When the 34th Regiment entered Sevastopol on September 1855, Private Joseph Carruthers took a large, gilded, wooden double-headed eagle from the  ruins of the opera house as a war trophy. However, by the time the eagle arrived in Britain, ...

On the 8th September 1887, William Hunter, Mary Steele, and Mary's three year old daughter, Isabella, set out from Wigton to walk around 13 miles to Carlisle. They had been tramping round the county all summer. Poor Isabella would not make it t...

As Scots around the world prepare to celebrate Burns Night, I take you back to 31st May 1787, when Rabbie Burns entered Carlisle, and spent the night at the Malt Shovel pub in Rickergate. I'll tell you what he got up to, and the wisecracking po...

It's Christmas, and, like Jacob Marley, I bring you three ghosts of Christmas past.The clock strikes One: The first Ghost takes us back to 1843, where we will see how the wealthy and poor celebrate Christmas as Charles Dickens...

In 1653, George Fox arrived at Carlisle to preach his new vision of worship. Charged with blasphemy, and thrown into the dungeon, would the gallows be Fox's divine destiny? Then, two years later, Dorothy Waugh, a follower of Fox's religion, suf...