Dovenby is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Bridekirk, in the Cumberland district, in the county of Cumbria, England. It is on the A594 road and is 2.5 miles (4.0 km) north west of Cockermouth, 2.6 miles (4.2 km) east of Dearham, 4.5 miles (7.2 km) east of Maryport, 7.4 miles (11.9 km) north east of Workington and 27 miles (43.5 km) south west of Carlisle. In 1931 the parish had a population of 163.[1]
Etymology
'Dovenby' is 'Dufan's bȳ' or 'Dufan's hamlet or village'. 'Bȳ' is late Old English, from Old Norse 'býr'. The personal name 'Dufan' "is of Irish origin (OIr 'Dubhán'), a diminutive of 'dubh', 'black', but it is on record from Iceland."[2]
Governance
Dovenby is part of the Workington constituency for UK parliament. The current Member of Parliament for the Workington constituency is Mark Jenkinson who is a member of the Conservative Party. The Labour Party had won the seat in the constituency in every general election since 1979. The Conservative Party had only been elected once in Workington since World War 2, at the 1976 election.[3]
Dovenby was formerly a township in Bridekirk parish,[6] from 1866 Dovenby was a civil parish in its own right until it was abolished on 1 April 1934 and merged with Bridekirk.[7]
The oldest part of the estate is a 13th century peel tower. The main house was built for Sir Thomas Lamplugh in the 16th century and, after the house came into the ownership of the Dykes family in about 1800,[8] it was remodelled for the Ballentine-Dykes family in the early 19th century.
^Armstrong, A. M.; Mawer, A.; Stenton, F. M.; Dickens, B. (1950). The place-names of Cumberland. English Place-Name Society, vol.xxi. Vol. Part 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 284.
