Carlisle Cathedral is a Church of England cathedral in the city of Carlisle, in Cumbria, in England. It was begun during the reign of King Henry I by the first Bishop of Carlisle, the Englishman Æthelwulf (1133-1155), who built a moderate-sized Norman minster of which the transepts and part of the nave still exist. The present cathedral has fine examples of stone tracery, medieval stained glass, paintings and carvings. The building is made of red sandstone, which due to local weather at some places appears black.

Due to the cathedral's position in the war torn border town of Carlisle, its tower is heavily fortified. During the second Jacobite uprising against George II of Great Britain in 1745, the forces of Bonnie Prince Charlie invaded England reaching as far south as Derby. Carlisle and the Carlisle Castle were seized and fortified by the Jacobites. The Jacobites treated the locals with disdain and viewed church buildings in Carlisle with equal disrespect. The Cathedral was partly dismantled and the nave removed so that the stone could be used to patch up the walls ready for the counterattack by the troops of the king. The king's troops re-took the city and locked up the Jacobites inside the cathedral before torturing and executing them. Carlisle cathedral is possibly the only cathedral in the country to witness such horror and suffering.

Due to the extremes in wet and dry conditions at Carlisle, the ground on which the Cathedral is built is constantly moving. This is visible when upon inspection of the pillars, which lean in all directions. The local guides say that there is only one arch that is true in the whole building, the rest take on distorted shapes, so much so that its impossible not to wonder how the building is still standing.