Cumberland

Cumberland consisted of the western part of the Lake District, a surrounding coastal plain, and two outlying areas, a hilly district to the east towards Alston, and fertile lands north of Hadrian's Wall towards the Scottish border. Carlisle grew as a bridge over the Eden, where an east-west route from Newcastle towards Ireland intersected with two major north-south routes, an ancient road through Tebay, and an old route from Yorkshire across Stainmore.

Cumberland was one of the last shires to take shape and for centuries was disputed between England and Scotland. In Caesar's time it was in the territory of the Brigantes, but that was a loose confederation and the local tribe were the Carvetii. The Romans were interested in the area for strategic and economic reasons. In the end, their boundary with the Scots settled along the line of Hadrian's Wall. Carlisle (Luguvalium) was a major Roman town, and there were important forts at Hardknott (the worst posting in Roman Britain), and at Maryport, Penrith, Netherby, and Bewcastle. Ravenglass, where the Mite, Irt, and Esk meet, was a superb natural harbour until it silted up. The local mineral resources were also exploited—silver and lead from the Alston region, copper, coal, and iron elsewhere. After the Roman period, the orientation of the region was towards Scotland and Ireland rather than the south. It was a meeting-place of peoples and cultures. The basic stratum was Welsh or British, and the name, Cumberland, means the land of the Cumbri—the Welsh. But the Saxons penetrated across from Northumbria and later there were settlers from Ireland and the Isle of Man, who left Norse place-names—Aspatria, Cleator, Ennerdale, and Borrowdale. Roman and Celtic Christianity also competed here. St Ninian's mission at Whithorn was only the other side of Solway Firth and St Kentigern certainly evangelized in the 6th cent. from Strathclyde. After Æthelfryth's victory at Degsastan in 603, the region fell under Saxon rule and became part of Northumbria.

But it was hard for any power to keep a firm grip on the area and as Northumbrian influence waned, that of Wessex rose. In 926 Athelstan, king of Wessex, met the kings of Strathclyde and Scotland at Eamont bridge to dictate terms, and reasserted his authority in 937 with a crushing victory at Brunanburh. But Wessex control of so distant a territory can only have been fitful.

By this time the term Cumbria was coming into use. The Normans did not at first occupy the area and neither Cumberland nor Westmorland was included in the Domesday survey in 1086. But in 1092 William Rufus brought a large force there and began building the castle at Carlisle and in 1133 Henry I established Carlisle as a bishopric. The Scots had by no means abandoned their claims. David I of Scotland took advantage of the confusion of Stephen's reign to occupy the area and died at Carlisle in 1153. Henry II reconquered it in 1157 and it stayed part of England. Westmorland was hived off to form a separate county and by the end of the 13th cent. Cumberland, like the other counties, sent two knights of the shire to Parliament.

Though Cumberland was now firmly attached to England, it remained a border county. The tide of war rolled backwards and forwards. The Scots besieged Carlisle in 1296; Robert I Bruce did homage in the cathedral in 1297; and Edward I died at Burgh campaigning against the Scots in 1307. During the Civil War, in 1644-5, Carlisle stood a siege from the Scots who destroyed much of the cathedral. The last serious fighting on English soil occurred in the county during Prince Charles Stuart's retreat in 1745, when he left a forlorn hope in Carlisle castle.

Although not a large town, Carlisle dominated the county. Penrith had military importance because of the junction of two major routes, and the market towns of Brampton, Wigton, Cockermouth, and Keswick had local significance. Travellers avoided the area if they could. But the character of the county began to change with the industrial revolution, which created an urban fringe to west Cumberland, and the revolution in taste, which brought visitors in search of Romantic scenery of lakes and hills. Local landowners were vigorous in exploiting mineral resources and opening up ports. The Lowthers sponsored Whitehaven, which exported coal to Dublin, the Curwens did the same for Workington. The chief beneficiary or victim of Romanticism was perhaps Keswick, on the shore of Derwentwater, which changed from a small market town into a fashionable Victorian resort and thence into a tourist trap. By the local government reorganization of 1972 Cumberland was united with Westmorland and the Furness district of Lancashire to form Cumbria.