A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND 



It has been generally supposed that ' the 

 Swifts,' a wide and undulating meadow on 

 the south bank of the Eden near to Carlisle 

 bridges, was selected to supersede Kingmoor 

 as the municipal racecourse about the middle 

 of the eighteenth century, when the owner- 

 ship of the latter course became the subject 

 of litigation, and that it was recognized as 

 the place for annual meetings a few years 

 before the grant of the king's plate in 1763. 

 But the Swifts was used as a racecourse long 

 before that time. 1 The Duke of Devonshire 

 possesses amongst the archives of Bolton 

 Abbey a survey of all the Crown lands in the 

 neighbourhood of Carlisle made in 1612 by 

 Mr. Anthony Curwen, agent of the Crown 

 property. In speaking of the Swifts he in- 

 dulges in the singular reminiscence that 

 ' many old men and women about Karliell 

 did well knowe and remember that all the 

 grounds were one contynuse ground, and 

 when he was a scholler at Karliell there was 

 no hinderance to the footeball play nor to the 

 essayes of running of naggs, men and women 

 leaping, dauncing, etc., upon every Shrove 

 Tuesday." On George Smith's map of 

 Carlisle, published in 1746, we have a picture 

 of < The Swiftes or City Horse Course,' on 

 which there are rude drawings of horses with 

 docked tails and riders in jockey costume, one 

 horse being flogged up for the final struggle. 

 The starting and other posts and a judge's 

 box are shown, being apparently permanent 

 structures. In the eighteenth century horses 

 running on the Swifts were expected to do a 

 large amount of work, the length of the 

 course and the weight to be carried varying 

 according to the age of the horse. In 1752 

 three year olds were obliged to carry 9 

 stones and run in two mile heats ; four year 

 olds, 9 stones and three mile heats ; and so 

 on till mature horses were required to carry 

 10 stones over a four mile course. 2 Racing 

 on the Swifts is now (1901) about to be 



the nineteenth century some of the freemen of 

 Carlisle broke down the fences and held the race, 

 out of which arose the assize trial of Ismay v. 

 Barnes held at Carlisle in 1865, when the freemen 

 lost their case and the races on Kingmoor came to 

 an end (Municipal Records of the City of Carlisle, 

 pp. 94, 100, 118, 142, ed. Ferguson & Nan- 

 son). 



1 It has been thought that the place-name of 

 Swifts was derived from the races which took place 

 there, but it is scarcely probable. The name 

 occurs as ' Swyft ' among the demesne lands of 

 Carlisle Castle as early as 1353 (Abbrev. Rot. 

 Origin, ii. 230^, 252^, Record Commission). 



2 Heber, List of Horse-matches run in 1752, pp. 

 18-20. 



abandoned, a new course having been selected 

 on the rising ground above the Caldew near 

 the hamlet of Blackball two miles to the 

 south of Carlisle. 



After the Restoration of Charles II. race- 

 courses multiplied and interest in sport be- 

 came more general in the county. It would 

 seem that Cumberland, like the rest of Eng- 

 land, had gone into excess when ' the king 

 had come into his own again.' It is true 

 that many of the leading families had been 

 either beggared or impoverished by the civil 

 war, yet notwithstanding these disadvantages 

 racing and field sports came into greater prom- 

 inence and were more widely practised after 

 the strictness of the Puritanical days of the 

 Commonwealth, like a stream rushing with 

 greater force after a temporary confinement. 

 If we return to the pages of Sandford, we get 

 frequent peeps into the stables of the country 

 gentry, as well as a vivid picture of the state 

 of society during his time. In that writer's 

 experience almost every gentleman in the 

 county who could afford it, and perhaps 

 who could not afford it, was in the habit 

 of keeping open house and dispensing hospi- 

 tality as occasion offered, the information 

 being usually appended that he was not 

 without a running horse or two in his 

 stables. Sir George Fletcher, a man of 

 great local repute as well as a member of 

 Parliament, is described as 'a very brave 

 monsir, great housekeper, hunter and horse 

 courser, never without the best running horse 

 or two, the best he can gett,' a portrait of Sir 

 George which agrees with everything else we 

 know of him. A like account is given of old 

 Sir John Dalston and Sir George Dalston of 

 Dalston Hall, ' two brave gentill gallants and 

 justiciers, great gamesters never without two 

 or three running horses, the best in England.' 

 The members of the Dalston family were 

 ever great patrons of ' the turf,' so much so 

 indeed that traditions of their sporting cele- 

 brity still linger in the parish from which they 

 took their name, though a century and a half 

 has elapsed since the ancestral hall and estates 

 passed to other hands. It is still said of one 

 of the last scions of this ancient house that he 

 possessed a pair of running horses which were 

 such a match in swiftness that the weight of 

 the stable key would be sufficient to decide 

 the race. Facts go to show that Cumberland, 

 however backward it may have been in other 

 matters, was pre-eminent as a sporting county, 

 exposed to all the abuses which had so early 

 crept into horse racing and which have been 

 inseparable from it ever since. It would 

 appear that the history of the Cumberland 

 'turf at this period affords sufficient justifi- 



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