Carlisle Castle

   I've been to several castles in England and Scotland, and some just look like Manor Houses, not like what you would think of a castle... I think of moats, drawbridges or at least a portcullis and a keep...
   Carlisle Castle is more what you would think a castle would look like, though it is not what it looked like 850 years ago. There is a small area that is from that time period, but most has been made over, renovate, rejuvenated, used, reused, and gone through at least two major sieges.. well, it's stood up well over time I think...











The castle began it's life in the 12th century, with a keep and defenses. However, after excavations, the site has been determined to have also been a Norman Castle, and theAD 72, large Roman fort, built of turf and timber, that was established that provided support for garrisons of Hadrian's wall. Also it was a staging point for troops that would invade Scotland...and was the site for Roman civilian settlement of Luguvalium.


The living quarters in this modern day castle are spartan, one can imagine the tapestries and rugs that once adorned the walls and floors, and magnificent furniture that once graced the rooms. But it is very sad that it is bare, save a few banners that have been hung for educational purposes.
Though the castle has seen it's share of hard times, with the siege of 1135, and  of 1644 through 1645, and the siege of 1745-6, stripping it of it's splendor and wrecking parts of the interior, it still survives.
The television series Outlander has made popular the strife between the Scots and the English. The fighting between the two has been in and around this area, with one of the most famous fights at the Sollome Moffs, or Solway Moss...24th November, 1542. the fights between the Scots and English were notorious...During the Jacobite Rebellion, Carlisle was home to some 16,000 troops. The 15th Novemer, 1745, the city surrendered to the Scots, with an agreement that the defenders lay down arms and not fight the Jacobites for one year.

The land in the borders were debatable as to who owned it.  The town of Carlisle, the Castle Carlisle, was owned back and forth between the two. The town, since the early first century AD, has been caught in the middle so to speak.

The battle of Solway Moss is very interesting, since James V was not actually present, due to an illness that ended his life only a fortnight later, leaving Mary, his infant daughter as the Queen.  This is terribly interesting, since Mary, only twenty some odd years later would be held in Castle Carlisle, prisoner of her cousin Elizabeth I.

There is a room within, that has bars for keeping prisoners, not the famous rooms that once kept Mary, Queen of Scots for a fortnight, but a small cell that held captives, who used the walls for their graffiti... still readable.

I love the way the sandstone has worn over the years. Today, it is rarely used for architectural purposes, only for decorative parts of buildings since it is such a soft rock, but so many of the abbeys, castles, and homes have been made using this beautiful stone.

Down in the belly of the castle, the dungeons

 When you see the iron bar doors, you can imagine the feeling of desperation, of panic of being locked up. The doors to the dungeons were made of solid wood with ironwork, so the feeling would probably be even worse. Not being able to see what was going on, what was outside your cell... yikes!

I find the architecture to be so wonderful, here you see the fireplace, but around it is a full archway, was this used as a full fireplace? Or was this part of another room that was shaped totally different and was later added into this room?

 Part of the castle that has been restored to what it might have looked like during Medieval England. School Children come here to learn about the castle. How great is that? living in the shadow of a castle?

 Some hunting within the castle walls to find hidden rooms, doorways that have been covered over and possibly, bits of Roman architecture, left over from the occupation of England by the Romans.

 The excavations within the castle are showing architectural bits that have been covered over for centuries.

There are bits and pieces from the older part of the castle that might surprise you. This, for instance is a piece of Roman architecture, thought to be an alter piece, used as a building block for the interior wall.
It is not uncommon to see bits and pieces of Hadrian's Wall used in fencing, buildings, bridges...

 A bit of a close up to see the writing on this piece. It is a dedication. You can see the faces carved into the piece.

What a shame it was lost to scavenging, but it is wonderful that it has been preserved for such a long time, out of the elements, built into this wall. This piece is dated to around 213AD.