Cumbria. Home to stunning lakes, dramatic  mountains and a beautiful stretch of western  

coastline. And to the north of the  county, the borderlands of England.  

Just ten miles away from the Scottish  border stands the city of Carlisle,  

where a single structure steeped in history  has dominated the skyline for 900 years.  

This is Carlisle Castle,  with walls up to 12ft thick,  

built from stone that has wethered its  tumultuous history remarkably well.

This extraordinary building is filled with ancient  chambers, narrow stairways and endless stories.

Carlisle Castle is unusual for English Heritage  in so far as it's a castle that's not a ruin. Over  

hundreds of years successive monarchs have added  to this castle and have helped to develop it as a  

defensive structure. The keep is a particularly  good example. It was altered by Henry VIII  

very much in the style of the other  castle that he built along the coast.  

It's been occupied continuously for more  than 900 years since it was founded in 1092  

which in itself is absolutely remarkable. And  it's had a long and colourful history, perhaps  

sometimes not the colour that we would want to  see, and it's got the accolade of being the most  

besieged castle in the country. It's often been  fought over and it's been in both Scottish and  

English hands in the early 13th century. And then  again it was besieged in the Jacobite Uprising  

of 1745 so its colourful history goes right up  to the 18th century and in some cases beyond.

Carlisle has been recognised as a strategically  important place over the centuries,  

presiding over a much contested  border. For hundreds of years,  

battles have taken place in these parts as warring  factions from England and Scotland squared off.

Carlisle has long been recognised  as a strategically important place  

over the centuries and this has  been a much contested border.  

There was a Roman settlement here called Lugavalio  and Hadrian's Wall ran just to the north.  

The border between Scotland and England made this  a key site to be controlled in the medieval period  

but it was not just the Anglo-Scottish border.  There were the border rievers, local clans  

known for their cattle raids and feuds made this  area even more difficult to govern from the 13th  

century right up to the 17th century. The rievers  had strong clan allegiences that could sometimes  

come before national ones and it meant that this  area was very often under what we would now call  

special measures. Cattle raids were particularly  common and these often escalated as clans carried  

out further raids in an attempt to regain  the livestock that had been stolen from them.  

This is a landscape of battles  and feuds and shifting alliances.

To pair up with this site of battles,  raids and feuds, we have a song that  

tells a story of warring parties fighting over  a woman who would have known the castle well,  

the Lady of Carlisle. Sung for us by Lucy Farrell,  

this song tells of a lady courting two men of  war, a brave lieutenant and a bold sea captain.  

In order to put her suiters to the test, she  throws her fan into the middle of a lion's den,  

challenging the men to retrieve per  possession by facing up to a deadly beast.