connecting the houses followed much later. Although situated adjacent to the Mealsgate branch railway, the residents were unable to secure an independent station and were forced to walk along the railway track to Aspatria station and vice versa to use the facility. When, in 1893, the Maryport and Carlisle Railway Company outlawed this custom the villagers had to take the 1.5-mile route via Aspatria. Despite several petitions and the support of Sir Wilfrid Lawson, the then chairman of the company, they could not alter this ruling. The village had no access to a postal dispatch box. In 1919 they presented a petition to the Post Master-General seeking the establishment of a sub post office; notwithstanding Aspatria having two such facilities, residents at Harriston had to continue buying their stamps and postal orders from the delivery postman. However improvements gradually began to appear. The Aspatria and District Industrial Cooperative Society established a branch store. In 1904 the council replaced the solitary water pump that stood at the top of the village with a gravity fed water supply from the Overwater main. Although gas household illumination was available at Aspatria from 1859, and a new gasometer was erected in 1895, Harriston had to wait until 1910 before a supply reached the village. Similarly with electricity, available at Aspatria from 1932, finally reached Harriston in 1940. In 1913, the Harris family laid a bowling green on the site of the old pit yard and inaugurated a competitive club. In later years the council erected a children's play area, complete with swings and roundabouts. In 1952, the youngsters began their own Youth Club; an organisation ran by Harry Iredale, which in addition to indoor activities, offered cricket and football for boys, and netball for girls on land belonging to George Blackburn. After the mine closed Harris re-employed all of the colliers at No 4 pit. Although a considerable journey by road it was shorter by way of the fields. Harris struck up an agreement with the local landowners and cut a path across the land, a path later known as the 'Black Trod'. In 1879, at personal expense, Harris constructed a large commodious building, which residents used through the week as an infants school, in the evenings a hall for temperance meetings and on Sundays a place of worship. In 1892, Harris opened the Harris Institute, a colliers club comprising reading, smoking and billiard