Border City Cycle Hire

14/01/2025

On the Anglo-Scottish border, on the outskirts of the town of Gretna, is an old toll-house (now Old Toll Bar Cafe) pictured here in the early 20th century and 2025. Both photos are viewed from the Scottish side.

The border here is formed by the River Sark and the Old Toll Bar is located by the road bridge on the Scottish side. It was once used to collect tolls from people crossing the bridge on the Glasgow-Carlisle road; it was also used as a cheap wedding venue for runaway couples. The tollkeeper, John Murray by name, profited from the marriages and he built the Gretna Chase Hotel on the opposite side of the river.

Old Toll Bar is "The first and last house in Scotland."
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Old photo: Chronicle, alamy

12/01/2025

Last one before bed.

A view in the village of Beaumont in Cumberland/Cumbria, England—first half of the 20th century and 2025.
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Old photo from Beaumont Parish Council in Cumbria.

12/01/2025

08/01/2025

08/01/2025

St Michael's Church in Burgh by Sands, Cumberland/Cumbria, England—c. 1935 and 2025. It stands on the site of Aballava, a Hadrian's Wall fort.

Aballava covered an estimated area of over five acres. It was the first fort from the western end of the Wall to straddle it, and was probably built to guard the Solway fords. A vicus (civilian settlement) developed to the south of the fort.

The initial plan for Hadrian's Wall was a curtain wall with turrets and a guarded gate every Roman mile (approximately). During construction, the plan changed and larger forts were added. Aballava was possibly built in the late 120s AD, during construction of the Wall, or perhaps at a later date when the western section of Hadrian's Wall was rebuilt in stone. The fort was garrisoned by the Ala I Tungrorum (The First Wing of Tungri) in the 2nd century. This unit was followed by the First Cohort of Nervian Germans. An inscription on an altar found in the River Eden in 1852 is translated as:

"To Jupiter, Best and Greatest, the First Nervan Cohort of Germans, a thousand strong, part-mounted, (set this up) under the command of Publius Tuscilius … ]asinianus, the tribune."

The unit Cuneus Frisiorum (Frisians) also garrisoned Aballava.

Aballava is one of the first recorded sites in Britain to have a North African military unit. The soldiers of the unit were Berbers called "Aurelian Moors" from the Roman province of Mauretania (present-day Morocco and Algeria). The unit garrisoned the fort in the 3rd century AD. Evidence for this comes in the form of a Roman altar that was discovered in 1934. It records a dedication to Jupiter by Caelius Vibianus, who was commander of Numerus Maurorum Aurelianorum (The Unit of Aurelian Moors).

In the centuries after the Roman military abandoned Britain many of the structures they left behind were quarried for their stone. Alas, there are no intact ruins of Aballava above ground level.

St Michael's Church is a fortified church that dates back to the 12th century AD. It was built almost entirely of stone from the fort and Hadrian's Wall. The church was built within the perimeter of the old Roman fort.

In 1307, King Edward I of England died near Burgh-by-Sands and his body was brought to this church to lie in state. Sometime later that century, with the borderlands becoming ever more dangerous, St Michael's was fortified with two towers, east and west, for protection. The east tower was used as a fortified home for a priest but the west tower (pictured) was an important line of defence and could only be accessed through a yett, which is a defensive door or gate of latticed wrought iron bars. There were no windows on the first floor, and arrowslits on the floors above offered an opportunity to fight back if the church was under attack. The following paragraph is an extract from Bygone Cumberland and Westmorland by Daniel Scott, 1899, which describes the west tower:

"The tower of Burgh-by-Sands Church, close to the Solway, was built at the west end of the structure, with walls six feet to seven feet in thickness. A further indication of the desire for security is found in the bottoms of the windows of the church, which were placed eight feet from the ground. Entrance to the fortified tower could only be obtained through a ponderous iron door six feet eight inches high, with two massive bolts, and constructed of thick bars crossing each other, and boarded over with oak planks. As only one person at a time could gain access to the vaulted chamber, there was every possibility of offering effective opposition to attacks, while the ringing of the bells would be the signal for bringing any available help. What was true of one side of the Solway was equally true of the other, there being still traces of fortified churches on the Scottish side of the Firth."

The east tower was eventually lowered to the height of the church roof, and when peace finally prevailed over the Borderlands, it was used as a small schoolroom.

The church is beautiful inside, and you can feel the presence of history all around you. There are Norman beakhead decorations, a possible tympanum above the doorway into the west tower, a spiral staircase, a carved Roman corbel stone, and there are also stained glass windows, one of which depicts King Edward I.

St Michael's Church is one of three fortified churches in Cumbria. The building demonstrates just how dangerous the Borderlands were once upon a time, and the bells that warned the people of an imminent raid are the same bells used to call parishioners to worship today.
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📷 Old photo courtesy of the Francis Frith Collection

08/01/2025

Smoke rising from the chimney of the 15th-century fratry building at Carlisle Cathedral in the historic heart of Carlisle in Cumbria, England. Over the centuries this building had several functions, including a grain store, dining hall, brewery, and armoury. The ruins of the dortor (dormitory) can be seen along the centre of the photo, beyond which were the cloisters. The archway centre right gave access to the chapter house from the dormitory. The cathedral is just out of view on the right.

08/01/2025

The Greyhound Inn in Burgh by Sands, Cumberland/Cumbria, England—then and now.

I'm not sure about the date of the old photo or who took it, but it appears to be first half of the 20th century. Now photo taken in 2025.

08/01/2025

fans It's official is over for another 352 days 🤣🤪. Matthew Richards aka A Taste 2 Come fairy 🧚‍♂️ is exhausted!! Windows ready for the ✔️. Cheers Matchuu 🥂🇯🇲❤️.

08/01/2025

Brougham Castle near Penrith, England—c. 1900 and 2025.

The castle was built in the 13th century and stands on the site of a Roman fort called Brocavum. In the castle keep a Roman tombstone has been built into the ceiling of a passageway (photo in comments).

📷Photograph, bw halftone, Brougham Castle, Brougham, Westmorland, published in a guide book by the Ullswater Steam Navigation Co, Penrith, Cumberland, 1903. – Lakes Guides

06/01/2025

A view west in Burgh by Sands in Cumberland/Cumbria, England—then and now. I do not know the date of the old photograph, but I'm guessing at early 20th century. The now photo was taken January 2025.

It is a well known fact that most of Hadrian's Wall is gone, its stone having been taken for other buildings over the centuries since the Roman military abandoned Britannia. Only about 10% is now visible of the 73-mile-long stone structure that once stretched from the Solway Firth in the west to the bank of the River Tyne in the east in what is now England. These photos before the reader are a good example of the extent to which the Wall and its associated forts have been lost. Both the original photographer and I are standing inside the perimeter of a Hadrian's Wall fort, Aballava, of which nothing remains above ground. Looking at these photos without knowing the information you would never have known that this was the site of a five-acre stone fort that straddled the famous Wall, which ran roughly east-west through here.

Location: main road through Burgh by Sands, outside St Michael's Church.

01/01/2025

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you for making our village cycle track more accessible for bikes & walkers - very much appreciated 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 ⭐️🤩

28/12/2024

A view on Port Road in Carlisle, Cumberland/Cumbria, England—early 20th century (c. 1914) and 2024.

OLD 📷 Councillor Thomlinson

24/12/2024

A view southeast along a surviving stretch of Carlisle's medieval city walls in Cumbria, England. This section of wall is about 60 to 70 metres in length (200 feet or more) at a guess. It ends at the road. It is one of several surviving stretches of city wall in Carlisle, three of which are fairly substantial and can be easily viewed by the public.

If you were standing here a few hundred years ago you would see the wall stretching across where the road is and the house with the street art on the gable. It continued down what is now West Tower Street to the big modern building in the distance, which was once Debenhams. At roughly that spot there was a gate called Scotch Gate, through which the road to Scotland led out of the city and over two bridges that spanned the River Eden. Further on from the gate the city wall ran a short distance in the same south-easterly direction before turning sharply south and running down what is now Lowther Street, all the way to the Citadel, from which point it turned back in a north-westerly direction for several hundred metres before joining onto the west side of the castle (map in comments and more photos).

Most of Carlisle's medieval city walls were demolished in the early 19th century to make way for the modern city.

15/12/2024

The Tithe Barn viewed from Heads Lane in Carlisle, England—before restoration in the 1960s and 2024.

The Tithe Barn is a 15th-century building on West Walls and Heads Lane in the historic part of Carlisle, not far from the Cathedral. It is located next to St Cuthbert's Church, which dates to the 18th century but is the latest in a series of churches dating back to the Middle Ages. The graveyard of the church was in use for several hundred years before it became overcrowded. Reverand John Fawcett reported to the General Board of Health in 1849: "There is a graveyard in which the church stands; it is crowded offensively. The site is surrounded on all sides by houses: the ground is considerably above the level of the streets to the south. The ground ought to be closed, and an extramural cemetery be provided."

The graveyard was closed to burials in the 1850s and decades later most of the gravestones were moved to the edge of the yard; some were laid down on the ground to form a path (photo in comments). You can see in both photos, but especially the old one, the gravestones placed along the edge of the yard by the Tithe Barn.

There are more photos in the comments.

15/12/2024

Finally, after 14 hours spread over 6 days, I have cleaned the Roman stones in the woods in Bitts Park in the city of Carlisle, Cumbria, England. I may go back and scrape the moss off the wall and clean the leaves if I get the time next weekend.

These stones were once part of a Roman bridge that spanned the River Eden (Itouna to the Romans) near this spot. In the 1950s the river was dredged and these stones were found. The approximate route of Hadrian's Wall runs through here and Milecastle 66 was on the other side of the river, so these stones may have been from a Hadrian's Wall bridge, similar to the wall bridges that spanned the River Irthing near Birdoswald Fort (Banna), and the Chesters Roman bridge that spanned the River North Tyne, a stone's throw east of Chesters fort (Cilurnum), in what is now Northumberland. These were important bridges that carried not just the Wall but also the Military Way—a Roman road built behind the Wall—across the rivers, thus facilitating the movement of soldiers along the wall zone.

In the 16th century William Camden was walking along the route of Hadrian's Wall here and he described the stones that he saw in the river:

"... within the chanell of the river mighty stones, the remaines thereof, are yet extant."

To clean the stones I used a plastic scraper to remove the thick bits of moss and then a medium to soft brush to clean most of the rest. After they had dried, I used a soft brush to clean the loose bits off. Unfortunately, they are not perfectly cleaned as I didn't want to go too hard on them, but at least their features are now much easier to see, such as the Lewis holes for lifting, and holes for clamps. One hole has some metal lodged inside (lead, I think), I wonder if it is original (photo in comments).

If you want to see the stones, which number about 100, and four other larger ones set nearby (not sure if they are related), then they are located near the river in the woods on the northern edge of the park. Well worth a look if you are in the area. There is an information board a short distance away on the main path. In my opinion, another board should be installed next to the stones with more detailed information.

There are more photos in the comments.