Penrith, Cumbria in the context of "A6 road (England)"

Cumbria (/ˈkʌmbriə/ KUM-bree-ə) is a ceremonial county in North West England. It borders the Scottish council areas of Dumfries and Galloway and Scottish Borders to the north, Northumberland and County Durham to the east, North Yorkshire to the south-east, Lancashire to the south, and the Irish Sea to the west. Its largest settlement is the city of Carlisle.

Cumbria is predominantly rural, with an area of 6,769 km (2,614 sq mi) and a population of 510,680; this makes it the third-largest ceremonial county in England by area but the eighth-smallest by population. Carlisle is located in the north; the towns of Workington and Whitehaven lie on the west coast, Barrow-in-Furness on the south coast, and Penrith and Kendal in the east of the county. For local government purposes the county comprises two unitary authority areas, Westmorland and Furness and Cumberland. Cumbria was created in 1974 from the historic counties of Cumberland and Westmorland, the Furness area of Lancashire, and a small part of Yorkshire.

Strathclyde (Welsh: Ystrad Clud, "valley of the Clyde"), also known as Cumbria, was a Brittonic kingdom in northern Britain during the Middle Ages. It comprised parts of what is now southern Scotland and North West England, a region the Welsh tribes referred to as Yr Hen Ogledd (“the Old North"). At its greatest extent in the 10th century, it stretched from Loch Lomond to the River Eamont at Penrith. Strathclyde seems to have been annexed by the Goidelic-speaking Kingdom of Alba in the 11th century, becoming part of the emerging Kingdom of Scotland.

In its early days it was called the kingdom of Alt Clud, the Brittonic name of its capital, and it controlled the region around Dumbarton Rock. This kingdom emerged during Britain's post-Roman period and may have been founded by the Damnonii people. After the sack of Dumbarton by a Viking army from Dublin in 870, the capital seems to have moved to Govan and the kingdom became known as Strathclyde. It expanded south to the Cumbrian Mountains, into the former lands of Rheged. The neighbouring Anglo-Saxons called this enlarged kingdom Cumbraland. We do not know what the inhabitants called their polity, though it may have been referred to as “Cumbria.”

Westmorland and Furness is a unitary authority area in the ceremonial county of Cumbria, England. It covers Westmorland, the Furness peninsula, and the areas around Penrith and Sedbergh. It is bordered by Cumberland to the north and west, Northumberland, County Durham and North Yorkshire to the east, and the City of Lancaster district of Lancashire to the south. Its largest town is Barrow-in-Furness and its administrative centre is Kendal.

The unitary authority area was formed on 1 April 2023 during local government restructuring which saw the abolition of the former non-metropolitan county of Cumbria and its six districts; Westmorland and Furness has the same area as the former districts of Barrow-in-Furness, Eden, and South Lakeland. It remains part of Cumbria for ceremonial purposes. Prior to the local government reforms of 1974, the area was split between the counties of Westmorland, Cumberland, Lancashire and Yorkshire.

Cumberland is a unitary authority area in the ceremonial county of Cumbria, England. It covers the north-western part of Cumbria, including the west of the Lake District. The city of Carlisle is the largest settlement and the administrative centre. The unitary authority area covers the majority of the area of the historic county of Cumberland, from which it takes its name, but does not include the area around Penrith.

The unitary authority area was formed on 1 April 2023 during a local government restructuring which abolished the non-metropolitan county of Cumbria and its six districts. Cumberland has the same area as the former districts of Carlisle, Allerdale, and Copeland, being constituted as a non-metropolitan county and coterminous non-metropolitan district with the same area as the former districts. The three remaining districts of Cumbria were merged into Westmorland and Furness. It remains part of Cumbria for ceremonial purposes. Prior to the local government reforms of 1974, which created Cumbria, Carlisle was a county borough and the remainder of the area was within the administrative county of Cumberland.

Cumberland (/ˈkʌmbərlənd/ KUM-bər-lənd) is an area of North West England which was historically a county. The county was bordered by Northumberland to the north-east, County Durham to the east, Westmorland to the south-east, Lancashire to the south, and the Scottish counties of Dumfriesshire and Roxburghshire to the north. The county included the city of Carlisle, part of the Lake District and North Pennines, and the Solway Firth coastline.

Cumberland had an administrative function from the 12th century until 1974, when it was subsumed into Cumbria with Westmorland as well as parts of Yorkshire and Lancashire. It gives its name to the unitary authority area of Cumberland, which has similar boundaries but excludes Penrith.

Long Meg and Her Daughters is a Neolithic stone circle situated north-east of Penrith near Little Salkeld in Cumbria, North West England. One of around 1,300 stone circles in the British Isles and Brittany, it was constructed as a part of a megalithic tradition that emerged during Neolithic, and continued into the Early Bronze Age (c. 3200 - 2500 BC).

The stone circle is the third widest in England, behind Avebury in Wiltshire and Stanton Drew in Somerset. It consists of 66 stones (of which 27 remain upright) set in an east / west oval configuration measuring 380 ft (120 m) on its long axis. There may originally have been as many as 77 stones, as this was mentioned by William Camden in the 16th century. Long Meg herself is a 12 ft (3.7 m) high monolith of red sandstone 80 ft (24 m), standing to the southwest of the circle. The stone is marked with examples of megalithic art including a cup and ring mark, a spiral, and rings of concentric circles. This art mirrors examples from Neolithic Ireland, including the contemporary Newgrange. The composition and position of the stone is similar to that of the Altar Stone, at Stonehenge, and may be part of a similar tradition of using red sandstone to mark the solstice.