Blackhall

This article is about the location used by the Lonsdale Battalion during the Great War.

For a brief history of the Lonsdales at this location, see Blackhall Camp - Formation and training.

Blackhall, also known as Blackhall Camp and Blackhall Racecourse, especially during the time of the Great War, was the name synonymous with the small village of Blackwell, approximately two miles south of Carlisle, Cumberland. Blackwell, and the racecourse situated in the village, was the location of the headquarters of the Lonsdale Battalion, a Pals battalion formed by Hugh Lowther, 5th Earl of Lonsdale.

A parade of recruits at the racecourse

The village is one of several settlements within the civil parish of St Cuthbert Without, comprising Blackwell, Durdar, Carleton, Brisco and Wreay. These villages formed the scattered populace of St Cuthbert Without in what were mainly fields with small areas of developing settlements. Whilst much of the present-day parish still predominantly farmland, the area as it was during the start of the Great War, and further back in history, shows a different backdrop of rural life, a short distance from the centre of the city of Carlisle.

The term Blackhall appears in various places throughout the site. Whilst the administrative area known as Blackhall, or Blackhall Low as it was known (see below), did exist prior to the end of the 19th Century, both Blackhall and Blackwell have been used interchangeably in other source materials contemporary with the Great War after it ceased to be used as an official authoritative area.

Historic maps

Historic maps have a wealth of information. Even to the novice they can reveal interesting facts and provide a timeline of events. The primary sources used here are the Ordnance Survey maps from the National Library of Scotland. This resource enables the user to view historic maps side by side, allowing for study and comparison, not only with other historic maps but also with satellite imagery. This tool aids in understanding how the geography of an individual’s area of interest has changed over time.

The Ordnance Survey maps of 1868, 1901 and 1926 show the various settlements of St Cuthbert Without prior to, and for a period of time after, the Lonsdale Battalion were in residence at Blackwell. These three maps provide us with a long enough period of time to see the subtle differences that occurred and how the landscape changed. There are various other maps that provide a broader look at the area, typically with less detail the further back in time the maps were published. Comparing the different maps, especially those after 1926 discussed here, significant developments have taken place and once small hamlets and villages have been swallowed as the expansion of Carlisle continued throughout the 20th Century. That said, the purpose of this text is simply to outline the settlement of Blackwell, its environs and how that relates to the Lonsdale Battalion and their tenure at the racecourse.

Before the Lonsdale Battalion’s residency in the village, Blackwell can be seen on the Ordnance Survey map of 1868. It is here that the name Blackhall Low is prominent, however, on subsequent maps published in 1901 and 1926, there is a distinct absence. The name Blackhall all but disappears from the Ordnance Survey maps from these years, and is survived only by Blackhall Wood House, a short distance east of Durdar. To understand why this happened is to realise what Blackhall Low was and the purpose it served.

Township of Blackhall Low

Blackhall Low was a Township, a local or subdivision of the larger parish of St Cuthbert Without. These townships were used for administrative purposes but had become all but obsolete by the end of the 19th century due to government reform. This reform essentially removed the need for townships by converting them to civil parishes, which by modern standards are used for similar administrative purposes for local government. During this reform, some townships were amalgamated into other civil parishes, whilst others simply gained civil parish status in their own right. The various different tiers of authority in England can appear convoluted and, for the most part, is beyond the scope of understanding here. The term township is little used in England today, especially in its original historical context.

The later maps of 1901 and 1926, whilst no longer showing the township of Blackhall Low, still provide the reader with information about the size and names of settlements, the number of dwellings within a settlement, the various authority boundaries, and the removal and addition of dwellings as various settlements progressed through time. An example of this can be seen in the 1868 map, where the wooded area directly south of Blackwell Hall was called Blackhall Wood. Today, it is known by the name of Toddhills Wood. Other places of note in the 1868 map for Blackhall Low are Blackwell Terrace and Blackwell House, both in close proximity to the White Ox inn, which had been demolished and rebuilt no longer used for this purpose today. Blackwell Common is named in the 1901 map and still serves as a green space today in exactly the same footprint. The racecourse did not exist in the 1868 and 1901 maps. It was built in 1904 after it had moved from its previous site called the Swifts, near the centre of Carlisle.

Two historic maps of note are Christopher Saxton's map of 1576 and John Speed's map of 1611 that show these exquisite hand-coloured engravings with Blek Hall as the first main settlement south of Carlisle. This conjures intrigue as to what may have survived in the village from that time. However, according to a 2017 strategic landscape appraisal of the Carlisle South area, "nothing of that date is now identifiable in the hamlet."

Blackwell

The name Blackwell, along with its variations, gets its name from the black, heathy land of the ancient royal forest of Inglewood, which stretched from the southern boundaries of Carlisle to Penrith. The land is steeped in history and is described in John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870 as a place "long stocked with red deer, fallow deer, and other bests of the chase." Today, like other royal forests that still survive in name, the trees have long since disappeared. Inglewood Forest is mainly arable, with a few small pockets of wooded areas within this open landscape.

Throughout this site the term Blackhall or Blackhall Camp is used to signify the location of the Lonsdale Battalion at the racecourse, known today as Carlisle Racecourse. Blackhall refers to Blackhall Low, a subdivision of St Cuthbert Without, and is used frequently from source material. These sources state both Blackhall and Blackwell. Both have been used to refer to the same locale: the village of Blackwell and the nearby Lonsdale Battalion camp within the grounds of the racecourse. While Blackhall Low ceased to exist before the start of the Great War, the name had stuck and continued to be used at least during the Lonsdale occupation of the racecourse and surrounding area of the village.

Durdar

Further south but still in historical Blackhall Low is the hamlet of Durdar. It was here that large tree plantations of various sizes existed. Durdar comprised a cross-roads, a few dwellings one of which was the Black Lion inn.

St Cuthbert Without

The parish of St Cuthbert takes its name from St Cuthbert’s Church in Carlisle. The original parish of St Cuthbert was much larger in size, but in 1866 the ecclesiastical parish was divided into two: St Cuthbert Within with settlements that were included inside the city's boundary walls, and St Cuthbert Without, those that were still within the parish boundary but were outside of the city boundary.

Mannix & Whellan, History, Gazetteer and Directory of Cumberland, 1847)

Sources

• LUC and Nick Haynes (2017). Landscape and Townscape Appraisal St Cuthbert’s Garden Village.