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Carlisle - A History & CelebrationSelected extracts and photosReturn to Book | Search for another Book | View all photos for Carlisle | Carlisle homepage |
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 Carlisle, the Millennium Bridge 2005 (ref. C211717k) | The redevelopment of Botchergate is just the latest stage in the long-term rebirth of the great border city, continuing the process begun in the late 20th century. As one of Carlisle's best known sons, the writer Hunter Davies, observed, 'my memories of Carlisle in 1950s was of a dirty, dreary, noisy, smoky, industrial town'. The modern city attracts a very different version: 'every day, in every way, it seems to become better, cleaner, prettier, with more attractions, more facilities, more life … It even seems to grow more ancient, more historic …It had a face-lift, an image make-over, revealing nice things we either had not seen, or did not know were there because they had become obscured, sullied and spoiled'. Today Carlisle is undisputedly a city of considerable charm, surprising visitors with its attractive appearance and, in an age when many places seem to have merged into suburban anonymity, its unique history and character. Large enough to offer the convenience of city life, it remains compact and people-friendly in scale. Of course, however improved the transport links continue to become, Carlisle will always appear to be somewhat isolated and is unlikely to ever grow to be a great metropolis. Yet, ultimately, the traditional challenge presented by the surrounding geography is now also the city's great strength. To quote the City Council's website, 'Carlisle is surrounded by world class landscapes - the Lake District, Hadrian's Wall, the Scottish Borderlands, the Eden Valley, the Solway Firth and the Northern Pennines. All have national or international recognition for their cultural, scenic or scientific importance'. Through this proximity, Carlisle offers easy access to a quality of life that is increasingly prized in modern urban Britain. In an age where jobs and money are more mobile than ever before, this is the unique selling point that no sprawling urban rival can ever match. |  Add your own Memory Add to your Album |
 Carlisle, Tullie House 2005 (ref. C211713k) | While the Lanes attracted money into the city from shoppers, a second project undertaken in the 1980s was intended to provide new facilities for the local population. Sited on an old cattle market, the Sands Leisure Centre was opened in 1983 to provide much valued modern gym and leisure facilities, as well as acting as a well-used venue for theatre and musical performances. The third great project of late 20th-century Carlisle was the transformation of Tullie House into a modern museum and art gallery. Sandwiched between the long established 'tourist honeypots' of the English Lake District and the Scottish Borders, tourism had long been identified as a way of providing a considerable boost to the local economy. However, while Carlisle remained a city that continued to be dominated by its industrial employers, little practical investment was made. By the late 1980s, the positive impact of the Lanes encouraged the city council to rebuild Tullie House as a flagship heritage attraction. A large new wing was added, and with the city's Roman and reiver past to the fore, modern new galleries were designed to promote the image of Carlisle as a city with a unique and fascinating heritage. By retaining the original 17th-century house and the Victorian additions alongside the new extensions, Tullie House now stands as a physical embodiment of the more recent history of Carlisle. From 17th-century market town house, to cultural headquarters of a thriving Victorian industrial centre, to modern tourist attraction - each layer of the 'onion' takes us further back into the history of Carlisle. They help tell the story of a city that has seen several distinct chapters in its history, the latest of which opened with the coming of the new millennium. So what does the 21st century hold for the Great Border City? (Matthew Constantine) The rotunda at the front was added in 2000 as part of the millennium building project. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 Carlisle, Market Place 2005 (ref. C211712k) | Opened in 1984, the new Lanes keeps frontages on English Street and Lowther Street and manages to retain something of the character of the old properties. At the same time, it provides the modern units sought by retailers and the secure town centre car parking demanded by shoppers. Rightly regarded with pride by local people, the Lanes was voted best shopping centre in Britain by the British Council of Shopping Centres and now attracts millions of visits a year. The 'shopping experience' was further enhanced by the pedestrianisation of the city centre in 1989. Although not without its critics at the time, the scheme rescued the Market Place from the chaos of cars and buses and has left an open space of considerable charm that is once again colonised by people. (Matthew Constantine) The market cross takes pride of place at the heart of today's pedestrianised market place. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 Carlisle, Council Houses by the Caldew, Bousteads Grassing 2005 (ref. C211710k) | Encouraged by the changing political scene at both national and local levels, especially after the extension of the vote in 1918 and the rise of the Labour Party, Carlisle council found itself under increasing political pressure to do something about the housing shortfall. While the outbreak of the First World War delayed plans, immediately afterwards Carlisle was at the forefront of government- sponsored measures to build new houses. Working with the local firm of Laings (who progressed to international fame), and other local contractors, the council oversaw an ambitious housing expansion programme that would see the city grow dramatically. The first of the new houses were built at Longsowerby and Bousteads Grassing to the ENGLISH STREET IN THE 1920s TL00038 (Tullie House Museum & Art Gallery) Many of the properties shown on the left-hand-side of this photograph began life as town houses. Shop fronts were simply built over the gardens and new floors added above. All of these were demolished in the following decades to make way for new department stores. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 Carlisle, Shaddon Mill from the Victoria Viaduct 2005 (ref. C211708k) | The new mills and factories not only changed the skyline of Carlisle: they had a radical impact upon the very nature of the city. To manufacture on such a scale required a vast work force and at its peak the Dixons claimed to employ around 8,000 people at Shaddon alone. This was twice the size of the entire population of the city less than 100 years earlier. Today, it is hard to understand why people would choose to work such long hours in often terrible conditions, but with the national population growing, unskilled factory work seemed to offer the security of a long-term regular income at a time of economic uncertainty. Thousands of people were soon sucked into Carlisle, not just from the rest of Cumberland and Westmorland, but from as far afield as Lancashire, southern Scotland and Ireland. By 1841 35,000 people called Carlisle home and many of these were weavers, drawn to live close to the spinning mills that supplied them with thread and bought their woven cloth for finishing. Before long the tiny city centre was straining at the seams, and the previously small suburbs to the west of the city were swollen with new residents. Some of this pressure was alleviated by building rows of new terraced brick housing close to the factories in the growing suburbs of Caldewgate, Shaddongate and (after the building of the Nelson Bridge over the Caldew in 1853) Denton Holme. However, even after the demolition of the city walls in the early 19th century, many found themselves obliged to find a home in the terrible slums of the city-centre Lanes. (Matthew Constantine) Shaddon Mill was reputed to be the largest cotton mill in Europe when built. After decades as an industrial centre, it has now found a new lease of life as flats. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 Carlisle, Cannon outside the Citadel 2005 (ref. C211705k) | War with Scotland broke out again during Henry VIII's reign. During the 1530s, the rundown defences of Carlisle Castle were renovated in order to house the latest cannon technology; the Botchergate gateway was moved and the Citadel constructed in its place to defend against attack from the south. In the event, these new defences were not to be tested until 100 years later when the complex politics behind the English Civil War made Carlisle a strategic target. Carlisle was besieged twice in this conflict, most dramatically in 1643-44, when the Royalist city was captured and occupied by a Scottish army allied to Parliament after a harsh nine-month siege. 100 years later, in 1745, the rather ramshackle defences of the castle were tested for a last time when they were captured by the Jacobite rebel forces of Bonnie Prince Charlie and then recaptured by the Hanoverian government army under the Duke of Cumberland. This last, brief battle was not just the final siege in Carlisle's war-torn history but the last ever siege on English soil. Although these last sieges were significant, they should really be seen as throwback events. After centuries as a town of great military importance, Carlisle's place in the world had changed with the death of (Matthew Constantine) The two cannons that stand outside the Citadel today are believed to be survivors from the 1745 siege. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 Carlisle, Castle Street 2005 (ref. C211702k) | William decided to shut this 'back gate' to his kingdom by building a royal fortress at the entrance to the valley. Like the Romans 1,000 years earlier, he realised that Carlisle was the one place that had all the strategic advantages the Normans needed. As we have already seen, there was a working settlement here well before the Normans arrived. If nothing else, the continued use of the old British name Caerleul by the newcomers shows that they were not starting from scratch, but must have based their efforts around an existing population. Nevertheless, the Normans undoubtedly reorganised and reinvigorated Carlisle. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that this new chapter in the city's history began in 1092: 'King William went north to Caerleul with a large army and restored the town and built the castle. He drove out Dolfin who had formerly ruled that district and garrisoned the castle with his men. Thereafter he returned southwards, sending very many peasants thither with their wives and cattle to settle there and till the soil'. By building a new castle at Carlisle, William Rufus was cutting what was left of ancient Cumbria in two. From now on the southern half south of the Solway, including Carlisle, would be regarded by the kings (and queens) of England as a permanent part of their kingdom, and was eventually divided into the new English counties of Cumberland (meaning 'land of the Cumbrians') and Westmorland. Of course, the Scots were not happy to lose control of such a strategic part of their southern borderlands but the formidable (Matthew Constantine) Until the slum clearance and road building of the 20th century, buildings from the previous century blocked this view of the castle from the town. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 Carlisle, the Lake District Mountains 2005 (ref. C211701k) | Cumbria by open expanses of moss and marsh. Only the narrow Eden Valley offers an opening, running south-east to Stainmoor and lowland England. From their sources on the high land, the numerous rivers run across this landscape and make their winding ways toward the coast. Carlisle marks the place where three of these rivers meet - the Peveril, the Caldew and, most importantly, the Eden; a point that is also marked by a striking natural feature, a sandstone bluff covered by a mound of boulder clay left by the actions of glaciers millions of years ago. This bluff has been cut in two by the course of the Eden, leaving two headlands facing each other. Today, we know these as the site of Carlisle Castle and, across the narrow valley, Stanwix Bank. (Tullie House Museum & Art Gallery) With three rivers, Carlisle has regularly suffered from flooding. This view is looking east across the Carlisle Plain to the Pennines. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 Cummersdale, Spinners Arms 2005 (ref. C776001k) | C&DSMS. Although resented at first, the State Management Scheme soon became a badge of the city and brought many benefits. The state-brewed beer was generally well regarded and the C&DSMS invested in several grand new pubs, with designs that ranged from mock Tudor to Moroccan elegance, which still grace the city today. Carlisle was also deeply affected by the Second World War. Again it was far from the front line and barely touched by the air raids that wrought such damage on other British cities, but nevertheless the city contributed fully to the war effort. Local airfields were heavily used for training pilots, while the city's factories turned over to the production of everything from rations to parachutes and torpedo nets. The city and surrounding villages were also home to large numbers of evacuees, many of whom were moved from the Tyneside area as soon as war was announced. Whilst the First World War may have left the city with the unique legacy of the State Management Scheme, the Second World War left Carlisle with 14 MU, a major RAF supply depot based at various sites scattered across the north of the city. First established in 1938, this depot continued to supply spares to the RAF up to the first Gulf War and at the height of the Second World War employed over 4,000, although there were fewer than 1,000 jobs by the time of its closure in 1994. (Matthew Constantine) Like several pubs in Carlisle, the Spinners Arms was designed by the leading architect Harry Redfern. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
