286 THE BRITISH ISLES. 



castle crowning a wooded eminence beside it. Tiie grammar school was founded 

 by (iueen Elizabeth. The manufacture of woollens is carried on to a limited 

 extent. Otlier towns on the Yjdcn are BroiKj/i-inidcr-Sfaiiunorc, an old Roman 

 station in Watling Street, and Kirhhi/ Stephen, within easy access of the moors, 

 and hence much frequented by sporting-men. Quarries and mines are near both 

 these places. Shap, a straggling village almost in the centre of the county, and 

 at the foot of the Shap Fells, has slate and other quarries. Clifton is a village on 

 the northern border, near which took place the conflict of Clifton Moor in 1745. 

 Lowther and Brougham Castles are in its vicinity, the latter at one time one of 

 the most formidable of frontier fortresses. 



CrMHr.ui.ANi) extends from the desolate moorlands of the Pennine chain to the 

 Irish Sea in the west, and includes within its borders the highest mountains of 

 England * and most of the English lakes. A broad and passably fertile plain, 

 traversed by the Lower Eden, separates the moorlands from the Cumbrian Hills, 

 and in this plain grew up the principal towns until the discovery of coal shifted 

 the centre of population to the westward. Besides coal and iron, the mines 

 and quarries yield lead, plumbago, silver, zinc, slate, marble, and various other 

 building stones. The cotton factories, iron works, foundries, and machine shops 

 are of considerable importance. Here, as in the neighbouring county of West- 

 moreland, a large portion of the land is the property of " statesmen," or " lairds." 

 Carlisle, the chief town of the county, occupies a fine position on the Lower 

 Eden, about 8 miles above its mouth into Morecambe Bay. After having been a 

 Roman station — Lugurallum — Carlisle, under the name of Caer-leol, became a 

 Saxon city, and according to the legends it was a favourite residence of King 

 Arthur. During the Middle Ages, and even as recently as the eighteenth century, 

 when the last effort was made to restore the Stuarts, Carlisle, owing to its position 

 on the Scotch border and on a navigable river, was a place of very great strategical 

 importance. The castle occupies an eminence overlooking the river Eden, and has 

 been extensively altered ; but the keep, built by William Rufus, remains to the 

 present day. The cathedral is the most interesting building of the town, but it is 

 small. Carlisle manufactures cottons, ginghams, and. hats ; but its biscuit bakeries, 

 despite their extent, are not equal in productiveness to the single manufactory at 

 Reading. A navigable canal and a railway join the old border fortress to Port 

 Carlisle, on Morecambe Bay, which is spanned here by a formidable railway 

 viaduct. 



Penrith, in the fertile valley of the Eamont (which comes from the Ulleswater, 

 and flows to the river Eden), and on the borders of Inglewood Forest, has its ruined 

 castle, like most other towns in this border county. Brampton is an old town on 

 the river Irthing, which joins the Eden near Carlisle. It has cotton factories and 

 collieries. Xear it are Naworth Castle and the ruins of Lanercost Abbey. 

 Higher up in the rocky valley of the Irthing, and close to the Northumberland 

 border, is Gilsland Spa, with its sulphuric and chalybeate sprino-s. 



We now turn westward towards the coast. IToIme Cult ram, at the mouth of the 

 ♦ Sea FeU, 3,230 feet ; Helvellyn, on tiie Weslmoreland border, 3,118 feet; Skiddaw, 3,058 feet. 



