Walk 303 -- An historical day in Carlisle

Ages:  Colin was 70 years and 62 days.  Rosemary was 67 years and 205 days.

Weather:  Mostly fine.

Location:  An historical day in Carlisle.

Distance:  0 miles.

Total distance:  3067 miles.

Terrain:  Pavements, footbridges and underpasses.

Tide:  Out.

Rivers:  None.

Ferries:  None.

Piers:  None.

Kissing gates:  None.

Pubs:  The King’s Head, one of the oldest buildings in Carlisle.  We drank Yates ‘Golden Ale’, ‘Cumbrian Ale’ and had a nice snack lunch.

‘English Heritage’ properties:  No.45, Carlisle Castle.  We also visited the cathedral.

Ferris wheels:  None.

Diversions:  None.

How we got there and back:  We were staying in our caravan near Carlisle.  I was nursing a very sore foot because I had a blister which had gone septic.  So we packed up walking the coastline for a few days and spent our time gently strolling around places of interest in the locality.  We drove into Carlisle and parked near the castle.

At the end drove back to the caravan.

We actually did our historical tour of Carlisle slightly out of order because I was waiting for a blister on my heel (which had gone septic) to heal before tackling the last two Walks leading to this first city back in England.  (I had to put the wrong date on the blog so that it would slip into the right slot.)

The settlement of Carlisle was first established during the Roman era — it was built to serve the forts on Hadrian’s Wall which runs through the city.  But the present city was built by William Rufus at the end of the 11^th century.  It does not appear in the Domesday Book because, at that time, it was in Scotland.

Of course, the most important building as far as Colin is concerned is the King’s Head pub, one of his CAMRA pubs!  However, it is said to be one of the oldest inns in the city.  The present building dates from the 17^th century, but there has been an inn on this site since the 10^th century.  We enjoyed some good ale and a nice snack lunch there.

Carlisle became a city in 1133 when Henry I founded the See of Carlisle.  That is when the church of St Mary was upgraded to cathedral status, so it was to Carlisle Cathedral we went next.

The building was begun in 1122, founded as an Augustinian Priory, the remains of which are still to be seen in the cathedral grounds.  At the Reformation the monastery was dissolved, but the cathedral survived because it was taken over by a secular chapter.

During the Civil War of the 17^th century, some of the nave was demolished by the Scottish Presbyterian Army so they could use the stone to reinforce Carlisle Castle.  This damage was restored in the 19^th century.

I was particularly struck by the main entrance to this red sandstone building — I thought it was beautiful.  We are both interested in gargoyles, intrigued by the possibility that some of them are based on real animals or people.  And we love looking at misericords, a kind of “video” of medieval life carved in wood.  They are fascinating!

And so we moved on to Carlisle Castle.  There was probably a Roman fort on the site because it is built on the route of Hadrian’s Wall.  The castle was first built in the 11^th century, during the reign of William II.  This was probably a timber and earth construction.  It was Henry I who, in the 12^th century, ordered a stone castle to be built.  There followed many centuries of turbulence as it was taken over by the Scots, then retaken by the English, etc.  Henry VIII converted the castle for artillery.  In the 17^th century it was besieged by Parliamentary forces, and in the 18^th century it featured in the Jacobite risings against George II.  The buildings were partially demolished in the 19^th century so that the stone could be used elsewhere.  What remained became the regimental depot of the Border Regiment until 1959.  The Territorial Army still uses the premises.

Normally we love exploring ancient castles, but we didn’t find Carlisle Castle to be very interesting.  It is small, and more like a barracks than a castle because so little of the original buildings remain.  It houses a military museum, and that is a subject which only brings on the yawns with us — sorry!  The present-day castle overlooks a very busy dual carriageway and a lot of ugly modern architecture.  We tried, but failed to get enthused.

Walk 302 -- Gretna to Carlisle

Ages:  Colin was 70 years and 64 days.  Rosemary was 67 years and 207 days.

Weather:  The initial rain held off, then it got quite warm and bright.  Very suddenly the heavens opened and we walked the last three miles in a torrential downpour which didn’t let up for hours.
Location:  Gretna to Carlisle.

Distance:  13 miles.
Total distance:  3067 miles.
Terrain:  Road for the first few miles.  Then the Cumbrian Coastal Way which was overgrown and extremely muddy.  Most of it was along a river bank so it was flat.
Tide:  Out.
Rivers:  No.372, River Esk.
Ferries:  None.
Piers:  None.
Kissing gates:  Nos.345, 346 & 347 on the Cumbrian Coastal Way.
Pubs:  None.
‘Historic Scotland’ properties:  None.
Ferris wheels:  None.
Diversions:  None.

How we got there and back:  We were staying in our caravan near Carlisle.  This morning we drove into Carlisle and parked on a back road which also happened to be on the Cumbrian Coastal Way.  Then we walked half a mile to a mainer road where we could catch a bus to Gretna.  For the first time ever we were able to use our bus passes on the Round-Britain-Walk!  (When we first started we were not old enough to qualify for bus passes.  When we were old enough, they were only valid in Sussex and we were already walking in Kent.  By the time we could use them anywhere in England, we were already walking in Scotland!)  The bus dropped us at the border — exactly where we wanted to be.

At the end we came to the car.  We have never been so wet!  We squelched into our seats and drove straight back to the caravan site where I had a shower to warm up and put on a completely different set of clothes.  At last I was dry!

We’d had enough of this rain, there is only so much we could take.  So the next morning we packed up and towed the caravan home.

Our daughter, Annalise, is forty years old today!  I can hardly believe it!  She has done so well with her life after a shaky teens and early twenties.  She has brought up her two children — now both adults — beautifully, and is doing very well in her job (she sells and maintains ventilators for premature babies in most of the top London hospitals).  We are very proud of her achievements.

We started today’s Walk at the  “Welcome to England”  roadsign.  Just round a bend we took a minor road which runs alongside the M6 — it used to be the main road before the M6 was built.  It was quite a busy road even these days, with vehicles going fast along the straight.  The M6 was constant, no letup.  So many times before we have been up there looking down here, and now we’re down here looking up there!  The threatened rain still hadn’t materialised and we were getting warm, so we stopped to remove our wet-weather gear.

After a couple of miles we crossed the railway, and then we crossed the River Esk.  That is where the Cumbrian Coastal Way begins, but we had to continue for a couple of hundred yards and then double back in order to get on to it.  The place we were in is called Metalbridge because the first bridge across the Esk at this point was a metal bridge designed by Thomas Telford.  It was constructed in 1820 as part of the West-Coast-Great-North-Road project.  In 1911 it was found to be badly corroded and closed to traffic.  In 1915 it was replaced by a ferro-concrete bridge, but even this didn’t last the tides of time — in 1970, on construction of the A74, this ferro-concrete bridge was replaced by the present road bridge which we had just walked over.  Until the end of 2008 — yes, that recently — all traffic on the A74(M) into Scotland travelled over this bridge.

It was only then that the M6 was extended to connect with the M74 at Gretna, and a new bridge was constructed alongside to carry the constant heavy traffic.  No trace of Thomas Telford’s original metal bridge is left, though I believe a casting exists in a museum in Carlisle.  On a wall, which could have been an abutment for the ferro-concrete bridge, we found a plaque which told us that the Esk Bridge was constructed in 1915 to replace the metal bridge of 1820.

The name “Metal Bridge” is retained by a pub at the spot.  A notice outside told us they sold real ales, and Colin immediately fancied a swift half (of course).  Outside two men were removing a one-armed-bandit machine.  Inside there was apparently no barman, and no pump clips either.  Eventually a youth appeared, but he didn’t seem to know what real ales were!  So we used the loo and left.  (I believe this pub is now an upmarket restaurant.)  Colin was most dischuffed.  We sat on a wall outside and ate our slices of quiche.

The Coastal Way led into a field.  “At last!” we thought, “we can follow an English footpath marked by green dotted lines on the map!”  (Yes, the green dotted lines had magically appeared again, first time since the border just north of Berwick.)  But oh dear!  The path was overgrown and swampy.  Sometimes it disappeared altogether.  It obviously hadn’t been maintained for some time, and we were in for much of the same difficulties we had encountered all over Scotland.  We regretted removing our overtrousers earlier because the long grass was wet.  But we found our cloth trousers dried out quite quickly further on.

We crossed the railway via a footbridge.  From there we could see muddy fields all around, and evidence of flooding — we have had so much heavy rain in recent weeks.  There were constant trains on the line, it was very busy.

We followed a track, but it was blocked by a HUGE puddle.  It was too deep to paddle through, I tested it with my walking poles.  Water would have filled our boots.  We struggled along the side next to a wet hedge and managed to get through.  The walkers’ signpost at the end was almost completely hidden by a tall bush.
We followed a green lane which was overgrown and muddy.  It came out in a field where the path completely disappeared.  (But this is not Scotland!)  We followed our noses to the far corner, through a gate and up to some farm buildings.  We hadn’t seen a yellow arrow since the railway bridge, and this is supposed to be a waymarked path! 
We knew we had to turn right at the end, but we did this too soon and ended up at the corner of a field.  We got out a compass and realised we were walking north when we should have been walking south.  So we retraced our steps, and didn’t turn right until we reached the tarmacked lane.  From there we followed the road round and down to the river — this is the River Eden which we must now follow all the way into Carlisle.
The last bit of the path down to the river had been churned up by a tractor, it was pure MUD!  It was very difficult to walk — we thought this was atrocious.  We know farmers have to do their work, but this path was wide and every bit of it had been churned up as if deliberately to discourage walkers.  But we got through, plastered in the stuff but defiant.  We came down to the riverside and found a log to sit on and eat our sarnies.  It was hot in the sun — and so it should be, it is July!

The river looked very full, but it was not flooding, thank goodness.  We walked across grass to the river’s edge and it was pleasant and firm, not swampy at all.  There were several bits of exposed ‘sand’ which looked muddy, but Colin walked on them and didn’t sink.  He said it was pretty firm because it was fairly sandy mud.

We came to a tarmacked lane leading into the village of Rockcliffe.  We were unable to stay by the river at this point, we had to rise up into the village then descend to the riverside again.  There we came to the village green with picnic tables on the river bank.  Very pleasant, but we had already eaten our sarnies and were not yet ready for another break.
Across the green we climbed over a stile into a field of cows — and were immediately confronted with mud, glorious mud!!  The river was up to the top of its banks and running fast.  The field was very swampy, and where the cows liked to stand it was just a sea of sloppy goo.  We actually felt a bit sorry for the cattle because there was nowhere they could stand in the dry.  We had to pick our way round the worst spots, and sometimes we wondered if we would get through.

We passed an island in the middle of the river, and after this we crossed an ‘Area of Open Access’.  This was where the path seemed to disappear with no indication of where we should walk in order to stay on the supposedly waymarked path.  The flooded river had brought up a lot of rubbish which was strewn all over the place, mainly plastic bottles.  We muddled our way through and eventually found the path again, more by luck than by judgement.

Next we walked through a very civilised area of a clear path, mown grass and the occasional picnic table.  This stretch of the river bank looked very well cared for.  We sat down at one of the picnic tables for a little rest.  It was hot in the sun and we felt a bit lethargic.

Over the next stile, and we were greeted by more mud and cows!  The contrast was stark.  Cows like to concentrate at the stiles, and sometimes we found them practically inaccessible due to the deep mud.  It was very frustrating.  We struggled on and came to a small car park with a picnic table.  There we sat to eat our chocolate.

We were feeling a little weary by now, but we knew we still had several miles to go.  We continued along the river bank.  After about a mile we came to an earthwork which we had to climb, there was no path along the bottom.  We were walking along the top of a small cliff when it started spotting with rain.  I put on my cape which dealt with the shower adequately.  Up there the crops were growing right to the edge of the fields making it difficult to walk.  Come off it, this is the Cumbrian Coastal Path!

We passed through several fields looking for the path back down to the river bank.  We thought we must have missed it, we seemed to have crossed too many fields and we were still on top.  But we came, at last, to a stile — and there was the way back down.  I put my cape away because the rain had stopped and it was too hot to wear it.  The sky looked blue as far as we could see.
We walked down to the riverbank stile and were greeted with — pure mud!  While we were negotiating it, it started to rain again, hard.  I hurriedly put on my cape, thinking it would only be a shower like the last time.  But it was torrential, and it didn’t let up for hours!  It was so loud on my cape hood I thought it was hail.  I didn’t have time to put on my overtrousers, and soon the wet on my socks seeped into my boots.  Before long I was sloshing in them.
I could barely see because of the intensity of the rain.  Colin led the way (I don’t know how he could see any better) and I kept him in my sights just following his tail.  All the twists and turns of the path — I don’t know how he coped, but he did.  We did the last two miles of the Walk like this — I was so wet only my knickers stayed dry!!
On our brand new and very expensive OS map, the first bridging point of the River Eden is the road bridge in central Carlisle.  Yet more than a mile before that we passed under a road bridge — Carlisle’s western bypass road.  This road is completely absent from our new map, not even a dotted line where it’s route was planned. Yes, I know the road has only been open five months, but construction took three years and it was planned at least four years before that.  We had no idea the bridge was there, and were furious with the Ordnance Survey.  We must have spent several hundred pounds on their maps so far, and have lost count of the inaccuracies because they are so out of date!  We were wet and miserable, tired as well, and all we could think of was getting to our car parked in Etterby.  A cursory glance told us there was no way we could have climbed up on to the bridge from the river bank — but we would have found our way round this problem in our planning if we’d known about the bridge.
We squelched on past a redundant railway bridge which had been made impossible to climb up on to (wouldn’t it make a super cycleway?) and we were glad to get on to a tarmac road out of the mud.  We crossed over the railway, and came to our car.

That ended Walk no.302, we shall pick up Walk no.304 next time in the Etterby area of Carlisle.  It was seven o’clock, so the Walk had taken us eight hours forty minutes.  (Walk 303 will be an historical tour of Carlisle.)   We have never been so wet!  We squelched into our seats and drove straight back to the caravan site where I had a shower to warm up and put on a completely different set of clothes.  At last I was dry!  Later we watched in horror as a ‘river’ of water approached our caravan across the lawn of this pristine caravan site.  It continued raining until well into the night.  The groundsheet in our awning was under several inches of water, it seemed our caravan was parked in a pond!  Thank goodness it was up on wheels.
We’d had enough of this rain, there is only so much we could take.  So the next morning we took down a very soggy and muddy awning, packed up everything and towed the caravan home.  I still feel guilty about the muddy mess we left on the caravan site’s pristine lawn.

Walk 301 -- Annan to Gretna

Ages:  Colin was 70 years and 63 days.  Rosemary was 67 years and 206 days.

Weather:  Cloudy, turning wet.
Location:  Annan to Gretna.
Distance:  13 miles.
Total distance:  3054 miles.
Terrain:  Muddy swampy paths which eventually got impossible.  A lot of road-walking. Flat.
Tide:  Out.
Rivers:  No.370, Dornock Burn.  No.371, River Sark, which is the border with England!!
Ferries:  None.
Piers:  None.
Kissing gates:  Nos.336, 337, 338, 339, 340, 341 & 342 between Annan and Whinnyrig.  Nos. 343 & 344 on the last path in Scotland!
Pubs:  None.
‘Historic Scotland’ properties:  None.
Ferris wheels:  None.
Diversions:  None.
How we got there and back:  We had moved our caravan from Powfoot to Carlisle a few days ago.  This morning we drove to Gretna and parked in the ‘Outlet Village’.  We walked towards the main village, and caught a bus to Annan from the first bus stop we came to.
At the end we came to the border with England!  It was pouring with rain, torrential, but we still took photos from under Colin’s umbrella — I shall merge them on the computer at a later date.  We walked a couple of hundred yards to our car, and returned to our soggy caravan in Carlisle.  (So glad we’re not in a tent!) 
We have walked the entire coast of mainland Scotland, from Berwick-upon-Tweed to Gretna!  This part of our epic trek measured 1850 miles, and took us 5½ years. 

After resting for a few days in Carlisle to allow my blister to heal, we set off to walk from Annan to Gretna — our last Walk in Scotland.  We started the Walk at the junction where the cyclepath from the bridge over the river emerged into a road.  We walked down towards the estuary through an industrial area.
There were pictures of boats and things on the walls of a distribution centre, they looked quite jolly.  Further down we passed fishing boats which were stranded at low tide — they looked as if they hadn’t been used for a long time.

We walked further down and realised we were coming to locked gates.  There was no way through!  So we retraced our steps and exited to the road through the distribution centre — luckily the gates were open.

It was about a mile down to the estuary.  There we found a footpath signpost pointing to Whinnyrig — we were pleased to know we could get through because we no longer trust our maps.  BUT, following this sign, we ended up inland by some houses instead of where we expected to be.  A couple of old gents had followed us up this path,  so we asked them about the track marked on the map which doesn’t go anywhere near the houses.  They said we should go on and take the road to the sewage works because the path across the marshes was not good and really no-go.  We discussed this and decided to go back and assess it for ourselves.

Track it was not, in fact it was hardly a footpath.  We thought we would start on it and see how we got on.  It was pretty bad at first, but it did improve further on.  We stood only on the tufts of grass as the water-filled holes between them were quite deep.  Whenever we came to a stream we looked for the lowest point to jump across.  I couldn’t have done it without my walking poles.  (It reminded us of the swamp we crossed before reaching Sandwood Bay, all the way back in the wilds of Cape Wrath!)

We eventually met up with a path which came down from the road, but that would have been a much longer way round.  Our path was much better after that as it was up on a bank and reasonably level, though it was overgrown.  We were glad we were wearing overtrousers because the long undergrowth was very wet.

We came to the bank of an old railway line, and climbed steps up on to it.  A wooden footpath signpost pointed back the way we had come saying: “Shore walk   Summergate”.  Now we had come from Waterfoot, Summergate was the long way round we had avoided.

There was a pipeline along the length of the old railway, but there was a good path alongside it.  We walked down it towards the estuary.  What we didn’t realise at the time was that this railway used to lead to a bridge across the Solway Firth to Bowness on the English side.  This bridge, a viaduct, was opened in 1869 at which time it was the longest bridge in Europe.  In 1881 it was damaged by ice floes — yes, ice floes! — and closed for three years until it was repaired.  In 1921 it was deemed unsafe and closed to all traffic.  But it remained in place for the next fourteen years, during which time thirsty Scots used to cross it on foot each Sunday to visit the ale houses in Bowness because Dumfries & Galloway was a “dry” county!  The viaduct was eventually demolished in 1935.

Near the end we turned off the old railway bank, went through a farm and proceeded along a road to Whinnyrig.  There was a small car park there, and we sat on an information board (for lack of a seat) to eat our quiche / pasty.  The board told us that there used to be a ford across the Solway Firth at this point which was important for cattle drovers until 1863.  But it also warned us that “The Solway can be treacherous with hidden channels and a tidal rise of 7 metres.  In some conditions the tidal bore can reach a height of about I metre and travels at about 617 knots,  DO NOT ATTEMPT TO FORD THE ESTUARY.  A quote from Sir Walter Scott’s Red Gauntlet written in 1824 but still true today:  He that dreams on the bed of the Solway may wake in the next world.”  So we decided to stick to plan A, walking to Carlisle and back on the English side, even though it is many miles further.
The next stretch of beach was impossible, and we had to go three sides of a rectangle on minor roads to get to Battlehill.  From there on there was a path marked on some maps but not on others.  There was also a small river about a mile further on, and no sign of a bridge on any map.  We decided to chance it!

The beginning of this path was in good nick, but inevitably it deteriorated the further away from civilisation we walked.  It was overgrown and swampy, but the occasional boardwalk gave us hope.  We reached the river — and there was a FOOTBRIDGE!  “Hurrah!”  We didn’t see it until the last minute because of the height of the swamp plants, and our hearts had sunk very low.  But now we were on top of the world!

After that the path led us down on to the beach.  There was a lot of driftwood about, so we made use of it — we sat on a log to eat our sarnies.  It was very quiet sitting there, no man-made noises to disturb the peace.  A great feeling of contentment came over us, it was wonderful!

We continued to Dornockbrow where the path led off the beach.  It was a track at first, then a path again which led back on to the beach.  It was not too bad to walk until we reached a broken pipe.  We found our way over this with difficulty, but then all traces of a path disappeared.  The going was fraught with problems, holes everywhere.  The potential for breaking an ankle, etc, was very high.  We realised that we couldn’t walk four miles over this kind of terrain.  The path is clearly marked on the OS map, but in reality it simply does not exist — even this near to the English border we were still having problems with the Scottish footpaths.

With heavy hearts we turned round and retraced our steps.  We went round the end of the broken pipe as the tide was still going out.  About half way back to Dornockbrow we were able to ‘escape’ on to a lane which took us through a farm to the main road.

Then it began to rain!  It got more and more intense and didn’t let up for hours.  We came to a decorated bus shelter — pity it was desecrated by stupid kids writing obscene graffiti — where we changed into full wet-weather gear and topped it with high-viz vests.  Then we route-marched in the rain for three miles — horrid!  The traffic is so fast, and gave us no leeway.  Every time a vehicle came towards us, we stepped off the road to let it pass.  But we couldn’t walk on the verge, it was too sloping, narrow and uneven.  Sometimes we wondered if we wouldn’t have been better off on that beach.  We were badly frightened by a car overtaking from behind, we weren’t expecting that!  A police car came towards us and they waved — we think in approval of us wearing high-viz clothing and stepping off the tarmac as they passed.

We were very relieved when we reached Rigg and could turn off this busy road.  There was a millennium stone by the village hall, and a seat!  We sat on it to eat our chocolate despite the rain.
We continued for another couple of miles along this much quieter road.  It was almost pleasant, in comparison to the road we’d just left, regardless of the rain.  We came to the outskirts of Gretna and passed the most extraordinary house.  It was a very ordinary bungalow on an estate, but it had a junk-looking extension on its front.  The front garden was packed with vehicles, then there were huge logs — almost whole trees — lining the front hedge.  In the road there were parked no less than five trailers carrying boats, a crane and goodness knows what else.  We felt sorry for their neighbours.

We came to a footpath we hadn’t noticed on the map (too wet to keep getting it out and studying it).  It cut off a large corner.  It ran alongside the River Sark, the border with ENGLAND!  The rain seemed to get even more intense, and I began to get emotional.  I could feel the tears welling up.  I said, “It’s England over there, the other side of this little river, and I’m crying!”  Colin replied, “Don’t be so silly!”  (Typical male attitude!)  “But we have walked THE ENTIRE COASTLINE OF MAINLAND SCOTLAND!” I blubbered.  That still didn’t move him, I think he found the rain just too much to bear.

I said, “Our last Scottish footpath, will it scupper us?”  And it did!!  We came to a barbed wire fence!  Then we looked more carefully, retraced a few steps, climbed down a bank and there was the stile emerging on to the road.

We passed the last house in Scotland, where you can get married if you like, and crossed the river bridge into England!  My blister seemed to have miraculously cured itself, must be the excitement of coming ‘home’.
There was no one about in the torrential rain to take photos of us by the roadsign welcoming us into England.  So, using Colin’s umbrella as a shield for the camera, we each took a photo of the other and I merged them later on the computer.

That ended Walk no.301, we shall pick up Walk no.302 next time by the ‘Welcome to England’ roadsign on the edge of Gretna.  It was twenty past five, so the Walk had taken us eight and a half hours.  We walked a couple of hundred yards to our car, and returned to our soggy caravan in Carlisle.