For some time now it has been closed to visitors and it is not easy to get a good viewpoint in Appleby town. Outside the town centre, however, at Bongate there is a small picnic area by the footbrige over the Eden and the old Bongate Mill (on the right by the tree). From there one can look up to the castle, high on its cliff looking more or less as Lady Anne Clifford, Countess of Pembroke, had it rebuilt in the seventeenth century. This was one of her four castles in the Eden Valley: Pendragon, Brough, Brougham and Appleby.
Appleby-in-Westmorland, as it is now correctly called, was the county town of Westmorland prior to the formation of Cumbria in the 1970s. It was here that justice was meted out to the county's criminals - although maybe by today's standards it might not all be seen as totally "just". While Kendal became the main administrative centre Appleby had the ceremony. Today its castle still stands proudly over the river.
