Carlisle

CARLISLE - THE GREAT BORDER CITY

2000 years of Great Border History

"...one of Britain's most fascinating cities"

Daily Telegraph

Border cities throughout the world are special places. Carlisle is no exception. Centuries of Border warfare,, most notably between the English and the Scots, have left a rich and colourful legacy of myth and romantic legend.

William Wallace, Robert the Bruce and Bonnie Prince Charlie all descended from the north and stayed here for a short while. Emperor Hadrian came from the south leaving a lasting reminder of the once invincible Roman Empire - Hadrian's Wall, now a World Heritage Site. The notorious Border Reivers and their marauding family gangs ruled these parts when the land was known as the Debatable Lands, governed by neither Scot nor English.

Today, Carlisle is a peaceful place with all the charm and character of any historic English City. The award winning Lanes Shopping Centre takes its inspiration from the medieval lanes which once crisscrossed the heart of the city. Visit the Victorian Market Hall or the yarn weavers at Linton Tweeds. Enjoy bird-watching, fishing, horse riding, a day at the Races (Carlisle Racecourse), or more energetic pursuits (the Sands Centre). Discover the secrets of Carlisle and the Borderlands. You won't be disappointed.

"Here are two people almost identical in blood...the same in language and religion; and yet a few years of quarrelsome isolation - in comparison with the great historical cycles - have so separated their thoughts and ways, that not unions or mutual dangers, not steamers nor railways, nor all the king's horses and all the king's men seem able to obliterate the broad distinction."

"Robert Louis Stevenson"

The Roman Army first came to Carlisle in about AD70-80 with the sole intention of overcoming the "wild barbarians" in the north. They called this place Luguvalium, and built a turf and wooden fort on the site where the Castle now stands.

Some four decades later in about AD122, with the scots still untamed, the Emperior Hadrian resolved to consolidate the boundaries of the empire and ordered the building of a barrier stretching over 80 Roman miles from the Solway-Firth in the west to the North Sea in the east. Hadrian's wall took 6 years to complete and was constructed by Roman Legionaires and is the most prominent and important monument left by the Romans in Britain (Recently designated a World Heritage Site)

While in Carlisle visit Tullie House, Museum and Art Gallery -

Tullie House is open all year

Monday to Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m and Sunday from 12 noon to 5 p.m.

"one of the most spectacular museums in the country...the show is stunning."

"The Scotsman Weekend"

You will receive a greater insight into what was once the most lawless place in Elizabethan world by visiting Tullie House, the Reiver's show in the Borders Gallery, which graphically depicts the robbing and plundering of the reiving families.

As you leave Carlisle imagine yourself back in the 1590's, with the Spanish Armada only recently defeated. Around you, wooden and thatched houses line the narrow streets. Smells of cooking, smoke (and less pleasant things) hang in the air. The cathedral tower dominates the city, and just to the north stands the red stone of Carlisle Castle. Troops wait here under the command of Lord Scroope, Warden of the West March.

It is the "broad distinction" which makes the border country so different from anywhere else in Britain. The legacy of the Reivers is plain to see, for those who know how to look, and the Romans before them, with their Wall which separated them from the "Barbarians", may have contributed to the border view of life.

Carlisle is the city which figured most prominently in the battles between the Scots and the English.

Information taken from the Pitkin Guide on Carlisle, the Border City, and CUMBRIA Tourist Information Brochures.

BORDER BALLADS

Border ballads are the main source of our knowledge of the lawless medieval frontier community whose first allegiance was to their family's surname. The Elliots, Armstrong, Grahams, Johnstones, Maxwells, Scotts, Kerrs, Nixons and others were border clans.

The Border Widow's Lament

...There came a man by middle day,

He spied his sport and went away;

and brought the king that very night,

who broke my bower and slew my knight.

He slew my knight, to me sae dear;

He slew my knight and poin'd his gear;

My servants all for life did flee,

And left me in extremitie.

I sew'd his sheet, making my mane;

I watch'd the corpse, myself alane;

I watch'd his body night and day;

No living creature came that way.

I took his body on my back,

And whiles I gaed, and whiles I sat;

I digg'd a grave, and laid him in,

And happ'd him with the sod sae green...

Feuding was passed on from generation to generation and the ceaseless hostility, that had nothing to do with national disputes, took place for three centuries.

The word - Black Mail was black rent, or protection money;

Bereave - linked with reive, meant to make raids, plunder, hence to deprive by reiving.

Because of the violence of the times there is little left of the architecture of the time. Most farms, either large or small have "peles" and "great strengths" where stock could be driven. A tower would provide a place of refuge for the owners and their families. A beacon would be lit at the top of the tower at a time of danger and a bell rung to alert the neighbours and call for assistance.

Gradually reiving died out, to be replaced by a respect for other men's property. This is not to say that borderers did not retain a reputation for uncouth behaviour well into the 18th century. Theirs was a way of life which could still stimulate the poetic imagination of such men as Sir Walter Scott and James Hogg.

Lock the door, Larriston, lion of Liddesdale,

Lock the door, Larriston, Lowther comes on;

The Armstrongs are flying,

The widows are crying,

The Castletown's burning and Oliver's gone.

James Hogg, Larriston of Liddesdale.

Richard Mulcaster Schoolmaster,

Born in Carlisle 1530, died 1611.

He studied at Cambridge and Oxford and was a brilliant Greek and Oriental scholar, He became the first headmaster of Merchant Taylors School. He advocated university training for teachers, and other reforms well in advance of his time. In 1582 he published his famous The First Part of the Elementairie which included a list of 7000 words in his proposed reformed spellings. Mulcaster enjoyed a close connection with Queen Elizabeth and her court.