Convenient place for a call of nature
Last updated 05:36, Friday, 08 August 2008
A piece of waste ground at the bottom of Botchergate proves to have an interesting history. The projecting triangle of land formed by the junction of Botchergate, London Road and St Nicholas Street had little use except as the burial place of John Fearon who in 1791 had committed suicide in the County Gaol while awaiting execution for murder.
Having cheated the hangman the ultimate punishment was to be buried at a crossroads and on this occasion it was to be “at Botchergate Foot and a stake driven through his body.”
Botchergate and London Road formed part of the 1753 turnpike from Eamont Bridge to Carlisle but there was no toll-collection point close to the city and as a result revenue was lost from traffic making short journeys.
Previously the nearest gate was at Wragmire but this was rectified by an Act of Parliament in 1808 which allowed four additional toll bars, one of these being at Botchergate.
Adverts appeared in the Carlisle Journal in 1809 for the “new toll gate, Botchergate Foot, to be let for three years.”
It was common practice for the turnpike trust to let a gate by auction, the highest bidder becoming the toll collector, who, if canny, could make more from tolls than the agreed rent.
Maps show the position of the toll cottage on the island triangle with a gate across London Road and a side gate across St Nicholas Street.
But this toll bar was short lived.
Another Act deemed that all tolls should be collected two miles from the city and as a result a new toll cottage was built at Harraby in 1830.
The Botchergate toll cottage was no longer required and it became a private house.
Owner of the triangle was George Head, who married Maria Woodrouffe in 1833.
When houses were built here linking London Road and St Nicholas Street in the 1840s he named the new street Woodrouffe Terrace.
For his residence as a married man, Mr Head bought Rickerby House in 1833, something of significance in the story of the toll cottage.
Little mention of the location was made but in 1848 the Journal referred to a complaint: “The old toll house has behind it a very disgusting privy and receptacle of filth.”
Objections were again raised in 1856 and the Health Committee made an order concerning “the old toll bar belonging to Mr Head which was a complete nuisance.”
This seems to be the date when the cottage was removed.
Here the story is taken up by Jean MacInnes in her 1950s History of Rickerby. “As Carlisle spread down Botchergate the old toll house was to be demolished,” she said, and Mr Head had it “moved down to the east gate at Rickerby.”
There it formed the East Lodge to Rickerby House and while it is marked on OS maps no photograph can be found.
Once Rickerby ceased to be a private house three lodges were unnecessary and the east one was removed, Miss MacInnes wrote: “The lodge has finally been demolished,” which suggests it stood well into the 20th century.
While houses had been built on the rest of Mr Head’s triangle by 1850, the corner site at St Nicholas remained as an enclosed yard and this was let to a monumental mason and sculptor as a stone yard.
In 1871 the local Board of Health applied to Mr Head “for permission to erect a urinal, similar to that in Court Square, on the piece of enclosed ground at the junction of London Road and St Nicholas Street”. The Health Board agreed that “a better site could not be found”.
Before Mr Head’s death in 1876 he sold the stonemason’s yard to the Corporation for £500, as they wanted to erect a weighing machine.
When in 1878 Miss Burton of nearby Shadwell Lodge applied for permission to buildt a coffee house there, ‘the Finance Committee did not exactly see their way to parting with the ground”, according to the Journal report of a council meeting.
Trees had been planted there and councillors wanted an open space for ‘ventilation’.
To replace the previous convenience, agreement was reached at an Urban Sanitary meeting in 1883 “that a five-person urinal be placed at the junction of London Road, St Nicholas and Botchergate.”
A St Nicholas telephone kiosk was put up here in 1926.
Road improvements resulted in a traffic island being created “at the St Nicholas corner” in January 1935 and this has remained to the present day along with rebuilt public conveniences.
Caption
St Nicholas Corner viewed from a Cowans Sheldon crane; this photograph appeared in the Cumberland News in December 1954 looking up Botchergate towards the city. Bus shelters are on the island site.
