Egremont

Castle and Coastal-Plain Town

The castle sits in the middle of the town, which is not where castles usually end up. Egremont's is red sandstone, ruined, and open to anyone who wants to walk up and stand inside it — no gate, no admission, no ticket office. William le Meschin built it around 1130, the first Lord of Egremont, after William Rufus took this stretch of coast off Scotland in 1092. Robert the Bruce came through in 1322 and devastated the town. What survives is a rose-coloured wreck in the town centre, weathered down to walls and archways.

Main Street is the spine of the place. Egremont is a market town on the west Cumbrian plain, low-lying and agricultural, sitting just outside the western boundary of the Lake District National Park. The River Ehen runs through it. The name comes from the Old French *aigremont*, meaning "pointed hill," which is optimistic for a town on a coastal flat.

A Main Street Built on Trade

The Kings Arms reopened in 2024 after a £450,000 refurbishment under Proper Pubs. It's a long-established town pub, now split across three rooms — a main bar, a snug, and a games room. Wet-led, which means you go for the beer and the company rather than the kitchen.

The street holds independent shops and a weekly market that has, in one form or another, been running since Henry III granted the charter around 1266. That is a long time to keep selling things to the same street.

Coast Paths and Iron Ore

For walking, the coast is the draw. A path heads south toward St Bees Head, five miles off, where the RSPB has a reserve. Closer to hand, the castle ruins themselves are the town's set piece, freely accessible and worth the short climb.

The industry that built the modern town has mostly gone. West Cumbria sits on haematite — a dense red iron ore — and Egremont grew on mining it, alongside dyeing and weaving.

Church and Connections

St Mary and St Michael's Church is medieval in origin but largely rebuilt in the nineteenth century, so what you see is mostly Victorian work on old foundations.

Getting here takes a car. There is no railway; the nearest station is at Whitehaven, about eight miles north. Buses run along the A595 corridor to Whitehaven and on to Keswick, and the same road connects the town to Barrow-in-Furness in the other direction.

The Crab Fair Tradition

Which leaves the fair. The Egremont Crab Fair dates to 1267 and claims to be one of the oldest in the world. The name comes from the Lord of Egremont, who once gave crab apples away to the townspeople. It still runs every September, though it is now best known for the World Gurning Championships, in which competitors pull the ugliest face they can manage while framing it through a horse collar. There is a world champion. He is from somewhere, and once a year the somewhere is here.