{"id":2122,"date":"2022-04-17T12:37:51","date_gmt":"2022-04-17T12:37:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crimesofthecenturies.com\/?p=2122"},"modified":"2025-07-15T15:24:21","modified_gmt":"2025-07-15T14:24:21","slug":"easter-in-carlisle-1803","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crimesofthecenturies.com\/index.php\/2022\/04\/17\/easter-in-carlisle-1803\/","title":{"rendered":"Easter in Carlisle 1803"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Easter in Carlisle<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Easter in Carlisle has previously been mentioned on Cumbrian Characters, in a post on the public space by Carlisle Castle known as the Sorceries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-cumbrian-characters wp-block-embed-cumbrian-characters\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"I14RXBZGM9\"><a href=\"https:\/\/crimesofthecenturies.com\/index.php\/2021\/10\/17\/the-sorceries\/\">The Sorceries \u2013 and old traditions in Carlisle<\/a><\/blockquote><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;The Sorceries \u2013 and old traditions in Carlisle&#8221; &#8212; Cumbrian Characters\" src=\"https:\/\/crimesofthecenturies.com\/index.php\/2021\/10\/17\/the-sorceries\/embed\/#?secret=4ZZALK2oFw#?secret=I14RXBZGM9\" data-secret=\"I14RXBZGM9\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The post covered the old tradition of pasche eggs, and how Easter was celebrated on the Sorceries in 1801.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Easter 1803<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Two years later, the entertainmen options for Carlisle folk in the run-up to Easter included a comic opera at&nbsp; the Theatre Royal:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>MISS BLANCH Having been received on the Night of her Performance of Rosetta, Love in a Village with fuch liberal and unbounded Applause, by a most brilliant and crowded Audience, has induced Mr. MOSS to comply with the Requeft of a number of respectable Applications (who could not obtain Admiffion to the Theatre on that occafion), its Representation, for the LAST TIME, this prefent Evening, which, in confequence of the approaching Solemnity of PASSION WEEK, will pofitively be the only Night of the Company\u2019s performing until EASTER MONDAY.<\/p><cite>Carlisle Journal<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>There was also to be a bonus: a \u2018favourite farce\u2019 called Fun and Frolic, or the Comical Transformation, which had never been performed in Carlisle before. And after the opera, Miss Blanch and Mr Pollock were to sing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Whoever Mr Moss was, the \u2018celebrated comic opera\u2019 was apparently authorised by Parliament, and performed by permission of the mayor of Carlisle. Except for the Holy Week, when a comic opera and farce would have been frowned on as disrespectful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It seems <a href=\"http:\/\/operascotland.org\/opera\/625\/Love+in+a+Village\">Love in a Village <\/a>was indeed a popular production. Drawing on music by a range of composers, it was the story of a heroine (Rosetta), who runs away from the prospect of marrying a man she hasn\u2019t met.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A Cumbrian connection?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>While Miss Blanch may have been forgotten by history, an earlier Rosetta was immortalised in an engraving from 1790. Elizabeth Billington was so famous in her day:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>that for a time &#8220;a Billington&#8221; was a popular term for any great singer.<\/p><p><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>What jumps out at the image of Mrs Billington, as Rosetta, is the text under her picture. The words \u2018Wastall del\u2019 one side, and \u2018Thornwthaite Fc\u2019 the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2018Wastall\u2019 was \u2018after Richard Westall\u2019, an artist who born in Norfolk (1765). But one can\u2019t help wondering if his family had Cumbrian connections. Ditto John Thornthwaite, an engraver who worked in London in the late 1700s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Easter in Carlisle \u2013 back to the Sorceries<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>For children, there was the fun of the Easter sports. And the weather in 1803 was kind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>Never was the weather more propitious for the juvenile amusements of Easter, and of course the Sorceries, in the afternoons of Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, were filled with innumerable groups of youngsters at an early hour.\u00a0<\/p><p>The wonted diversions of trap, drop the handkerchief, &amp;c. were immediately commenced, and kept up with unabated spirit, till unwelcome night drew her sable curtain upon their innocent and health-giving pastimes.<\/p><cite>Carlisle Journal<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">In case you were having fun\u2026<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>After the \u2018sable curtain\u2019 fell, the writer took it upon themselves to dwell on less-joyful thoughts:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>Such assemblage of children, with countenances suffused with rosy health and happiness, is seldom witnessed, and at once affords a pleasing spectacle, and an impressive moral lesson to every beholder capable of comparing the past with the present:\u00a0<\/p><p>it shews him in striking light what he was; and too generally, we are afraid, leads to a painful tacit acknowledgment, that the felicitous golden dreams of life\u2019s early morn, have been unrealised by age.\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Cheers for that. Happy Easter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Easter in Carlisle Easter in Carlisle has previously been mentioned on Cumbrian Characters, in a post on the public space by Carlisle Castle known as the Sorceries. The post covered the old tradition of pasche eggs, and how Easter was celebrated on the Sorceries in 1801. Easter 1803 Two years later, the entertainmen options for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2123,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,320],"tags":[41,415],"class_list":["post-2122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cumbria-history","category-customs-and-traditions","tag-carlisle","tag-the-sorceries"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Easter in Carlisle 1803 - Cumbrian Characters<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Easter in Carlisle (in 1803) was a time for children\u2019s sports, on the Sorceries, while adults could enjoy a comic opera.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/crimesofthecenturies.com\/index.php\/2022\/04\/17\/easter-in-carlisle-1803\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Easter in Carlisle 1803 - 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