The West Coast Main Line runs near Yanwath. During the construction of the line, in January 1846, a riot broke out after a drunken English ganger (a railway construction foreman) offended an Irish navvy working on the line. The English and Irish navvies were segregated as was usual; the Irish were in staying near Plumpton and the English were staying near the Pele tower at Yanwath. The Irish navvy's fellow countryman sided with him and the ganger called on the rest of the English to run the Irish off the works.
After dark the next day, a battalion of aggrieved Irishmen marched on Yanwath. However the English were warned of the mob, so left the village to the Irish who, upon finding the English absent, left it unlooted and unrazed. Next morning English recruits came from Kendal and Shap and between them looted and gutted the Irish settlement at Plumpton. In the process they killed an Irishman.
A disastrous explosion occurred only 21 years after the railway line's opening, in 1867.
On the night of 26 February that year a goods train, running late from Tebay, derailed. One of its wagons, carrying two tons of gunpowder, ended up on the opposite track, and moments later, another goods train collided with the gunpowder wagon and caused an explosion.
Both the driver and fireman of the latter goods train died. The explosion blew out windows, felled telegraph wires, and caused debris to rain down on Yanwath. Miraculously, there were no further deaths or injuries.[5]
Toponymy
The name Yanwath is a contraction of the older name 'Yamonwath'. The suffix '-wath' is of Old Norse origin, meaning 'ford'; thus Yamonwath means ford in the River Eamont ('Yamon' in Cumbrian dialect).[6]
