten today.

What does it have to offer the tourist? The answer is -- plenty.

Straddling the A6, Milnthorpe was important in the days of the turnpike road and in even earlier times it was a busy port. Indeed, it was the main port for Westmorland when small boats of very shallow draught could navigate the waters of the rivers Kent and Bela. Remnants of the old port are there for those who look carefully. There are a number of old warehouses still in use. In the 18th century Milnthorpe had its own thriving shipbuilding yards and it later it became one of Britain's most important areas for the production and export of gunpowder. Its mills were driven by rivers, the Kent said to be the fastest-moving in England. Iron was also an important local industry and both the gunpowder mills and the foundries were hard at work during the Napoleonic Wars of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Milnthorpe thus became one of the most prosperous towns in north western England.

Like many settlements which developed because of the road systems, Milnthorpe was ruined by the coming, first of the Preston to Kendal Canal (now known as the Lancaster) in 1819 and especially of the railway which was built in 1846. Both bypassed Milnthorpe. It has since settled down to life as a small market town set on the scenically splendid Morecambe Bay, overlooked by the often savage grandeur of the Cumbrian mountains.

I reached Milnthorpe on a cold, windy Sunday morning and parked my car close to the old market cross. This is an impressive structure standing on top of three worn stone steps, to one of which is attached iron ankle straps. Criminals were once fastened to these irons so that everybody could see that justice was being done.

Nearby are the church and a number of impressive stone houses, one of which was the home of Constance Holme. Her books were very popular in the early years of this century, the most popular titles being Crump Folk Going Home and The Lonely Plough. Both describe life in old Westmorland..

I do still have one unsolved mystery. Who or what was a Crump? Perhaps it was the sound made by my old Hillman.