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:
In 1559 Nicholas Bardsey of Bardsea murdered William Sandys of Conishead and fled to Scotland. Seven years later he returned home – and no-one seem to have mentioned the murder again.
Prior to the Dissolution, the sons of the tenants of Furness Abbey not only had free schooling at the abbey, they had free school meals too!
A thousand years ago, Cumbria was in Scotland. It did not become part of England until 1157 – but the border was not finally fixed until 1552.
When Humphrey Senhouse of Netherhall decided in 1749 to develop a new town and port at Ellenfoot, he named it after his wife Mary.
A body found in 1845 at Scaleby, north of Carlisle turned out to be possibly a woman who had been deliberately killed and buried in the bog, more than 2000 years before.
The two nunneries in Cumbria together had less income in a year than Furness Abbey alone had in a fortnight
in the southern part of Derwentwater, there was once a floating island, which appeared for a few days at a time when the lake was high.
In the 18th century tourists used to fire pistols, or even cannon, across Ullswater – just to hear the echo
On 18 December 1745 what has been described as the last battle on English soil took place at Clifton Moor, Westmorland.
In November 1771, Solway Moss burst, and flowed over the surrounding area, destroying houses and livestock. The land has never recovered.
James Robert Phillips, son of the vicar of Ivegill, had a key role in the events that led to the Benin Expedition of 1897
Joe Biden was sworn in as President of the US on a family Bible translated and annotated by a Penrith Parish Priest, George Leo Haydock.
Carlisle Castle would look very different today if a plan to build a massive defensive bastion facing the town had gone ahead in 1746.
"The Monocled Mutineer" was shot dead by police at Plumpton near Penrith in 1920
Frances Richards, later of Glassonby Lodge, painted the portrait which may have inspired “The Picture of Dorian Gray”
The first recorded African community in Britain was based at Burgh by Sands some 1800 years ago
Cumbrian eccentric William Henry Mounsey carved an inscription into the walls of Wetheral Cave - in Welsh!
The name Torpenhow seems to be made up of three elements, all more-or-less meaning 'hill' in different languages - Hill-hill-hill!
Grisleymires Lane, Milnthorpe, sounds like the location for a horror film - but probably means something like 'muddy hollow of the pigs'
Franz von Werra was the only German prisoner of WWII to escape and get back to Germany. His first escape was from Grizedale Hall
