Harraby

Most Carlisle residents consider Harraby as a post-war housing estate [Harraby East] but it is much older and covers a wider area.

Going south from the city centre on a bus, after crossing the railway on London Road, you would travel for over a mile and still be in Harraby.

Either side of the road was a Roman cemetery and in the medieval period it was in the Royal Forest of Inglewood.

The village took its name, Henry’s by, from Henry Engayne whose son gave this and the mill to the Priory of St Mary before 1159. This township became the property of Carlisle Cathedral within their manor of Botchergate.

Harraby was a place of execution, a Civil War fortification, a workhouse site and the city’s reservoir. Industry flourished here and railways transformed the area.

Homes for heroes were built here after World War One and a further estate followed after World War Two.

All was served by new churches, cinema, schools, pubs and a community centre with an industrial estate; the city boundary extended in 1951 to accommodate this expansion.