Local Information

A city located in the extreme northwest of England, it is only sixteen kilometers from the country’s border with Scotland. Carlisle has had a chaotic history, from the time the Romans built the Hadrian’s Wall through it and the Vikings invaded it, to the time when the Scots and the English spent many years fighting over it.

Perhaps this border city is one of the reasons why ‘borderlines’ are associated with disorder! On a similar note, Carlisle does still remain the seat of superstition. In 1525 the Archbishop Dunbar of Glasgow invoked a curse against cross-border families, known as the Border Reivers, who lived by stealing cattle, rape, and pillage. Although the curse was not directly aimed at Carlisle or its people as a whole, it is remembered even today during misfortunes such as floods and the football team’s poor performance. Carlisle’s local council, therefore, commissioned a fourteen-ton granite artwork inscribed with all the 1069 words of the curse for the millennium celebrations.

Still, Carlisle is the chief shopping, commercial, and industrial centre in the northern half of Cumbria and a fair portion of southern Scotland. The Carlisle Castle here is among the grandest places to visit. It is a medieval fortress over nine centuries old and home to the Border Regiment Museum. The Carlisle Cathedral, too, is a very interesting place. It was founded in 1122 for the glory of God, yet has been battered by centuries of warfare. Nonetheless, services have been said and sung daily in this cathedral for nearly nine hundred years!

The Carlisle Citadel Station, built in 1847, is another display of impressive architecture in the city while the Tullie House is one of the first provincial museums in the nation. The Guildhall Museum is housed in the upper chamber of Carlisle’s only medieval house, which was built in 1407. You must also check out the eighteenth century St Cuthbert’s Church in order to truly explore the depths of Carlisle’s history.