Carlisle : The Border City
Carlisle is an historic cathedral city with an imposing castle close to the border with Scotland. It has a story riddled with Romans, reivers and raiders. Located on Hadrian’s Wall, for more than three centuries Carlisle was at the frontier of the Roman Empire. Later, for many centuries more, it lay at the heart of a troubled frontier with Scotland, precariously close to the nefarious nest of reiving called the ‘Debatable Land‘.
Carlisle Castle was the dominant fortress of the English West March and is a striking symbol of a troubled history. By contrast, the serene setting of Carlisle Cathedral symbolises Carlisle’s Christian heritage and its city status. The Christian aspect of Carlisle’s history goes back to at least the time of St Cuthbert, who visited here and admired the extensive Roman remains. Carlisle was itself endowed to St Cuthbert.
Both the cathedral and castle stand on high ground but the castle, on the highest ground, dominates a strategic location, recognised by Britons, Romans, Normans, English and Scots. The castle is a testimony to the city’s border history but so too is the nearby Solway Firth, a great sea estuary that forms the natural national border, with coastal views across to Scotland from its shores. Carlisle’s chief river, the Eden, enters this estuary about five miles west of Carlisle. Along with the Esk and the Sark that also feed the Firth, further to the north; the Eden is one more buffer between Carlisle and the borderlands beyond.
In Carlisle there are two smaller rivers within its centre, joining the south bank of the Eden to the east and west of the city’s historic core. To the east is the River Petteril that can be traced upstream almost to Penruddock to the north west of Penrith. To the west of the city’s centre is the River Caldew that rises near Mungrisdale Common between Blencathra and Skiddaw in the Lake District.
As far as English cities go, only Newcastle upon Tyne, near the eastern end of Hadrian’s Wall is more northerly than Carlisle but only by 0.1 of a degree. Newcastle, however, is many miles from the border and although Newcastle’s history was certainly shaped by border events, it is something of a stretch to describe Newcastle as a ‘border city’, especially when compared to Carlisle.
In fact it has been argued that one reason Newcastle was so successfully established as a trading town in medieval times was that Carlisle Castle helped to tame the threat of Scottish raids along the Tyne gap, so Carlisle gave Newcastle protection.
Carlisle is, of course, in North West England but it has links to North East England too, especially through its border history and proximity to Hadrian’s Wall. Its history has much in common with Berwick over in the far north eastern corner of North East England. Like Berwick, Carlisle has, in times past, fallen under Scottish rule and although, unlike Berwick, it did not so frequently change hands, Carlisle had the distinction of being a regular residence of the Scottish king, David I (1124-1153), even serving as his effective capital.
Today, Carlisle has a distinct identity within North West England. The Carlisle accent and dialect is a variation of a Cumbrian one, with hints of Border speech giving it features all of its own. Like other related dialects in Cumberland and Westmorland, it perhaps has slightly more in common with those of the Yorkshire Dales or even south Durham than it has with Tyneside ‘Geordie’ or Northumbrian dialects over to the east and north east. There are a number of influences within its dialect, including words of Viking origin, and you will likely hear Scottish voices within this city.
Place-names in historic Cumberland and Westmorland, including those around Carlisle have something in common with northern Yorkshire, being distinct from neighbouring Northumberland to the east, or Lancashire to the south.
Viking place-names ending in ‘by’ (Viking for a village or farm) occur frequently in the Carlisle area such as Rickerby, Etterby, Scotby, Botcherby, Upperby and Tarraby. What is curious about the Carlisle area is that the first elements of these place-names are often Norman personal names, suggesting a French take-over (or Scottish take-over in the case of Scotby) of an existing Viking settlement. Rickerby is from the French name Richard; Botcherby from someone called Bouchard and Tarraby from Terri, an Old French form of Theodore.
By comparison, place-names further up the Eden valley, to the south, like Lazonby, Langwathby and Appleby seem more completely Viking and are likely Danish. Lang-wath-by, for example, is Viking for ‘long-ford-village’. These Viking ‘by’ names mirror similar names in northern Yorkshire, especially the Vale of York. It is probable that Danish influence extended along the Eden valley as far north as Carlisle.
Viking ‘by’ place-names also occur to the north, across the border in Dumfriesshire – where they take on Scottish spellings in Middlebie, Sibbaldbie, Dunnabie and Lockerbie. Situated so close to the Solway Firth, there was a definite Viking element to Carlisle’s past but Carlisle’s recorded story really begins long before the Viking era in Roman times.
Roman Carlisle
At the time of the Roman invasion of Britain, what is now Carlisle fell within the region of an Iron Age tribe the Romans called the Carvetii and Carlisle is thought to have been their capital. They are thought to have been part of the great northern tribal confederacy called the Brigantes. The Brigantian leader, Venutius, who ferociously rebelled against the Roman invaders may have belonged to the Carvetii tribe.
A Roman fort of turf and wood was established by Julius Agricola at Carlisle around AD 72 and given the name Luguvalium. It was situated on a high point above the valley of the River Eden, with the River Caldew providing additional protection.
The name ‘Luguvalium’ seems to derive from a Celtic place-name that itself comes from a masculine personal name ‘Luguwalos’ meaning ‘strength of Lugus’, from the name of a Celtic deity. The native Celtic name for the place may have been something like Luguwalion – ‘City of Luguwalos’.
Luguvalium Roman fort was situated in an area that now includes part of Carlisle Castle. The green in front of the castle, along with the modern A595 dual carriageway road, called ‘Castle Way’ lies roughly at the centre of the Roman fort site.
Adjoining Castle Way, to the south, is Abbey Street. At this street’s north end, where it joins Annetwell Street, we are roughly at the point of Luguwalium’s south western corner. The fort’s south east corner was roughly located in Castle Street not far from the entrance to Carlisle’s Tullie House Museum.
In AD 120, after failed Roman attempts to establish permanent control in Caledonia, the great Roman wall was commenced in the reign of the Emperor Hadrian. It stretched for eighty Roman miles from the River Tyne in the east (see Roman Newcastle and Wallsend), all the way to Bowness on the Solway Firth, to the north west of Carlisle. The wall crosses one of the shortest east to west coast distances in Britain.
With the building of Hadrian’s Wall, the old fort of Luguvalium was abandoned and a new fort developed just across the River Eden to its north. The new fort, called Uxelodunum, was located at Stanwix and was the biggest fort on Hadrian’s Wall. The name of Stanwix village, now a northerly suburb of Carlisle, just across the River Eden to the north, dates from the later Viking period and derives from the Old Norse ‘stein-veggr’ meaning ‘stone walls’. It likely refers to visible remains of Hadrian’s Wall and the fort of Uxelodunum, that could still be seen in Viking times.
At Stanwix the Roman wall and associated military road crossed the Eden close to the point where it is joined from the south by the River Caldew. From here the wall headed north west running close to the south bank of the Eden, for around three miles. From there the wall heads west to the site of the Roman fort at Burgh by Sands (Aballava). It then skirts the southern shore of the Solway Firth, heading first to the Roman fort at Drumburgh (Concavata) and then onwards to Bowness on Solway, the site of a fort called Maia at the western terminus of Hadrian’s Wall.
The building of Hadrian’s Wall and Stanwix Roman fort saw the demise of the nearby Roman fort of Luguvalium at Carlisle but in its place a significant Roman civilian town developed on a site surrounded by a wall. The wall survived until medieval times when it was replaced by Carlisle’s new city wall.
The important Roman civilian town at Carlisle covered an area encompassing much of Carlisle’s present historic quarter, including the area in which we now find Carlisle Cathedral and the thoroughfares of Abbey Street; Castle Street; English Street and Scotch Street. Perhaps some of these even follow the streets of the old Roman town. Today, there is little to be seen from the Roman era in Carlisle but Carlisle’s Tullie House Museum contains Roman finds from Carlisle and the western parts of Hadrian’s Wall.
The Roman town at Luguvalium was not just a place of trade but also a place of administration being the ‘Civitas Carvetiorum’ under which the former tribal area of the Carvetii had a degree of self-governance under Roman rule.
A ‘civitas’ was a tribal capital from which leaders of the local tribal aristocracy were allowed to rule their tribal regions under Roman supervision. Carlisle did not gain this status until the third century but it was a rare and privileged status. The only other place with this status in what is now northern England was the Roman town of Isurium Brigantum at Aldborough near Boroughbridge in North Yorkshire which was established before the Civitas Carvetorium at Carlisle. It is also thought that Brough on Humber (Petuaria Parisorum) may have been the civitas of the Parisi tribe in what is now East Yorkshire, although the evidence is scant.
The ‘civitas’ status demonstrates the significance of the Roman town of Carlisle. As far as Roman towns go only the Roman ‘Colonia’ settlements had a higher status than a civitas. There were two Colonia in the north; one at Eboracum (York) and one at Deva (Chester), as well as a short-lived Colonia nearby at Lindum (Lincoln) from which we get the ‘coln’ part of Lincoln’s name.
Carlisle, Rheged and Northumbria
The departure of the Romans from Britain around AD 400 saw the emergence of new kingdoms in the two centuries that followed. One of these was a Celtic kingdom called Rheged, possibly centred on Carlisle. Rheged’s extent is not certain but at the very least it seems to have included Cumberland and Westmorland, extending northward into parts of Dumfriesshire and into Galloway as well as south and south west into parts of Yorkshire and possibly Lancashire.
Rheged’s most notable leader was Urien who ruled Catraeth (Catterick) in Swaledale and Teesdale before extending his rule into Rheged, perhaps making the valley of the River Lyvennet the centre of his kingdom rather than Carlisle. The Lyvennet is a tributary of the Eden in Westmorland, half way between Penrith and Appleby.
Urien was at war with the expansionist Anglian (English) rulers of Bernicia in North East England and around AD 575, working in alliance with other northern ‘Celtic’ leaders, he besieged the Bernician leader, Theodoric, on the island of Ynys Medcaut or Lindisfarne as we know it today.
This is a dark, violent period of hazy historic detail but Urien’s death from assassination sometime in the 580s or 590s came before the rise of the powerful Bernician king Æthelfrith to the east. Around AD 604 Æthelfrith took control of the rival Anglian Kingdom of Deira in eastern Yorkshire and became ruler of all Northumbria. By this time Æthelfrith had received submission from Rheged and Strathclyde (Alt Clud), a separate northern kingdom based at Dumbarton (Dumbarton means ‘fort of the Britons’). From this time it is likely that Northumbrian settlers began moving into Rheged.
Carlisle, was by now called ‘Lugubalia’ and was known as ‘Luel’ by the time of Bede, when it fell firmly under Northumbria’s sphere of influence. It had become the site of a Northumbrian monastery, specifically a religious house for women, some time before AD 685 and was granted to St Cuthbert.
St Cuthbert had become Bishop of Hexham in AD 684, which he subsequently swapped for Lindisfarne in AD 685. He was given the lands of Carlisle (presumably they were given to the Lindisfarne bishopric). The lands encompassed Carlisle, its monastery and surrounding lands stretching across a radius of about 15 miles. The Carlisle monastery was situated within the site of the former Roman civilian city of Luguvalium.
Cuthbert himself came to Carlisle in the year AD 685 to visit the Northumbrian queen here, her sister being the abbess of the monastery. During his stay the saint was shown the old walls of the Roman city and a Roman fountain that was seen as a work of wonder. St Cuthbert’s guide was a man called Waga, who is described as the ‘Praepositus’ of the ‘urbs’ of Lugubalia, the ruler or commander of the city of Carlisle.
Despite this Northumbrian influence, Cumberland and Westmorland have a relatively thin scattering of early medieval ‘English’ place-names, (such as those ending in ‘ton’; ‘ham’; ‘ing-ton’ and ‘ing-ham’) when compared to most other parts of England. These sort of names are particularly rare in the central Lake District region though they do occur as far west as the Cumbrian coast. It suggests that the presence of Northumbrian settlers, though significant, was not especially dominant even during the era of Northumbrian ascendancy.
After the Danish invasion and conquest of Northumbria in AD 866 and the Danes’ subsequent acquisition and settlement of that part of Northumbria we now call Yorkshire, the Kingdom of Northumbria collapsed into turmoil and its hold on lands west of the Pennines was severely weakened.
Following Northumbria’s fall to the Danes, the influence of Brittonic (Welsh) speakers is thought to have been reasserted in the west. It is thought this may have come via a considerable influx of settlement from the British kingdom of Strathclyde centred on the fortress rock of Dumbarton, on the Clyde to the north. If so, then this settlement of Welsh-speaking Britons was particularly strong in the area around Carlisle. These people called themselves ‘Cumbrians’ and gave their name to the area – ‘Cumbra Land’ or Cumberland.
Brittonic place-names such as Penruddock, Castle Carrock, Talkin and many more are associated with these Cumbric people as are churches dedicated to St Kentigern (also called St Mungo). It seems that around this time the Welsh word ‘caer’ (‘fortified town’) was added to Luel’s name so that ‘Caer-Luel’ became ‘Carlisle’. However, some or perhaps all of the Brittonic place-names in Cumbria, such as Penrith, may in fact date from the earlier era of pre-Northumbrian expansion. It is impossible to be sure.
South of the River Eamont into the historic county of Westmorland, these Welsh, Cumbric type place-names are by comparison, relatively rare. The ‘Westmoringas’ meaning ‘west moor people’ or ‘west march people’ from whom the county of Westmorland was later named are thought to have been Yorkshire-based Northumbrians who crossed westward over the moors, likely via Stainmore. Again there is no certainty to their origin.
From the late 9th century, the Vikings increasingly had a presence in the Cumberland and Westmorland areas with Carlisle itself falling to a devastating raid of burning and pillaging around AD 875. With the rise of Æthelstan, the first King of England (924-939) and Æthelstan’s subsequent acquisition of Northumbria, the Britons of Strathclyde and Cumberland formed an alliance with the Irish Sea-based Vikings some of whom had been settling in Cumbria.
Judging from the huge number of Viking place-names in Cumberland, the new Viking settlers around the Lake District, including the coastal areas of Cumberland, were mostly Norse-Gaels. These were a piratical sea-faring people of intermixed and intermarried culture. They were Vikings, mostly of Norwegian origin but also sometimes Danish. They had intermixed and intermarried with native Irish-Gaelic and Scots-Gaelic people in Viking settlements such as Dublin; the Isle of Man and the Scottish isles.
One theory is that these settlers came to Cumberland as refugees from the Irish Sea and Scottish island colonies to escape a conflict with the King of Norway. Others may have come as the result of an ousting from Dublin by the native Irish in AD 902, though the Vikings later retook Dublin in AD 914. Some of these Norse-Gaels formed an isolated colony on Merseyside, notably the Wirral and formed a ghetto of a kind, within the nearby city of Chester. Norse Gaels could also be found in parts of Yorkshire and the City of York.
The Norse Gael settlement contributed to Carlisle and Cumberland’s curious cultural mix. These Scandinavian speakers, with a mix of Norse and Gaelic personal names, speaking with a smattering of borrowed Gaelic words, settled alongside Welsh-speaking Cumbrians and ‘Anglo-Saxon’ Northumbrians. An information board in the precinct at Carlisle Cathedral notes that archaeology has revealed the presence of Viking occupation at Carlisle. A number of Viking artefacts from the Cumbria region are on view in Carlisle’s Tullie House Museum.
Despite widespread Norse influence, Carlisle and Cumberland fell under the influence and control of Strathclyde (Alt Clud), a kingdom, also known somewhat confusingly as ‘Cumbria’, that now stretched from the Clyde in the north to the River Eamont near Penrith to the south.
In AD 945 King Edmund I of England invaded Strathclyde (Cumbria) and defeated the last Cumbrian king, Dunmail. Edmund then ceded the captured land to Malcolm I, King of the Scots. In AD 973 the English region of the Westmoringas (Westmorland) centred on the Eden valley was subsequently granted to a later Scottish king, Kenneth II, by King Edgar of England after Kenneth raided that region. It pushed the border of Scotland all the way to the Rey Cross in the wilds of Stainmore.
Scotland continued to expand following the Battle of Carham in 1018 when the Northumbrian lands of Lothian and Berwickshire north of the Tweed were permanently seized by the Scots. The Anglo-Danish warrior, Siward, Earl of both Northumbria and York then seized the part of Cumbria south of the Solway Firth (Cumberland and Westmorland) and brought it under English control in the 1040s or 50s but Malcolm III of Scotland seems to have regained these lands around 1061 and from here raided in Teesdale in 1070, where the Battle of Hunderthwaite was fought.
We will continue the story of Carlisle’s precarious position in relation to Scotland and England with our exploration of Carlisle Castle, that was built in 1092, but first we will explore the history of Carlisle Cathedral and the City of Carlisle itself.
Carlisle Cathedral
Carlisle has strong associations with the Northumbrian saint, Cuthbert and close historic links to the Kingdom of Northumbria, of which it once formed part. In St Cuthbert’s Lane, off the Market Place to the south of Carlisle Cathedral is St Cuthbert’s church, which served as the principal parish church of the city. It dates from 1778, being the fourth successive church dedicated to St Cuthbert on the site, with the first dating to around AD 685.
It is not altogether clear but Carlisle seems to have once formed part of the Patrimony of St Cuthbert and was thus connected to Durham. Interestingly, an important Carlisle figure played a rather curious role in the foundation origins of what became the County of Durham. It concerns the brethren of the Community of St Cuthbert who protected the coffin, body and holy relics of St Cuthbert. This congregation had fled from Lindisfarne to escape Viking raids and sought shelter on the mainland at Norham on Tweed.
From Norham in AD 875, facing further danger, the community set off west in search of safety, led by their bishop, Eardwulf. On the journey they were joined by Eadred Lulisc, the Abbot of Carlisle who became the new leader of the community. Eadred was presumably the abbot of a monastery that had superseded the earlier religious house at Carlisle; the one once visited by St Cuthbert.
Eadred seemingly had influence with the Danish conquerors in Northumbria. During a crisis of leadership succession amongst the Danes in AD 883, Eadred supposedly experienced a miracle vision in which he was spoken to by the long-deceased St Cuthbert.
The saint advised Eadred to go over to the Tyne to the army of Danes encamped there and ask them to reveal to them a young English Christian slave called Guthred, the son of Hardacnut (a Danish name) who was enslaved to a widow. Eadred was instructed that the whole army must pay the widow for Guthred’s release and that they should appoint Guthred their king in Northumbria and perform the ceremony at an unidentified hill called Oswigesdune.
The saint gave further instructions that after Guthred was made king, the land between the Tyne and Wear should be given to the Community of St Cuthbert and that the right of thirty-seven days sanctuary should be granted to those who had committed crimes, including murder. According to the story Eadred somehow, quite remarkably, persuaded the Danes to adhere to these requests and they duly elected Guthred their king.
This oddly, extraordinarily detailed miracle story explains the origins of what became the County Palatine of Durham (it later stretched beyond the Wear to the Tees). It was a legend almost certainly designed to justify the roots of the Durham diocese and its land holdings but probably includes some grains of truth. It has given rise to a theory that the Bishopric of Lindisfarne was initially relocated from Norham to Carlisle before its apparent relocation to Chester-le-Street and then finally to Durham.
Whatever truth may lie behind the story of Eadred of Carlisle and the appointment of Guthred, Carlisle was clearly still a place of importance. Indeed, it would become both a religious centre and diocese in its own right during the Norman period.
A priory of Augustinian canons was established at Carlisle in 1122 at the instigation of the Norman King of England, Henry I. This Norman priory church was possibly built on the site of an earlier church but this is uncertain. In 1133 Henry elevated the status of the priory’s church to a cathedral. It was a most unusual act as most cathedrals in England were of the Benedictine order rather than Augustinian, although Augustinian cathedrals at Oxford and Bristol were also established during the medieval period.
Prior to the establishment of the cathedral, the hierarchical structure of religious jurisdiction at Carlisle may have been a one of debate and uncertainty. In English eyes at least, Carlisle should probably have fallen under the jurisdiction of the Diocese of Durham centred on Durham Cathedral but some Cumberland people, particularly those of Cumbric background may have looked to the authority of the Diocese of Glasgow and its cathedral which was dedicated to their saint, Kentigern, also known as ‘Mungo’.
Carlisle’s new cathedral reinforced a more localised focus and quashed the potential conflict but it also became a symbol of Norman English control in the border region. The elevation of the priory church to a cathedral happened so quickly, following its foundation, that Æthewold, the first short-serving Prior of Carlisle became Carlisle’s first bishop and would serve this role up until his retirement in 1155. Æthewold was an influential man who had served as the private confessor for King Henry and had been the Prior of Nostell in Yorkshire.
Built from the lovely local pinkish-red sandstone, most of the present Carlisle Cathedral is of the fourteenth century. It was originally a much longer building, its nave being of eight bays rather than the stump of just two that remain today. Sadly, the rest of the nave was destroyed by the Scottish Presbyterian army between 1645 and 1652 so that its stone could be used to reinforce Carlisle Castle.
The destructive Scots reduced the length of the cathedral from 140 feet to 39 feet. Some of the stone used in the building of the cathedral had come from the old Roman fort where the castle now stands, so in effect the Scots were returning some of the stones to their original site. The earliest, core Norman parts of the cathedral include grey stones that are thought to have come from the Roman wall and Roman fort.
Repair work at the western end of the nave’s remaining stump was eventually carried out in the Victorian period by an architect called Ewan Christian in the 1850s and 1860s. At around the same time a parish church dedicated to St Mary was built at the west end where the lost part of the nave had once stood. The Victorian church was demolished in 1954.
Carlisle Cathedral has witnessed many events in the history of the city and the nation. King Edward I stayed in the cathedral and worshiped here during his campaigns against the Scots, when he held parliaments in Carlisle. In the 1745 rebellion it served as a prison for 300 Scottish Jacobite rebels who had fought for Bonnie Prince Charlie. A little over half a century later it hosted the wedding of the famed Scottish poet and novelist, Sir Walter Scott and his bride Charlotte Carpenter, who were married in the cathedral on December 24, 1797.
Over the years Carlisle was subjected to numerous raids and sieges during the border struggles, Considering its borderland location, it is perhaps not surprising that Carlisle Cathedral was such a long-suffering edifice. Even the solid surviving centuries-old imperfections of some of the cathedral’s internal arches, caused by subsidence resulting from poor foundations are a metaphor for the contrasting solidity and vulnerability of its border status.
One tragedy in the cathedral’s long suffering history was a great fire that swept through Carlisle in 1292. It caused severe damage to the cathedral during its ongoing construction. However, this was not the result of a border raid but came at the hands of a disgruntled medieval arsonist called Simon de Orton in a protest over his inheritance.
There is much to admire at Carlisle Cathedral such as the choir and the carved wooden furnishings in the canons’ stalls which date from around 1425. Also impressive is the screen installed by Carlisle’s last prior and first dean, Lancelot Salkeld. The cathedral includes interesting carved stone work but for many the highlight is the beautiful tracery of the 1350s great window at the cathedral’s east end set off by the sky and star painted barrel vaulted ceiling of a more recent age.
Like many similar institutions, the priory at Carlisle Cathedral suffered its demise in 1536 with the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the reign of King Henry VIII. This saw the closure of the priory along with two medieval friaries in the city. The two friaries, both established in 1233, were the Dominicans, now only recalled in the street-name Blackfriars to the south of the cathedral and the Franciscan Friars who were situated in what is now the Devonshire Street and Friars Court area, just off English Street.
Some of the neighbouring priory buildings of the cathedral’s precinct and cloisters were renewed during the fifteenth and sixteenth century before the priory was closed. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries they were taken over by the newly formed Dean and Chapter.
The cloisters of the old priory have long gone but if you stand at the cathedral’s door and face out you can see a pathway leading out from this point that marks out what was once the eastern range of the cloisters covered walkway and above it would have been the dormitory where the canons slept.
To the right and left of the pathway are two surviving arched doorways. The one on the left was the entrance to the Chapter House, an octagonal building that has long since gone. The doorway on the right (actually a twin doorway) led into the Chapter House vestibule. Both of these surviving arched doorways date from the late thirteenth century.
A little further along the pathway is the ‘fratry’ or refectory where the canons of the priory would dine and here also is the undercroft. The old refectory building stands complete at its full height. It was built by Prior Gondibour around 1500 and is 80 feet long.
In 2021 a new adjoining entrance pavilion of red sandstone was completed by London-based architects Fielden Fowles. It provides a public entrance to the fratry hall and undercroft and incorporates a cafe.
The cathedral precinct area at Carlisle is known as ‘The Abbey’ and as well as the remains of the old priory it includes a number of later attractive red sandstone houses that are associated with the cathedral office and clergy of the Dean and Chapter. Collectively the buildings of ‘The Abbey’ form one of the prettiest parts of Carlisle.
The western walls of the city of Carlisle ran along the south western edge of the priory grounds where we find the Prior’s Tower that is now part of the cathedral’s Deanery. It is located near the western end of the Refectory near to what would have been the south west corner of the cloisters.
Dating from 1510-1520 the tower was the prior’s lodging and takes the form of a battlemented pele tower, a reminder that even the peaceful secluded surrounds of the cathedral precinct were situated in the heart of the border country. Interestingly, the central tower of the cathedral itself, which dates from the fifteenth century, was sometimes used to warn of incoming border raids with flares lit from the top of the tower.
A little further to the west is the Abbey Gate at the western entrance to the cathedral precinct. This building, with its rounded arches and tunnel vaulting dates to 1527 and the time of Prior Sale. It links the cathedral precinct to Abbey Street in the historic quarter of Carlisle.
City of Carlisle
Carlisle was a walled medieval city but only a few traces of its old walls remain. Interconnected and enclosed within these walls was Carlisle Castle, although the ditch beneath the castle’s wall and keep somewhat separated it from the city. Also separating the castle from the city was an open piece of land where we now find the castle green and the ‘Castle Way’ dual carriageway.
Facing the castle, the two most northerly streets of the old city are Annetwell Street to the west and Finkle Street (that was also sometimes spelt Fenkle Street) to the east. Both are still there today.
Finkle refers to a dog-leg shaped lane or secluded corner. It often occurs amongst the oldest street-names of established towns with medieval roots. Over in North East England, Finkle and Fenkle Streets can be found in Stockton-on-Tees; Richmond in North Yorkshire; Newcastle upon Tyne; Alnwick; Bishop Auckland and even Holy Island village on Lindisfarne.
At the western end of Annetwell Street, near its junction with Abbey Street was a gateway that led out of the walled city towards Caldewgate, a medieval suburb of Carlisle that developed on the land across the River Caldew to the west.
Cutting between Annetwell Street and Finkle Street is Castle Street which leads out from the city centre and crossed the green and moat at the front of the castle leading right up to the castle’s entrance gateway. Castle Street is now separated from the castle by the ‘Castle Way’ dual carriageway that cuts across it.
Abbey Street, within the walls of the historic city is a particularly pleasing street in Carlisle with some interesting Georgian houses and the lovely Abbey Gate at its south end leading into the cathedral precinct.
At the end of the street just before entering the gate is another old street to the left called Paternoster Row and to the right, through an arch, is Dean Tait’s Lane. Archibald Campbell Tait was the Dean of Carlisle from 1849-1856.
On Abbey Street’s east side we can see the pleasant garden at Tullie House as well as Tullie House itself. This house, tucked away between Abbey Street and neighbouring Castle Street dates from 1689 and was built for Thomas Tullie who was Chancellor of Carlisle (1684-1716) and Dean of Carlisle (1716-1726). It replaced an earlier hall called the White Hall that dated from the thirteenth century.
In 1890 Tullie House was saved from demolition and became part of a museum and art gallery opened by Carlisle Corporation in 1893. The Tullie House entrance building and facade on Castle Street date from this period and are now complemented by the more modern entrance of 2001 facing Annetwell Street. However, the best view of the house itself is from Abbey Street.
From the corner of Annetwell Street’s junction with Abbey Street is a street called ‘West Walls’ running along the course of the remains of Carlisle’s city wall to the rear of Abbey Street and the cathedral precinct. Here onward, from this high point, situated at what was once the western edge of the old city, we still get a good impression of Carlisle’s defended position, even if we are now looking down upon a series of car parks and a neighbouring railway line.
Further along the West Walls near the adjoining Heads Lane at the far end of the cathedral precint is a medieval tithe barn of the fifteenth century near St Cuthbert’s church. From the West Walls, Heads Lane runs along the edge of the tithe barn to join neighbouring Blackfriars Street.
Continuing along the course of West Walls beyond Heads Lane and passing the West Walls Theatre we begin to lose any sense of the medieval roots as we reach the busy city centre road called Victoria Viaduct, which crosses the railway to the south. However, if we cross this road and continue along a narrow cul-de-sac road called Bush Brow we are still more or less following the course of the wall and get a glimpse of ‘The Citadel’ something that is seemingly medieval, and resembling a castle of some kind.
Built in 1810-1811 by Sir Robert Smirke these are the Assize Court houses. Given the local name ‘the Citadel’, this pair of embattled castle-like buildings lie either side of the southern terminus of English Street, which is in effect Carlisle’s High Street.
They are built on the site of the Tudor ‘citadel’ (also called the ‘English Gate’) of the old town wall, constructed in 1541 during the reign of Henry VIII by a German engineer Stefan von Haschenperg. Smirke’s citadel follows a similar outline to von Haschenperg’s earlier citadel which had also consisted of two round towers. Between the two original towers of Henry’s time, where we now find the road, there was a square tower and courtyard. The road came into being in 1804.
Beyond the Citadel, to the south, just outside the old city walls, English Street, becomes Botchergate, an old street that becomes the London Road a little further to the south. The site of a Roman cemetery was located where Botchergate and London Road meet, somewhere deep below the side streets of much later times. The cemetery lay just outside the limits of the walled Roman town.
Just across Court Square from the southern Citadel tower is Carlisle Station built in 1848 and sometimes called Citadel Station. At the centre of the building is a prominent clock tower and like Newcastle Central Station it has a protruding porte cochère entrance. Nearby is the Station Hotel designed by the architect Anthony Salvin and dating from 1857.
Outside the north Citadel tower is a statue of William Lowther (1757-1844), the First Earl of Lonsdale who served as a local Member of Parliament, representing at one stage or another Carlisle; Cumberland and Appleby. The statue and the northern tower of the Citadel face out towards a curving street called The Crescent.
Adjoined by the nearby Warwick Road, the Crescent leads into Lowther Street, named from the Earl and laid out in 1824 with buildings constructed in the 1830s. Lowther Street follows an old country road called Drovers Lane that skirted the eastern edge of the old city just outside the city walls. It heads north towards the bridge across the River Eden.
A particularly prominent building in Lowther Street is the old Congregational church of 1843 built by the architect Nichol of Edinburgh. This building has an interesting connection to an American president. A Thomas Woodrow was a minister of this church and lived in nearby Warwick Road. After the minister and his family moved to America, his daughter, Jessie Woodrow, gave birth in 1856 to Woodrow Wilson, who would later became the US president from 1913 to 1921. In 1918, the president himself came to Carlisle and visited his grandfather’s old church.
From the Citadel we can head west then north-west along the pedestrianised English Street which is Carlisle’s main High Street and a home to modern shops. Along its course it is joined on its east side by Devonshire Street and Bank Street both of which link English Street to Lowther Street. Tucked behind Devonshire Street is Friars Court recalling the Franciscan Friars who established a friary here in medieval times.
A statue of James Steel, who was the Mayor of Carlisle in both 1845 and 1846, can be seen in English Street towards its northern end where we approach Carlisle’s Market Place. On reaching the Market Place itself there is a tall, white ionic style market cross at its centre with the much-altered Carlisle Town Hall behind. To the rear of the town hall is an old street called St Albans Row.
As well as English Street which joins it from the south, there are three old streets that lead off from the Market Place’s north side in a roughly northward direction. Two of these (Castle Street and Fisher Street) take a north-westerly route towards Finkle Street and Carlisle Castle. The other is Scotch Street that heads more directly north towards Rickergate which then continues north towards the bridge across the River Eden.
Fisher Street, called Fish Market on old maps, is the middle one of the three streets that join the north end of the market place and is also the narrowest of the three. It joins the market place near St Albans Row and the nearby Town Hall. The entrance to Fisher Street is flanked on its east side by the charming timber-framed Carlisle Guildhall.
The Guildhall is one of the oldest buildings in Carlisle and is thought to date from the late fourteenth century. It does not seem to have ever been an open structure but has long been used for trading of varying kinds. The ground floor is now a restaurant and the remainder is a museum.
Castle Street and Fisher Street both terminate at Finchale Street near the castle. Part way along Fisher Street on the east side it is joined by Market Street and flanked by the huge Market Hall of 1887-89 that was built by the architects Cawston and Graham of London. The Market Hall is bordered by Fisher Street; Market Street; West Tower Street and the backs of buildings in Scotch Street.
Scotch Street is an old street-name that is a reminder of a time when the Scots were widely known as ‘Scotch’ in England, though this term is very much frowned upon today, unless describing a type of whisky. At Scotch Street’s north end, facing north towards the Eden river and the border country beyond, there was once a medieval gateway in the city wall called ‘Scotch Gate’ beyond which the street became Rickergate, heading north towards Eden Bridge.
Today, Scotch Street’s north end plays host on its east side to the Lanes Shopping centre of the 1980s. Just north of the shopping centre, on Rickergate’s east side, is Carlisle Civic Centre of 1960-63. Carlisle was the historic county town and administrative centre for Cumberland and subsequently became the administrative centre for the county of Cumbria that was created in 1974 from an amalgamation of Cumberland, Westmorland and the Furness area of Lancashire.
Just north of the Civic Centre is a large roundabout called Hardwicke Circus that can be passed via subways. To the west of this roundabout is Bitts Park, a pleasant riverside park with the castle to its west. To the east of the roundabout is the Sands Centre, an entertainment venue and complex.
North of the roundabout at the northern fringe of Carlisle’s city centre is the Eden Bridge, built by Robert Smirke in 1815. Consisting of five arches, it was widened in 1932 and links Carlisle to Stanwix and the beautiful Rickerby Park, just across the river on the north bank of the Eden.
Scotch Gate was also sometimes called ‘Richard Gate’ on old maps but Rickergate is really the name of the street beyond Scotch Street. Scotch Street is of course on the north side of the old city and would take the traveller north into Scotland. English Street heads southward out of the city to join Botchergate and the old road to London.
Although small suburbs such as Botchergate and Caldewgate developed outside Carlisle’s city walls from medieval times, for most of its history Carlisle was largely confined to the area within the old city walls. In the eighteenth century there was some industrial development, partly encouraged by a new improved road (a military road) linking Carlisle to Newcastle. Carlisle’s industrial development took place in the developing suburbs outside the walls although significant demolition of the walls themselves began in 1813.
New industrial areas developed outside the walled city, mostly concerned with textiles including mills involved in the production of calico, linen and gingham. Cotton spinning mills opened in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. An interesting and stunning reminder of this time is the former Shaddon Mill of 1835-6 with its 290 feet high chimney called ‘Dixons Chimney’.
It is situated at the corner of Shaddongate and Junction Street beyond the River Caldew, to the west of the city centre. This beautiful red stone mill was converted into apartments in 2005 and is also used by the University of Cumbria. The elegant chimney, originally 305 feet high, was restored in 1999. Peter Dixon was the name of the nineteenth century mill owner. From 1845 Dixon resided at Holme Eden Hall overlooking the River Eden in the village of Warwick Bridge.
In the second half of the nineteenth century, the textile industry had begun to decline but by this time the railway industry was a major employer in the city. The first railway having arrived in 1838, linking Carlisle to Newcastle. Other nineteenth century industries included Carrs’ Biscuit factory in 1834 and John Laing’s civil engineering works in 1848. The century also saw a significant influx of Irish and Scottish immigrants into the city who contributed to the workforce.
Carlisle Castle and the Border Wars
Without the protection of Carlisle Castle it is doubtful Carlisle would have ever developed as a city. The castle has played a central role in the city’s turbulent border history. First built by King William Rufus, the son of William the Conqueror, in 1092, it occupied part of a site that was once the Roman fort of Luguvalium.
Carlisle was still part of Strathclyde (known as Cumbria) at the time of the Norman Conquest in 1066 and fell under the rule of Scotland. Cumberland and Westmorland were not included in the Domesday Book of 1086. It was not until 1092 that Carlisle and Cumberland were firmly brought into the realm of Norman England, seized by William the Conqueror’s son, William Rufus, who constructed Carlisle Castle in that year.
When King William Rufus captured Cumberland and built Carlisle Castle, the most notable local noble of the Cumberland region was Dolfin (known as Dolfin of Carlisle) who held power in the area with the approval of Siward and then Malcolm III. Dolfin (the name is sometimes spelt Dolphin) was a member of the Northumbrian nobility, being the son of Gospatric, Earl of Northumbria, who later became Earl of Dunbar under Scottish rule. Gospatric’s Cumbric name derived from ‘Gwas Patric’ meaning ‘Servant of St Patrick’.
Dolfin’s family home was at Dolphinston near Jedburgh and he should not be confused with his second cousin, Dolfin FitzUchtred of Staindrop and Raby. Dolfin of Carlisle’s sons included Ketil Fitzdolfin of Leitholm in Berwickshire, who also held Strickland near Appleby in Westmorland. Another son of Dolfin was Hamon de Lowther who is mentioned in a Durham document of 1202 as being the son of Dolfin. He established a family seat at Lowther, to the south of Penrith, where Lowther Castle would be built in later times.
Following his defeat by William Rufus, Dolfin fled home to Dolphinston and little is known of his later life. He may have died at the Battle of the Standard in 1135.
King William Rufus and the Normans were now in control at Carlisle and recognised its important defensive site. The well-defended situation above the Eden on which Rufus built Carlisle Castle was likely utilised long before the Romans and continued to be occupied long after their departure. The Norman castle of Rufus was built using earth and timber and likely included a ringwork enclosure, utilising the slope of the land above the Eden and Caldew and defended by a ditch that faced out to Carlisle itself.
King William’s castle was strengthened by his brother and successor, Henry I, following a visit of 1122. About this time, the city walls were probably built and the castle, including the keep was rebuilt of stone. Its construction continued into the 1130s, and was completed by the Scottish king, David I.
King David acquired Carlisle and its castle in 1135 during the troubled reign of the English King, Stephen, in a period known as ‘the anarchy’ in which Stephen battled it out in a civil war with a rival claimant, Matilda. David had an eye on taking control in northern England which he invaded. Though he was defeated at the Battle of the Standard near Northallerton in 1135, David succeeded in his aim. Stephen granted David’s son, Henry, the possession of Northumberland and David’s claims to Carlisle and Cumbria to the south of the Solway Firth were confirmed.
David had become King of Scotland in 1124 but was previously ‘Prince of the Cumbrians’ from 1113, during the reign of his elder brother, Alexander I, as Scottish king. As ‘Prince of the Cumbrians’, David’s power base stretched roughly from Dunbar and Glasgow in the north to the Solway Firth in the south.
Even after he became king of Scotland, the ‘Cumbrian’ region was still the main source of David’s power and influence rather than the heart of the Scottish kingdom to the north, beyond the Forth and Clyde. When he gained the remaining Cumbrian lands south of the Solway, David would have regarded them as his natural inheritance. Carlisle was now an obvious centre and capital for his influence.
King David’s presence at Carlisle was unlikely to have been harmful to the city. David was a reformer, responsible for the ‘Davidian Revolution’ that brought Norman learning, commerce and European influence to Scotland. He established trading towns or ‘burghs’ such as Roxburgh, Edinburgh and Berwick. David was also the founder of several Scottish monasteries like Melrose, Jedburgh and Kelso.
David strengthened Carlisle’s formidable defences and is recorded as building a ‘strong keep’ at Carlisle Castle though he may have simply completed the work begun by Henry I. Carlisle became one of the king’s favourite residences. The king spent long periods at Carlisle and its castle, which effectively served as his Scottish capital, during his stays with his political retinue in attendance. On May 24, 1153 it was here that King David died, at the age of 69.
David’s successor, King Malcolm IV, was only eleven years-old and with the succession of the powerful Plantagenet king of England, Henry II, to the throne of England the following year, Northumberland and Cumberland were brought firmly back under English political control by 1157. They were somewhat effortlessly reclaimed.
Around 1158, Carlisle, now under the rule of Henry II of England, received its first known charter, though it is perhaps surprising that Carlisle did not receive a charter from King David or Henry I. Henry II’s charter, later destroyed by a fire, introduced merchant guilds along with a number of special privileges. Carlisle received further charters in 1251, 1292 and 1293. Carlisle’s medieval merchant guilds were the smiths, tanners, skinners, butchers, glovers, shoemakers, weavers and tailors.
In 1174, the Scottish king, William the Lion, besieged Carlisle Castle with an army numbering thousands but remarkably after a failed three month onslaught, he departed, demonstrating the effectiveness of the castle’s defences. Nevertheless, following a visit in 1186, Henry II made further additions to its defences though these may have focused on the inner ward.
Another troubled reign began in England with the crowning of King John in 1199, who famously came into conflict with the powerful barons of England and those of Scotland too. Carlisle was one of a number of royal castles that came into King John’s possession. He may have been responsible for rebuilding the impressive outer curtain wall and its inner wall in stone.
At the barons’ insistence, King John famously signed the Magna Carta at Runnymede on the banks of the Thames in 1215 which set limitations on his royal power. It also included a clause that accepted Scotland’s claims to independence. However, Berwick and the Scottish lowlands were soon attacked by John, triggering a revenge invasion by the Scottish king, Alexander II (the son of William the Lion). This time Carlisle and its castle were seized. Following King John’s death in 1216, the new English king, Henry III, pressured Alexander to give up Carlisle, which he did, although he was compensated for the loss.
The reign of the ‘Hammer of the Scots’, Edward I (1272-1307) as king of England and his interference in Scottish affairs brought about the War of Scottish Independence, one of the most tumultuous periods in the history of Carlisle and the Borders. During his wars with the Scots, Edward spent much time in Carlisle and its surrounds. Carlisle’s cathedral, castle and nearby Lanercost Priory provided suitable locations for King Edward and his retinue to stay.
The king was also attracted by the 150 square miles of royal hunting parkland called Inglewood Forest, to the south of Carlisle which stretched from Cumberland into Westmorland. Forests in medieval times were lands set aside for hunting and not necessarily wooded as they are today in the modern sense of the word ‘forest’.
Following the death of the Scottish king, Alexander III, in 1286 and the subsequent death of his infant heir Margaret of Norway in 1290, there was a succession crisis for the Scottish throne. The Guardians of Scotland invited King Edward of England to select the Scottish king from a choice of thirteen Scottish noble candidates at Berwick but only on the understanding Scotland would remain independent.
John Balliol was appointed Scottish king by Edward in 1292 and swore fealty to him at Newcastle. However, though he was initially seen as Edward’s puppet, he rebelled against the English king, after continuous interference from Edward in the 1290s. One final straw was King Edward’s expectation that the Scots should supply soldiers as military support in the English war against France. Balliol refused and instead the Scots formed an alliance with the French.
Under the leadership of John ‘the Red Comyn’, an army of Scots invaded England attacking the priory and grammar school of Hexham in the Archbishop of York’s Liberty of Hexhamshire and then set fire to Lanercost Priory in Cumberland, before launching an attack on Carlisle Castle. The castle was defended for the English by a Scottish baron, who also held lands in England, called Robert De Brus, the deposed Lord of Annandale,
The attack and rebellion triggered Edward I’s invasion of Scotland; including his sacking and capture of Berwick in 1296 and his victory over the Scots at the Battle of Dunbar. Balliol, the Scottish king, was captured and imprisoned in London.
The Carlisle area now became a regular focus for Edward in his campaigns against the Scots and was his base for three months in 1296. In fact the king was often present with his retinue during the later part of his reign, staying at Lanercost Priory where he could rely on the hospitality of the canons. While at Carlisle he worshiped in the cathedral, no doubt calling on divine assistance in his military campaigns and he held parliaments within Carlisle’s walls in 1298, 1300 and 1307.
Edward’s opponents north of the border included William Wallace, who defeated an English army at Stirling Bridge in 1297 but Wallace was subsequently defeated at Falkirk the following year. In 1300 from his Cumberland base, Edward attacked and successfully besieged Caerlaverock Castle in Dumfriesshire and was raiding again in Scotland the following year. Wallace was captured by the English in 1305 and taken to London for execution.
Edward’s new nemesis north of the border was now Robert the Bruce, who became King of Scotland in 1306 and asserted independence from England. In 1307, Bruce gained a victory over an English army at Loudoun Bridge in Ayrshire. In response, Edward planned a punitive attack, gathering his army to cross the Solway Firth, encamping at Burgh by Sands on July 6, 1307 near what was once the site of a Roman fort on Hadrian’s Wall. However, the king had become seriously ill and developed dysentery. The following morning his servants found him dead.
King Edward’s son and successor, Edward II, proved a weak and ineffectual military leader and Bruce’s power in Scotland continued to grow. In 1311 Bruce raided England, plundering the priory at Lanercost. Following King Edward’s humiliating defeat at Bannockburn near Stirling, in 1314. The Scots now raided in Northumberland, Stainmore, Brough, Appleby and Kirkoswald.
From July 22 to August 1, 1315, Bruce’s army besieged Carlisle Castle. It was held steadfastly by Andrew Harclay who repelled the siege with the loss of only two English lives. He was seen as a hero and appointed Earl of Carlisle in 1322 but the Scots continued to raid in Cumberland, attacking Holm Cultram Abbey to the south. Harclay, the hero, who had been attempting to make peace with Bruce was now accused of colluding with Bruce and being a traitor. Harclay was hanged at Harraby Hill, a mile south of Carlisle. His body was cut into pieces with limbs sent for display on the walls of towns like Bristol and Newcastle.
There were further attacks on Carlisle in 1337 and 1345 with the castle itself coming under Scottish siege again in 1380, 1385 and 1387. A key historical figure who stayed at Carlisle Castle during this era was John of Gaunt. A particularly violent siege took place at Carlisle Castle during the Wars of the Roses in 1461 when Lancastrians in alliance with the Scots besieged and seized the castle from the Yorkists. The siege involved an early recorded use of artillery in Britain. Despite this, the castle remained a formidable fortress.
In the Tudor period, Carlisle Castle continued playing an important role in suppressing raids and rebellion. It was also the Tudor period that saw the rise of the Border Reivers. The borderlands north of Carlisle were a particular hotbed of reiving. Troublesome border clans on both the English and Scottish sides of the border lived a life in a constant cycle of raiding, thieving and revenge, with little regard for the law or national identity. The frequent theft of cattle, sheep and horses along with associated feuds, violence and murder was an almost everyday occurrence.
A particularly troubled part of the Border country known as the ‘Debatable Land’, bound by the Rivers Esk, Liddel and Sark, about seven miles north of Carlisle was disputed between England and Scotland. Here there was an uncertainty over national ownership that resulted in a reluctance from either side to take responsibility for law and order. It encouraged the most notorious and unruly reivers to settle there.
Carlisle was an important centre for law; administration; justice and imprisonment as well as being a meeting place for wardens and commissioners who were expected to keep the peace. Wardens of the Marches (three on the Scottish side and three on the English side) had been established during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, with the Warden of the English West March based at Carlisle. One such warden, was Richard of Gloucester, later King Richard III, but notable holders of this post during the sixteenth century were often members of the Scrope and Dacre families.
The names of reivers were well known within Carlisle’s walls. In 1528, the English Border Warden of the West March, Lord Dacre (himself a reiver) was ambushed following a tip-off while trying to capture notorious Armstrongs at Gilnockie Tower in Eskdale on a supposedly secret raid. Dacre believed the Armstrongs had been tipped off by English Reiver, Richie Graham, who was related to the Armstrongs through marriage. Dacre had Graham shackled and imprisoned in Carlisle Castle.
Later, while Graham’s shackles were temporarily removed for exercise, Graham escaped by leaping through a privy postern in the castle wall into an open field where a fellow with a horse was waiting to help in his escape. Graham fled to Scotland, where he received protection from the Scottish West March Warden, Lord Maxwell.
Unconnected to reiving, an especially high status prisoner at Carlisle Castle, kept under guard at the behest of her cousin Elizabeth I, was Mary, Queen of Scots. Having fled by boat to England from Loch Leven Castle, to escape Scottish rebels who were plotting against her, Mary arrived on the Cumberland coast in 1568 and spent her first night at Workington Hall. From there she was brought under guard to Carlisle Castle on May 18 and imprisoned in the Warden’s Tower in the castle’s inner ward.
During her time at Carlisle she took exercise in a part of the castle that came to be known as Lady’s Walk. Imprisoned in her tower to the east of the keep, at one point she observed a two hour long football match played in a field below the castle walls. Carlisle was the first of a number of places of continuous imprisonment for Mary during the remainder of her life. Later that year she was moved to Bolton Castle in Wensleydale.
One of the best-known events and stories in Border Reiving history concerns yet another Carlisle Castle prisoner, Kinmont Willie, who became the subject of a border ballad. This dangerous, notorious man, a kind of Elizabethan gangster, was a leading Border Reiver of the Armstrong clan and the head of a band of men called ‘Kinmont’s Bairns’. He was a ‘wanted man’ on the English side and feared by rival reivers on the Scottish side too. His family, the Armstrongs, were originally of English origin, from Cumberland:
They led him through the Liddel-rack,
And also thro’ the Carlisle sands;
They brought him to Carlisle castell
To be at Lord Scrope’s commands.
Kinmont Willie was captured by the English Deputy Warden, Salkeld following a border meeting in Liddesdale on a ‘day of truce’ in March 1596 (see Liddesdale). His pursuit and capture by the English broke the terms of the truce and caused a diplomatic incident. The English Warden, Lord Scrope, who had not been present at the meeting claimed that Kinmont Willie had broken some kind of assurance.
Willie was rescued from the castle by the laird of Buccleuch, Walter Scott, the Keeper of Liddesdale. The Border Reivers were knowledgable about Carlisle and its defences, often drinking in its taverns and had spies to investigate exactly where Willie was imprisoned and identify ways of freeing him. Willie’s rescuers were assisted by English reivers called the Carletons, and an English branch of the Graham family of reivers. The capture of Kinmont Willie and the daring, successful feat of his rescue became the subject of a forty-six verse border ballad that includes a mention or two of Carlisle Castle:
O were there war between the lands,
As well I wot that there is nane,
I would slight Carlisle castell high,
Though it were builded of marble stane.
I would set that castle in a low,
And sloken it with English blood!
There’s never a man in Cumberland
Should ken where Carlisle castell stood.
But since nae war’s between the lands,
And there is peace, and peace should be;
I’ll neither harm English lad or lass,
And yet the Kinmont freed shall be!
Carlisle might have expected a quiet life after King James VI of Scotland also became of England in 1603. James brought an end to conflict between the two nations and arrested and deported the most troublesome of the reivers.
However, Carlisle was still an important strategic military town and it was of no surprise to find that forty years later it should find itself embroiled in the turbulence of the English Civil War during the reign of King James’ successor, Charles I.
As the site of a Royal castle, Carlisle was naturally a Royalist stronghold and successfully repelled a Parliamentarian attack in 1643. It continued supporting the Royalists, even after the Royalists were defeated at Marston Moor in July 1644. In October of that year, a 4,000 strong army of Scottish Covenanters under General Alexander Leslie, the Earl Leven, successfully breached the walls of Newcastle and secured the surrender of that town after a long-running siege. They now turned their attention to Carlisle.
Leven blocked off all the four main roads leading into the city of Carlisle with guns and earthworks and placed the city under siege. The northern route into the city was blocked on the Stanwix side of the Eden where cannons were assembled in the churchyard. Despite being surrounded, the people of the city and its castle garrison were still able to access livestock and provisions from agricultural land close to the city but only at a great risk, with resulting skirmishes whenever they did so.
For six months there was something of a stand-off with little engagement until the following spring when the Covenanters were joined by Parliamentarian forces. The combined forces moved in closer to the city, cutting off food supplies, forcing the Carlisle residents and occupants of the castle to eat rats and dogs. Horses were fed with straw taken from the roofs of thatched houses.
The prioritising of the garrison soldiers over the town’s folk as people began to starve caused tension within the city and when Carlisle heard news of the Royalist defeat at Naseby in June it brought a demoralised acceptance of defeat. Carlisle surrendered on June 25, 1645. The terms of surrender were drawn up and the Royalist garrison, having given up their arms were marched out of the city.
It is not clear why or when the Scottish Covenanters who are blamed for the destruction of Carlisle Cathedral began dismantling the cathedral’s nave to repair the castle. If they were responsible, then as Covenanters, they were vehemently opposed to the concept of bishops and since a cathedral is a bishop’s seat they may have had some disregard for its sanctity.
Later, in 1648, a Cumberland Royalist, Sir Christopher Musgrave, arrived from Edinburgh and retook Carlisle and its castle in a surprise attack on the night of April 29th, but it was all in the vain. With the execution of King Charles I the following year, the Royalist cause became a lost one.
There was one last chapter to come in Carlisle’s encounters with Scottish armies. In the Scottish Catholic Jacobite Rebellion of 1715, Carlisle was bypassed by the rebel army of James Stuart, ‘the Old Pretender’, who marched into England. This army ignored Carlisle and passed through Penrith and Appleby, heading south as far as Preston, but nothing came of their rebellion.
It was a different situation for Carlisle in the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, when James Stuart’s son, Charles Edward Stuart, ‘the Young Pretender’, took up the cause of his exiled father’s claim to the British throne. On this occasion Carlisle became the subject of Jacobite interest and fell under siege.
The Young Pretender, also known as ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’ arrived with a 4,000 strong army, many of them Highlanders, and camped at Stanwix in November, 1745. He prepared his plans to take Carlisle and ordered the city to surrender, but then headed for nearby Brampton to the east, hearing that the British General, George Wade was heading that way to meet him in battle. Wade did not arrive; it was perhaps a rumour, so Stuart and his army returned to preparing the siege of Carlisle.
It had been almost a century of peace since the siege of the Civil War and Carlisle had lost its military focus and ability to prepare for battle. As the Jacobite army dug trenches and prepared to scale the Carlisle Walls, the city and its depleted garrison surrendered, raising the white flag. The Carlisle Mayor proclaimed James III as King and handed over the keys to the city to Prince Charlie at Brampton.
A detachment of Jacobites was left to man the castle as the remaining part of the Jacobite army headed south via Lancaster, but they received little support. The Jacobites lost heart as the deeper winter set in and turned back at Derby, returning north, plundering the countryside with the British army of the Duke of Cumberland in hot pursuit.
The crest-fallen Stuart and his Jacobites fled across the River Sark into Scotland but the Jacobite garrison still remained at Carlisle, incurring the wrath of the Duke of Cumberland (the son of King George II). Occupying the city, the Duke’s forces laid siege to the castle, battering it with the kind of artillery the castle may not have seen before. The occupying Jacobite garrison surrendered.
Around 300 of the captured Jacobites were imprisoned in Carlisle Cathedral and 96 were imprisoned in the castle dungeon. Many were put on trial and lots were drawn. Some were sentenced to transportation and others to hanging, some thirty-one hanged in public view at Harraby Hill to the south of the city. The heads of some of the rebels were displayed on the town walls.
Today, Carlisle Castle is a property of English Heritage and welcomes peaceful visitors. It is entered across the ditch through the outer gatehouse that takes you within the outer ward of the castle. From 1819, the outer ward of the castle became the site of a military barracks, with a succession of various purpose-built military blocks constructed from that time. These buildings include the Officers’ Mess (now used by a local theatre group); the Ypres Block, the Gallipoli Block of 1929; the Arroyo Block; Alma Block and the Arnhem Block, which was formerly a military hospital.
Cumbria’s Museum of Military Life has been situated in the Alma Block since 2014, having previously been located in the castle’s inner ward since 1932. The museum focuses on local regiments : the 34th Regiment of Foot; 55th Regiment of Foot; King’s Own Royal Border Regiment and the Duke of Lancaster Regiment. A Border Regiment Memorial Chapel can also be visited in Carlisle Cathedral.
To the right of the barracks building is the fourteenth century gatehouse called the Captain’s Tower that takes you into the inner ward of the castle through a pointed tunnel vault. Just in front is a small ditch and a semi-circular walled defence called the half moon battery. The main feature of the triangular shaped inner ward is, of course, the massive castle keep.
Eden Valley (Cumberland) | Eden Valley (Westmorland)
Lake District
Brampton and the Cumberland Borderland
Hadrian’s Wall Country (Northumberland)
Liddesdale, Eskdale and Gretna (Scotland) | South Tynedale
Kielder | North Tynedale | Redesdale
Hexham | Corbridge and Tyne Valley