A Brief History of Cumbria

Castlerigg

First farmers built stone circles, barrows and henges: Mayburgh Henge, Castlerigg Stone Circle, Long Meg and her Daughters, Swinside Stone Circle - used as meeting places, a lunar calendar or for religious ceremonies.

• Hadrian's Wall - runs for 73 miles from Bowness on Solway to Wallsend - built in AD122 by Emperor Hadrian to mark the northern most boundary of Roman Empire.
• Built the first proper roads and established a series of forts linking Kendal, Penrith and Carlisle; Ambleside, Hardknott and Maryport.

• Known as The Dark Ages. Cumbria was part of the Kingdom of Rheged ruled by King Urien.
• Celts gave Cumbria its name "Cymry" - land of compatriots.
• Legacy of place names and language - numerals still used for counting sheep - similar to Welsh: yan, tan, tether, mether, pimp, sethera, lethera, hovera, dovera, dick! (1 -10).
• Christianity - St. Kentigern, known as St. Mungo has 9 churches dedicated to his name.

• Anglian people were farmers and cultivators of the land.
• They left a legacy of stone crosses - found mostly on fertile edges of Cumbria - Irton Cross, Bewcastle Cross in St. Cuthbert's church.
• Legacy of placenames ending in "tun" e.g.
  - Wigton
  - Brampton
  - Ireton
  - Workington
  Also "ham" such as:
  - Heversham
  - Askham
  - Brigham
  - Dearham
  

• Third generation Scandinavians came from Ireland and Isle of Man.
• Legacy of language:
  tarn - small lake,
  dale - valley
  fell - hill
  beck - stream
  force - waterfall
• Swords and graves, silver brooches and crosses.
• Crosses, hog-back tombstones. Gosforth Cross - the carvings are a fusion of Norse pagan mythology and Christian beliefs.
• Viking "Thing Mound" in Little Langdale - a small terraced mound where a Viking assembly was held and new laws proclaimed.

• William the Conqueror invaded England 1066. Northern part of Cumbria belonged to Scotland.
• William Rufus, son of William the Conqueror marched north 1092. Took Carlisle from Scots and built castles at Carlisle, Kendal, Brougham, Penrith;

• Abbeys - Carlisle, Furness, Cartmel, Wetheral, St. Bees, Calder, Holm Cultram, Lanercost and Shap
• Monks were wealthy landowners and farmed sheep for wool, dairy farms, rye and oats grown.
• Industry - iron ore smelted in bloomeries using charcoal from woods.

• Border Rievers: Warring tribes from either side of the border with Scotland who lived by their own laws of reprisal and revenge. Landowners built "Pele" Towers to defend their families and livestock against attack.
• Robert the Bruce led invasions from Scotland.
• 1348 - Black Death destroyed half the population of Penrith.
• Edward IV made truce with Scotland 1463, appointed his brother, later to become Richard III, "Warden of the Western Marches" at Penrith.

• Woollen industry brought prosperity - water power used for fulling mills in the production of Kendal Green cloth.
• Dissolution of Monasteries by Henry VIII in 1539 - some were saved as churches - Carlisle Cathedral and Cartmel Priory.
• Copper mined around Keswick - Queen Elizabeth l founded the Company of Mines Royal. Ore was smelted using charcoal made by burning coppiced wood - destruction of native woodland.
• Mary Queen of Scots imprisoned in Carlisle Castle before being executed by Elizabeth I in 1587.

• Act of Union in 1603 joined England and Scotland under James 1.
• Farmers and Quakers - the great rebuilding of the traditional Lakeland long house.
• George Fox, founder of the Quaker movement preached at Brigflatts near Sedbergh. Lived at Swarthmoor, near Ulverston.
• Lady Anne Clifford inherited and restored her castles at Brough, Appleby, Brougham, Pendragon and Skipton

• Start of Industrial Revolution - Coalmining in Whitehaven, iron mining around Workington, Cleator Moor. Graphite mined at Seathwaite near Keswick - a valuable commodity used in the casting of canon balls, glazing pottery, fixing dyes and the manufacture of pencils.
• Shipbuilding in Whitehaven - start of tobacco trade with Virginia.
• Jacobite Rebellions 1715 and 1745 - Bonnie Prince Charlie stayed at Kendal and Penrith.
• Start of Agricultural Revolution - turnips used as winter feed for animals, improved breeds of sheep and cattle.
• 1796 Parliamentary Enclosures of Land.

• Artists, writers, poets came to visit or to live here. William Wordsworth, Samual Taylor Coleridge, Robert Southey, Thomas de Quincey, John Keats, Sir Walter Scott, were all inspired by the beautiful scenery of lakes and mountains.
• Thomas Grey wrote a Guide Book in which he described his first view of Grasmere as "a little unsuspected paradise" - influencing the first tourists who came in search of the "picturesque" views.

Cunard Line

Brantwood & John Ruskin

• Turnpike roads and railways. Bobbin mills for Lancashire cotton industry and manufacture of gunpowder for the colonies.
• Daniel Brocklebank founded a shipbuilding company in Maryport which became the Cunard Line.
• Wealthy businessmen from the northern industrial cities built large country houses around the lakes.
• 1843 William Wordsworth became Poet Laureate after Robert Southey.
• 1871 John Ruskin came to live at Brantwood.
• 1895 Founding of the National Trust by Canon Hardwick Rawnsley.

• 1905 Beatrix Potter bought Hilltop at Far Sawry and became the first woman President of the Herdwick Sheep Society.
• 1929 Arthur Ransome wrote Swallows and Amazons whilst living near Coniston.
• 1951 Formation of the Lake District National Park.
• 1967 Donald Campbell died after breaking the World Water Speed Record on Coniston Water in his boat, Bluebird.
• 1974 - the old counties of Cumberland and Westmoreland, part of Lancashire and part of Yorkshire were amalgamated to form the county of Cumbria - from the old Celtic word Cymry meaning 'compatriot'.
• The Lake District becomes the second most popular visitor destination in the UK after London. Conservation becomes vital and both the National Park and the National Trust make this a priority.

Beatrix Potter

Donald Campbell