Old Town Hall with Guildhall on left and Carlisle Cross in foreground
Visited my hometown today - Carlisle, 'The Border City', aka 'Canny auld Carlisle'. It has changed hands between the English and the Scots countless times, and at one time was part of the ancient kingdom of Strathclyde.
There are not too many ancient houses in the town, as it was the centre of border strife for centuries and the earlier wooden houses were repeatedly burnt down by marauding Scots. It certainly wasn't too quiet on the Northern front in those days! However, the fine Cathedral and sturdy castle remain.
According to Prof. M. Creighton, writing in 1889:
'It is the only town on English soil which bears a purely British name [from Caer Lywelydd via Caerluel and Carliel to Carlisle]; and the only town which has been added to England since the Norman Conquest'
Richard III (as Duke of Gloucester) was Captain of the Castle, and some of his prisoners (c.1480) left this graffiti : (more time-consuming to execute and much more durable than modern stuff!)
Mary, Queen of Scots was a prisoner there briefly, as was the Border Reiver, Kinmont Willie (Armstrong) who was 'sprung' from the castle by members of his clan.
Read more about the Border Reivers here: www.borderreivers.co.uk
A Carlisle saying:
'Eee - you'll have me up London Road!'
The old mental hospital used to be a few miles out of town on the London Road. Now, of course, it has been converted into Luxury Housing! To say that 'you'll have me up London Road' is equivalent to saying, 'you'll drive me mad/round the bend'! Tho' I suppose if you say the former to a young person now, they'd probably reply, 'Eh?'
3 comments:
"and the only town which has been added to England since the Norman Conquest"
Hasn't Berwick-upon-Tweed changed hands a few times over the years, too?
Well, Alistair, that's why I quoted Creighton! He states 'Berwick-upon-Tweed alone could verture to share [Carlisle's] glory or dispute its supremacy; but Berwick was scarcely a town; it was rather a military outpost, changing hands from time to time between the combatants; it was neither Scottish nor English, more than a castle but less than a town, an accidental growth of circumstances, scarcely to be classed as an element of popular life.' I don't really know enough about it to make any claims for Carlisle - so I played safe and quoted Prof. Creighton!
Hmm . . I think the distinction is more that while Berwick changed hands between Scots & English often enough, pre-Conquest it was at least occasionally part of an Anglo-Saxon kingdom. Carlisle wasn't - Cumbria being carved up between Scots & English in 950AD & the northern half of the county only being formally recognised as part of England in the 1240s (& the current border finally being drawn by the French in the reign of Henry VIII, God rot him).
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