The name Cleator Moor, is exactly what it implies 'The Moor of Cleator'.  Cleator is the Village about one mile from the Town and the origins of the Village can be traced back to the 12th Century.

Some of the explanations of the name have been given in various publications, these four are from the mid 1800s and early 1900s.  From Nicholson and Burns "Kekell from the river Kekell, and so the parish was called Kekeltere and by contraction Cleator."  From Whelen Directory 1860, "Probably the district derived its name from Ketel, the third Baron of Kendal."  From Bulmers Directory 1901. "  Cleator appears in old records as Kekleton, so named from the small river Keekle which bounds it on the West.  The origin of the name has not as yet been ascertained with any degree of certainty.  A rather distant resemblance in sound of the name of the third Baron of Kendal, Ketel, has been suggested the name of that feudal champion as the source of the word."  From Cleator Past and Present by Caeser Caine, and reprinted by Michael Moon, he writes about a Richard Cleter which appears in a document 1292, when quoting from a translation from 1315 he writes " Cleator was not spared, in 1315, a Lieutenant of Robert the Bruce, descended upon St Bees, Egremont and Cleator".  There have also been the name Cleator variously spelt; 1175 Cletergh; 1322 Cleterne; 1338 Cletergh; 1539 Cletour; 1572 Cleter; and 1900 Cleator, and a derivation of the name Kekelterre, contracted to Cleator, ie the lands of the river Kekel. 

In his historical notes on Cleator and the neighbourhood which was written by Mr Henry Rothery who was Clerk to the Council and published in the Whitehaven News in April 1905, he went on to describe the old Roman Road which had passed along what is now the main Street in Cleator, entering the Todholes Land near the Catholic Church a little to the west of the existing highway, it crossed Ennerdale Road at what was the west side of Towerson Street, and onwards to Papcastle, this road was visible on the Wath estate after all traces had disappeared elsewhere was owing to the land at this point, been part of the Cleator Common, and hadn't been cultivated until after it had been allocated under the Enclosure Act.  This act of Parliment was applied for on the 5th September 1812 to obtain an act for "The purpose of obtaining an act for dividing enclosing and allocating the common and waste grounds within the parish of Cleator".  The enclosure Act was secured in 1815, with the Royal Assent being signed on April 30th 1816, named "The Cleator Award", with the final award of the Commons being made on January 21st 1825.