Whitehaven has the distinction of being the starting point of the C2C and the finish for the Reivers Cycle Route. It may not be quite the place it was in the 18th century, when it played a significant role in the British slave industry and was the main importer of tobacco on the west coast. Nonetheless it has undergone a major transformation in the last couple of years, its fine Georgian architecture now looking spruce and proud.

19. Whitehaven		Back to
Cheryl Twinn		Waverley Hotel, Tangier St, CA28 7UX
Tel		01946 694337
Web		www.thewaverleyhotel.co.uk
Email		thewaverleyhotel@hotmail.com
Rooms		10S, 5D,6T,3F
B&B		£28-£50S; £52-£64D
Evening Meal		£5.95-£15
Packed Lunch		from £4.95
Fully licensed		On route

Bustling privately owned town centre hotel, traditional in style, licensed and with busy restaurant. Clost to harbour and popular amongst cyclists.

Tom & Philip		The Mansion, Old Woodhouse, Whitehaven, Cumbria CA28 9LN
Tel		01946 61860
Fax		01946 691270
Email		comnenus4@aol.com
Web		www.themansion-whitehaven.co.uk
Rooms		12
B&B:		From £20 - £25
Packed Lunch		£3.50
Evening Meal		£6.00-£10
On route?		1 Km. Pub 100m

Friendly, relaxed and with all mod cons. Super big screen TV and swimming pool opening this year.

Malcolm Thomas-Chapman		Shepherds Arms Hotel, Ennerdale Bridge, Ennerdale, Cumbria, CA23 3AR
Tel		01946 861249
Web		www.shepherdsarmshotel.co.uk
Email		shepherdsarms@btconnect.com
Rooms		3D, 3T, 2D/T
B&B		£38.50-£48.50
Evening Meal		Under £10 for a main course
Packed Lunch		£3.95-£5.50
Rooms		3D, 3T, 2D/T

A small gem of a country hotel with public bar serving real ales and pub meals. Situated on the famous Coast to Coast walk and on the new start to the C2C out of St Bees, the area fast becoming popular with cyclists using the new start. A busy local pub with comfortable rooms.

Margaret & Andrew Davies		Glenfield Guest House, Whitehaven, Cumbria, CA28 7TS
Telephone		01946 691911
Website		www.glenfield-whitehaven.co.uk
Email		glenfieldGH@aol.com
Rooms		1S, 2D, 1T, 2F
B&B		£27.50-£55
Evening meal		£4.50-£8.50
Packed lunch		£4.50
Distance from route		400m
Nearest pub		50m
AA 4-star, Welcome to Excellence Award		Food Safety Performance - 4 stars

Set in a conservation area close to the town centre, home from home atmosphere and specialises in real home cooking and luxury en-suite accommodation. Licensed lounge with open fire. Free wireless internet and on-line booking.

WHERE TO EAT

American Connection - Marlborough Street - 01946 693671

Zest Restaurant: Harbourside - 01946 66981

Georgian House - Church Street - 01946 696611

Casa Romana [Italian] - Queen Street - 01946 591901

Jasmine Palace, [Chinese/Thai] Duke/Strand Street

Blue Wine Bar & Restaurant - Tangier Street - 01946 691986

Hornblowers - Church Street - 01946 590492

Westminster Restaurant - Lowther Street - 01946 694404

Askash Tandoori Restaurant [Indian] - 01946 691171

Ali Taj Restaurant [Indian] - 01946 592679

Golden Harbour [Chinese] - George Street - 01946 693388

Howgate Brewster & Travel Inn - Howgate - 01946 66286

PLACES OF INTEREST

Michael Moon's, Bookshop & Gallery, Roper St. One of the largest bookshops in Cumbria, "vast and gloriously eccentric!"

The Beacon: Local maritime and industrial history within the Harbour Gallery. 01946 592302.

The Rum Story, exhibition celebrating the Jefferson family business, the oldest booze empire in Britain.

The Haig Mining Museum, Haig Enterprise Park, High Rd.

CYCLE SHOPS

Haven Cycles: Cycle Hire/Repairs, Preston St Garage 01946 632 633

Dave Milling, Preston St. 01946 63380

Perhaps the most impressive feature is the large harbour, which has undergone a £68 million facelift. There is a fine 100-berth marina, now choc-a-bloc with pleasure craft of all sizes and shapes. The town has, in short, reacquired some of the prosperity it lost in the years after it became the world's first new town.

Not so long ago it would have been hard to imagine that early Manhattan's street grid system was based on the pattern the Lowther family laid out for Whitehaven in the late 1690s, when it became apparent that the Cumbrian settlement was destined for great things.

Shortly afterwards the streets filled with rum and sugar merchants, slave traders and tobacco speculators and America-bound settlers waiting for their boat to come in. The harbour was teeming with coal transporters, which plied the Irish Sea to supply Dublin's houses and industries with black stuff dynamited from under Whitehaven's seabed. There was also shipbuilding; over 1,000 vessels were built in the Whitehaven yards, and one of the oldest surviving iron-built ships was constructed here. After London and Bristol, this was the third busiest port in England.

Connections with America went deep: John Paul Jones, founder of the American navy and erstwhile scourge of Britain's own, gained his sea legs as a merchant seaman from Whitehaven. Indeed, the last invasion of the English mainland, in 1778, was perpetrated by Jones upon the town. The incursion was part of the only ever attack on British soil by US forces; and we should not forget that George Washington's granny, Mildred Warner Gale, lived here and is buried at St Nicholas's churchyard.

The town has been impressively preserved, one suspects, because a sudden lack of prosperity atter the boom years disinclined planners from bulldozing in the name of progress. This lett the Lowther architectural heritage preserved, as it were, in aspic. It is worthwhile walking the streets, admiring this memorial to an earlier and prosperous age, when sea captains and merchants lived in style.

There are many interesting and quirky sculptures around the harbour, street mosaics featuring different aspects of the heritage, plus a mural in Washington Square and a plethora of shiny plaques above doorways giving a clue to the past.