Kirkgate Quarter Chronicle May 2025

We hope you are all enjoying the glorious weather!
The sun has well and truly got his hat on this month, let’s hope it stays sunny into June for our 30th Anniversary Picnic at the Castle on the 1st! Tickets are now completely sold out, and we’ve been busy behind the scenes organising the delicious contents of our picnic boxes. The food is being supplied by The High Tea Guy, hear more about him later in the Chronicle.

If you have been lucky enough to get a ticket for our castle event, keep an eye on your inbox as we will be sending you all the information you need for the day very soon.

It’s also time for another COCKFROCK sale! This weekend we will be transforming the centre into a two floor pre-loved boutique, packed to the rafters with ladies fashions, shoes and accessories.
A DAY IN THE LIFE

As Cockfrock is this weekend we had to feature our Judith in this month’s ‘day in the life’. She has volunteered with Kirkgate Arts in all sorts of roles over the years, the one we absolutely couldn’t do without is her work coordinating our regular Cockfrock sales…
I’ve lived in Cockermouth 20 years. For pretty much all that time I’ve been coming to the Kirkgate for films and exhibitions and for more than half of it, I’ve been a volunteer.  After leaving full time employment where I had experience working on strategic and governance issues, I initially joined as a Trustee on the Board of Directors and it was quite an eye-opener to discover the extent of the activity and effort that goes on behind the scenes to keep this brilliant charitable facility viable.

I now fully appreciate the effort that goes into submitting grant applications to secure the finance needed for everything from the artistic,heritage and community programmes, the building infrastructure, and staff time.  Having been involved in preparing and submitting these applications myself its an amazing feeling when you’re successful. But it can be frustrating and disheartening when you’ve not qualified for that next round or you just miss out.  So I’m acutely aware of the importance of other funding streams to keeping the Kirkgate running.  This includes revenue streams from performances, hire of the centre for other activities, regular and one-off donations, and fundraising activities, all supported by volunteers.

We have some great fundraisers coming up in this 30th anniversary year including the Cockermouth castle picnic, summer film festival, anniversary raffle and the October party. Following my time on the board, I now volunteer as a duty manager a few times a month as part of the team of volunteers who support all activities going on at the centre.  I’m also closely involved with the Cockfrock sale of pre-loved ladies clothing which has become a permanent feature in the fundraising calendar, running for over 12 years, sometimes twice a year.
A photograph from an early Cockfrock event, can you spot Judith?… Plus a few other familiar faces!
There’s quite a bit of logistics behind the scenes to ensure it runs smoothly and now with a relatively small team of volunteers we’ve got it down to a fine art.  I was initially a bit sceptical about whether it was worth all the effort but it has gone from strength to strength with a great following of buyers and sellers and, as a conservative estimate,  I’d say the sales have raised in the region of £20k for the centre which is a tremendous achievement. It’s also great in terms of circular fashion – reuse and recycle.  And it’s also a great illustration of how a seemingly small contribution from volunteers cumulatively adds up to something very significant.  If you’re ever in any doubt about the value of the contribution you can make as a volunteer, don’t be. Absolutely every little helps and is very much appreciated.
You can find Judith on our volunteer video too! Perhaps time for a new film, now we’ve made so many changes to the centre!
There are all sorts of ways to volunteer with Kirkgate Arts, from helping on the bar at events to fixing and mending with our maintenance team and everything in between. At the moment we have an exciting opportunity for the right person… Do you have an interest in marketing and promotion? Or do you know someone looking to gain experience in that area? Find out more about our Communications and Marketing Assistant volunteer role here.
@HOME @KIRKGATE

Last month we mentioned the professional expertise that has gone into our recent improvements. One of the companies that helped us bring our dreams into reality are Technical Stage Services, who are based in Leeds but cover the technical side of performing arts across the North of England.

Matt and his team worked day and night, sometimes around unexpected obstacles, to get our new lighting rig in place! One of the hurdles we hit was a lack of sufficient strength in our roof… something that we had to deal with very swiftly to enable Matt’s team to finish their work. Thankfully Tom Short from Whinbarrow Design Services, was able to draw up reinforcement plans in record time and put us in touch with local joiner John Skelton. John’s team were on site swiftly and finished the major reinforcement work in just a week.
As you can see above, this strengthening was no small task! We’re grateful to Tom, John and the team who worked so quickly to rectify the problem. And thanks go to the engineers from Technical Stage Services who managed to finish their installation on time despite all these challenges. Matt and our volunteer technician Nick are pictured below, getting to grips with the new lighting desk.
We are planning to run some training sessions on using the new lighting equipment later in the year, for anyone interested in finding out more about performance lighting alongside our volunteer tech team. We’ll let you know as soon as those courses are available.
KIRKGATE HISTORY AND HERITAGE

Kirkgate 30th celebrations really get going with a picnic and prosecco in the grounds of Cockermouth Castle on 1st June – music, poetry, magic and guided tours add to the mix of what will hopefully prove to be a memorable celebration of the Kirkgate Centre, and the many activities it supports under the umbrella of Kirkgate Arts & Heritage.

Not the least of its achievements has been the development of its role as home to a large collection of local objects, memorabilia, slides and photographs which, a bit like Topsy, just grew and grew over the years.  This super collection has enabled the Heritage Group to stage exhibitions from the early part of the 1990s through to the present day, with a growing level of professionalism in their production.  We are indebted to many townspeople who have passed on images (either photos or slides) and objects, to illustrate our town’s history.  The late Bernard Bradbury left many slides to us many years ago, which have been used in slide shows, and also copied.  Many of you will remember back in 2009 there was a devastating flood in the town, meaning that many shops on the Main Street were badly damaged.  In an effort to lift the mood of the town, many of Bernard Bradbury’s images were used to create blown-up pictures to fill otherwise empty shop windows, and these created a real talking-point.  Bernard went around the town in 1968 photographing many places, and these images have been put to good use in exhibitions on a regular basis; if you’ve ever visited one of our exhibitions over the past 30 years, you will have seen hundreds of the images we hold.  Moreover, these are going to last for many years to come, as a result of professional storage and cataloguing.
Above: Gasometer – now site of Woodville Park houses. View of Old Hall, over back of Market Place.
Below: Railway Hotel, Crown Street. Thomas Armstrong’s – now Aldi supermarket.
One collection of glass slides we hold were produced by a Cockermouth man, William Youdale (a draper of Market Place) who used to put on regular magic lantern slides shows.  The slides were held for many years by the Helena Thompson Museum until such time as an appropriate home for them could be found in Cockermouth, according to the wishes of the Youdale family.  When the Kirkgate Centre came into existence, it became the new home of the Youdale slides.
Above: two of the Youdale glass slide images, the first showing Main Street on a snowy day in the late 19th century, the second is Whit Monday fair on Main Street, 1894.
The vast number of images in the Heritage Group collection are celebrated at every opportunity, we share them through these monthly Chronicles, at our exhibitions and through publications as well as in a more personal way when responding to queries and requests from individuals. We want to take this a step further and the groundwork is underway to digitise the collection and make these images available to view online through our website. It’s a more complicated and time consuming process than you might expect! If it’s something you would be interested in getting involved with do contact us.

If you’ve visited our exhibitions you will know how much we value and utilise these images in our work, alongside the interesting objects and books. The archive, which began even before the doors opened at the centre, has grown enormously over the last thirty years. Thank you to everyone who has helped build the Heritage Group collection at the Kirkgate – here’s to another thirty years!

Gloria Edwards
KIRKGATE QUARTER

We wanted to introduce you to Gareth, who will be feeding the 180 visitors to our 30th Anniversary Picnic at the Castle. We’re hoping there’ll be some treats for our volunteers too!
Opening in October 2023, Gareth and his business The High Tea Guy has been catering to the lovely people all over West Cumbria for over 18 months now. Afternoon teas being the signature product of The High Tea Guy, offering many variations on this. Including a savoury High Tea, grazing boxes, seasonal afternoon teas and of course their Classic afternoon tea.

The High Tea Guy caters for many events and functions, from christenings, baby showers, funerals, parties and with businesses to cater for their business functions and staff lunches.
The High Tea Guy celebrating their first year of trading in 2023.
Who’s The Guy?

Gareth has lived in west Cumbria all his life and has over 25 years of experience in the catering and hospitality industry, starting out as a trainee chef, then going on to work and manage establishments in the area.

Gareth is now bringing his experience and wisdom to his very own business, serving up fresh, new ideas alongside traditional classics and with his down to earth approach he hopes to bring a personal touch to
his customers.

Gareth is passionate about serving great, homemade food for everyone to enjoy. Offering afternoon teas, cakes, bakes and savouries, alongside catering for events and special occasions.
We are very much looking forward to our High Tea Guy picnics! Thanks Gareth!

You can find out more, and even book yourself an afternoon tea, on Gareth’s website- The High Tea Guy.
EMMA’S LETTER
I can hardly believe it’s May already! We’re now well into our packed 2025 schedule of events, with more workshops and ‘join in’ events than ever. Crafts@Kirkgate was a treat earlier this month, with participants creating beautiful Copper Creatures with Helga from Colourbuzz. If you missed the workshop you can find out what else Helga has on offer on the colourbuzz website. Next up for Crafts@Kirkgate is a relaxing afternoon learning the art of flower pressing with Jocelyn West, find out more here.

As well as Crafts@Kirkgate we are hurtling through our 2025 creative culinary workshops with Cooking@Kirkgate. Manon will be here on Wednesday 21st May to help us get the best out of our Summer Salads. The office staff always love a Wednesday workshop, we don’t need to bring any snacks to work when Manon (Wild Zucchinis) and Helen (Helen’s Herbs) are in. It’s a fun, social way to spend a morning and then enjoy your creations for lunch.

We love to provide space for these ‘join in events’ alongside performances and film screenings, there is something magical about coming together to learn, create and share. You can find all this years workshops and other participation events using the ‘join in’ filter on our website.

Emma Heys
Chief Executive