Chaos in the car park

or  - Repercussions

The floods in Carlisle were a disaster and caused misery for many people. In a minor way there are constant reminders of what happened and how they still impact on life in the city.
 
The coaches filling up the car park on a Saturday afternoon (the busiest time for shoppers) should not have been there and were making life quite difficult for car drivers and their passengers. The buses were to provide a transport link between Carlisle and Preston for train passengers, whilst work was being carried out to repair damage done to the railway lines during the floods. Although there were several other places the coaches could have parked up whilst waiting for the trains, we figured that they had taken up positions here, as it would make for the easiest route to the station when it was time to pick up passengers. As this is a privately owned car park, we did wonder whether they would have to pay for the five or more spaces they were each taking up. Then we realised that, as all this area was under water during the floods, the pay machines no longer worked and no one was paying anyway. Silver linings and all that . . . !
 
This picture was taken from the city walls. The West Walls were built between 1122 and 1200 to protect the city from warring factions and raiders. Running parallel with the wall was a deep ditch to provide additional defence for the Cathedral and Abbey. This was later filled in. The car park was built over it and named after the ditch - Town Dyke. (Confusing, as in Old English a 'dyke' is a ditch, whereas in Cumbrian dialect a 'dyke' is a mound, usually topped with a hedge, built around farmland.
   
If you have got this far, I could point out that, at the far end of this car park, you can see the railway line and that the wall at the far end of the other car park is actually a flood defence wall built after the previous floods. On the other side of this wall is the River Caldew. (If you are really interested, or have nothing better to do, you could see the layout on the location map!) A few weeks ago the river flowed over the wall and flooded the railway and both car parks. Hard to imagine now how all this area was completely submerged.