Last updated at 19:40, Thursday, 12 July 2012

Ambitious plans for the £950,000 refurbishment of Cockermouth’s Main Street have been revealed.

The Cockermouth Main Street Heritage Scheme will make its bid to the Lottery on August 24 for cash to implement the project.

Its proposals include:

• poetry lifelines embedded in the pavement to represent the lives of the Wordsworths and Samuel Taylor Coleridge
• information boards, dubbed “heritage hubs”, to explain the town’s history and famous figures
• new bus shelters
• new timber seating
• new bins and signposts.

The poet lifelines will trace the lives of William and Dorothy Wordsworth, Wordsworth’s future wife Mary Hutchinson and poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Their lives will be represented through four interconnecting coloured lines set into a new paving scheme, with major biographical events written on the paving stones.

The lines, which will stretch for 1,148ft down the length of Main Street, finishing at Cocker Bridge, will be made using different types of stone – Cumbrian slate, sandstone, basalt and granite.

Extracts from Wordsworth’s letters and poems will be displayed on the pavement.

The six “heritage hubs” – triangular cabinets displaying information relevant to their position in the town – will be placed outside the National Trust shop, Bet DSL, Cockermouth Paper Shop, the junction with Station Street, the junction with High Sand Lane next to The New Bookshop and next to the HSBC bank.

The hubs outside the bookmakers and Cockermouth Paper Shop will be installed on new bus shelters, with the one on the northern side giving a local history of Cockermouth.

The one on the south side will list famous residents of Cockermouth, the history of Lowther Went and Lord Mayo.

The hub outside Wordsworth House will display the influence of William and Dorothy Wordsworth and the history of the house while the hub at the Station Street junction will give a history of the town markets, railway and creation of Station Road, the jubilee lime trees and shop fronts.

Information on Jennings Brewery, Cockermouth Castle and the influence of the town’s rivers will be placed on the hub outside The New Bookshop, while the one outside the HSBC will display information about the old Cocker Bridge, flood events and their impact.

It is hoped they will be illuminated at night.

The plans were presented at a special meeting of Cockermouth Town Council on Wednesday by Shamus Giles, county council engineer, and designer Richard Hollinshead, of Newcastle company Grit & Pearl.

Other plans included timber seating, more bins and signposts.

Mr Hollinshead said: “We want to make something unique to Cockermouth.”

Several councillors said that signposts should be put at the end of the poetry lifelines directing people further on to Market Place.

It was decided that the town council in principle would take on maintenance and insurance of the new features, provided figures were produced before the Heritage Lottery Fund bid was submitted.

Members voted in favour by seven votes to one.

Initial plans to fell the avenue of lime trees and replace them with younger trees and replace a zebra crossing at the junction with Station Street with a courtesy crossing, which would not require drivers to stop, were thrown out in January after public consultation.

First published at 19:25, Thursday, 12 July 2012
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk