. The former law courts or
towers which now serve as offices for Cumbria County Council are also of architectural interest.
Main article: Luguvalium Roman Carlisle 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.
Later history 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.
Geography 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.
Transport 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 1990's). 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.
Trade and industry 
Sport 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.
Football 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.
Rugby 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.
Boxing England
cricketer Paul Nixon was born in Carlisle on 21st October 1970.
Cricket 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.
Speedway 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).
Education 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.
Administration 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, rape 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.
Famous residents The Carlisle dialect is a diasystem of the
Cumbrian dialect which can be found across much of north-east Cumberland.
Solar vehicles
Energy storage
Management