TOPIC: Our Great Border City

With the recent floods I have been thinking about Carlisle and things that we could be better at.

Not necessarily to do with the floods, although it may help, but things we are missing out on. We have a far richer history than the likes of Chester or York but are miles behind in attracting visitors.

We have been invaded by everyone, Romans, Vikings, Normans,Scots,Rievers,

One example, in the summer, we have a massive empty canvas in front of the castle. Why not build a mock Norman village with blacksmiths, greengrocers, farriers in authentic garb, even a set of stocks kids could throw wet sponges at someone, probably not get away with rotten fruit nowadays.

Take a few chewing gum spotters or parking attendants off the streets for a few weeks.

We also have the State Management scheme that is unique to Carlisle and in 1963 we had the largest marshalling yards in Europe at Kingmoor, for the train spotters.

As a boy I was told there was an underground tunnel connecting the castle to the cathedral. Great tourist attraction, if there isn't one build one.

I am sure there are loads more instead of ending up some homogenised backwater nobody wants to visit.

Oh, whoever decided on that millenium bridge wants shot with a ball of his or her own shit.

Some excellent suggestions there, but none of which will ever happen with our council.
BUT DON'T WORRY, everything will be sorted tourist wise, when they put a crossing on the busiest road in Carlisle, so half a dozen folk per week can have a walk to the castle.

Carlisle has a cathedral, castle and museum but none are of outstanding interest to your average tourist. Carlisle will never be in the same league as Chester or York for attracting tourists. I would put it well below Durham and Lincoln and even Barnard Castle and Hartlepool for interesting things to do in a short visit. Hardly anyone famous was born in Carlisle. There aren't any quaint old places to walk around, or teashops and interesting cafes to relax with a coffee in.

Carlisle is a city for Cumbrians. Busloads of tourists would boost the local economy but it is never going to happen unless some billionaire turns up and creates another Eden project.

carwash wrote:
Tourist figures are lot higher than you would think. You would think, a lot of Americans like Carlisle because it has a major connection to Woodrow Wilson , the problem is a city we sell our selves short we are one of only two towns in great britian who has documented history going back more than 2000 years , and Carlisle castle is quite impressive compared to other across the country most of which have fell in to disrepair

musher441 wrote: why on God's earth are they putting a crossing on that road, why not take down that hideous bridge and replace it with one matching the area instead.

Living in Lincoln I have to completely agree with Carwash. The majority of tourists will never visit a city's Castle, Cathedral or musuems, they visit the general city, and for that Carlisle is no different to anywhere.

Look at York, they have put a lot of money into stuff like the Yorvik viking centre, they have the shambles area with all of the shops and cafes, Bettys etc.

In Lincoln we have the historic uphill bit that is massively pushed and an absolute tourist trap, they have put loads of stuff on to commemorate the Magna Carta and have one of the largest Christmas markets in Europe.

Carlisle doesn't seem to have historic quarter, the centre of town is just one big sprawl of faceless shops, hardly something to plan a visit for.

Dentonholmersimpson- good ideas, but a few of them aren't really marketable.There is already a pub trail for the it but how can you make an attraction out of the state management system "the government managed all the pubs so munitions workers wouldn't get pissed" is the long and short of it.

Come on CarWash, I'm not having Hartlepool above Carlisle as a tourist destination! Ever!

CCU wrote:
Haha it is counter-intuitive and I'd never been to Hartlepool until a couple of years ago and now our away match there is a must in my calendar. I always park at the Hartlepool Maritime Experience which is a nice afternoon out where you can see the old ship the Trincomalee. The Heugh gun battery is a little undiscovered gem on the Headland. There's even an Andy Capp statue.

The other thing for attracting tourists is you've got to attract them from somewhere. Rothbury and Alnwick do well in this regard being a perfect distance from Newcastle for a day out. Carlisle is too far and not interesting enough to attract day-trippers. A couple of years back I took a carload of Thai tourists on a whistle-stop tour of the North. After Windermere they did ask about Carlisle but I had to say there was nothing to interest them. We went straight to the Roman Wall for photos before staying overnight near the Quayside in Newcastle. Then the next day it was the Angel of the North, Durham, York and back to London. With more time Lincoln could have been added.

Carlisle just needs that extra special feature that gives modern tourists a photo opportunity and a reason to make even a slight detour there.

An Andy Capp statue!?!

Bet that reels them in!!!

Seriously though, Tourism is a sector the Council are bollocks at...

Dont worry you will have an iconic primark to be the centre of the universe

Sent from my GT-I8200N using Tapatalk

DeckchairBlue wrote:
I lived in and around Lincoln for years, and that Christmas market is, and has been for decades, fantastic. The castle and Cathedral are massively worth a walk up Steep Hill to see as well. But, and it is a big but, they are no more impressive than those in Carlisle, there are plenty of people who actually like to look at old castles, museums and cathedrals (myself included). Carlisle also has the added advantage of walls, not much is made of them, but there are people fascinated by walled cities. I talked to a busload of German tourists in Derry who did visits to different walled cities every year, and told them to try Carlisle.

There are masses of things Carlisle does not take advantage of, the nature of the city is fascinating, the history involving Mary Queen of Scots, the fact that Mallory's Mort d'Arthur has King Arthur holding court in the city. The failed siege by Robert the Bruce less than a year after Bannockburn. If any of these things had happened anywhere in Scotland (or in, say, York) massive things would be made of them by the tourist board and people would flock to see the place.

Nottingham, for example, really plays on the city's link to a fictional character, and it creates huge tourism for the place. Carlisle has never really pushed itself as a destination for tourism. The Cathedral, and the surrounds and cloisters, is actually as good as any in the country, and is almost 900 years old, and has the largest flowing Gothic window in England, the east window, that is one of the most amazing sights in any medieval church in the UK. The glass in that window is mainly original as well. I sat and drew that one day when I was at Art College.

The history of the castle is fantastic, and nothing is ever mentioned of it, certainly hardly anyone I know has any knowledge about it. There was a massive siege there during the English civil war, it lasted 8 or 9 months. The battles during the second Jacobite rebellion were hugely important too. John Baliol was Governor of Carlisle, he was later king of Scotland, as was Richard Duke of Gloucester (yes, Richard III).

Cumbria as a whole has never made enough of itself as a county worth visiting, and Carlisle as a city is massively remiss in this area and always has been, it is one of the most ancient cities in the country (as somebody has pointed out already) and has a much richer heritage and history than most other cities in the UK.

Totally agree Moorlad, Carlisle could be great for tourists, if the council out some effort in and actually pushed the things it has going for it.

As it is, when people from the outside of the county think Cumbria, they think of the lake district. Carlisle should be pushing itself to be somewhere people want to go to see the things you've pointed out.

For instance, the Christmas market pulled in 300k visitors over 4 days in Lincoln this year. A major boost for the local economy.

Part of the reason, and only part, is I think Cumbrians like to view themselves as separate and outcasts from the rest of the country and are very resisted to change, even if it was for the better.

People think Windermere and Keswick Deckchair, the rest of the Lake District hardly gets a look in. The best views are around the Western Lakes anyway, and nobody goes anywhere near them. Cumbria Tourism is quite happy to blather on about numbers of visitors, but don't give a toss about what those people do while they're here, or whether they'll ever be back.

When I go somewhere I want to do more than look at a lake and wait for the wife outside a shit gift shop. Carlisle, and a lot of the neglected parts of the county offer just that.

We could capitalise on our fictional character at Brunton Park Moorlad .

Macduff wrote:
Aye, Sir Percy Blakeney.

The castle and its Green belong to the Queen, the council cannot just do anything it wants with it.

The tunnel from the Cathedral to the Castle is a myth based on an old tale that a duck fell down a well in the Castle and surfaced in the Cathedral.

We have a council who destroyed the main arterial into Carlisle by building the Lanes, and when that arterial (Botchergate) started to go to pot there solution was to buiold an extension to the Lanes.
Councils in York and Chester have vision - even MacDonalds are located in historic buildings that blend in.
Ours just spend millions every year making pedestrian areas, daft bridges and building homelss shelters just for something to do.

I took my fiancé to Carlisle Castle last December and it was disappointing - no walking tours and you can't even access the top of the keep now via the step ladder. All the rooms were bare and the museum is now in a separate building which is more cost. Inquired about the underground tunnels at Carlisle Citadel but they weren't open - for a tourist there isn't much to do in Carlisle. Like the idea about the Marshalling Yards though.

The sooner they take that that awful bridge by the castle the better - I believe they actually knocked down some of the Castle walls to build that! Ideally Castaway should be sunk underground to open up the castle to the rest of the city.

As noted, hardly any of the attractions are the responsibility of the council - the castle, the cathedral, even Tullie House is managed by a trust now. And in case you hadn't noticed, central government cuts are hacking away at what resources they might have (more cuts to the Tullie House grant for example) so nothings going to change as long as folk continue to vote Tory.

"There isn't much for a tourist to do in Carlisle." Well, it depends what you want. There are plenty of cafes in the city nowadays, much better eateries than 10 years ago and you have the three attractions mentioned above. (Tullie House recently won the Telegraph's Family Friendly Museum award - people take it quite for granted just because it's always been there.) BookCase by the cathedral is one of the best antiquarian shops in the whole country.

State Management Story is pretty new.

Sure, the centre is pretty generic but it's hard to just magic stuff up. If the city is short of a major attraction like a railway museum or something then that's only going to come about with input from local folk. The days of local government being the driver for big tourism projects have gone.

ExiledJock wrote:
Agreed some fantastic books in there, but a bit on the expensive side to be honest.

7 people million visit Carlisle every year,according to the Cumbria tourism board
www.cumbriatourism.org/wp-content/upload...BRIA-DMP-Summary.pdf

Can't help but agree, Carlisle way undersells itself and appears to have a lack of ambition or imagination to do so.
From the Courts at the Station to the Cathedral, West Walls, The Castle, Parks and Old Quarter.
Railway History as one of the main stage-coaching points and largest marshalling yards in the UK, The State Management Scheme and it's connection the largest munitions plant in Europe,
The Lakes, The Romans, The Reivers, what more can a City ask for in material to build a great visitor experience.
Exhibition Centre, Education Centre, Heritage Centre, Guided Walks, Talks, Experiences...............where are they ?

At the moment the only ambition our Council has is to charge the earth for parking...........

The lack of ambition is engraved in the city and the surrounding towns, from highlighting the history of what could be a beautiful city to having old outdated facilities for the people to use.

Happyblue wrote:
Wow, Carlisle gets more tourists than the National Gallery and Barrow gets more tourists than St. Pauls Cathedral - who would have thought. No wonder Carlisle gets no tourists looking at that report. 7 million tourists is 20,000 each and every day of the year! I would say the number of tourists visiting Carlisle Castle and Tullie House will give a better indication. That report must be counting passing traffic on the M6.

thesilentone wrote:
The Courts are no different to many courts in the country, the Cathedral is worth seeing but apart from its East Window is dwarfed by many others. The Old Quarter name is a joke. The Redness Hall is good but hardly open. The Lakes are not in Carlisle, very little of Roman Carlisle to see, unlike Chester or York and others. The reivers are only interesting if you share a surname with them.
West Walls is only a short section of wall compared to Chester and York and Berwick. The State Management Scheme show in Bookcase will be worth a visit when finished. The city suffers from a lack of old buildings because people did not build for permanence until 250 years ago, The only buildings we have are the CASTLE, CATHEDRAL, COURT HOUSE AND GUILDHALL.
Woodrow Wilson connection, you can see the front of the house his mothers lived in, that's it. It is a lack of visible evidence of our history that holds the city back, no evidence of the Reivers, very little of the Romans etc.

Carwash you need to do a little more research before making such statements Carlisle has one of the richest historical pasts of any city in this country.
The failings of council after council has led to the systematic failure to make the most of our history, having found numerous historical sites the council have instead of preserving and using them as tourist attractions instead merely documented them buried them as they recently did when putting the underpass from Tullie hse to the castle.

pacirv wrote:
When they built Tullie House extension opposite the Castle I took photos of the roman fort on the site, that is now buried under the site, how hard would it have been to put several glass viewing points in within the building.

Pacirv, I never said Carlisle didn't have history - I was born within a mile of Hadrian's Wall so I am well aware of Carlisle's past. All I said was that as an interesting place to visit, Carlisle fares relatively poorly compared to other places.

Where I think Carlisle has done particularly badly is in attracting grant money from the EU, Arts Council etc. I helped to lobby the Arts Council for support for the Darlington Civic Theatre which is undergoing a major refurb. Just look at the website for the Hartlepool Maritime Experience to see how many grant-giving organisations supported this very good tourist attraction. In addition Carlisle has not made enough of its railway connections. The Flying Scotsman will be visiting Carlisle several times next year which will attract thousands of visitors but there should be a regular programme of steam train gatherings in Carlisle. Shildon last year attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors when the A4s had the Great Goodbye and in July next year hundreds of thousands of visitors will come to see the Flying Scotsman when it is based at Shildon. It is a shame that Carlisle's involvement in the Flying Scotsman season next year is going to be so limited given the huge interest now in steam trains.

PADDOCK wrote:

Do you work for the Council....In the Tourism Department ??

thesilentone wrote:
Just facts pal, just facts. Can you dispute them?

thesilentone wrote:
That's brilliant. The silent one asking someone what job they do

Dancingbear wrote:
15 years as a tour guide in the city taught me that what people want to see is what is there, not what was there. The reivers, the SMS and the romans fall into this category.

The Guildhall is one of the most interesting buildings in the city, but the chances of finding it open are about as good as winning the Lottery.

Theres regular steam trains into Carlisle. We must be the busiest mainline station for them. Not sure where you would put a gathering of them though.
Flying Moneypit is North Eastern junk anyway. And not the first one to do 100mph.

The point I was trying to make originally is, yes there may be no physical evidence of our history, if you go to Inverness you are not going to see the Loch Ness Monster, or Robin Hood in Nottingham, same as if you go to Battle in Sussex you are not going to see the Battle of Hastings.

But with a bit of imagination, re- enactments, people dressing up, they have mock Roman Centurions in Chester, we could attract tourists.

DeckchairBlue wrote:
I disagree that the majority of tourists will never visit somewhere to see its castle, cathedral, museums and other historical sites.

I lived on Lowther Street as a boy and me and my brother used to go to all the above regularly and gave me a love for historical buildings.

I spend my time between Inverness and Nottingham - been to to Lincoln this year for the xmas market which has been copied far and wide but always end up having a stroll round the cathedral and enjoy the fabulous pubs such as the strugglers.

We have it all in Carlisle - castle, cathedral, old city walls, museums, medieval streets and some decent pubs all in a very tight area.

The town centre is an ideal hub and needs promoting to include the fabulous relics we have to hand.

I think I'm correct in saying the council arts department used to have 20+ members of staff.

Now it has one.

The Council has neither the resources or ability to create the infrastructure or links to the subjects mentioned above, it is up to the Entrepreneur to make these things happen.
We are a City of only 100,000, however we are the Great Border City, The Capital of our County and the most Northerly on the West Coast. We need creative people with new ideas that can bring new blood into our ' set in our ways ' veins.
We have to create opportunity for our Children and future, a few bob spent on a old fire station is a sad reflection of the ambitions of our Council.
Private investment is what we need, starting with match funding from our local wealthy, what does the Affinity Group do ?

See our aspirations to 2030 below, not very exciting I'm afraid.

The Development Framework has the following overriding objectives:
 To guide future development in the City Centre to 2030;
 To identify suitable locations within the City Centre to accommodate future
development to meet identified needs;
 To identify potential time frames for development/delivery;
 To incorporate the views of the community in preparing options for future
development; and
 To ensure the work forms part of the Council’s evidence base for the Local Plan which
will inform development options and future strategy for the City Centre.

So the Citys aspirations are basically nowt.

Does anyone from out west class themselves as from the Lake District?

Only when some thick fuckers ask where is cumbria..? and you have to remind the doylems the lake district is in cumbria.

However part of the area is classed as the "western lake district"

It's all there: www.carlisle.gov.uk/Portals/24/Documents...estamp=1443626584820

markredfox73 wrote:
Know one lad from Maryport who always does like, will never get that in all honesty.

markredfox73 wrote:

Which part's that?

Mashie Niblick wrote:
Wasdale, Loweswater, Crummock all probably in west cumbria. Depends how far west west cumbria actually is.

Ennerdale.

Moorlad wrote: Ave?

We apparently have no cash, yet we managed to build that monstrosity of a bridge and more recently all those stupid Totem pole things around Castle St and Bitts Park.

I would have preffered copying Big Freds' idea and have a statue of a Reiver guarding all the major routes into Carlisle.