Carlisle Castle

Entering the Gatehouse

For anyone who isn’t familiar with the area, Carlisle is at the western end of Hadrian’s wall in modern day Cumbria, only fourteen miles from the present day border with Scotland. Strategically placed at the northern end of a steep bluff, overlooking the confluence of the Rivers Caldew and Eden at the northernmost tip of Carlisle city centre, the castle has seen 800 years of continuous military use. So close to the Scottish border, it functioned both as the first line of defence against marauding Scottish armies and as a focal point for English military campaigns against the Scots.

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Portcullis, Outer Gatehouse

As early as AD 70, there was a turf and timber Roman fort, known as Luguvalium, where the present castle stands. Excavations located parts of the west and south defences of this fort, including a waterlogged and remarkably well preserved timber gateway. In the second and third centuries, the fort extended as far south as Abbey Street and Castle Street. After AD 330, there is little information to be had, though crudely built stone structures dating to the late fourth century have been found on the site of the present day fort's barracks.

The existing castle is built upon the central and northern half of the Roman fort, and I’m recording this information because the castle features in my story!They say William II built a timber and earth construction in 1092 and thirty years later Henry I gave money to fortify the town with 'a castle and towers.' The siege of 1217 damaged it badly but the Scottish wars of Edward I meant that repairs were necessary, and by 1290 they were completed.

The old building work (as opposed to Victorian interventions) consists of two lengths of Carlisle city wall adjacent to the curtain walls of the castle, the towers and outer gatehouse, with the bridge over the moat, and an inner ward with its gatehouse, keep, ditch, and curtain walls. The Main gate was rebuilt circa 1380, and from 1422, Carlisle became the centre of the Western March and sums were allocated to ensure that Carlisle was defensible. The inner gatehouse (or Captain's Tower) went up mid-C14 and the Tile Tower in 1483 (when Richard III was Lieutenant of the North and in charge of Carlisle.)

 

Naworth history



The courtyard looking west

There may have been a castle at Naworth as early as 1270. Certainly the house was crenellated by Ranulph Dacre in 1335, during the reign of Edward III. The Dacre family grew increasingly powerful by marrying wealthy, landed heiresses. One such mariage was that of Thomas, Lord Dacre of the North, who married Elizabeth de Greystoke.
The present castle consists of a courtyard with towers at the corners. The two tallest towers flank the south entrance range. Once it was an impressive irregular quadrangular fortress with a high curtain wall containing small turrets in the centre and on the angles, dominated by two, five storey towers.
Today the 16th century courtyard still has its yett and is protected by the remains of a barmkin wall, a gatehouse and a squat tower flanking the ditch.

Northeast corner

In 1513 Thomas, Lord Dacre played an important role at the battle of Flodden, where the English, under Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (later 2nd Duke of Norfolk) inflicted a catastrophic defeat upon the Scottish nation. Thomas Dacre was awarded lands around Lanercost, and with that new wealth extended Naworth. He built the whole of the south and east wings including the 100ft Great Hall, and what is now known as Lord William’s Tower. His arms are displayed over the detached entrance gateway.

Thomas Dacre was also Warden of The West March for Henry VIII, and provided loyal service to the crown until his death in 1525. Unfortunately for the Dacre family, in 1560 the then Lord Dacre died, leaving a widow, three daughters and a young son called George. Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, Queen Elizabeth's cousin, married the widowed Lady Dacre, and arranged to marry his three sons to her three daughters. Young George was killed in a fall from a vaulting horse and the vast Dacre estates which covered great tracts of the north of England - including 70,000 acres of the Barony of Gilsland, lands in Cumberland including Greystoke and Dacre, 20,000 acres around Morpeth and 30,000 acres in Yorkshire - now part of Castle Howard estate, all came under the control of the Howard family. Following the death of his wife, he then rather foolishly became embroiled in a plot to marry Mary Queen of Scots. Thus Thomas Howard, like his father before him, went to the scaffold and was executed in 1572.

Floods

While Cumbria drowns we on the east of the Pennines suffer no more than a few rainy days. I suppose the east had it last year, when several places like Morpeth and Rothbury were almost washed away. It beggars belief how complacent we have become, building so close to waterways and rivers. Fine maybe in drought years, but what about the wet years? And the UK is predominantly a wet country, strung with rivers and canals, with a climate that is temperate and given to generous rainfall.
People talk of unprecedented levels of rain in 24 hours, but had there not been rain for days beforehand, the land would have soaked it up and drained it away. May as well blame the land, already full of water and unable to soak up more. Seems to me it's our old friend multiple causality again. The lesson to be learned?
Do not buy a house built on a flood plain. We seem to have forgotten what flood plains are, or why they were there. Better by far, if faced with a choice, to buy a house on higher land, out of reach of the river. The thought of sour-smelling river mud and worse creeping up through drains and catflaps while I sleep, coating every surface of my home, sends shudders through me. I don't know how the people caught this time will recover and begin again. I hope they will, with help from agencies and donations, and hope it will be somewhere safer.