Silloth on Solway

Описание: The Cumbrian town of Silloth (sometimes called Silloth-on-Solway) stands on the southern shore of the Solway Firth, looking across to Galloway on the north bank. It developed as a coastal resort and port after the Carlisle & Silloth Bay Railway & Dock Company built a rail line from Carlisle to the coast in 1856.

HISTORY
The origins of Silloth go back much further in time, however, back the medieval period, when the monks of Holme Cultram Abbey developed a salt industry here and began to farm the Solway Marshes. They built 'lathe', or barn, near the sea to store grain, hence the name 'Sea Lathe', which in time morphed into Silloth.

Until the middle of the 19th century Silloth was little more than a few scattered farms. That changed in 1856 when the railway company brought the line from Carlisle to Silloth and began to develop the town as a shipping port and seaside resort. Their job was made easier when a physician claimed that the Silloth air was 'cleaner and more health giving than anywhere else'..
The railway brought visitors aiming to enjoy the health-giving benefits of the seaside air, and several large hotels were built to cater to this influx of visitors. Some stayed at the Convalescent Home, built in 1862 to give poor people the chance to recuperate from illness by breathing the pure Silloth air.

The Bathing Establishment (now an amusement arcade) invited visitors to enjoy hot, cold, swimming, shower, and plunge baths, and bathing machines sprang up along the beach. These machines could be hauled out into the water by horses, and modest visitors could change in private and even bath without leaving the hut if they wished.

Next to West Beach was a pier, stretching 1,000 feet into the Firth. Steamboats carried passengers to Liverpool, Dublin, Whitehaven, and the Isle of Man. The pier was washed away in WWII and never replaced.