In Whitehaven, the past feels so present you could almost touch it. A place where you might turn a corner and bump into a boy escaping a press gang; or stroll down to the harbour in the presence of a merchant on his way to inspect a cargo of tobacco fresh from Maryland or Virginia.
First developed as a port by the Lowther family – the earliest quay is from 1634 – it was Sir John (1642–1706) who had it built on a grid system. This makes it the earliest post-medieval planned town in England, its layout remaining virtually complete.
Successive Lowthers invested heavily, developing collieries to exploit Whitehaven’s rich coal seams. Trade with America flourished, with imports of rum, sugar, tobacco and mahogany, and direct involvement in the ‘Triangular’ slave trade. Whether or not Whitehaven influenced the grid layout of New York as some suggest, it is not unreasonable to conclude that it gives a flavour of what the early American ports might have been like.