Carlisle city walls were a defensive structure surrounding the centre of

Carlisle, Cumbria Carlisle ( , ; from ) is a city in the Cumberland (unitary authority), Cumberland district of Cumbria, England. Carlisle's early history is marked by the establishment of a settlement called Luguvalium to serve castra, forts along Hadrian's ...

. The

city walls A defensive wall is a fortification usually used to protect a city, town or other settlement from potential aggressors. The walls can range from simple palisades or earthworks to extensive military fortifications such as curtain walls with to ...

ran from

Carlisle Castle Carlisle Castle is a stone keep medieval fortress located in the city of Carlisle near the ruins of Hadrian's Wall. First built during the reign of William II in 1092 and rebuilt in stone under Henry I in 1122, the castle is over 930 yea ...

in the north-west of the city to

The Citadel The Citadel Military College of South Carolina (simply known as The Citadel) is a public senior military college in Charleston, South Carolina, United States. Established in 1842, it is the third oldest of the six senior military colleges ...

in the south-east. Between these points, the city was protected by the former North and East Walls (demolished around 1811) and the West Walls which remain largely intact. The line of the walls can still be followed with the exception of the southernmost end of the West Wall which has been built over. The perimeter, including the castle, is approximately which is comparable to

Southampton town walls Southampton's town walls are a sequence of defensive structures built around Southampton, the town in southern England. Although earlier Ancient Rome, Roman and Anglo-Saxon settlements around Southampton had been fortified with walls or ditche ...

but less than

Chester city walls Chester city walls consist of a defensive structure built to protect the city of Chester in Cheshire, England. Their construction was started by the Roman Britain, Romans when they established the Castra, fortress of Deva Victrix between 70 and ...

Construction

The Roman city of Carlisle was walled but the

mediaeval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and t ...

walls were built to replace timber structures in the latter half of the twelfth-century. The North Walls ran roughly east-southeastwards from the castle to Scotchgate and then on to Philipson's Tower. Here it turned roughly south to

. The Citadel was built as a gate by Stefan von Haschenperg in the 1540s to replace an earlier structure. It was later blocked and access to the city from the south was diverted around it through a new gate, Englishgate, built between The Citadel and Collier's Gate.

Demolition

The walls fell into disrepair at various times. A 1684 survey reported that The Citadel had been almost destroyed by the Scots. By the end of the eighteenth-century, the need for easier access for traffic and the need for better ventilation of the crowded city led to demands for the walls' demolition and an Act of Parliament was passed in 1807. The stone was used to redevelop The Citadel as a

court A court is an institution, often a government entity, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between Party (law), parties and Administration of justice, administer justice in Civil law (common law), civil, Criminal law, criminal, an ...

building and in the construction of a new Eden Bridge to the north of the city. Both these projects involved

Thomas Telford Thomas Telford (9 August 1757 – 2 September 1834) was a Scottish civil engineer. After establishing himself as an engineer of road and canal projects in Shropshire, he designed numerous infrastructure projects in his native Scotland, as well ...

and Robert Smirke.

More recent changes

The West Walls are still needed to retain a former river cliff on the

River Caldew The River Caldew is a river running through Cumbria in England. The river rises high up on the northern flanks of Skiddaw, in the Northern Fells area of the English Lake District, and flows in a northerly direction until it joins the Rive ...

and were not demolished. They have however been considerably altered over the years. Comparisons between old

engraving Engraving is the practice of incising a design on a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a Burin (engraving), burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or Glass engraving, glass ar ...

s and current archaeological evidence suggest the wall has been straightened. Between the bridge and the castle, there were houses built up against the walls until 1952. Other buildings erected against the walls have been largely removed so the walls are visible again. Remaining buildings have been listed because they incorporate wall fragments. Short lengths of the North and West Walls run south from the castle to a city centre bypass that separates the castle from the city centre. The construction of the bypass required the existing gap in the West Walls to be widened and the surviving fragment of the North Walls to be truncated further. The gap in the West Walls includes the site of Irishgate and this is commemorated by a modern footbridge.

References

{{coord, 54.894, -2.939, display=title City walls in the United Kingdom Grade I listed buildings in Cumbria History of Carlisle, Cumbria Buildings and structures in Carlisle, Cumbria