Lancaster

Sister cities

• Lublin
• Aalborg
• Perpignan
• Perpignan Méditerranée Métropole
• Växjö Municipality
• Rendsburg
• Aalborg Municipality
• Viana do Castelo
• Almere

History

Lancaster was recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086, as Loncastre, where "Lon" refers to the River Lune and "castre" from the Old English cæster and Latin castrum for "fort" to the Roman fort that stood on the site. A Roman fort was built by the end of the 1st century CE on the hill where Lancaster Castle now stands, possibly as early as the 60s, based on Roman coin evidence. Coin evidence also suggests that the fort was not continuously inhabited in its early years. It was rebuilt in stone about 102. The fort name is known only in a shortened form; the only evidence is a Roman milestone found outside Lancaster, with an inscription ending L MP IIII, meaning "from L – 4 miles, and that its name began with an L. Roman baths were found in 1812 and can be seen near the junction of Bridge Lane and Church Street. There was presumably a bath-house with the 4th-century fort. The Roman baths incorporated a reused inscription of the Gallic Emperor Postumus, dating from 262 to 266. The 3rd-century fort was garrisoned by the ala Sebosiana and numerus Barcariorum Tigrisiensium. The ancient Wery Wall was identified in 1950 as the north wall of the 4th-century fort, which was a drastic remodelling of the 3rd-century one, while retaining the same orientation. The later fort is the only example in north-west Britain of a 4th-century type, with massive curtain-wall and projecting bastions typical of the Saxon Shore or Wales. Extension of the technique as far north as Lancaster shows that the coast between Cumberland and North Wales was not left defenceless after the west-coast attacks and the disaster in the Carausian Revolt of 296, which followed from those under Albinus in 197. The fort at its largest extent covered . Evidence suggests that it stayed in use until the end of…

Geography

Lancaster is Lancashire's northernmost city, three miles () inland from Morecambe Bay. It is on the River Lune (from which comes its name), and the Lancaster Canal. It becomes hillier from the Lune Valley eastwards, with Williamson Hill in the north-west a notable height at and recognised as a TuMP: a hill with "thirty and upwards metres prominence". The central area of the city can be roughly defined by the railway to the west, the canal to the south and east, and the river to the north. Lancaster, Morecambe and Heysham have been identified by the Office for National Statistics as forming the Lancaster/Morecambe Built-up area, with a population of 101,911 in the 2021 census. Within this, ONS identifies a Lancaster built-up area sub division with a 2021 population of 52,660. There is a small portion of green belt on the northern fringe of Lancaster, covering the area into Carnforth and helping to prevent further urban expansion towards nearby Morecambe, Hest Bank, Slyne and Bolton-le-Sands.