Day Thirty Four

Saturday 29 May - Caldbeck to Carlisle.

The guide book describes this section in terms of winding down, which has more than a whiff of anticlimax after the drama of the Dales and the Lakes. A little time would tell. The Cumbria Way passes the gate of my b&b, so I picked it up as it sidled out of the village (the chap in charge at the pub the previous evening had seen me walking down the road, and knew exactly where I was staying – it’s that sort of place). Soon I was walking on the left bank of the Cald Beck, which flowed into the River Caldew, which I then followed most of the way into Carlisle.

The “official” route diverted from the beck to enter some woods, but I took a well-established path which stayed much nearer to the water, later re-joining the Cumbria Way. No sign of anticlimax so far; this was good walking country with proper mixed-species woods and sheep-cropped meadows. The lambs here were older, much the same age, I would say, as the ones in the Dales; lambing among the high fells begins later because of the high chance of harsh weather. So while the Great Langdale lambs were still at the jumping-about stage, the ones I was now passing were fattening up very satisfactorily in preparation for their appointment with the mint sauce.

Near Sebergham, a road starts to hog the riverbank, so the footpath sulks and takes itself over the river and steeply up the valley side. At Sebergham Church, it turns again to follow a route roughly parallel with the river again. As I followed the path on a respectful detour round Sebergham Hall, I fell into step with the local vicar/curate/whatever, who asked me where I was from. When I told him I lived in London, he divulged that, before he took the cloth, he had taught maths in South Harrow. He must have been going for contrast - I could detect few similarities between North Cumbria and South Harrow.

By now, I could see what the guide book was getting at. Having regained the riverbank, I was walking through a succession of water meadows, each a delight in it own right, but a bit samey after a while. Visual interest was provided by a distant view of Rose Castle, the residence of the Bishops of Carlisle.

It looks like a right hotchpotch of building styles, which is not very surprising. The earliest visible fabric is another 14th Century pele tower, like the one I had passed at Burneside Hall

(“Pele or peel towers - small fortified keeps or tower houses, built along the English and Scottish borders in the Scottish Marches and North of England, intended as watch towers where signal fires could be lit by the garrison to warn of approaching danger. By an Act of Parliament in 1455 each of these towers was required to have an iron basket on its summit and a smoke or fire signal, for day or night use, ready at hand.” Wikipedia).

This stood on the site of an even earlier motte-and-bailey castle. A 14th Century Bishop started the Big Build; the castle was burnt down during the Civil War, restored in the 18th Century, and added to in the 19th century. Paxton had a hand in the landscaping, and our old pals Wordsworth and Coleridge visited and approved. There are several theories about the name, but they are a bit boring.

After Rose Castle, there were more water meadows (polite yawn), but then more interest in that the route left the banks of the Caldew to pass through the grounds of a posh-looking school, and then past Hawksdale Hall, 19th Century, dull. Then the Cumbria Way went through an actual place (you know, houses, pubs… that sort of thing). Two places actually, Bridge End and Buckabank, both very small places, merely a warm-up for a big(ish) place, Dalston.

Now Dalston is a place with a sense of identity. Maybe most of its residents regard it as a dormitory for Carlisle, but it has a bit of a village green, a square and a fantastic sandwich shop. And a motto: “Whilst I live I’ll Crow”, which accompanies an emblem of a black and red cockerel. Dalston’s millennium project was to commission a splendid metal sculpture of said cockerel, which is superimposed on a previous monument and commands the green and the square. After munching a sandwich within sight of this splendid erection, I embarked on the final push towards Carlisle.

From Dalston, the route follows a dual-use footpath and cycleway all the way into Carlisle. After skirting a large Nestles factory, the tarmac track falls in alongside the Cumbria Coast Railway, with which I had become familiar on my coast walk. When the path diverted from the railway and then passed beneath it, unmistakeable signs of the city started to appear. After another large factory came an even larger cemetery, and a succession of suburban houses. The threatened rain had held off until now but, as I passed a children’s playground in light drizzle, four girls were sheltering below a piece of play equipment; one tried to bum a fag off me.

The most interesting feature of the walk into the town is the new flood wall, built after the disastrous floods of 2005. It is astonishing that it has been necessary when you see how far down the river is – many feet below the previous flood banks – and how placid it looks. “This floodgate will be closed when flooding is expected,” reads an Environment Agency notice. Fancy!

Then it was the last hurrah for the River Caldew, as a skewed bridge (called the Skew Bridge) took me across the river for the last time, leaving it to find its own way to its junction with the Eden about a mile away. I turned towards the centre, walking past the cathedral (pausing for coffee and something in the Chapter House coffee shop) and applied myself to a little light shopping before catching my train.