button to main menu  Camden's Britannia, edn 1789

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Page 193:-
  roman fort, Dalston
feet long, one broad, and six inches thick, which had a sort of circle very rudely cut or marked near the top, but nothing under them. About half a mile south south-west from hence was a small Roman camp about 30 yards diameter, and much about the same distance north north-west another Roman camp of like dimensions. A third about a mile south east much larger. None of these camps are above a mile, and the first not a quarter of the distance from Rose, where Mr. Camden places Congavata, which Mr. Horsley, on much better grounds, fixes at Stanwix. The two smaller camps are now arable land, and have been frequently plowed, but no coins or inscriptions found. The other is on an uncultivated moor, and has never been searched or tried: but small hand mill-stones and other things have been dug up, sufficient to evince them to be Roman [o].
Though Dalston is no market town, it has a very large cross, which seems to have been built at the expence of the neighbouring gentry, as their arms on it shew. The three kites heads, the arms of bishop Kite 1520-1537, refer the erecting of it to his time [p].
  Shalk beck.
  Upper or Lower Green Quarries
  roman inscription

About a mile or more from Rose castle westward is Shalk beck, where are large and fair quarries of freestone, whence it is suppposed was taken great part of the stone that built the Roman wall from Carlisle to Bowness. From the appearance of the place it is certain that immense quantities have been carried away from thence, and lately on removing a vast heap of rubbish from before the rock in one part, in order to carry the works further back, was found on the face of the rock this inscription:

LEG. II AVG.
MILITES PEIV
COH III COH IIII.
The last line inclosed in a kind of parallel frame of strokes and hatches, which bishop Lyttelton supposed modern, like the other scrawls about the inscription. Perhaps they have been notes for loads or tons of stone hewn or delivered. The whole is on a protuberant eminence of rock, of very difficult access, seven or eight yards above the stream, in an uncultivated desart, and being sheltered from the east wind covers the workmen from weather. It is the 6th Roman inscription on a rock among us: one at Helbeck scar in this county, three at Crawdundalewathe near Kirkby Thor c. Westmorland, and that on Leage cragg near Naworth, which Mr. Horsley found to be utterly defaced [q].
  CARLISLE.
  Carlisle
"The City of Cairluell is in compass scant a mile, and is walled with a right fair strong wall ex lapide quadrato subrufo. In the wall be three gates Bocher or S. Calden or W. and Richard or N. The castle being within the town is in some part as a closer of the whole. The Irishmen call Bale a town, and so peradventure did the old Scots. Thus might be said that Lugubalia soundeth Luel's town. In the cite be two paroch churches, of which the one is in the body of the cathedral church, in the which be canons regulars else be in no cathedral church in England. The other is of St. Cuthbert. There is in the town a chapel of St. Alban, and also two other houses of freres black and grey. In digging to make new buildings in the town often times hath bene and now a late found divers foundations of the old city, as pavements of streets, old arches of doors, coyne, stones squarid, painted pots, money hid in pots so old and muldid that when it was strongly touched it went almost to moulder. The whole site of the town is sore changed, for whereas the streets were the great edifices now be vacant and garden plotts. The cite standeth in the forest of Ynglewood. The body of the cathedral church is of an older building than the choir. In the fields about Cairluel in plowing hath been found divers Cornelines and other stones, well entailed for seals, and in other places of Cumberland hath been found brickes containing the prints of antique works [r]."
  Carlisle Castle
  Carlisle Cathedral

CARLISLE is very pleasantly situated; the walls in bad repair, and the walks on them ill kept. The castle, though antient, makes a good appearance at a distance, and commands an extensive view of pleasant meads, insulated by the two branches of the Eden. Richard III. made some additions to the castle, and Henry VIII. built the citadel, an oblong with three bastions on the west side of the town, now neglected. The old portcullis remains in the inner gate of the castle, and they shew the apartments where Mary queen of Scots was lodged after her landing at Workington. It is now deserted, and the garrison withdrawn. The city has three gates, the French, English, and Scotch; the principal street very spacious has a guard house built by Cromwell. The cathedral begun by Walter, a Norman priest, under William Rufus, governor of the city, who founded a monastery here, which Henry I. endowed for Austin canons, and afterwards made a bishopric (the only one of the order in England), is imperfect, the west part being pulled down by Cromwell 1649, to build batteries and a citadel in the market place, so that it has lost near 100 feet of its whole length, being only 219 feet, and the nave used as a parish church only. Part was built in the Saxon style with round arches and massy pillars 15 feet high, and 17 feet and an half in circumference; the rest is ascribed to Edward III. The steeple and tabernacle work by bishop Strickland. The choir [s] by bishop Welton, finished by his successors Appleby and Strickland. It has handsome stalls, supposed by Robert Eglefield founder of Queen's college, Oxford, and the history of St. Cuthbert and St. Austin painted in compartments with couplets at the west end at the back of the stalls much defaced. Bishop Lyttleton contributed largely to wainscot the choir and the sides of the altar, from a design of his nephew Thomas Pitt, esq; now lord Camelford, who also gave a design for a bishop's throne. The door near the bishop's throne was the work of prior Haythwaite about 1480, and the opposite door of prior Senhouse about 1500. The revenues of the priory were valued at £.418. of the bishopric at £.531. Henry VIII. founded here a dean, four prebendaries, 8 minor canons, a subdean, four singing-men, a grammar-master, six choristers and a master, six almsmen, &c. [t] The cloisters and buildings were destroyed in the civil war [u], except the refectory, now the chapter house. Here are monuments for bishops Barrow 1429, Bell 1496, Robinson 1616, Milborn 1623, Fleming 1747, and some ascribed to Appleby, Wil-
[o] Burn, II. 323, 324.
[p] Ib. II. 325.
[q] Archaeol. I. 227. Mr. Smith's MS. letter to R. Gale 1741-2. Burn, II. 324.
[r] Lel. VII. 70.
[s] Bishop Gibson says that the upper part of the cathedral, a curious piece of workmanship, was built by Henry VIII; mistaking it for the citadel.
[t] Tan. 73.
[u] Pen. 58.
ton,
gazetteer links
button -- Carlisle Castle
button -- Carlisle Cathedral
button -- "Carlisle" -- Carlisle
button -- "Shalk Beck" -- Chalk Beck
button -- Chalk Quarries
button -- Citadel, The
button -- "English Gate" -- English Gate
button -- (friary, Carlisle (2))
button -- (friary, Carlisle)
button -- "French Gate" -- Irish Gate
button -- (market cross, Dalston)
button -- (roman site, Dalston)
button -- "Scotch Gate" -- Scottish Gate
button -- St Alban's Chapel
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