HOW sad that we no longer see Curwen Hall towering over the town of Workington like it used to… this old photo shows just what an impressive building it was, looking down on the River Derwent and Calva Bridge.

Peer closely and you can just make out Wilson’s builders yard next to the route leading to Barepot. It was J I Wilson & Co who in the early 1900s was the contractor who built the red sandstone Carnegie Library and Lecture Hall on Finkle Street, at a cost of £7,500, funded by the Scottish-American philanthropist Andrew Carnegie.

Carnegie felt that a library, both from an educational and recreational point of view, could only influence and stimulate the intellectual tastes “which raise the human and suppress the brutal in man”.

He would have been encouraged, then, by the subsequent library report to councillors which revealed that only 58 per cent of the 50,000 or so books loaned out to Workington residents were works of fiction compared to around 75 per cent at other libraries. “The consequent increase in more serious types of reading matter spoke well for Workington folk,” it said.

After an open competition to find an architect to design the library, a York firm, Mellon & Wittet, won the contract and in 1903 the foundation stone was laid by the town’s mayor, Robert Ernest Highton. A few years later the council bought the house next door which gave space for a stage. It was also used as a cinema, with income from film screenings helping to buy new books and fund a librarian’s wage.

When the nearby Opera House in Pow Street was converted to a bingo hall in 1962, the local amateur operatic and music societies would move into the Carnegie, and by the mid 70s the library would be transferred to the old Co-op building on Oxford Street where it remains today.

A much-loved facility for the town of Workington, the Carnegie Theatre was listed as a building of Grade II importance in 1985.

Workington Borough Council would for many years hold their meetings there, with all the proceedings, politicking and protocol watched over by a wall of portraits of past mayors.

One early mayor was Henry Fraser Curwen, who was born at Workington Hall in 1834. He was the son of Edward Stanley Curwen and the grandson of Henry Christian Curwen, born at Ewanrigg Hall, Maryport. This is where the link with Fletcher Christian of Bounty fame can be found; most of the mutineer’s paternal ancestors were historic Deemsters (judges) from the Isle of Man, their original family surname being McCrystyn.

Workington Hall itself had evolved from a timber pele tower into a substantial residence in its own grounds. Most of what can be seen today dates from the 18th century and old photos record lavish interiors from its glory days. Some sections of the original stone fortification dating from the 14th century are however still in evidence.

It was the couple Isabella Curwen and John Christian (who took his wife’s surname) who spent money upgrading the hall and its parklands in the late 18th century and it was the latter who, in 1792, founded Workington Brewery, just across the road. It subsequently changed hands several times before brewing ceased almost 200 years later in 1988.

In 1800 John Christian Curwen also built a model farmstead at Schoose Farm, Workington, where the remains of a windmill still stand. This agricultural complex also has a Grade II listing.

Belle Isle on Windermere, with its 18th century circular house, was bought by the Curwen family and named for their daughter Isabella. Isabella and John Christian’s descendants lived on the island until as recently as 1993.

The Curwens, Lords of the Manor of Workington, would in 1568 famously give shelter to Mary Queen of Scots on her flight from Scotland before her imprisonment and execution. It was from Workington that she wrote her fruitless plea for help to the cousin she had never met, Elizabeth. She had arrived a free woman but left under armed escort to be taken to Carlisle Castle. Following the death of Elizabeth I in 1603, Mary’s son James would become King.

Workington Hall was occupied as recently as 1929 but was vacant when in 1939 it was requisitioned for troop billeting by the War Office at the outbreak of the Second World War.

Sadly, it suffered severe damage in a major fire that gutted parts of the building. Despite much discussion and a desire to bring the hall back into use, it remained in its derelict state, slowly deteriorating.

It was in 1972 after considerable problems with vandalism and concerns about safety that Workington Borough Council decided to reduce the building to a controlled ruin.