Full list of Interesting Facts
1 A mine called Nigel (Iron mine at Roanhead) 19/09/2017
2 Pilgrimage of Grace (Monks of Cartmel) 19/09/2017
3 Central Buttress of Scafell (1st ascent in 1914) 19/09/2017
4 William Pit Disaster (Whitehaven 1947, 104 men died) 19/09/2017
5 Oldest Railway (14th cent track, mine at Caldbeck) 19/09/2017
6 1660 Post Office Act (to Kendal by way of Lancaster) 19/09/2017
7 Royal Mint (12th cent mint at Carlisle) 19/09/2017: background paper added 25/10/2024
8 Kendal Parish Church (2nd largest parish church in England) 19/09/2017
9 Town Clock Bell (Kirkby Stephen - rings for day of month) 19/09/2017
10 Wild Boar (Last wild boar, Mallerstang) 19/09/2017
11 Mining in the Lake District (Iron, copper, lead, zinc, cobalt, antimony, silver, tungsten, manganese and barium) 19/09/2017: background paper added 4/11/2024
12 Carlisle United (Top of the League, 1974) 19/09/2017
13 Bewcastle Cross (Anglo-Saxon - Runic inscriptions) 19/09/2017
14 Reverend Theodore Bayley Hardy (won the VC, DSO and MC) 19/09/2017
15 Market town and parish church (Alston is highest market town, Nenthead is the highest parish church.) 19/09/2017
16 Roman Fountain at Carlisle (St Cuthbert's 7th cent visit) 19/09/2017
17 St Bega (Story of Irish princess fleeing from Vikings) 19/09/2017
18 Cumbria Domesday (only covers Ulverston & Dalton) 19/09/2017
19 Highest and Deepest ( Scafell and Wastwater) 19/09/2017
20 Dunmail Raise (burial site of Dyfnwal ab Owain, 10th century King of Strathclyde) 19/09/2017
21 The Bound Devil ( carved stone at Kirkby Stephen) 19/09/2017
22 A Drowned Village (Mardale Green, Haweswater) 19/09/2017
23 The Invasion of Cumbria (Piel Island, 1487 - and Lambert Simnel) 19/09/2017
24 Cymry ( Cumbria='fellow countrymen' ) 19/09/2017
25 Cumbria's Pearl Fishery (Drigg, Irt Estuary) 19/09/2017
26 Corkickle Brake ( Earl of Lonsdale's wagonway) 19/09/2017
27 Blackmail (Border reivers' protection racket) 20/09/2017
28 Eden Flood (The flood of 1822)` 24/10/2017
29 Appleby Stones ( Roman inscriptions collected by Reginald Bainbrigg) 30/10/2017
30 Claude Glass (viewing the picturesque through a mirror) 30/10/2017
31 Tarn Wadling ( Floating island and other mysteries ) 30/10/2017
32 Housestead Moss Troopers (Camden's visit in 1599 ) 30/10/2017
33 Flookburgh Airships (Ravenstown in WWI ) 04/12/2017
34 King's Meaburn ( Thomas a Beckett's murder, 1170) (see also 71) 19/01/2018
35 Silver Find in Brough under Stainmore ( 118 oz of silver found in a wall in 1713) 13/07/2018
36 Mary Noble ( First woman elected to a county council) 23/08/2018
37 Carlisle not Camelot ( King Arthur's court at Merry Carlisle) 09/09/2018
38 The Seathwaite Plumbago Mine Black lead, wad or plumbago 09/09/2018
39 Celebrating Trafalgar (Wigton's market cross burned down, 1805) 19/10/2018
40 The "Battle" of Penrith 1715 (How the local militia ran away from the Jacobites) 25/10/2018
41 Wonderful Walker and Wordsworth (Clergyman from the Duddon Valley) 25/10/2018
42 Rush lights (Cumbrian homes lit by rush lights, not candles) 25/10/2018
43 Battle of Solway Moss (English defeated Scots, 1542 ) 23/11/2018
44 Atterpile Castle (Castlehead, near Grange, Iron Age fort) 31/12/2018
45 Dacre's Raid (Attempt to overthrow Elizabeth 1569) 31/12/2018
46 The Luck of Edenhall (Drinking glass in V&A collection) 08/03/2019
47 Pocklington's Island Derwent Island in the 1780s 17/12/2019
48 A 600 year-old preserved body ( St Bees Man, 1368) 17/12/2019
49 Goldscope and the Company of Mines Royal (Copper mines near Keswick, and Bavarian miners) 18/12/2019
50 First man to walk Hadrian's Wall (William Hutton, 1801) 18/12/2019
51 Fr Thomas West (The historian of Furness, a Jesuit priest) 18/12/2019
52 The One that Got Away (Franz von Werra WWII escape from Grizedale Hall) 18/12/2019
53 Grisleymires Lane (Milnthorpe. 'Muddy hollow of the pigs') 18/12/2019
54 Torpenhow (Hill-hill-hill, in three languages) 18/12/2019
55 Kings died in or near Carlisle (David I and Edward I ) 06/06/2020
56 The Wetheral Cave Graffiti (Willian Henry Mounsey's carvings - in Welsh!) 06/07/2020
57 The First Recorded African Community in Britain (Brough by Sands, 1800 years ago) 08/07/2020
58 The Picture of Dorian Gray (Frances Richards painted picture that inspired the story) 17/08/2020
59 The Monocled Munineer (Percy Toplis, shot dead at Plumpton 1920 ) 18/08/2020
60 Carlisle Bastion (Plans, not carried out, for defensive works, 1746) 17/11/2020
61 Penrith and the POTUS (Joe Biden sworn in on Haydock bible) 18/03/2021
62 Did you know Cumbria has a connection to the Benin Bronzes (The Benin expedition of 18971 ) 16/04/2021
63 Solway Bog Burst ( events of November 1771) 02/10/2021
64 Last Battle on English Soil? ( Clifton Moor, December 1745) 15/12/2021
65 The Ullswater Echo (Firing cannon for 18th century tourists ) 26/01/2022
66 The Floating Island of Derwentwater (Shown on James Clarke's 1787 map) 27/01/2022
67 The Poor Nuns of Cumbria (Armathwaite and Seaton) 20/07/2022
68 The Scaleby Bog Body (Found in 1845, a woman, died more than 2000 yrs ago) 18/11/2022
69 Who put the Mary in Maryport? (Humphrey Senhouse, 1749, developing Ellenfoot ) 18/11/2022
70 Cumbria in Scotland (Not part of England until 1157 ) 18/11/2022
71 One of Thomas a Becket's assassins lived in Appleby (Hugh de Morville (see also 34)) 18/11/2022
72 Free School Meals at Furness Abbey (rights & privileges of tenants of Furness, pre Dissolution) 21/12/2022
73 Getting Away with Murder, Tudor-style (Nicholas Bardsey murdered William Sandys, 1559) 21/12/2022
74 Lepers in Cumbria (Conishead Priory and other leper hospitals) 21/12/2022
75 The Last Wolf in England ( Humphrey Head, 14th century) 21/12/2022
76 Conishead, from Augustinians to Buddhists (founded 1180, Buddhist since 1976) 23/02/2023
77 The Carlisle Experiment ( state owned public houses in WWI) 27/03/2023
78 Anchorites in Cumbria (Aldingham, Brough, Kirkbampton etc) 30/03/2023
79 Wray Castle, the National Trust, and Peter Rabbit Beatrix Potter and Wray Castle 30/03/2023
80 First Turnpike ( Whitehaven Harbour to St Bees, 1739) 30/03/2023
81 Basque Children at Brampton ( Safe haven from Spain 1937-39) 08/06/2023
82 Perchines and Eels: Wray Castle at War 1939-45 (Freshwater Biological Association research during WWII) 10/07/2023
83 The Triangular Trade, Low Wood and Sedgwick (Gunpowder to West Africa, traded for slaves ) 06/10/2023
84 Windermere on Ice: The Great Freeze of 1895 (When Windermere froze ) 17/12/2023
85 Murder most foul: death of Joseph Byrnes (Murdered by jewel thieves 1885) 20/01/2024
86 When the Wild West came to Cumbria (Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, 1904) 08/02/2024
87 Jimmy Dyer, a 'Carlisle Gentleman' ( Itinerant fiddler, 1841-1903 ) 08/02/2024
88 The Colthouse Gibbet (1672, Thomas Lancaster, gibbeted near Hawkshead) 13/02/2024
89 Richard of Cirencester and the Pennines ( How a mid 18th century hoax is commemorated in the name of the mountain chain) 13/02/2024
90 Almost a University? Cumbrian Higher Education in the 19th century (St Bees Theological College, 1816-1895 ) 02/04/2024
91 St Patrick was a Cumbrian Ravenglass - or Birdoswald? 03/04/2024
92 The Adventures of Robinson (Tom Robinson escapes execution by the Jacobites 1745) 05/04/2024
93 Morecambe Bay (How the name was given to the Bay by Thos West in 1774) 07/05/2024
94 The Lost Roman Fort of Hincaster (Was there a fort there - and if so, where?) 20/05/2024
95 Eliza Lynn (1822-1898) ( England’s first salaried female journalist.) 28/06/2024
96 The Giant's Grave, Penrith (An important collection of Viking-Age monuments.) 27/07/2024
97 Arctic Char (A Cumbrian delicacy, from Windermere) 30/07/2024
98 Defensible churches ( A unique group of fortified churches, built for defence against the Scots) 31/08/2024
99 Long Meg and her daughters (Stone circle, 3000BC, the third biggest in England) 02/09/2024
100 A Thousand Years of Cumbria (From before the Conquest to the end of the county in 2023)
