The runes are Norse, not Anglo-Saxon. The latter are not often found, but the former are scarcer still. The runes, perhaps, date from the eleventh century.
There is also a marble tablet containing a medallion likeness of George Moore.
"A man of rare strength and simplicity of character,
of active benevolence and wide influence.
A yeoman's son
he was not born to wealth
but by ability and industry he gained it,
and he ever used it
as a steward of God and a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ
for the furtherance of all good works."
George Moore was born at Mealsgate, Cumberland, the 9th April 1806. He went to London in 1825. Two years later he was working for Fisher, Stroud & Robinson, lace merchants, as town traveller, and, soon after, as traveller in the north of England. He was so successful that he was nicknamed "The Napoleon of Watling Street." When he was twenty-three he accepted an offer from a firm of lace merchants, Groucock & Copestake, to become a partner. He gave up travelling for orders in 1841, but soon suffered in health. As a remedy he took to following the hounds, and later (in 1844) went on a three months' trip to America. On his return he started on his career of philanthropy which has made him famous. A few of the institutions for which he worked, and to which he contributed largely, may be mentioned; the Cumberland Benevolent Society, the Commercial Travellers' Schools, the British Home for Incurables, the Warehousemen and Clerks' Schools, the Royal Free Hospital, and the London City Mission. Various Cumberland charities found in him a generous supporter. He met with his death in Carlisle. Knocked down by a runaway horse, 20th November 1876, while on his way to attend a meeting of the Nurses' Institution, he died the next day from his injuries. The following was a favourite motto with him:—
| "What I spent, I had, What I saved, I lost, What I gave, I have." |
There is a memorial tablet to Robert Anderson, "the Cumberland Bard," 1770-1833. Born in Carlisle, he had but little schooling, and at ten years of age he was earning wages as assistant to a calico printer; later, he was bound apprentice to a pattern-drawer in his native city. He went to London to pursue his calling, and he seems to have been led to attempt to write poetry through hearing some imitation Scottish songs sung at Vauxhall. He published his first volume in 1798, and his Cumberland Ballads in 1805. His verses, not altogether destitute of real poetry, are valuable for the pictures they give of obsolete manners and customs of the district.
The Choir.—A low doorway in the eastern arch of the tower gives entrance to the choir. Some of the woodwork of the stalls fills the lower part of this arch, and the entrance has been placed towards the north, so as to open exactly on the centre of the choir. In point of beauty the choir compares favourably with any we possess in England, and the eye can rest upon it again and again with renewed satisfaction and delight. Its superb main arcade, with the boldly-designed and finely-carved capitals representing the twelve months of the year—unrivalled in this country; its handsome clerestory windows; its great east window (the pride of the cathedral); and, overhead, its richly-coloured roof, unique in shape, afford a combination not easily to be surpassed.