AT A GLANCE
Why go?
On a busy street corner in Caldewgate, Carlisle, two bronze women lean into a chat atop an oversized biscuit—and they are having the last laugh. The Cracker Packers Statue celebrates the female workers of Carr's biscuit factory, the 'cracker packers' whose labour helped build one of the town's most famous industries. Unveiled on International Women's Day in 2018, it is a rare, warm-hearted tribute to ordinary working women rather than kings or generals.↗↗↗
Created by award-winning sculptor Hazel Reeves, the artwork sits in the shadow of the former Carr's factory (now McVitie's, owned by pladis), a few steps from the bus stop on John Street. It is free to see at any time and makes a quick, photogenic stop on a walk around this industrial quarter of Carlisle.↗↗↗
Who were the cracker packers?
'Cracker packer' was the affectionate nickname for the women who worked on the packing lines at Carr's of Carlisle, the biscuit makers behind household names like the Carr's Table Water biscuit. For generations their hands boxed the biscuits that carried the town's name across Britain and beyond, yet their stories rarely made it into formal history. The statue grew out of a desire to fix that gap—author Hunter Davies, who wrote about the factory's women in his book The Biscuit Girls, first floated the idea of a memorial back in 2014.
