The Sportsman

This is the oldest pub in Carlisle and dates from the early 18th Century. The first recorded reference to it is in 1747. The walled/railed in green bit opposite is actually the Parish Church Churchyard. The passageway in front of it, which was once a main thoroughfare leading to the walls of the city and the Tithe barn and named Heads Lane after Bella Head a former landlady of the inn, is now just a pedestrian way from the car parks into the city centre.

The Sportsman is a listed building and you can see how other buildings have appeared around it – not all that sympathetically it has to be said! In all cities around the world you get these old buildings, once quite prominent, but now dwarfed by those newer buildings around them.