100 Interesting Facts
We have now passed our original target of posting 100 Interesting Facts - and are still adding to them! We began posting these back in 2017, with the Facts being submitted by our volunteers and friends. Click on a 'Fact' for more Background information.
You can access a full list of all the Facts here, so you can browse looking for anything that takes your fancy. Click on the title to take you to the 'Background' page. Next to the title is a brief explanation as to what the story is about. The date is the date the Fact was first posted to the site. Please note that when we first started on this series, these Background entries were short and sweet- but over time we have tended to put more and more information into our new postings - along with references so you can follow up on more about the story at your leisure.
If YOU have a Fact you'd like to share, please Contact Us , giving us references so we can check - as before posting anything, our team of historians have to be sure it REALLY IS a fact, not a myth!
Reveal Facts by:
Thomas West, the great historian of Furness, was a Jesuit priest who found himself with time on his hands for his antiquarian interests
The first person (since the Romans) to walk Hadrian's Wall from end to end was William Hutton, in 1801 - aged 77
When copper was discovered near Keswick in the 1560s, no-one in England could extract the metal - so Bavarian miners were brought in
The body of a Crusader buried in 1368 was found to be well preserved when the coffin was opened in 1981
Derwent Island was known as Pocklington's Island in the 1780s. Its owner used to organise mock sieges, with cannons firing from the isle
A drinking glass known as the Luck of Edenhall is one of is one of the most exceptional objects in the V&A's glass collection.
In 1569, Cumbrians tried to overthrow Queen Elizabeth in what became known as Dacre's Raid
Atterpile Castle, now known as Castle Head, near Grange, may have been an Iron Age promontory fort
On 24 November 1542, an English army defeated the Scots on Solway Moss. But the exact location of the battle has been disputed.
Until the mid-nineteenth century, most Cumbrian homes would have been lit by rush lights, not candles
William Wordsworth wrote about 'Wonderful Walker', a clergyman from the Duddon valley famous for his frugality
A Jacobite Army passed through Cumbria in 1715 - and the local militia ran away rather than fight them!
Wigton's market cross burnt down during celebrations of Nelson's victory at the Battle of Trafalgar on 21st October 1805.
Seathwaite was once the world’s leading supplier of ‘black lead’, plumbago or ‘wad’ Before the c.16th it was just used for marking sheep.
An early 15th century manuscript poem, probably written at Carlisle, claims that King Arthur’s court was at Merry Carlisle, not Camelot
Mary Noble of Bampton was the first woman in the country to be elected to a county council (Westmorland).
In 1713 Jane Alderson found 118 oz of silver in a wall belonging to the lord of the manor of Brough
Kings Meaburn was forfeited to the Crown by Sir Hugh de Morville for his role in Thomas à Becket’s murder in 1170
Flookburgh was chosen as a safe place to build airships during the First World War, and Ravenstown was built to house the workers
The antiquary William Camden could not visit Housesteads while in the area in 1599 for fear of the Moss Troopers living there
