Cleator and Cleator Moor are situated some four miles from Whitehaven, and three miles from Ennerdale, lying in beautiful countryside. The villages lies on the edge of the great hills of Lakeland in a countryside once rich in iron but now dotted with the desolation of red waste heaps of the haematite mines. Great industrial depression has passed this way and many left, but new industries in the area are bringing people back again.
Just outside the town, close to St Mary's Roman Catholic Church is a small grotto similar to the one at Lourdes in France.
Under the capable supervision of Father Clayton...in 1926 utilising local people during the height of the depression years, he built a grotto which he wanted as near as possible to be an exact replica of the one at Lourdes. It took the workers a little over a year to build. It was opened and blessed on the 30th October 1927 by the Abbot of Douai. Dom. Edmund Kelly O.S.B. President of the English Congregation of the Benedictine Order.
Each year many thousands of pilgrims and visitors come to the grotto...though in September there is a pilgrimage which attracts many thousands from all over the country. There have been many stories of pilgrims being restored to full health after visiting the grotto. The most famous visitor here was his Eminence Cardinal Basil Hume, who came on the 27th July 1980 and re-dedicated the Grotto.
Besides Cleator's most popular attraction, other interesting features are in the market square. One is the memorial to the iron ore and coal miners, produced by the well known local artist Conrad Atkinson, and the Victorian awning around the Co-op store.
A popular beauty spot on the River Ehen is Wath Bridge, known locally as 'Hen beck' This is an ideal picnic spot where children can normally swim safely normally (but not whilst in flood as one fatal accident involving a schoolgirl proved a few years ago).
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