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'Carlisle' is a city in the far north-west of England, and is the largest urban area in Cumbria. It is part of the City of Carlisle local government district, and acts as the administrative centre for both the district and Cumbria. It is the traditional county town of Cumberland. The population of the urban area of Carlisle was 71,773 according to the 2001 census, with about 100,734 living in the wider district.

Contents

Name

History

Roman Carlisle

Later history

Geography

Transport

Trade and industry

Sport

Football

Rugby

Boxing

Cricket

Speedway

Education

Administration

Curse of Carlisle

Famous residents

Carlisle dialect

References

External links

Name

The Romans called their settlement on the site of today's city Luguvalium, as evidenced by Roman writing tablets recently excavated in the city and displayed at Tullie House Museum, bearing this name as the address. Luguvalium can be interpreted from Latin as "the place, or wall (stronghold ?) of Lugus" (a local deity). Around the 11th and 12th centuries, however, surviving documents show the place name spelt Caer (castle) Luel or Llewelyn. Luel, and its variants are Welsh personal names, and it has been proposed that this was always the basis of the local name, which had been preserved by the continuity of Welsh-speaking peoples in the area, from before the Roman imposition of a Latinised version. The fact that Cumbria (from Cymru or similar roots) was briefly held by the Celtic kings of Strathclyde in the 9th century may have stimulated a revival of the Welsh language and reinstatement of earlier Celtic place-names. The modern Welsh name for Carlisle is "Caerliwelydd".

History

Carlisle has a compact, historic centre, including a castle, museum, cathedral, and semi-intact city walls. The former law courts or citadel towers which now serve as offices for Cumbria County Council are also of architectural interest.

Roman Carlisle

Main articles: Luguvalium

Around AD 72/73, a Roman timber fort was built at Carlisle. Following its demolition around AD 103 to 105, a second timber fort was built. In AD 165 this fort was replaced by a stone fort.^[1] It was probably later the civitas capital of the Carvetii tribe.

Later history

Because Carlisle was sometimes the last English town before the Scottish border, and sometimes the last Scottish town before the English border, in the days when the two countries were separate kingdoms, it developed importance as a military stronghold, and Carlisle Castle is still relatively intact. Built in 1092 by William Rufus, and having once served as a prison for Mary, Queen of Scots.
In December 1745 Prince Charles Edward Stuart captured Carlisle in the Siege of Carlisle. During the retreat of Charles Edward Stuart's Jacobites in 1746 he ordered that the Manchester Regiment be left to garrison Carlisle so that he "continued to hold at least one town in England". The Hanoverian army under Cumberland then besieged and took Carlisle. See: Sieges of Carlisle.
The Tullie House Museum, an award-winning museum, tells the story of the Border country, including much material on Hadrian's Wall, the Roman defensive structure the course of which runs through the Stanwix area of the city, and many items of Roman architecture. It also features an exhibit explaining the history of the Border Reivers. Tullie House used to house an excellent lending and reference library, but that has now been placed on the upper level of The Lanes. [1](The Lanes are Carlisle's main shopping area in the centre of the city). Carlisle Cathedral has the largest east window of any cathedral in Europe, but the western end of the cathedral was demolished by Oliver Cromwell to shore up the castle. Carlisle also has a first-class racetrack, located to the south of the city centre.
In 1916, during World War I, the government took over all the pubs and breweries in the city because of endemic drunkenness among construction and munitions workers from the nearby munitions factory at Gretna. This experiment in nationalised brewing known first as the Carlisle Board of Control then after the war the Carlisle & District State Management Scheme lasted until 1971.

Geography

Carlisle is an ancient city, and the seat of the diocese to which it gives name. It is situated on a slight rise, in the Cumberland Ward, at the confluence of the rivers Eden, Caldew, and Petteril.
An important centre for trade, it is located 90 km west of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 115 km north of Lancaster, 145 km south of Glasgow, 150 km south-west of Edinburgh, 190 km north-west of York, and 490 km north-north-west of London, at 54°52’N, 2°50’W. Nearby towns and villages include Longtown (North), Penrith (South) Brampton (East), Wigton (West), Haggbeck, Harker, Carwinley, Blackford, Houghton, Aglionby and Rockcliffe.
In January 2005 Carlisle was hit by strong gales and heavy rain, and on Saturday 8 January 2005 all roads into the city were closed owing to severe flooding, the worst since 1822, which caused three deaths.^[2][3]

Transport

The city is linked to the rest of England via the M6 motorway towards the South, and to Scotland via the M74/A74 towards Glasgow and the North. The famous Scottish Indie Rock Outfit "102 Miles" take their name from the distance from Glasgow Central railway station to Carlisle. As well as these routes, many important trunk roads either begin or terminate in Carlisle, including the A6 to Penrith (historically the main road south), the A595 to western Cumbria, the A69 to Newcastle-upon-Tyne and the A7 to Edinburgh. Carlisle thus bears the distinction of being the only city in Great Britain other than London and Edinburgh with more than one single numbered 'A' road - A6 and A7 (although at one time the A5 and A6 met in St Albans). In addition, Carlisle is a principal railway station on the West Coast main railway line. Other railway lines go to Newcastle, Leeds and Glasgow via Dumfries and west Cumbria.
Traffic in the Carlisle area, especially at rush hour, has become a significant problem. A proposed bypass road will take traffic heading to and from west Cumbria off the M6, as opposed to its current path through the centre of Carlisle.
Local bus services are run by Stagecoach Group and Arriva. Following the disastrous flooding of Carlisle Bus Depot (and a lot of the city) on 8th January 2005 and the amazing variety of buses seen in Carlisle afterwards, Stagecoach announced the purchase of a fleet of brand new low-floor buses for Carlisle city routes. These were officially launched on 30th June, complete with "Carlisle Citi" branding, and with most of the buses carrying route branding for individual routes both internally and externally.

Trade and industry

Carlisle became an industrial city in the 19th and early 20th centuries with many textile mills, engineering works and food manufacturers opening up mostly in the Denton Holme, Caldewgate and Wapping areas which lie in the Caldew Valley area of the city. (One such manufacturer located in the Denton Holme area was Ferguson Printers, a large textile printing factory that had stood for many years before its unfortunate closure in the early 1990s). In the early 19th century a canal was dug connecting Caldewgate with the sea at Port Carlisle. The canal was later filled in and became a railway line.
Famous firms that were founded or had factories in Carlisle included Carr's of Carlisle (now part of United Biscuits), Kangol, Metal Box (now part of Crown Cork and Seal). The Carr's and Metal Box factories are still going. The construction firm of John Laing and the hauliers Eddie Stobart Ltd. were also founded in the city.
Until 2004, Carlisle's biggest employer was Cavaghan & Gray, part of Northern Foods which operated from two sites in the Harraby area of Carlisle producing chilled foods for major supermarket chains. As of January 2005, the London Road site was closed with the loss of almost 700 jobs as production was transferred to the nearby Eastern Way site or other factories around the UK.
Carlisle also became a major railway centre with at one time 7 different companies using Carlisle Citadel railway station the city also used to have the largest railway marshaling yard in Europe at Kingmoor, now closed.
There are various light industrial estates and business parks located on the fringes of the city and on former industrial sites close to the city centre.
On March 28, 2005, Carlisle was granted Fairtrade City status.

Sport

Football

The city of Carlisle is represented in the English Coca-Cola Football League One by Carlisle United F.C. [2], after promotion from the Coca-Cola Football League Two at the end of season 2005/06 as champions of the division, this followed their promotion from the Nationwide Conference at the end of the 2004/05 season. Carlisle United Football Club play at Brunton Park Stadium, in the centre of the city.
The team has resided in all four divisions of English football, once going top of Division One (now named the Premiership) for a very brief moment back in the 1974/75 season, although they were eventually relegated back to the old Division Two.

Rugby

Carlisle was at one time home to a rugby league team, Carlisle RLFC who would later merge with Barrow and leave Carlisle.
Carlisle also has a well established rugby union club, CRUFC, situated adjacent to the football grounds.

Boxing

Former British, Commonwealth and IBO world super featherweight champion Charles Shepherd lived in the area and won his world title in the nearby Sports Centre.

Cricket

England cricketer Paul Nixon was born in Carlisle on 21st October 1970.

Speedway

Speedway racing took place at a track in the Kingmoor area in 1937. Brothers Maurice and Roland Stobbart secured the site and built the track. The opening night crowd was about 500 and it is not known to have staged any further meetings.
Contemporary newspaper items suggested a track may have been built at Harraby in 1928 but no additional information has come to light.

Education

St Martin's College has a campus in Carlisle on Fusehill Street. It provides a wide range of degree courses in subjects such as Psychology, Business, Teacher Education and Social Work.
Carlisle also is host for all three campuses of the Cumbria Institute of the Arts, with the main building in close vicinity to the River Eden. Also based in the city is an outpost of the University of Central Lancashire. Both offer primarily higher education programmes, the former in art and media and affected disciplines, the latter in business, computing and law.
Plans have now been approved to create a University of Cumbria, due to open in August 2007. This will be created from an amalgamation of St Martin's College and Cumbria Institute of the Arts.
The secondary schools within the city of Carlisle are: St Aidan's County High School and Specialist Sports and Science College, Austin Friars St Monicas (Roman Catholic Private School), Trinity - Centre of Excellence for Languages, Newman (Roman Catholic School), Morton School and the North Cumbria Technology College (NCTC, fomerly Harraby School). Others are also in the Carlisle district: Caldew School, (Dalston), William Howard School (Brampton), The Nelson Thomlinson School (Wigton) and Lochinvar School (Longtown).

Administration

Carlisle has been a city since the Middle Ages and has been a borough constituency or parliamentary borough for centuries at one time returning two MPs. In 1835 it became a municipal borough which was promoted to county borough status in 1914. The city's boundaries have changed at various times since 1835 the final time being in 1974 when under the Local Government Act 1972 the city and county borough merged with the Border Rural District to become the new City of Carlisle district.
The borough originally had several civil parishes or parts of parishes within it but these were all merged into a single civil parish of Carlisle in 1904. The present day urban area is now classed as an unparished area except for the fringes which are in Stanwix Rural, Kingmoor and St Cuthbert Without parishes.
Carlisle unsuccessfully applied to become a Lord Mayoralty in 2002.
The city council is based in a 1960s building known as the Civic Centre in Rickergate. Owing to structural problems the building will soon be demolished and the surrounding area regenerated.

Curse of Carlisle

The ''Curse of Carlisle'' is a 16th century curse that was first invoked by Archbishop Dunbar of Glasgow in 1525 against cross-border families, known as the Border Reivers, who lived by stealing cattle and pillage. The curse was not directly aimed at Carlisle or its people. For the millennium celebrations, the local council commissioned a 14-tonne granite artwork inscribed with all 1,069 words of the curse.
In 1998 some Christians, among other projects, began campaigning to prevent the City of Carlisle from installing the stone. In the wake of this controversy, superstition about the stone grew and a number of the town's setbacks were blamed on the curse stone, including an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, a flood, various crimes, rising unemployment statistics and even the fate of Carlisle United, which was relegated out of its league.
In March 2005, Liberal Democrat city councillor Jim Tootle, on the request of a Christian citizen, proposed the stone either be moved outside the city boundaries or destroyed altogether. The high priest of the British white witches, Kevin Carlyon, proclaimed that such actions would give the curse more power. He commented that: "A curse can only work if people believe in it. I think at the moment the sculpture is a nice piece of history, but if the council destroys it, they would be showing their belief in the curse." ^[4] A council meeting on March 8, 2005 rejected Tootle's proposal, a move welcomed by council leader Mike Mitchelson, who had earlier questioned whether moving the stone was a good use of council funds.

Famous residents

★ Lee Brennan, former member of the band 911.

★ Writer Hunter Davies was brought up in Carlisle.

★ Grace Dent, childrens author and journalist.

★ Douglas Ferguson, bass player from the band Camel.

★ Novelist Margaret Forster.

★ Former England U21 and Blackburn striker Matt Jansen, who was born in Wetheral near Carlisle.

★ Thomas Logie MacDonald, ex-Mayor and astronomer who had a lunar crater named after him.

★ Author George MacDonald Fraser.

★ Peter Manley, Professional darts player.

★ England cricketer Paul Nixon.

★ Roxanne Pallett, actress in Emmerdale.

★ Fashion designer Stuart Stockdale, formerly Head of Design at Pringle of Scotland.

Carlisle dialect

The Carlisle dialect is a diasystem of the Cumbrian dialect which can be found across much of north-east Cumberland.

References

1. Vindolanda Tablets Online - mentioning Carlisle
2. "Carlisle 'cut off' by flood water" at BBC News – 8 January, 2005, 13:15 UTC
3. "Floods leave homes without power" at BBC News – 8 January, 2005, 23:31 UTC
4. Witch warns of Curse Stone power BBC News

External links

★ Carlisle and Hadrian's Wall Country

★ Carlisle City Council

★ Carlisle Tourist Attractions

★ Visit Cumbria

★ St Martin's College

★ Border-wall for locals and visitors Get it on the wall!

★ St Cuthberts Carlisle
'Photographs'

★ A 360 degree panorama of Carlisle City Square