Building Contractors

Walker Bros (Cockermouth) Ltd is a small family firm of Builders and Monumental Masons now in the fourth generation. The business was established in 1870 by Tom Walker who took over the business from Messrs. Henry Graves

of Aspatria having been in charge of the Cockermouth Depot while the firm was building Bridekirk Church. Tom who had worked as foreman on the building of Aspatria Vicarage and Silloth Church. Walker Bros over the years has been responsible for numerous works of building conversion, alterations, additions and individual housing in West Cumbria and the Western Lakes though up to the late 1920s concentrated on speculative housing in Cockermouth and Workington areas.

 

Stone for of this building work came from Roundclose Quarry at Morseby, which they worked. The pink sandstone was used on some public buildings in the area including Cockermouth Public Library which the firm also built. In 1996 Walker converted the semi-derlict former All Saints School into the Kirkgate Centre providing facilities as a theatre and community activities. In 2000 the firm moved from the premises it had occupied on Bridge Street for 130 years to The Lakeland Business Park on Lamplugh Road.

 

Monumental Masons

Over the years the business has conducted business supplying lettering and fixing headstones over much of Cumbria. In the 1940s the firm carried out extensive work for the Imperial War Graves Commission in cemeteries and churchyards in Cumberland, Northumberland, Lancashire and Yorkshire.

The Memorial to members of the Fell and Rock Climbing Club killed in the First World War was fixed on Great Gable and the Robinson Memorial fixed on Pillar Rock. In 1964 the firm pieced together and refixed the statue of Lord Mayo in Main Street Cockermouth after the pedestal and statue had been knocked over by an oil tanker. In 1974 a bust of Wordsworth was supplied and fixed on a pedestal opposite Wordsworth House in Cockermouth to commemorate the bicentenary of the poets birth. Walker Bros. now operates a lettering machine ensuring competitive prices while ensuring traditional craftsmanship.

Tom Walker outside Walker Bros, Main Street. Library not yet built 1903

Site: JJW Design

© Walker Bros Ltd 2011

 

T: 01900 823302

E: walkerbros@btopenworld.com

11 Pitwood Road

Lillyhall Industrial Estate

Workington

Cumbria

CA14 4JP