Bewcastle is a large

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...

in the

City of Carlisle The City of Carlisle ( , ) is a local government district of Cumbria, England, with the status of a city and non-metropolitan district. It is named after its largest settlement, Carlisle, but covers a far larger area which includes the towns ...

district of

Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in North West England, bordering Scotland. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local government, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. Cumb ...

, England. It is in the historic county of

Cumberland Cumberland ( ) is a historic county in the far North West England. It covers part of the Lake District as well as the north Pennines and Solway Firth coast. Cumberland had an administrative function from the 12th century until 1974. From 19 ...

. According to the 2001 census the parish had a population of 411, reducing to 391 at the 2011 Census. The parish is large and includes the settlements of Roadhead and Sleetbeck. To the north the parish extends to the border with

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

. To the east the parish bounds Northumberland.

Etymology

The origin of the name Bewcastle can be traced accurately from its spelling in ancient documents. These show that it was originally "bothy/booth caster", which translates as "the Roman fort where there were bothies or shielings". 'Cæster' is "an Anglian side-form of OE 'ceaster', referring to the defences of the Roman camp...a medieval fortress was built within these defences..." The original form of the first element "was clearly 'Buth-' from ON búð, 'booth'." (OE=

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

; ON=

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...

). Antiquarians, who did not have our access to well-catalogued and studied ancient documents, leapt at the chance to link the place name with a semi-mythological figure named Bueth, due to his romantic links with the prestigious Barony of Gilsland. The well-respected book ''The Place-names of Cumberland'' states that it is "impossible" for Bewcastle to be named after Bueth.

Governance

Bewcastle is in the

parliamentary constituency An electoral district, also known as an election district, legislative district, voting district, constituency, riding, ward, division, or (election) precinct is a subdivision of a larger state (a country, administrative region, or other poli ...

Penrith and the Border Penrith and The Border is a constituency in Cumbria represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2019 by Neil Hudson, a Conservative. History Penrith and The Border was first contested in 1950 since which it has to date been g ...

. Neil Hudson was elected its Conservative

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

at the 2019 General Election, replacing

Rory Stewart Roderick James Nugent Stewart (born 3 January 1973) is a British academic, diplomat, author, broadcaster, former soldier and former politician. He is the president of GiveDirectly, a visiting fellow at Yale University's Jackson Institute for G ...

. Before

Brexit Brexit (; a portmanteau of "British exit") was the withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU) at 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020 (00:00 1 February 2020 CET).The UK also left the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC or ...

, it was in the

North West England North West England is one of nine official regions of England and consists of the ceremonial counties of England, administrative counties of Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Merseyside. The North West had a population of ...

European Parliamentary Constituency.

Church and cross

St Cuthbert's churchyard contains the famous 7th-Century

Bewcastle Cross The Bewcastle Cross is an Anglo-Saxon cross which is still in its original position within the churchyard of St Cuthbert's church at Bewcastle, in the England, English county of Cumbria. The cross, which probably dates from the 7th or early 8th ...

. The sundial on its surface is the oldest in Britain, divided into the four 'tides' which governed the working day in medieval times. Its importance has been described by

Nikolaus Pevsner Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, ''The Buildings of England'' (1 ...

thus: "The crosses of Bewcastle and

Ruthwell Ruthwell is a village and parish on the Solway Firth between Dumfries and Annan in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray, gave Ruthwell to his nephew, Sir William Murray, confirmed to Sir John Murray, of Cockpool, in ...

... are the greatest achievement of their date in the whole of Europe." A reconstruction of the whole cross is located in the churchyard of St Mary's neo- Romanesque Church at

Wreay Wreay ( ) is a small English village that lies on the River Petteril in today's Cumbria. The M6 motorway, A6 trunk road and West Coast Main Line railway all skirt the village. Governance Wreay was once a civil parish, In 1931 it had a populat ...

near Carlisle, but this differs in style and detail from the original. Stephen Matthews calls the Wreay cross a "reinvention".

Roman Fort

The parish is also known for its unusual hexagonal

Bewcastle Roman Fort Bewcastle Roman Fort was built to the north of Hadrian's Wall as an outpost fort possibly intended for scouting and intelligence. The remains of the fort are situated at the village of Bewcastle, Cumbria, to the north of the Roman fort at Bir ...

, which has been identified as ''Fanum Cocidi''; its grassy ramparts can still be seen surrounding the churchyard. The fort was originally built from turf and timber and garrisoned by the First Nervian Cohort of Germans. It was built as an outlying defence of

Hadrian's Wall Hadrian's Wall ( la, Vallum Aelium), also known as the Roman Wall, Picts' Wall, or ''Vallum Hadriani'' in Latin, is a former defensive fortification of the Roman province of Britannia, begun in AD 122 in the reign of the Emperor Hadrian. R ...

to the south, to which it was linked by a road direct from the Roman fort of

Banna (Birdoswald) Birdoswald Roman Fort was known as ''Banna'' ("horn" in Celtic) in Roman times, reflecting the geography of the site on a triangular spur of land bounded by cliffs to the south and east commanding a broad meander of the River Irthing in Cumbri ...

on the wall, and a signal station on Gillalees Beacon between the two. The fort was later rebuilt in stone. Much of the stone was subsequently used to build a Norman castle within the northern perimeter of the fort. The ruins of

Bewcastle Castle Bewcastle Castle is a ruined castle in the parish of Bewcastle in the English county of Cumbria, a few miles from the Scottish border. History The first castle was built on the site of Bewcastle Roman Fort, around 1092. The castle is surround ...

have recently been consolidated by

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses. The charity states that i ...

, and are accessible to the public without charge.

People

Two brothers born in Bewcastle, Joseph Armstrong (1816–1877) and George Armstrong (1822–1901), became noted steam locomotive engineers; their careers were spent mainly on the

Great Western Railway The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran ...

Gallery

File:Bewcastle - geograph.org.uk - 1945279.jpg, Bewcastle castle File:Bewcastle - geograph.org.uk - 460783.jpg, The castle File:Bewcastle church and cross from the west.jpg, Bewcastle church and cross from the west File:Bewcastle cross south perspective view.jpg, Bewcastle cross south perspective view File:Bewcastle church interior.jpg, Interior of St Cuthbert's church, Bewcastle, Cumbria. File:Sundialtide.JPG, Example sundial at another location showing the four 'Tides' as on the Bewcastle Cross File:Afdaling naar bewcastle.jpg, Countryside at Bewcastle

References

Bibliography

External links

Cumbria County History Trust: Bewcastle
(nb: provisional research only - see Talk page)
Bewcastle website, description, history, Bewcastle Cross, what's onThe Cumbria Directory - BewcastleGENUKI page
{{authority control Villages in Cumbria City of Carlisle Civil parishes in Cumbria