Cottages) presumably as almshouses or for other village worthies. Historical records starting in the late 1800s show the overwhelming occupation of the residents to be agriculture-based, being predominantly farmsteads and their related businesses (smithying, stone-walling, quarrying, milling etc.), and this has probably always been the case. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries coal mining along the Solway coast provided a further source of employment. Prior to the introduction of motor transport, and particularly widespread car ownership, Westnewton would have been relatively self-supporting and a hive of economic activity, centred on agriculture but including a range of trades exchanged between the residents such as shoe-making, tailoring, merchandising, food production, cooking, and laundering. The church and the inns would be the hubs of community activity and social interchange. Westnewton was made a separate ecclesiastical parish in the late 1800s along with Langrigg and Mealrigg, with a total population of 443. It was made a civil parish in 1896. The population of the village itself had risen to around 400 by the start of the Second World War and has been boosted since the war by 'The Guards' housing estate at west end of the village. The Post House opposite the school is shown as being a Post Office (and village shop) by 1900. The village hall was built shortly after World War One (originally as the village reading room) next to Yew Tree House, and a new burial ground was opened next to the vicarage. The village now still retains many working farmsteads, interspersed with some modern houses and bungalows, but its character remains firmly agricultural. In 2014, a wind farm was built at Warwick Hall farm. Governance Westnewton is part of the parliamentary constituency of Workington. In the December 2019 general election, the Conservative candidate for Workington, Mark Jenkinson, was elected the MP, overturning a 9.4 per cent Labour majority from the 2017 election to eject shadow environment secretary Sue Hayman by a margin of 4,136 votes. Until the December 2019 general election The Labour Party has won the seat in the constituency in every general election since 1979.The Conservative Party has only been elected once in Workington since World War II, at the 1976 by-election. Before Brexit, it was in the North West England European Parliamentary Constituency. See also Listed buildings in Westnewton, Cumbria References External links Cumbria County History Trust: Westnewton (nb: provisional research only – see