Beckfoot

Not to be confused with Beck Foot, near Grayrigg, or Beckfoot School in West Yorkshire.

Coordinates: 54°50′00″N 3°24′47″W / 54.8334°N 3.4130°W / 54.8334; -3.4130

Beckfoot is a hamlet in the civil parish of Holme St Cuthbert in Cumbria, England. It is located on the B5300 coast road, three miles south of Silloth-on-Solway and two miles north of the village of Mawbray. The county town of Carlisle is twenty-five miles away to the east.

History and etymology

The name "Beckfoot" is derived from the Old Norse bekkr-futr, meaning "the mouth of a stream".Beck is a local word in Cumbrian dialect for a stream. Such a beck empties into the Solway Firth at the southern end of the hamlet, and it is this watercourse which gives the settlement its name. There are two known recorded variant spellings: Beck and Beckfoote.

The area around Beckfoot was fortified during Roman times, as a series of milefortlets were constructed to guard the coast beyond the western end of Hadrian's Wall. The remains of milefortlets 14 and 15 are located nearby. In 2010 a broken pottery vessel containing 308 Roman coins was discovered by a local archaeologist using a metal detector.