According to the writers of guide-books, there may be found, carved on the parapet of the bridge, the hospitable phrase, “Welcome into Cumberland.” You, in fact, in crossing it leave Westmoreland for Cumberland, and, having read so much of this kindly sentiment, you seek diligently for the inscription. Alas! in vain. There is not, nor was there ever, anything of the kind. Instead, what meets your eye is an inn whose sign, “The Welcome into Cumberland,” is adorned with a representation of pipes and punch-bowl, and with a weird picture of a Personage—he must be a Personage, for he wears frock-coat and silk hat—effusively greeting a Highlander arrayed in full Highland fig. Each looks astonished at the other, and the pilgrim of the roads, gazing fascinated, is astonished at both. This, then, is the “Welcome,” and one by no means so disinterested as you were led to expect. Another vanished illusion!
Even the inn bears its moral tag, for over the door you read “Struimus in Diem, sed Nox venit,” with the date “MDCCXVII,” and the names of Nathan and Elizabeth Gower. One “R. L. Wharton” appears to have endorsed the sentiment (having duly inquired what the Latin meant) and subscribed his name and the date 1781, in approval.
Penrith derives its name, originally Pen-rhydd; “the red hill,” from Beacon Hill, 937 feet high, under whose shelter this place of narrow and huddled streets lies. The Beacon Hill was in the old days a protection to the surrounding country, for from its crest flared those warning flames that advised many a mile of threatened Westmoreland of the approach of the invading Scots.
But although Penrith is sheltered by its great godfather hill, it was never at any time effectually protected against the invader. Carlisle, eighteen miles away to the north, was its great bulwark, and if that fortified city fell, or were cleverly avoided, then the case of Penrith was sorry indeed, as in the notable instance of 1345, when the Scots, numbering 26,000 men, came pouring across the Border, and burnt the town and many neighbouring villages; taking prisoners with them, on their return, as many hale and hearty men as they could find, to be sold as slaves to the highest bidders. Such was life on the Borders in the fourteenth century, and, reading these things, we are inclined to agree with Taylor the “Water-poet’s” conclusion: