The history of a landmark building at the University of Cumbria is being remembered with a blue plaque.
The university has worked with Carlisle & District Civic Trust to install the plaque on the Grade II-listed Skiddaw building at its Fusehill Street campus.
The building was used as Carlisle’s former Union Workhouse and later as a military hospital.
Built for 478 people when it opened in 1864, the Union Workhouse was the focal point for the city’s Victorian welfare system.
It housed 275 inmates when it opened and had two wings, left for the men and right for the women with the sick and elderly housed in the infirmary building, now Blencathra.
Skiddaw’s history took on national importance during the First World War as in 1917, the Fusehill Street buildings were converted into a war hospital.
Residents of the workhouse were relocated to allow the site to care for wounded soldiers.
Over the course of the war, 9.809 patients were treated at Fusehill Street, supported by around 80 nurses and medical staff.
After another period of workhouse provision during the two world wars, the building was used again as a military hospital during the Second World War.
In 1948, following the creation of the National Health Service, the site became the City General Hospital.
Today health is the largest area of academic provision delivered by the University of Cumbria, helping to educate and train future healthcare professionals including nurses, midwives and allied health professionals such as physios and occupational therapists.
University of Cumbria’s Chief Transformation Officer Tracey Slaven said: “We are proud to partner with the Carlisle and District Civic Trust to provide this permanent and accessible reminder of how this built heritage has shaped our community.”
Sue Temple, a senior lecturer in education at the University of Cumbria and Honorary Fellow of the UK’s Historical Association, is an expert on the history of workhouses, particularly the Skiddaw building.
She said: “I am delighted our historical building is being recognised in this way. I continue to use the building in my teaching of our trainee teachers as it is an excellent example of how local history can be brought into the classroom.
“It demonstrates how buildings can be altered and their use adapted over the years, and using a local building like this one helps to make it relevant to the students, and subsequently, pupils we teach.”
Mike Little, chairman of the Carlisle and District Civic Trust, said: “Today this building is a place of learning where students with aspiration and ambition work hard to acquire the education to take up their place in wider society, a far cry from those days where whole families entered here because they were destitute and poor where they experienced a different work environment.
“Because of its history and importance to the city, we are delighted to erect a blue plaque on this Skiddaw building to recognise it as the once Carlisle Union Workhouse.
“Thanks to civic trust colleagues for the historical research on the workhouse for this plaque and who have worked closely with university officials to make this happen.”
