White Hart Yard

White Hart Yard Through this archway was the old White Hart Inn, recorded in 1720 and a noted coaching inn from the beginning of the nineteenth century. In 1922 William Kerr, a well-known nurseryman, bought the property and gave the facade a complete face-lift. Here the Penrith Players, founded in 1922 by Horace Page, the new Manager of Barclays Bank, staged their first production of a comedy 'Uncle Ned’. In 1935 they won the Northern Section of, the British Drama Week Festival. The Players moved from premises on Castlegate into converted furniture auction rooms in 1998, with a first production of the musical ‘Annie”. To the right of White Hart Lane was the Griffin Inn, demolished in the 1890’s. The landlord here, until his death in 1888, was the retired wrestling champion William Jameson, whose large collection of trophies can be seen in Penrith Museum. In 1867 The Pall Mall Gazette referred to ‘A certain gigantic Jameson, of Penrith, who was more like a polar bear on its hind legs in a grey flannel shirt than a human being. The Griffin was the Mecca to which wrestlers, athletes and sportsmen of all kinds made their way when in Penrith. Napoleonic times saw excitement and feverish activity, with eight companies of volunteers called The Loyal Leath Ward Volunteers' regiment, commanded by John de Whelpdale of Bishop Yards. The volunteers were offered a bounty of two guineas to join the Militia, which served until the establishment of peace after Waterloo. Here over the centuries was a hive of noisy bustle, full of people, horses and stables with lifts and hoists above, carriages, carts, trading in corn, wool and produce, a blacksmith, a brewery, a milking machine business, and an early base of Penrith Mountain Rescue to the rear. Clint Mill, through white Hart Yard, was Built in 1878 for Pattinson and Winter, Seed Merchants and Millers, dealing in all kinds of ‘provin’. They had two ships, the Busk and the Margaret, plying between Liverpool and Whitehaven (once the third largest port in Britain) where they owned the Beacon Mill. Clint Mill became Nickerson's Seed Merchants for much of the twentieth century, in the early 1990s being converted into offices and a gymnasium. The new White Hart Yard scheme is an environmentally sympathetic development by Eden Housing Association, who are kindly sponsoring this plaque for Penrith Millennium Trail. Bought in 2000 with Griffin Yard, grant-funded by Eden District Council, are are twelve homes for local people. Griffin Yard, 'landlocked' for years, has been opened. The Yard is Grade II listed and the sympathetic conversion salvages and re-uses original materials. Stone runnels and tracks for carts and stage coaches are reinstated.

Corn Market, Penrith, United Kingdom where it was