Cumbria has a new bishop - and she is the Church of England’s 14th woman in the role.

Rev Dr Emma Ineson was announced yesterday as the new Bishop of Penrith. She spent the day touring the county meeting church staff and other members of the community in Carlisle, Penrith, Ambleside, Barrow and Frizington.

The Bishop of Penrith is a “suffragan” bishop, which means she is not in charge of of a diocese but works as an assistant to the head of the diocese, the Bishop of Carlisle.

She will not be attached to one particular church, but Carlisle bishop Rt Rev James Newcombe, who appointed Emma, said: “There are 350 churches in the diocese and Emma will be going round all of them over time!

“She is quite well known as a speaker and a writer.”

Emma and her family will be moving up from Bristol to Kendal. She said: “Cumbria is just an amazing place.

“The people are so friendly and welcoming - and it goes without saying that the natural world here is spectacular. I think it’s a very varied county.”

Emma is 48 and was ordained in 2000 - six years after the Church of England first began to ordain women and 15 years before its first female bishop, Rt Rev Libby Lane, was appointed.

She was born in Birmingham and brought up in Kenya, where her parents helped train Kenyan teachers, and in South Wales for her teenage years.

She studied English language and Linguistics at Birmingham University, where she met her husband Mat, who was studying chemical engineering.

They both felt called to join the church and trained for ordination at Trinity College in Bristol, the largest theological college in England.

They served in Sheffield and Devon before returning to Bristol. Emma is now principal at Trinity College while Mat is a parish priest there.

The couple have a daughter, Molly, who is training to be a secondary science teacher in Birmingham, and a son, Toby, doing A Levels.

Emma succeeds Rt Rev Robert Freeman, who retired last month, and will be officially consecrated on Wednesday, February 27.