Talk:History of Cumbria

Cumbrian identity
Neither English nor Scottish? That was probably true during the Reiving era but these days?

I don't think I'd dare walk round Carlisle or any other part of Cumbria asking them whether they felt English or not. I'm altering this to take into account that Cumbria is part of England and there is no real debate as to whether the people there are English or not.GordyB 15:58, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

No details about Cumbria during WWII ?
I am interested in historical information about Cumberland and Westmorland during World War II, I see there is no information on this era in this article yet. 67.241.251.22 (talk) 02:40, 28 December 2014 (UTC)Andrew O'Brien

Upper Paleolithic, c. 16000 – 8000 BC
This section does not make sense. The Upper Paleolithic covers 50,000 to 10,000 BP. 16,000 to 8000 covers the temporary Creswellian (Federmesser) occupation around 13,000 BP and the separate Neolithic after the Younger Dryas from c. 11,000 (?). I have checked Pettit and White's The British Palaeolithic and the only Cumbrian site I can find is Kirkhead Cave. None of the maps for earlier periods show sites that far north. I have revised the 'Earliest inhabitants' section accordingly but I do not have any sources for the Neolithic.

I think the earliest inhabitants section should be re-named Palaeolithic, and the Upper Palaeolithic one should be headed Neolithic. In the upper paleo section the first paragraph is unreferenced. In para 2 the source for the first sentence is dated but presumably still reliable. The next sentence: "A cold period between c. 10000 and c. 8800 BC, that saw some ice return..." The date here is wrong. The last cold period was the Younger Dryas c. 12,890-11,650 BP (Pettit and White, p. 489). The source given is Higham, who is an early medieval expert, not a prehistorian. (It could be a C14 uncalibrated date, that is without calibration to adjust for changes in the level of C14 in the atmosphere at different periods.) In the 3rd para Barraclough's "Late Upper Paleolithic c. 16000-8000 BC" is nonsense. He is obviously not reliable for prehistory. Wymer's "Although limited, the Late Upper Paleolithic material from Cumbria is the earliest evidence of settlement in Britain this far north-west and as such is of national importance" - this is interesting and probably refers to Kirkhead Cave, which would mean it belongs in the previous section, but this would need checking with the source. The final para seems to be based on Barraclough and may confuse the palaeolithic and neolithic.

Dudley Miles (talk) 11:59, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Many thanks for your comments. I've rewritten this section giving more context and, hopefully, a clearer overview using more up-to-date sources as suggested. I think Barrowclough's 16000-8000BC date for the LUP must be a typo, as elsewhere he has different dates (although still not agreeing with modern sources.Laplacemat (talk) 14:09, 11 May 2015 (UTC)


 * This is a great improvement, although there are still a number of unreferenced passages. I have revised one passage to hopefully make it a bit shorter and clearer. A few minor points. 1. BP is years before 1950, so you cannot deduct 2000 to reach the BC date. Personally, I would keep the BP dates, although some readers may object to the inconsistency with other sections. 2. I would not specify "cal" BP as very few readers will understand the "cal", although Mike Christie might disagree. 3. Standard practice is to leave no space between text and . 4. In the last paragraph I would say "Britain was not permanently occupied until the end of the Younger Dryas period" (not Cumbria). Dudley Miles (talk) 19:39, 11 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I do think cal BP is worth specifying, but I think it would be best if WP:ARCHAEO were to come up with a standard that applies generally. Without that I think it's up to the editor's discretion, but if used it should be explained inline or in a footnote, since few readers will understand it. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 22:13, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Splitting up of the History of Cumbria page
This page is now well over twice the recommended Wikipedia maximum size for an article page (WP:Article size). I propose that it should be split into a main, "parent" page called History of Cumbria, having a summary in each section with a corresponding link to a detailed "child" page. The "child " pages might be the following: Please let me know your thoughts on this. It would be difficult to remove content without losing important information (and is not recommended by WP (WP:Content removal), so this might be the best solution (assuming that the length is a problem). Laplacemat (talk) 14:22, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
 * "Prehistoric Cumbria", 12670 BC-71 AD
 * "Roman Cumbria", 71-410 AD
 * "Early historic Cumbria, 410-1066
 * "Mediaeval Cumbria", 1066-1485
 * "Early modern Cumbria", 1485-1714
 * "Georgian and Victorian Cumbria", 1714-1901
 * "Twentieth century Cumbria",1901-2000
 * "Twenty-first century Cumbria", 2001-
 * This seems like a good idea to me. I see that even though it is so long at least two sections, Stuart Cumbria and early industry, are blank. I would suggest some amendment to the headings, including removal of the dates which may be too restrictive in some cases. Where does 12670 BC come from? 410-1066 is normally regarded as the early medieval period. How about:


 * Prehistoric Cumbria
 * Roman Cumbria
 * Early medieval Cumbria
 * Later medieval Cumbria
 * Tudor and Stuart Cumbria
 * Georgian and Victorian Cumbria
 * Twentieth century Cumbria
 * Twenty-first century Cumbria
 * Dudley Miles (talk) 15:06, 9 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Many thanks for your reply. The dates are quite useful, I think, and are standard as far as the AD sections are concerned. I take your point about the Prehistoric period though, as the dating implies that this somehow only began in 12670 BC! (I took this from Pettitt and White as their date for the beginning of the Late Paleolithic Period. I'm still revising the content on this as per your valuable comments in the Talk section above). I am also usure how much in vogue is "Early Historic" (to replace the no-longer in favour "Dark age"), so "Early medieval" may be better. There are, as you mention, many incomplete or missing sections, but I don't think we should allow this page to grow much more or it will become unmanageable, and splitting it might encourage others to contribute (especially about industrial history). All the best, Laplacemat (talk) 16:10, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

Cumbria and Strathclyde
George Molyneaux, The Formation of the English Kingdom in the Tenth Century, 2015, p. 15. Discussing the kingdoms in Britain in the mid-ninth century he says "In present-day south-west Scotland was the kingdom of Strathclyde, which increasingly came to be referred to as Cumbria, although in the mid-ninth century the power of its kings probably did not yet extend into the area that is now known by the later name." I will add his references to further reading. Dudley Miles (talk) 21:17, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

"Kingdom of Cumbria" in 5th and 6th centuries
With regard to the edits by user Blukas~enwiki, I don't know of any reliable source, primary or secondary, that mentions a Kingdom of Cumbria in the immediate period after the Romans. Rheged cannot be equated to such an entity either implicitly or explicitly. There may have been a kingdom of Rheged in Cumbria ("North Rheged" covering the Cumbrian region, as opposed to "South Rheged in Cheshire/Lancashire); or Rheged may have covered the old Carvettii territory down to the Eamont boundary; or it may have extended round into Dumfriesshire and Galloway; or, it has even been suggested, it may have lain to the east of the Pennines!

Anyway, Cumbria as a kingdom mentioned in the sources seems to have been something to do with the 9th century kingdom of Strathclyde, so I don't think that we can assume that this was a term in use prior to that. I think we need a reliable source to back up any claim to the phrase prior to the 9th century. If none is forthcoming, I propose to delete the edits concerned. Please let me know what the view is. Laplacemat (talk) 14:01, 2 August 2015 (UTC)


 * I have checked Charles-Edwards, Wales and the Britons and Clarkson, Strathclyde and the Anglo-Saxons, and they both say that until the fall of Dumbarton in 870 the kingdom was known as Alt Clut. The terms Strathclyde and Cumbria only came into use after that. Clarkson says that the location of Rheged is unknown, and it may never have been a kingdom, just a settlement or lordly estate. Dudley Miles (talk) 14:43, 2 August 2015 (UTC)