Carlisle is a border city, and it has been fought over for two thousand years. The Romans founded Luguvalium here to serve the Wall and the road north, and a settlement has stood beside the Eden ever since. The red sandstone cathedral dates from the twelfth century, and the castle beside it held Mary Queen of Scots for two months in 1568, after she fled across the Solway. In 1745 Bonnie Prince Charlie's Highland army took the city on its march into England and lost it on the way back, and the Jacobite prisoners were held in the castle. The names of the old border families, the Armstrongs, Grahams and Nixons, still fill the telephone book.
The camp named Nowtler Hill is a temporary one, a marching camp of the type that Roman armies threw up for a night or two, with a ditch and a bank and no permanent buildings, and what remains is usually faint. It lies on the edge of the city, in a quiet patch of farmland. The attraction is knowing that soldiers camped here, perhaps on the way to Scotland, and that the land has been walked over for millennia.
Carlisle is a good gateway for riders. To the south lie the Lake District and the Pennines, and to the north the Scottish borders, while the Settle-Carlisle railway, one of the great scenic lines of England, ends here. The best roads from the city are the A686 over Hartside Pass, a long climb above the Eden valley to a high moor with a view to the Lakeland fells, and the quiet lanes around Dalston and the Caldew valley. Surfaces are generally good, and the traffic is light outside the city. Hartside can be closed by ice in winter, and a cafe at the summit is a long-standing biker stop.
With seventy-eight thousand people, Carlisle has all the services you could want, including fuel on the edge of the city. The motorway, M6, runs close, and parking in the centre is straightforward. Spend an hour in the cathedral, which has a ceiling painted blue with gold stars, and the castle, which is cold and solid. Cumbrian weather is wet, so carry a waterproof, but the light after rain over the Solway plain is outstanding.