100 Interesting Facts
We have now achieved our target of posting 100 Interesting Facts! 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:
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
Tarn Wadling, now drained, was famous for many things, including a floating island that mysteriously appeared one night in 1810
The Guide to the Lakes (1778) thought the best way of looking at scenery was by viewing it through a mirror called a Claude Glass
Reginald Bainbrigg, a 16th century schoolmaster, collected Roman inscriptions which he displayed at his home in Appleby
On 22nd February 1822 a great flood destroyed five bridges in the Eden Valley. The water was three feet deep in Appleby church
Blackmail originated in Cumbria and the borders as the name for the protection racket that the Border Reivers ran for centuries.
There was a pearl fishery at Drigg in the 17th century, in the mussel beds of the Irt estuary.
The name Cumbria comes from the same root as Cymry, the Welsh word meaning ‘fellow countrymen'
Piel Island was the scene of a failed invasion on 5 June 1487, when Lambert Simnel, claiming to be ‘King Edward VI’, landed there.
Mardale Green, a hamlet in the parish of Shap, was drowned in the 1930s when Haweswater was extended to provide a reservoir for Manchester
