Cockermouth

Cockermouth takes its name from the meeting of the Rivers Cocker and Derwent, on the edge of the Cumbrian hills. Its medieval castle overlooks the town from the riverbank. In 1648, during the Civil Wars, a Parliamentary garrison in the castle was besieged by Royalist forces. More than a century later, in 1770, the poet William Wordsworth was born in a house on the town's main street.