Coniston, Lancashire

Description
Coniston, a small town in Church Coniston chapelry, TIlverston parish, Lancashire, on the west side of Coniston Water, at the terminus of the Coniston railway, 3 miles SW by W of Hawkshead. It is a picturesque place, amid some of the grandest scenery of the Lake country. It has a post, money order, and telegraph office (R.S.O.), two good hotels, mechanics' institute with a reading room, a public library, a church, Baptist, Primitive Methodist, and Wesleyan chapels, a Roman Catholic church erected in 1871, and forms one of the centres for Lake tourists. Oldfield, who piloted Nelson's fleet into action at the battle of the Baltic, resided here, and De Quincey made his notable unsuccessful pilgrimage hither to visit Wordsworth. A cattle fair is held annually on the third Saturday in September. Considerable trade is done in slates, flags, birch brooms, and small timber. Copper mines exist about half a mile up the adjacent mountain, are supposed to have been worked by the ancient Britons and Romans, have a chief shaft about 640 feet deep, but are at present little worked. See CONISTON CHURCH.