City 8: Carlisle

29.04.2019

New Adventures

It’s a Monday. Tell me why I don’t like Mondays? Actually I don’t mind Mondays. It’s Sundays that bum me out. Perhaps I feel I should be in church. Anyway, anyway…another early start leaving Greater Manchester at 07.00 in the morning in the ‘new’ Walkabout Van which I picked up from Leicester last Wednesday. Fuel and a 100-mile road journey lie ahead of me. Like Kerouac I’m permanently ‘On The Road.’ Normally I’d be leaving from Lichfield but I’ve overnighted in Rochdale for a little R and R and to catch up on Game of Thrones. Jon and I have just finished a Hadrian’s Wall Bike-Hike-Bike tour with Dianne Arnold and Ron Riley in aid of the Stan Bowley Trust which raises money for a cancer treatment called Cyberknife. The break down is roughly 34-16-33 in terms of miles travelled each day. We first bike-hiked this route back in 2011 to raise funds and awareness for the Luke Day Adventure Fund. See City 27: Newcastle for details. So after an eight year gap this was the perfect time to reactivate the route. Although Day 2 of our odyssey was a little Siberian, Day 3 and the finale in Newcastle was positively Mediterranean.

Book Ends

As Walk and Talk progresses I find myself pairing cities together more often than not. London and Westminster, Salford and Manchester and of course now Carlisle and Newcastle. Perfect bookends or chalk and cheese, salt and pepper, war and peace?  You decide. It’s an excellent excuse to compare and contrast, though. To my mind, and I’m sure many people will disagree, Carlisle isn’t somewhere you visit, its somewhere you drive through on your way to somewhere else. It is not the Northern most city by latitude, that honour belongs to Newcastle but it is closest to the border. Due to its proximity to the dashed line its always been a contested space, somewhere in need of architectural defences and a standing army. The Romans built a wall through it, and around it, despairing of ever subduing the Picts, William Rufus built a castle there and latterly a citadel was constructed. For over 2000 years its been under threat, the 16th Century in particular being rife with reiving, hit and run excursions either side of the line to rape, rob and steal. James the 1st put a stop to this upon his succession but tension continues to crackle in the air centuries after the fact. The cities publicity material boasts of the fact that the city has been besieged ten times and walking round it, I must confess I too felt under a state of siege.

Beginnings

The day starts well enough.  M62, M60, then the M6, which gets quieter and quieter the further north you head. Nice view of the Pennines bathed in the early morning sun and latterly cloud swirling down to envelop the road just ten miles from my final destination. Off the M6 and onto the A6 which runs on a NW-SE axis into the city centre. This is the London Road and a way stop for carriages and riders throughout the dusty centuries. The amount of coaching inns (now well-weathered pubs) along the route bears testament to this. Resentful of Parking charges, and stealth taxes in general, I guerrilla park on Chertsey Mount and walk about a mile into the city along the High Road. On every sign one sees the Carlisle Coat of Arms, a castle flanked by two Red Dragons. It reminds me of the Targaryen Sigil in Game of Thrones and brings a smile to my lips.

Site 1: BT Tower

Across the Road the Harraby Pub and Kitchen beckons enticingly but I have tuna sandwiches and juice so I resist temptation and walk on into the City. Two hundred metres down the way I spot what looks like a derelict BT tower. Turning onto Hillcrest Avenue, a dead end street if ever there was, I go look at it. It’s a 25 metre metal structure of struts and ladders and dishes that looks like the infrastructure of a 1960s rocket, minus its cladding. A lego builders dream, it’s both sinister and alluring, safe behind impale-you railings and garlanded with razor wire and a none-descript smile. It’s one of those landmarks that most people just tune out and ignore but which draws me like a moth to flame. Looking at and photographing architecture like this marks you out as a potential terror suspect these days but I quite like that. As an honorary cat I still have at least seven of my nine lives left.

Site 2: All Hail the Victorious Dead!

Impressions accrue as I walk the London Road over the Petteril River, a tributary of Eden, closer to the buzzing hub that it the city centre. More shabby than chic Carlisle is orbited by retail and industrial parks that place it in the present and red brick terraced houses and cobbled streets that thrust it back into the past. On the backwall of a row of terraced houses a poster advertises a singalong with Jess Glynne, local songbird and legend in her own lunchtime. It reminds me of the Belfast Murals for some reason. An endless line of snaking traffic, crawling towards work, passes me. It’s the one place I’ve been in the UK where people still shout abuse from car windows as they pass you at speed. At first I think its an isolated incident but as the day passes it becomes a fixture if not a default setting. The people seem caught like birds in lime or wasps in the sugary piss at the bottom of a bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale. St Georges Flags and Union Jacks flutter from buildings. That ain’t football, that’s Brexit and obviously these people want out. 60% I later read. A little further on I find an obelisk, surrounded by rusting iron spears, raised to honour the fallen of two world wars and I wonder at the connection between World War and Brexit in people’s minds.

Site 3: Scattered Flowers

The London Road Community hospital looks more like an airport terminal than a hospital and harder to get into than a US barracks. The tinted glass means they can look out but you can’t look in and as always I ask who watches the watchers? More red brick terraced houses pass, sequestered behind more of those sinister spear railings. Grasses and climbers, flowers and foliage pore out from between the gaps and I stop to photograph two poppies wavering side by side in the breeze. Yellow not Red, Icelandic not English, they bring a little ironic joy into the day, serving as a pick me up and tonic to the misgivings I’m already feeling about the place. Betjeman didn’t get on with Slough and I’m beginning to have my doubts about Carlisle.  

Site 4: The Oval Towers of the Citadel

But the sun continues to shine and cars and buildings flash by catching the eye. The Railway Inn is a well-appointed red brick boozer with three chimney stacks and a brazen air which upon closer inspection is boarded up. On the opposite side of the street, in partial shadow I spot and snap a maroon 1960s looking Volvo, awaiting inspection at the Budget Exhaust and Tyre Centre. On either side of it are takeaways, one Chinese, one Nepalese, evidence of an (at least) partial acceptance of other cultures, if only on a culinary level.  Further on I spy the Cumberland Inn, that with its black, mullioned windows, its pale stone, slightly exaggerated height and symmetry would not have been out of place in a Gothic novel. Or the town of Hamelin. At this point the London Road becomes Botchergate and this in turn leads into English Street where two oval towers mark the entrance into the city via the citadel. In 1810-11 the original towers, improving on a design supplied by my relative Thomas Telford, were replaced by a self satisfied architect called Robert Smirke. These remodelled towers contained an assize court and prison. Outside of them stands a pretentious statue dating from 1845 of Earl Lonsdale, the Lord Lieutenant and patron of the citadel clad in the toga romana. 1400 years out of date, he looks like a bald Nigel Farrage.

Site 5: Of Tourists and Information

The flower beds around the citadel are filled with Dutch poppies of yellow and red and like the poppies and snap dragons already passed, bring a much needed dash of colour into the proceedings. Walking alone I feel in need of more talk and less walk and so head for the Tourist Information Office. Lumbering upstairs I hit the display racks pulling down leaflets and adverts for local events and features and filling my already bulging saddle bags. After that I head for the helpdesk where an earnest and bespectacled youth called Blane helps kriss kross my map with the towns best features. Blane, being as polite and helpful as he is, is quite the best thing that I have experienced in Carlisle so far. Nothing is too much trouble and he helps revive my wilting faith in humanity as he points out his and hers matching chairs used in local weddings, positioned on a nearby shelf. Back outside on the central plaza a green a cream modernist box housing Marks and Sparks catches my eye as does the statue of Mayor Steel, yet another luminary from 1845. No doubt an exemplary year in the history of the city. From here I head for the public library situated somewhat eccentrically in the Lanes shopping centre and read up on Local History, Reiving, Corpse lanes and Willo-the-wisps. After that a history of the Targaryian Kings hooks me and from thence I stroll into Waterstones for a lunchtime coffee and to read an article on the fallen idol that is Tony Slattery.

Site 6: Of Rebellions, Gargoyles and Tiger Hunts

I stay in Waterstones longer than I ought and peruse the shelves. Picking up Orwell’s ‘Wigan Pier’ I flick through at random and read his thoughts on Socialists and Socialism. He is far more critical and funnier than I ever imagined about middle class socialists who he refers to as foaming denouncers made up of ‘that dreary tribe of high-minded women and sandal-wearers and bearded fruit-juice drinkers who flock (sic)towards the smell of progress like bluebottles to a dead cat.’ After that its onto the Crown and Mitre, remodelled, like the citadel, in 1902. With its roaring log fire and sweeping grand escalier it is now described as a bastion of Edwardian elegance but previously it played host to Bonny Prince Charlie (Romantic Hero or Catholic Terrorist, Wife Beater and Alcoholic according to your taste) and his merry band of Jacobite brigands following the siege of 1745. From here despite my intention not to, I enter the second smallest cathedral in England (the first placed being Christchurch in Oxford) to soak up the incense-laden air and marvel at the ceiling. Outside I am guided to gaze at one of the damaged gargoyles which has been replaced with a Policeman’s head, shoulders and helmet in honour off Constable Russell gunned down in 1965 in the line of duty. From here I enter yet another book shop to buy Doris Lessing Books and to read up on the Raj. Col. Burton’s Diaries from 1894-1949 are both fascinating and singularly repulsive. Despite being described as a proto conservationist not a day seems to have passed when he didn’t kill some magnificent beast for either sport or adventure. I ended up rooting for the man-eating tigers and think it would have been far more sporting if he had gone into the jungle with just a spear and a bible for company. Oh well. Different times. Different values, I suppose.

Site 7: Museum and Castle

Time has passed and lots of it. I arrived around ten and its gone 17.00 by the time I leave the book shop and its innumerable treasures. I amble past the Tullie House and Art Museum, sun speared. Opened originally in 1893 by the Carlisle Corporation it was formerly a Jacobean Mansion but still looks very nice, even from the outside, where one can see a clock tower and an archway with a raised portcullis. Family friendly and well appointed here one finds the works of Burne Jones and other pre-Raphaelite butterflies as well as the stringed instruments of Andrea Amati. There are also permanent exhibitions dedicated to the Norse and the Romans which may bolster ones sense of this Island Kingdom as a culture formed by successive waves of immigrants. Or then again it may not. At the end of the street one sees the grand Norman Castle reclining on a rise. Another architectural marvel built by yet another immigrant.  

Site 8: More Tea Vicar?

Down Castle Way and over the road via an elegant walkway and bridge I roll like the wheel on an out of control cart, down the west wall, past the Green Room Club which houses the West Walls Theatre. They are currently putting on Allo Allo, a show I directed by in 2015. Back onto Bridge Street and over the River Caldew, like the Petteril, straight out of Eden. Down to Shaddon’s Mill and Dixon’s Chimney built in 1836 and shortened in 1950 from 305 feet to 290 feet. Grim, Northern and crumbling into dereliction it is a phallic monstrosity. Down to McVities Biscuit Factory, another red brick confection whose walls are covered with the most vicious spikes I have ever seen. More medieval torture implement than human deterrent they make you wonder whether humanities past is the key to its future too. I pop into a pub, the Joiner’s Arms for a spot of tea but the scowls and death stares I receive from the huddled men assembled there drives me back outside to jeers and laughter. Once in the street I am almost run over by a hunchbacked cyclist who curses me and rides on.

Site 9: Green Lungs

Almost at a run, I head for Bitts Park, one of the cities green lungs. Past the skate park, away from the castle I move through woodland where nature restores a much needed sense of balance to my increasingly paranoid mind. A Unicyclist wobbles by, ode to surrealism, bringing me to a momentary halt. Then onwards towards the river. Vaping youths eye me up and down to see whether I am a potential mark and yap out insults masquerading as helloes. The scent of wild garlic fills the air along with the calls of cawing rooks and the jackhammer rattle of a woodpecker. Down to the River Eden on whose far shore bathers loiter. I snap away, taking nothing but photos, leaving nothing but footsteps and then head via an underpass down Georgian Way to a Subway on the London Road for a sandwich and coffee, donuts and lemonade. Dehydrated and discombobulated I retrace my steps to the car as fast as my legs will carry me. 18.30 and the sun is sinking, shadows lengthening. One of the few smiles of the day is gifted to me by an Eastern European with an accent. Starting up the van I turn a corner and hit the road at speed. I came, I saw, I left. Quickly.