History of Rickerby Park.
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| Rickerby Rifle Volunteers drilling in Rickerby Park in
1861. In the distance are the two bridges crossing the Eden,
the larger being Priestbeck Bridge. On the skyline are St
Michael's Church, Carlisle Castle and the Cathedral. |
On making his fortune in the City of London, William Richardson
purchased certain parcels of land to enlarge his estate at
Rickerby between the 1780's and 1807.
On Richardson's death, the estate
passed to the Graham family who founded Carlisle New Bank in the
City in 1804. The Bank ran into financial difficulties
in 1824 and was wound up by 1827.
In 1834 the Grahams sold Rickerby
Estate to George Head Head (not a typing error). George was
the son of J.M. Head who started a bank from his grocers shop
in Botchergate.
George took over the reigns of J.M.
Head & Co Private Bankers from his father and went on
to build Carlisle's first purpose built bank in Court Square,
Carlisle. This was later demolished when J.M.Head & Co
was amalgamated with the Cumberland Union Bank and a new building
constructed in 1865.
When George Head died in
1876, the estate passed to Miles MacInnes (1830 - 1909) who
was a director of the London and North Western Railway and
M.P. for Hexham, and held Rickerby until his death. In
1914 the estate was broken up and sold off up by the trustees of
the MacInnes estate.
In 1920 the
Citizens League purchased the area we now today as Rickerby Park
for £11,500. The Citizens League was founded in
the first week of the Great War (1914-1918) by the Acting Mayor,
Sir Benjamin Scott, and had many ex-servicemen amongst its
membership. The Citizen's League dedicated its time to
helping other ex-servicemen, and founded the Lonsdale
Battalion which looked after soldiers and sailors passing
through Carlisle during the war years.
In a joint scheme with the
Corporation (City Council), Rickerby Park was dedicated as a
memorial to the fallen of the Great War of 1914-1918, the
suspension bridge from St Aidans Road was erected along with the
memorial cenotaph. On the 25th May 1922 Rickerby Park was
formally opened and handed over to the City of Carlisle for the
benefit of the public.
In 1991 the Cumberland Agricultural
Society moved its annual show from Bitts Park, up-river the larger
Rickerby Park.