Britain: The Lake District E-Book

Vivienne Crow

• Herausgeber: IMM Lifestyle Books
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Seitenzahl: 543

Beschreibung

This title features dynamic two-colour layout for easy navigation. Colour section gives a photographic overview of the region, together with special features of the particular counties, tailored itineraries and lists of the best things to do - whether it's walks, beaches or activities. There are top Don't Miss sights for each chapter. Explore the gentle green hills and woods of Southern Lakeland, west of Windermere. Visit Hill Top, the delightful farmhouse that Beatrix Potter purchased with the proceeds from Peter Rabbit. Wander the beautiful Eskdale, Duddon and Borrowdale valleys. Take refuge from the rain in the splendid Tudor country house of Sizergh with its lovely gardens and beautifully panelled rooms. Follow in the footsteps of Alfred Wainwright and walk the fells with his unique walking guides for company. Discover the haunts and inspirations of Wordsworth's lakeland - Ullswater, Kendal and Keswick, and the walk from Easdale Tarn to Grasmere.

Leseprobe

About the Guide

The full-colour introduction gives the author’s overview of the region, together with suggested itineraries and a regional ‘where to go’ map and feature to help you plan your trip.

Enticing cultural chapters on the rich local history, food, arts and wildlife give you a full flavour of the region and what makes it so special.

Planning Your Trip gives you all the useful information you need before you go and the Practical A–Z deals with all the essential information and contact details that you may need while you are away.

The regional chapters are arranged in a loose touring order, with plenty of public transport and driving information. The author’s top ‘Don’t Miss’ ★ sights are highlighted at the start of each chapter.

Although everything listed in this guide is personally recommended, our author inevitably has her own favourite places to eat and stay. Whenever you see this Author’s Choice★ icon beside a listing, you will know that it is a little bit out of the ordinary.

Hotel Price Guide (see alsohere)

Luxury

over £200

Expensive

£120-£200

Moderate

£55-£120

Budget

under £55

Restaurant Price Guide (see alsohere)

Very expensive

cost no object

Expensive

£35-60

Moderate

£18-35

Budget

under £18

About the Author

Based in Cumbria, Vivienne Crow is a freelance journalist specializing in travel and outdoor writing. She is passionate about the Lake District and when not writing about the area she spends her time walking in the National Park’s fells and photographing its serene landscapes.

CONTENTS

Maps

The Lake District

Chapter Divisions

The South Lakes

Windermere

Bowness

Hawkshead

Ambleside and Grasmere

Ambleside

Grasmere

Ullswater and the Northeast Lakes

Penrith

Keswick and the North Lakes

Keswick

Western Lakes and the Coast

Cockermouth

East Cumbria and Hadrian’s Wall

Carlisle

Walks

Orrest Head and Dubbs Road

Crinkle Crags

Aira Force and Gowbarrow

Latrigg and the Railway Path

Pillar and Red Pike

Long Meg and Lacy’s Caves

01 Introducing The Lake District

Where to Go

Itinerary 1

Itinerary 2

02 History

Warmer Climes – the Ice Sheets Disappear

The First Farmers – from Neolithic Man to the Iron Age

Hadrian’s Wall – the Romans Arrive

Northern Folk – the Dark Ages

Scotland or Not – the Border Conflicts

Making the Most of Natural Resources – Early Industries

The ‘15 and the ‘45 – the Jacobites

Winds of Change – Agriculture and Industry

The Wonder of it all – Tourists Arrive

Conservation – Preserving our Heritage or Creating an Anachronism?

Tourism and the Economy – the Modern Picture

03 Topics

Literary Lakeland

The Early Travel Writers

The Romantic Era

The Victorians and Beyond

The Last 60 Years

Natural History

Geology and Bedrock

Mountain Building

Glaciation

Wildlife and Habitats

04 Food and Drink

Regional Produce

Local Specialities

Eating Out

05 Planning Your Trip

When to Go

Climate

Holidays and Festivals

Tourist Information

Embassies amd Consulates

UK Entry Formalities

Disabled Travellers

Health, Insurance and EHIC cards

Money and Costs

Getting There

By Air

By Train

By Ferry

By Coach

Getting Around

By Train

By Bus

By Boat

By Car

By Bike

Where to Stay

06 Practical A–Z

Children

Countryside Code

Crime

Eating Out

Electricity

Emergencies

Maps

Media

Opening Hours

Pets

Post Offices and Royal Mail

Public Holidays

Shopping

Sports and Outdoor Activities

Telephone and Internet

Time

Websites

07 The South Lakes

Kendal and Around

Kendal to Windermere

East of Windermere

Windermere and Bowness

Troutbeck

South of Bowness

West of Windermere

Hawkshead

Coniston

South Coast

Arnside to Haverthwaite

The Furness Peninsula

Millom and the Far Southwest

08 Ambleside and Grasmere

Ambleside

Langdale

Grasmere and Rydal

Rydal

Grasmere

09 Ullswater and the Northeast Lakes

Penrith

Around Penrith

Ullswater

Glenridding and Patterdale

Beyond Patterdale

Haweswater and Shap Area

Askham

Haweswater

Shap

10 Keswick and the North Lakes

Keswick

Derwent Water

Borrowdale to Honister

Watendlath and Sir Hugh Walpole

Thirlmere

Bassenthwaite Lake

Whinlatter Forrest Park

Dodd Wood and its Ospreys

The Newlands Valley

Northern Fells

Caldbeck

11 Western Lakes and the Coast

Cockermouth

Around Cockermouth

The Northwestern Lakes

Buttermere

Loweswater

Ennerdale

Wasdale

Wastwater and Wasdale Head

Eskdale

La’al Ratty

Whitehaven and the Coast

Whitehaven

St Bees

Ravenglass

Solway Coast

Maryport

Up the Coast to Silloth

The Solway Marshes

12 East Cumbria and Hadrian’s Wall

Carlisle and Hadrian’s Wall

Around Carlisle

Eden Valley

Appleby

Brough

Kirkby Stephen

North Pennines

Western Dales and Howgills

Kirkby Lonsdale

Further Reading

Index

Acknowledgements

INTRODUCING THE LAKE DISTRICT

01

Catbells ridge

Rowing boats on Ullswater

For hundreds of years, the Lake District has been an inspiration for writers and artists, moved by its tremendous views and its ever-changing patterns of light; today it inspires many hundreds of thousands of tourists who come seeking tranquillity and the great outdoors. Tucked away in the far northwest corner of England, hugging the Scottish border, this relatively remote spot contains some of the most spectacular scenery in the whole of the British Isles. Carved by glaciers that once covered this region in immense sheets of ice, it is a landscape of deep, dark lakes and glittering, mirror-like tarns crouching at the foot of small but perfectly-formed craggy mountains where red deer roam. Tumultuous waterfalls and fast-flowing becks come crashing down through the ancient woods that cloak the valley sides. Here, an assortment of wildlife live, including some of England’s last red squirrels as well as rare plants and butterflies.

Beyond the Lake District itself, which is England’s largest National Park, Cumbria is home to a huge variety of landscapes, including the lonely moorlands of the North Pennines, the rolling hills of the Howgills, the idyllic Eden Valley, the Solway Plain and a stretch of lovely coast.

For anyone who loves walking, kayaking, mountain-biking, climbing, paragliding – anything to do with the great outdoors – this is heaven on Earth. There are paths and trails everywhere, and a huge number of guides, instructors and hire companies are available to help visitors get the most out of their trip.

Yet this isn’t an entirely natural landscape; since the ice sheets departed, it has been moulded by man – mining, water mills, cottage industries and farming have all left their mark. The Romans were here, as were the ‘beaker’ people, the Celts, the Norsemen and, of course, the Anglo-Saxons, all adding to a colourful historical tapestry, the remains of which are scattered throughout the county. Enigmatic stone circles and henges from prehistoric times brush shoulders with stunningly located Roman forts and medieval castles. The far north of Cumbria also contains sections of Hadrian’s Wall, a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Wastwater, England’s deepest lake

Some of Britain’s best-loved figures from the worlds of art and literature, including the poet William Wordsworth, the children’s book writer and illustrator Beatrix Potter and the Victorian essayist, artist and social commentator John Ruskin, made their homes here, and many of these are open to the public today. There are also galleries, museums and art centres galore, all adding to the potential for enjoying a rich cultural experience.

Farming remains an important part of the local economy and it is partly this that has helped give Cumbria a first-class reputation where food is concerned. Michelin-starred restaurants, gastro-pubs and classy cafés serve up the best of local produce, while hundreds of small-scale entrepreneurs use secret recipes and home-grown ingredients to conjure up tasty sausages, delicious gingerbread, mouth-watering fudge and that most marvellous of Cumbrian inventions, sticky toffee pudding. A burgeoning micro-brewery scene adds an extra special ingredient to the region’s increasingly diverse menu.

The Langdale Pikes with Dungeon Ghyll in the foreground

Derwent Water

Lake Windermere at sunset

Where to Go

The regional chapters of this guide are ordered roughly according to the route of a traveller entering the Lake District from the south, and the final chapter covers areas outside the National Park.

South Lakes covers Kendal, Windermere and Bowness as well as Coniston, Hawkshead and the southern peninsulas that jut out into the immense sands of Morecambe Bay. Cruises on England’s largest lake start from Bowness, and the area is also home to a number of interesting historical attractions such as Sizergh Castle, Levens Hall, Townend, Furness Abbey, Brantwood (the former home of John Ruskin) and Beatrix Potter’s farm, Hill Top. This is a ‘softer’ landscape than the central Lakes, with gently rolling hills and wooded valleys only slowly giving way to higher fells as the visitor heads north and west.

Ambleside and Grasmere are at the physical and spiritual hub of the Lake District – it’s where the mountains proper begin and, for many years, was the home of William Wordsworth. The spectacular scenery of Langdale is also accessible from here.

Beyond Kirkstone Pass is Ullswater and the North East Lakes, a quieter corner of the Lake District. Ullswater winds for miles through the mountains to the very foot of the craggy Helvellyn range. To the northeast is the town of Penrith, and hidden between Ullswater and the M6 are the remote eastern fells around Haweswater.

Keswick and the North Lakes is home to the Lake District’s largest town, the towering mountain, Skiddaw, one of the largest and most beautiful of the lakes, Derwent Water, and probably the most popular of the Lakeland valleys, Borrowdale. Heading north is Bassenthwaite Lake, where the Lake District’s only ospreys can be seen, and where tiny, scattered villages lie at the base of the grassy Northern Fells.

Crossing Honister Pass, the visitor reaches the Western Lakes and the Coast – Buttermere, Loweswater, Ennerdale, Wasdale, Eskdale and a long stretch of the Irish Sea and Solway coast that is beloved of bird-watchers. The most inaccessible of the western dales contain some of the wildest scenery, as well as fascinating historical sites. There are also some lovely old settlements, including Whitehaven, with its attractive harbour, and the colourful Georgian town of Cockermouth.

East Cumbria is often overlooked in favour of the National Park, but this area is worth a visit in its own right. Carlisle, with Hadrian’s Wall nearby, is a must, as are the many gorgeous villages of the Eden Valley. Alston, close to the county’s border with Northumberland and County Durham, is surrounded by the wild, lonely moorland of the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Further south still and there is a surprise in store – a chunk of the Yorkshire Dales National Park that falls within Cumbria’s borders. The main settlements here are the quaint old market towns of Kirkby Stephen, Sedbergh and Kirkby Lonsdale.

The Natural World

Craggy mountains, dramatic waterfalls, dark, narrow gorges, tumultuous rivers and becks, shimmering lakes and sparkling tarns – these are what most visitors come to see, and the Lake District has them in abundance. The National Park is also home to ancient woodland and wildlife that you won’t see anywhere else in England.

Reflections of Fleetwith Pike in Buttermere

Aira Force

Red squirrel sign on a Cumbrian country lane

Wasdale Head with Great Gable in the distance

• Aira Force. One of the most spectacular waterfalls in the Lake District, located in a stunning gorge, here

• Great Gable. An iconic mountain with far-ranging views from its summit, here

• Ospreys. These magnificent birds of prey can be seen fishing in Bassenthwaite Lake during the summer, here

• Easedale Tarn. A crystal-clear mountain pool high up in the fells, here

• Red squirrels. These cute, bushy-tailed animals are increasingly confined to the northern parts of the county, here

• Wasdale. Where the lake and mountains meet to create Britain’s favourite view, here

• Bowder Stone. An enormous Borrowdale boulder balanced precariously on one edge, here

• Buttermere. A beautiful lake surrounded by steep-sided, craggy mountains, here

Beatrix Potter’s Hill Top farm

Museum of Lakeland Life, Kendal

Literary Lakeland

Attracted by the mountain scenery and the peaceful, laid-back atmosphere of the fell country, poets and writers have been flocking to the Lake District for years. Visitors can see the locations that inspired their writing and visit the homes where they lived and worked.

• Wordsworth House. The Cockermouth birthplace of the Romantic poet William Wordsworth, here

• Rydal Mount. One of the many homes occupied by the adult Wordsworth and now owned by one of his direct descendants, here

• Hill Top. Beatrix Potter’s farm in Near Sawrey and the setting for several of her books, here

• Watendlath. The pretty, unspoilt setting for Hugh Walpole’s 1931 novel Judith Paris, here

• Museum of Lakeland Life, Kendal. Home to a collection of the original sketches and manuscripts for Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons, here

Cumbria’s Galleries and Museums

With a fascinating history and many different cultural influences down the centuries, it is hardly surprising that Cumbria is home to some great museums and art galleries. Visitors can find out about anything from the Romans to the Arts and Crafts movement – often in some beautiful locations.

• Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery, Carlisle. Award-winning museum with a huge range of interesting archaeological artefacts and superb galleries, here

• Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal. British art from the 18th century to the modern day, housed in an elegant riverside villa, here

• Senhouse Roman Museum, Maryport. A huge number of inscribed altar stones forms part of one of the largest private archaeological collections in the country, here

• Blackwell, near Windermere. Britain’s finest surviving Arts and Crafts house with a collection of work by artists including John Ruskin and Eric Gill, here

• The Beacon, Whitehaven. Award-winning visitor attraction with great interactive displays, here

• High Head Sculpture Valley, Ivegill. Life-size creations located in pretty meadows alongside the River Ive, here

Inside Tullie House Museum, Carlisle

Abbot Hall, Kendal

Long Meg, matriarch of one of England’s largest stone circles

Top Ten Picnic Spots

1.Low Ling Crag, Crummock Water. Enjoy spell-binding views across the lake whilst dipping your feet in the cool water, here

2.Sale Fell, near Embleton. The summit is a lovely spot for a picnic. Watch the sun set over the west coast, while its dying rays lend a pinkish glow to nearby Skiddaw, here

3.Bowscale Tarn. Tucked away in a secluded mountain basin, this is a great spot for a romantic picnic, here

4.Moor Top, Grizedale Forest. Roadside picnic benches surrounded by tall conifers, here

5.Jenkyn’s Crag, near Ambleside. Views across Windermere to the sylvan countryside around Wray Castle and the craggy Coniston and Furness fells, here

6.Tarn Hows. Popular beauty spot surrounded by woodland, here

7.Loughrigg Terrace. A high-level path that provides breathtaking views across Grasmere, here

8.Moss Eccles Tarn. Beatrix Potter and her husband kept a boat on the tarn and spent many happy summer evenings here, here

9.Robin Hood’s Chair, Ennerdale Water. A small headland with a few grassy ledges where you can sit almost completely hidden from the world, here

10.Long Meg and Her Daughters. Tuck into your lunch in the middle of one of England’s largest and most enigmatic stone circles, here

Tarn Hows

Wordsworth Street, Hawkshead

Top Ten Towns and Villages

1.Grasmere. Great places to stay and eat, interesting cultural attractions and all surrounded by fantastic mountain scenery, here

2.Hawkshead. The quintessential Lakeland village with lots of interesting nooks and crannies, here

3.Caldbeck. A quiet conservation village with duck pond and pretty walks, here

4.Cartmel. Narrow, winding streets and a 12th-century priory, here

5.Sedbergh. Attractive old market town with lots of book shops, here

6.Keswick. Popular slate-built town at the base of mighty Skiddaw, here

7.Ravenglass. A sweet little seaside village made up of a motley collection of well-kept old cottages, here

8.Troutbeck. Fascinating buildings of all shapes and sizes half-way up the side of a lovely valley, here

9.Cockermouth. Pleasant town with hidden courtyards and colourful Georgian buildings, here

10.Watendlath. A cosy collection of cottages and farmhouses built beside a sparkling tarn high up in the fells, here

Cartmel

Former yeoman’s cottage of Townend and gardens, Troutbeck

Itinerary 1: Lake District Highlights (One Week)

Day 1 Arrive in Bowness-on-Windermere and take a cruise on the lake. Stroll around the lovely fellside village of Troutbeck, visiting the 17th-century farmhouse of Townend and the church.

Day 2 Cross the lake via the vehicle ferry and visit Beatrix Potter’s old farm, Hill Top, at Near Sawrey. Wander the narrow lanes and cobbled courtyards of delightful Hawkshead. Continue down to Grizedale Forest and hire mountain bikes for an energetic ride along specially constructed trails.

Day 3 Head north into Langdale via Coniston. Have lunch in one of Ambleside’s great cafés and then continue north to Grasmere, visiting Rydal Mount and Dove Cottage along the way.

Day 4 Return to Ambleside and then drive across Kirkstone Pass and down into Patterdale, stopping briefly in Hartsop for some interesting vernacular architecture. Enjoy a cruise on beautiful Ullswater and visit Aira Force and its arboretum.

Day 5 Have a day off from sight-seeing by tackling a walk in the fells above Ullswater. If you’re feeling fit, try Helvellyn, but there are plenty of other interesting – and easier – routes. Drive to Keswick, stopping at Castlerigg stone circle.

Day 6 Visit some of the attractions in Keswick and then get the 74/74A bus up to Dodd Wood for a chance to spot the ospreys. Drive into Borrowdale to see the Bowder Stone and Watendlath.

Day 7 Drive the tortuous road up to Honister Pass and visit the slate mine. Drop down to Buttermere and then on to Loweswater to walk the Corpse Road above the Lake. Conclude your visit with Wastwater, Britain’s favourite view.

Yachts on Windermere

Castlerigg stone circle

Striding Edge from Helvellyn

Topiary Garden, Levens Hall

Rural scene, Langdale

Itinerary 2: Two Week Historical Tour of Cumbria

Day 1 Starting in Carlisle, visit the 12th-century castle, the award-winning Tullie House Museum and the red sandstone cathedral. Get the Hadrian’s Wall bus out to the Roman fort at Birdoswald.

Day 2 Drive down through the Eden Valley to visit England’s largest stone circle, Long Meg and Her Daughters. Continue to Brougham to see the castle and then on to nearby Eamont Bridge to visit Mayburgh Henge. Finish the day with a stroll around Penrith.

Day 3 Drive to Pooley Bridge via the Rheged Centre and then walk up to Moor Divock to see the Cockpit stone circle.

Day 4 Visiting Aira Force and its arboretum along the way, drive to Keswick to visit Castlerigg stone circle and the museums.

Day 5 Enjoy a morning walk up Latrigg and along the route of the old railway line. After lunch in one of Keswick’s many cafés or restaurants, get the 74/74A bus to Dodd Wood to visit Mirehouse.

Day 6 Drive into Borrowdale to see the Bowder Stone and Watendlath, and then up to Honister Pass for an underground tour of the slate mine. Continue to Buttermere.

Day 7 Spend the morning in Cockermouth, including a visit to the National Trust’s Wordsworth House. Drive out to Maryport to visit the Senhouse Roman Museum and then head down the coast to Whitehaven, to visit the Rum Story and The Beacon.

Day 8 Continue south to Ravenglass, stopping at the church in Gosforth where there are interesting Norse artefacts. After a stroll around the former port of Ravenglass and a visit to the Roman remains at Walls Castle, walk to majestic Muncaster Castle.

Day 9 Drive through Eskdale to the spectacularly located Roman fort at Hardknott via the waterfall at Stanley Force. Continue across the hair-raising passes of Hardknott and Wrynose to enjoy a few hours in Ambleside before heading to Grasmere.

Day 10 Walk to Dove Cottage and the Wordsworth Museum and Art Gallery. From here, continue along the old corpse road to Rydal Mount, another of Wordsworth’s homes.

Day 11 Drive to Coniston and visit Brantwood, John Ruskin’s home. Stroll around Hawkshead, with its many links with both Wordsworth and Beatrix Potter. Catch the bus to Near Sawrey to visit Beatrix Potter’s farm, Hill Top.

Day 12 Visit the monastic remains on Cumbria’s southern peninsulas. Furness Abbey and Cartmel Priory are both beautiful.

Day 13Holker Hall, Levens Hall and Sizergh Castle are all within a short distance of each other. Choose one, or visit all three.

Day 14 Unwind in Kendal, visiting the galleries and museums including the Quaker Tapestry and the Museum of Lakeland Life.

History

Warmer Climes – the Ice Sheets Disappear

The First Farmers – from Neolithic Man to the Iron Age

Hadrian’s Wall - the Romans Arrive

Northern Folk – the Dark Ages

Scotland or Not – the Border Conflicts

Making the Most of Natural Resources – Early Industries

The ’15 and the ’45 – the Jacobites

Winds of Change – Agriculture and Industry

The Wonder of it All – Tourists Arrive

Conservation – Preserving our Heritage or Creating an Anachronism?

Tourism and the Economy – the Modern Picture

02

From the moment the glaciers of the last Ice Age disappeared, man has been leaving his mark on the landscape of the Lake District, from Langdale’s Neolithic ‘axe factory’ and the Roman forts to the castles and peel towers built to protect against the Scots, and the German copper and lead mines of the Elizabethan era. In place names too, settlers have left their calling cards – the names of the mountains, rivers and towns originated with the Celts, the Norsemen and the Anglo-Saxons. This chapter only skims the surface of Cumbria’s history; the best way to understand it is to go and see what’s left of it.

Warmer Climes – the Ice Sheets Disappear

Man probably first made an appearance in what is today called Cumbria towards the end of the last Ice Age. Palaeolithic hunters are thought to have reached the Morecambe Bay area, the edge of the great ice sheets, about 10,000 years ago.

As the ice receded, the glaciers left a barren landscape that was slowly colonized by hardy plants such as juniper, mosses and grasses. It was only by about 5,500 BC that the area’s natural vegetation cover would have established itself: oak forest on the lower fells and then pine and birch woodland up to an altitude of about 2,000ft. If it hadn’t been for man’s intervention, that is exactly what you would see in Cumbria today – not the grassy, open fellsides that attract thousands of outdoor enthusiasts every year, but a mass of trees with just the rocky tops of the mountains poking through the woods.

It was also about this time, as the climate warmed up, that humans first began to turn their attentions to Cumbria, not just skirting the southern edge of the area as the Palaeolithic hunters did. Evidence of Mesolithic man, in the form of tiny flint chippings, has been found on the coast at Eskmeals and Walney near Barrow-in-Furness. These people would have been hunter-gatherers and, as such, would have had little noticeable impact on the environment.

The First Farmers – From Neolithic Man to the Iron Age

Up until Neolithic times, Mother Nature had been in charge of sculpting the landscape and clothing it as she saw fit, but the late Stone Age heralded a massive revolution as humans began to settle and farm. As well as growing crops, Neolithic man created clearings in the forest for his pigs and goats and cattle. These, in turn, chomped on the natural vegetation, restricting its growth and slowing the rate of natural regeneration, a process that has continued ever since. Solid evidence of Neolithic man in Cumbria is hard to find, but the most famous site is the Langdale axe factory (seehere), where early quarrymen braved the steep, rugged slopes of Pike o’ Stickle for the volcanic rock used in high-quality axe heads that were subsequently traded throughout the country.

The arrival of the ‘Beaker’ people in the Eden Valley early in the second millennium BC heralded the start of the Bronze Age. These were the people who left us some of the most enigmatic of prehistoric remains – stone circles such as mysterious Castlerigg (seehere) and, Cumbria’s largest, Long Meg and Her Daughters (seehere). The henge at Mayburgh (seehere) is thought to date from the early Bronze Age. But what were these stone monuments for? Were they religious sites, trading posts, calendars? We may never know for sure.

The climate was considerably warmer and calmer in the early to mid-Bronze Age, allowing man to move onto the fells. Many Bronze Age sites in Cumbria are located at about 150–300m (500–1,000ft) above sea level – cairnfields at places such as Barnscar near Devoke Water and Burnmoor above Eskdale are among the 60 or so sites that have been excavated. Today, they are lonely, moody spots that receive surprisingly few visitors.

The next group to arrive in Cumbria were the Celts, who crossed the Pennines from Yorkshire in about 300 BC. These Iron Age people were more sophisticated. They introduced advanced mixed farming techniques and their Brythonic language – a predecessor of modern Welsh. Many names for the county’s topographical features are Celtic in origin: ‘blain’ meaning summit gives rise to ‘blen’ as in Blencathra; and ‘creic’ becomes crag. The Cumbrian dialect sheep counting system, – yan, tan etc. – also comes from the Celtic language and bears striking similarities to Cornish and Breton.

At this time, the British Isles were divided amongst tribes, the Carvetti dominating most of Cumbria and the Setantii being confined to the far south of the county. They were eventually incorporated into the huge Brigantes tribe, which ruled most of northern England. There is some evidence of Iron Age settlements throughout the county, but more dramatic are the remains of the Celts’ early hill forts, including the largest, on top of Carrock Fell near Caldbeck.

The Modern County

Cumbria as we know it today was set up during the local government reorganization of 1974. Before that time, the area now covered by the modern county was made up of the historic counties of Cumberland and Westmorland as well as parts of Lancashire and Yorkshire. But that’s not to say that Cumbria is a 20th-century invention. The word ‘Cumbria’ has its origins in the Celtic words ‘Cymri’ or ‘Cumber’, meaning the ‘brothers’ or ‘countrymen’; and the borders of modern-day Cumbria roughly equate to those of the Celtic kingdom of Rheged (although the latter also incorporated parts of modern-day Yorkshire and Dumfries & Galloway).

Hadrian’s Wall – the Romans Arrive

The Roman invaders arrived in Britain in AD 43 and, at first, the Brigantes co-operated with the new rulers, living autonomously in their northern kingdom. When the Brigantes began fighting among themselves though, the Romans became increasingly involved in the affairs of this remote corner of the empire until the Celts were finally subdued in about AD 71.

The historian Professor R. G. Collingwood once said that Cumbria was ‘almost at vanishing point in the scale of Romanisation’. There is plenty of evidence of Roman roads, forts and other defensive structures in the county, but this was purely a military zone and, as such, you won’t find villas or markets or even Roman place names. But the military establishment was an impressive one and many of the forts survive today as do the roads that link them. One of the most dramatic of forts is at Hardknott (seehere), high above Eskdale on the road linking the port of Ravenglass (seehere) with the fort near Ambleside (seehere). The road crossed the Hardknott and Wrynose passes and the modern road, with its many hairpin bends, still uses part of it (seehere). Just as famous today is High Street (seehere), the road crossing the high fells between Ambleside and Brougham (seehere). Much of it is still used as a right of way popular with fell-walkers and cyclists.

Further north and the Romans constructed one of the most abiding images of their occupation of Britain – Hadrian’s Wall (seehere). This was built under the orders of the Emperor Hadrian after his visit to Britain in AD 122. He wanted, according to his biographer, to ‘separate the Romans from the barbarians’. It ran for 73 miles (117 km) from Wallsend on the River Tyne to Bowness-on-Solway in Cumbria.

Northern Folk – the Dark Ages

Towards the end of Roman rule, Britain was pretty much ruling itself, but it wasn’t until AD 410 that the conquerors finally left this far northwestern outpost of the empire to itself. So began the Dark Ages, a period of few historical documents and little archaeological evidence, when fact and fiction become intertwined and semi-mythological figures such as King Arthur and Urien of Rheged appear.

Even before the Romans left, the armies of the north were commanded by Cole Hen, who became king on their departure – probably the ‘Old King Cole’ of the nursery rhyme. On his death, his huge kingdom was carved into ever smaller territories by his descendants. One of these was Urien who ruled the kingdom of Rheged in the sixth century, a kingdom that covered much of modern-day Cumbria and may also have incorporated parts of southern Scotland, Yorkshire and north Lancashire. From his base in the Lyvennet valley (centred on the area around modern-day Crosby Ravensworth), he led other northern kings in battle against the Anglo-Saxons who were hammering hard on the door of the Celtic kingdoms. All that we know of this legendary figure comes from the verse of the Welsh bard Taliesin, who was appointed to Urien’s court.

It was also during the Dark Ages that Christianity first came to Cumbria – brought by the saints such as Patrick, Ninian, Kentigern (seehere) and, later, Cuthbert.

The power of the Celts began to decline in the early seventh century and, before long, the Anglo-Saxons held power in much of lowland Cumbria. Their influence can be seen in the intricately carved crosses at places such as Bewcastle and in some place names. Towns and villages ending in ‘ingham’ and ‘ham’ are Anglo-Saxon in origin. The most common is ‘ton’ from the Anglian word ‘tun’ meaning farmstead.

While the Germanic settlers farmed the valleys, the pastoralist Vikings began settling in the uplands of the Lake District towards the end of the ninth century. These weren’t the raping, pillaging Danish raiders of modern mythology, but Norse settlers who had come from Norway via Ireland and the Isle of Man. Like the Anglo-Saxons, they too left their carved stone crosses, the most impressive of which can be seen at Gosforth (seehere) and their place names. Ambleside, for example, is ‘Hamal’s saeter’, or summer pasture. Look at a modern map of Norway and you will quickly discover why the Cumbrians call their hills and mountains ‘fells’ – ‘fjell’ means mountain in Norwegian. The Norse word for waterfall is ‘foss’, which becomes ‘force’ in the Lake District; ‘tjorn’ becomes ‘tarn’; ‘dalr’ becomes ‘dale’; and ‘bekkr’: ‘beck’.

The last Celtic king, Dunmail, was defeated by Edmund I of England in AD 954, and his lands were ceded to the Scottish king Malcolm I, marking the start of centuries of bloody border conflict.

Scotland or Not – the Border Conflicts

Very little of Cumbria, except the far south, made it into the Domesday Book; in fact, it wasn’t until 1092 that the Normans, under William Rufus, decided to take control of the area by building a castle at Carlisle. The son of William the Conqueror, he brought in English settlers who owed their allegiance to the Normans and divided the region up among his barons, who built castles in the Eden Valley (e.g. Brougham) and on the coastal plain (e.g. Egremont). The monasteries soon followed – the Benedictines at Wetheral some time between 1106 and 1112, Augustinians in Carlisle and Lanercost and, one of the most powerful monastic houses, the Furness Cistercians in 1127 (seehere).

Meanwhile, throughout the 12th century and the early 13th century, the stronghold of Carlisle passed from Scottish to English hands and back again several times. It wasn’t until 1216 that the English finally gained control and, except for a brief interlude when Bonnie Prince Charlie captured the city, it has remained in English hands ever since.

The 13th century marked a period of relative peace and prosperity. The wealth of the monastic houses grew tremendously as they acquired huge tracts of land. The monks farmed sheep, giving birth to the area’s woollen trade. Packhorse routes and bridges, still in use today as part of the county’s immense network of public rights of way, started appearing. The monks also knew about coppicing – for timber and for charcoal destined for the growing number of iron-smelting bloomeries – and they were keen brewers.

Sadly, the peace didn’t last long; Edward I’s determination to impose English sovereignty on Scotland marked a resurgence in border difficulties, which continued long after his death at Burgh by Sands in 1307 (seehere). In the early part of the 14th century, Scottish raiders, led by Robert the Bruce, ransacked much of the county – towns were burned, churches destroyed and villagers slaughtered. It was a truly grim century for the area, which also had to cope with famines and the Black Death. And, as if all that wasn’t enough, this was also the time of the Border Reivers – the clans that carried out cross-border raids, looting and pillaging and bringing new, bleak words to the English language such as ‘bereaved’ and ‘blackmail’. These families of the border’s ‘Debatable Lands’ owed their allegiance to neither England nor Scotland; their loyalty was to their clan names – names that still dominate local phone books: Beattie, Armstrong, Little, Storey, Graham…

A period of great instability, the fear and insecurity engendered by these bloody times is reflected in the architecture of the era. The wealthy families built themselves stout, sturdy refuges attached to their homes. Known as peel towers, these had walls up to 10ft thick and would be inhabited by entire families – and some of their livestock – in the event of attack. There are examples of peel towers all over Cumbria. Some, such as Kentmere Hall, are used mostly for agricultural purposes; others, such as Muncaster Castle, have been incorporated into large stately homes.

Powerful families, known as the Wardens of the Marches, were installed by the English and Scottish monarchs to deal with the Reivers, but it wasn’t until the border effectively ceased to exist – with the coronation of James I as the first joint ruler of England and Scotland in 1603 – that the people of Cumbria could begin to relax their guard.

Making the Most of Natural Resources – Early Industries

We have already seen how the rich monastic houses helped the development of trade and industry in Cumbria. Although the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 16th century was a social disaster for Cumbria – schools were closed and poor relief abandoned – the economy didn’t collapse. In fact, this was about the time that the woollen industry really began to peak, centred largely on Kendal and its surrounding towns (seehere). The area had an abundance of resources that made it ideal for this cottage industry: there were the sheep, of course, and the power of the fast-flowing becks was harnessed to operate the fulling mills. In addition, lichen and broom provided colour for dyes, and bracken was used to create a soap for washing the wool.

It was also in the 16th century that the county’s mining industry took off, encouraged by a national policy of fostering defence and industry. An influx of German miners, centred on the Keswick area, had a lasting impact on both the physical landscape and the social make-up of the area as they dug deep for copper, lead, silver and even gold (seehere). The scars of their industry – and the subsequent mining operations, some of which lasted well into the 20th century – still litter the fellsides.

The ’15 and the ’45 – the Jacobites

Cumbria again became the focus of unwanted Scottish attention in the Jacobite uprisings of 1715 and 1745. In the first, the rebels bypassed Carlisle and instead proclaimed King James III in Brampton, Penrith, Appleby and Kendal. They got as far as Preston on this occasion.

The 1745 rebellion was an altogether more serious affair. Led by Prince Charles Edward Stuart, more commonly known today as Bonnie Prince Charlie or the Young Pretender, the Jacobites on this occasion seized Carlisle Castle before progressing as far south as Derby. It is said that the royal family had packed up the crown jewels and were preparing to flee to Germany, but the Jacobites then decided to retreat. The Duke of Cumberland chased them from English soil and the final skirmish of the uprising was at Clifton near Penrith, the last military battle on English soil (seehere). The Jacobite garrison at Carlisle Castle finally surrendered on 29 December 1745 after a 10-day siege, the last siege in the castle’s long history.

Winds of Change – Agriculture and Industry

Cumbria was slow to pick up on the changes that swept the rest of England during the Agricultural Revolution – partly because of its isolation and partly because its mountainous landscape made its circumstances very different from those in the arable south. Even the rebuilding of wooden farmhouses in stone came later than it did to the rest of the country, finally occurring in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. These sometimes quaint buildings, often in beautiful surroundings, are still dotted around the modern county and are now listed buildings, protected from development and adding to the image of the Lake District as a land caught in a time warp. Also much in evidence today are the drystone walls that started appearing from about 1750. Snaking up and down even the steepest of fellsides, these ‘enclosures’ were stimulated by a combination of factors. While the ever-rising and increasingly urban-based population needed more and more food, Britain’s ability to import was restricted by the Napoleonic Wars of 1793–1815. With rising food prices, farmers were encouraged to reclaim wasteland and commons.

If Cumbria was a little slow to join the Agricultural Revolution, it was one of the first in line when it came to the Industrial Revolution. Mining for lead and copper had been thriving in the Lake District for some time, but it was the exploitation of west Cumbria’s rich coal seams, particularly by the Lowther family in the Whitehaven area (seehere), that brought a new type of prosperity to the area. In east Cumbria too, especially in the North Pennines around Alston Moor, lead mining provided employment for hundreds of people (seehere). In the south of the county, in what was then Lancashire, Barrow-in-Furness had the largest steelworks in the world and was a major player in the shipbuilding industry. Meanwhile, the area’s wealth of water, in the form of fast-flowing rivers and becks, allowed it to play a significant role in the textile industry – either by providing bobbins for the huge mills of Lancashire and Yorkshire, or, in the case of the Carlisle area, joining the big boys in the making of cloth.

The coming of the railways was one of the main catalysts for industrial development on such a massive scale. Cumbria’s first public railway, connecting Carlisle with Newcastle, was completed in 1838, but it was in the 1840s that what we know today as the West Coast Main Line first sliced through the Lune Gorge, up and over the 914ft Shap Summit and on to Carlisle. The city promptly became one of Britain’s busiest railway junctions, handling thousands of tonnes of cargo every week. But the new-fangled steam trains didn’t only carry industrial goods; in 1847, despite much opposition, the railway reached Windermere, opening up the Lake District proper to mass tourism.

The Wonder of it All – Tourists Arrive

Few braved the wilds of Cumberland and Westmorland purely for the pleasure of it before the second half of the 18th century. Celia Fiennes, who undertook a horseback journey through the region in 1698, came across a miserable corner of the country:

‘Here I came to villages of sad little hutts made up of drye walls, only stones piled together and the roofs of same slatt; there seemed to be little or noe tunnells for their chimneys and have no morter or plaister within or without; for the most part I tooke them at first sight for a sort of houses or barns to fodder cattle in, not thinking them to be dwelling houses, they being scattering houses here one there another, in some places there may be 20 or 30 together, and the Churches the same. It must needs be very cold dwellings but it shews something of the lazyness of the people; indeed here and there there was a house plaister'd, but there is sad entertainment, that sort of clap bread and butter and cheese and a cup of beer all one can have, they are 8 mile from a market town and their miles are tedious to go both for illness of way and length of the miles.’

The improvement of the turnpike roads in the middle of the century brought the first travellers, soon to be inspired by Fathter Thomas West’s A Guide to the Lakes, published in 1778. But it was only with the opening of the railways in the 19th century that travel ceased to be the preserve of only the wealthiest in British society.

The prospect of railways and mass tourism wasn’t to everyone’s liking though. The Romantic poet William Wordsworth, who was born and lived in the county (see Literary Lakeland, here), feared the ‘influx of strangers’ would destroy the area’s tranquillity and threaten the morals of local people. His protests, and those of other conservationists and local landowners, didn’t stop the Kendal and Windermere Railway from penetrating the Lake District proper, although it didn’t reach the lake itself; the line was terminated at Birthwaite, soon renamed Windermere, almost a mile from the lakeshore. The artist and social critic John Ruskin, another wealthy resident of the district, continued in that inimitably patronizing tone of the Victorian middle classes when, in the 1870s, there was an attempt to extend the railway line from Windermere to Keswick. Speaking of the potential tourists and fearing their moral character, he said: ‘I do not wish them to see Helvellyn when they are drunk’.

But see Helvellyn they did, whether drunk or sober, and they saw it in ever-increasing numbers; numbers that continued to rise with the advent of the motor car in the 20th century and are still rising today.

Conservation – Preserving our Heritage or Creating an Anachronism?

The National Trust, now one of the largest conservation charities in Europe, was founded in 1895, and much of its early work was centred on the Lake District (seehere). Worried about the effects of industrial and urban development on the country’s heritage, the founders, Octavia Hill, Sir Robert Hunter and Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley, began setting up fundraising campaigns to purchase historic buildings, important tracts of land and even chunks of the coastline to protect them, in perpetuity, for the nation. Today, the National Trust protects about a quarter of the total area covered by the National Park.

In the early 20th century, with public demand for access to the countryside growing, groups such as the Ramblers Association, the Youth Hostels Association and the Council for the Preservation for Rural England began to urge the Government to set up National Parks.

Following the passing of the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949, the Lake District National Park was established on August 15, 1951. The National Park Authority is an independent body funded by central government. Its job is to ‘conserve and enhance the natural beauty, wildlife and cultural heritage; and promote opportunities for the understanding and enjoyment of the special qualities of the National Park by the public’. Where there is a conflict between these two roles, the first takes priority.

With its strict planning and building regulations, the authority comes in for a lot of criticism. Some residents deplore the stifling of development and take a philosophical stand on the issues of conservation and preservation; others, although they might agree with the broad aims of the National Park, resent the interference when, for example, they want to install double glazing in their homes.

Perhaps the 19th-century writer Harriet Martineau should be allowed to have the last word on this subject:

‘It is a desirable thing for every country that it should have within its borders a mountainous district… The wilder the mountain-region, the more certain it is to be the conservator of the antiquities of that country. When invaders come, the inhabitants retreat to the fastnesses where they cannot be pursued; and in places cut off from communication do ancient ideas and customs linger the longest. Every mountain-chain or cluster is a piece of the old world preserved in the midst of the new; and the value of this peculiarity far transcends that of any profitable quality which belongs to territory of another kind.’

Tourism and the Economy – the Modern Picture

With millions of people visiting the Lake District every year and other parts of the county seeing more and more visitors too, tourism plays a huge role in the economy of modern-day Cumbria. Employing around 30 per cent of the total workforce (that’s about 35,000 people), it contributes almost £1.2 billion to the county’s coffers every year. The value of tourism has grown by 32 per cent since 1992 (£812 million) and is forecast to grow to £1.5 billion in real terms by 2018.

Manufacturing employs 17 per cent of the county’s workforce, compared with 11 per cent nationally – a surprising statistic in an area best known for its rural nature. This includes the defence industry in Barrow-in-Furness (mostly BAE Systems); food processing, largely in Carlisle; and the nuclear industry. Outside of the public sector, the latter, centred on the Sellafield reprocessing plant in west Cumbria, is the county’s single biggest employer. And, with tentative plans to build nuclear power stations in the county in the not-so-distant future, the numbers involved are set to grow.

Although it employs less than 1.5 per cent of the workforce, and even that figure is declining, agriculture remains an important element of all things Cumbrian. The Borderway mart in Carlisle is one of the busiest livestock sales centres in the UK, and the county’s dairy sector is one of the largest in the country. With a vast proportion of Cumbria’s landmass given over to agriculture, no visitor can fail to be aware of its influence.

Topics

Literary Lakeland

The Early Travel Writers

The Romantic Era

The Victorians and Beyond

The Last 60 Years

Natural History

Geology and Bedrock

Mountain Building

Glaciation

Wildlife and Habitats

03

Literary Lakeland

‘I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils…’

These are probably the best-known opening lines in English poetry – definitely the most famous lines ever written about the Lake District – but the area’s literary heritage encompasses so much more than just William Wordsworth.

The Early Travel Writers

We have already seen how that intrepid traveller Celia Fiennes felt about the Lake District (seehere). Daniel Defoe, the author of Robinson Crusoe, was even less impressed. Writing in his A Tour Thro' the Whole Island of Great Britain in 1724, he described the Westmorland landscape as ‘the wildest, most barren and frightful of any that I have passed over in England, or even Wales itself; the west side, which borders on Cumberland, is indeed bounded by a chain of almost unpassable mountains which, in the language of the country, are called fells.’ This seems a million miles away from the pastoral idyll and the awesome scenery that the Romantic writers later made famous.

It was only much later in the 18th century that writers began to look at those wild mountains and lakes in a more ‘romantic’ light, delighting in the human response to Mother Nature’s magnificence. Thomas Gray, in his Journal In The Lakes, written in 1769, describes the view from beneath Walla Crag as ‘the most delicious view that my eyes ever beheld’. He writes of the ‘green and smiling fields embosomed in the dark cliffs’, the ‘turbulent chaos of mountain behind mountain, rolled in confusion’ and the ‘shining purity of the lake’.

The first travel guide, as such, was Thomas West’s A Guide To The Lakes, published in 1778. This is a more practical piece of writing, intended to help would-be visitors. ‘From Ambleside to Keswick,’ he wrote, ‘sixteen miles of excellent mountain road, furnishes much amusement to the traveller. If the season be rainy, or immediately after rain, all the possible variety of cascades, waterfalls, and cataracts, are seen in this ride; some precipitating themselves from immense heights…’

The Romantic Era

The Romantic movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries really put the Lake District on the map with several writers and artists clearly moved by what they saw.

The most famous and influential of the Lakeland poets of this era was undoubtedly William Wordsworth, the only one to have actually been born in the county (seehere). His Lyrical Ballads, written in 1798, convey to the reader his preoccupation with the powers and mysteries of the natural world, what he could see all around him in his native county, as well as his love of rural life.

It was Wordsworth who introduced his friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge to the area, via a walking tour starting at Temple Sowerby in the east and finishing at Wasdale Head in the west. Coleridge fell in love with the place and, although he wrote relatively little poetry about the Lake District, his letters and notebooks are full of impassioned descriptions of the scenery and his walks through it. His description of a climb on Scafell, in fact, is today regarded as a classic of climbing literature (seehere).

Coleridge and his wife Sarah moved to the Lake District in 1800, living at first in Keswick’s Greta Hall (seehere). They were soon joined at Greta Hall by Sarah’s sister, Edith, and her husband, Robert Southey, who was Poet Laureate from 1813 to 1843.

The influential trio – Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey – received a host of visitors from the worlds of art and literature, thus passing on their love of the Lake District to the likes of Sir Walter Scott, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Constable and John Keats.

Keats was clearly inspired. Following a walk along the shores of ‘Winandermere’ to Ambleside in 1818, he wrote, in a letter to his brother:

‘What astonishes me more than anything is the tone, the colouring, the slate, the stone, the moss, the rockweed; or, if I may so say, the intellect, the countenance of such places. The space, the magnitude of mountains and waterfalls are well imagined before one sees them; but this countenance or intellectual tone must surpass every imagination and defy any remembrance. I shall learn poetry here and shall henceforth write, more than ever, for the abstract endeavour of being able to add a mite to that mass of beauty which is harvested from these grand materials, by the finest spirits, and put into ethereal existence for the relish of one’s fellows.’

Writer and intellectual Thomas De Quincey was a friend of the Lake poets, and moved into Dove Cottage in Grasmere after the Wordsworths moved out. Best known for his work, Confessions of an English Opium Eater, first published in 1821, he said that Wordsworth’s poetry consoled him during episodes of depression. His friendship with his hero was short-lived, however; the alterations he made to the garden at Dove Cottage angered Wordsworth.

Shelley too lived for a while in Cumbria. Having eloped to Scotland at the age of 19 with Harriet Westbrook, he took up residence with his new wife in Keswick in 1811. It was here that he wrote his first long serious work, Queen Mab: A Philosophical Poem, a revolutionary ‘fairytale’ presenting an image of a future utopian society. He didn’t stay in the district long; by 1814, he had abandoned his pregnant wife and child and run away with Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, later known as Mary Shelley, writer of the best-known of Gothic novels, Frankenstein.

The two great English landscape painters of the time, Joseph Mallord William Turner and John Constable, both spent formative stays in the Lake District. Turner’s early work includes a dark and sombre view of Buttermere. Currently on display in the Turner Collection at London’s Tate Britain, it was painted after a visit to Cumbria in 1797. A 30-year-old Constable spent nearly two months touring the Lake District in 1806. Although he told a friend that the solitude of the mountains oppressed his spirits, he managed to paint more than 100 scenes during the trip.

The Victorians and Beyond

The Lake District’s literary tradition didn’t end with the demise of Wordsworth in 1850; writers continued to be drawn to the area – as they are today. John Ruskin, born in London in 1819, first visited the Lake District when he was five years old. The poet-cum-artist-cum-social critic, made his home at Brantwood on the shores of Coniston Water in 1872 and lived there until he died in 1900 (seehere). One of the great and most influential thinkers of his age, he wrote more than 250 works on subjects as diverse as art history, geology, mythology, ornithology, literary criticism and pollution. His ideas had a profound effect on the early development of the Labour Party in Britain and his many fans included Leo Tolstoy, Marcel Proust and Mahatma Gandhi, who translated Ruskin’s Unto This Last, a damning critique of capitalist economics, into Gujarati.

Moving, some might say, from the sublime to the ridiculous, another important Lake District literary figure is the children’s book writer and illustrator Beatrix Potter (seehere). Tourists from all over the world, particularly Japan, where Potter’s books are used to teach English, flock to the National Park to join the Potter pilgrimage, visiting her home, her farms and the locations that inspired her work. Although born in London, Potter’s love of the countryside stemmed from her childhood holidays in the Lakes. She eventually moved to the area and used the royalties from her books to buy farms. Although she is remembered mostly for books such as The Tale of Peter Rabbit and The Tale of Mrs Tiggy-Winkle, she spent most of her adult life as a farmer and conservationist. In particular, she became passionate about Herdwicks, the hardy sheep that graze the high fells. It is partly down to her and the efforts of her friend Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley (seehere), co-founder of the National Trust, that the breed still exists today.

Another children’s writer who made his home in the Lake District was Arthur Ransome, best known for Swallows and Amazons, published in 1930. The first in a series of books about childhood adventures, it tells the story of the Walker children, who have a dinghy called Swallow, and the Blackett youngsters, who sail Amazon. It is the school holidays and the Walkers are staying on a farm near a lake, while the Blacketts live on the opposite shore. The children meet on an island in the middle of the lake, and have a series of adventures. The settings used by the writer combine elements of both Coniston Water and Windermere. There is much debate among Ramsome aficionados as to whether Wildcat Island is Blake Holme on Windermere or Peel Island on Coniston Water.

Peel Island also features in William Gershom Collingwood’s Thorstein of the Mere: A Saga of the Northmen in Lakeland, first published in 1895. This was one of Ransome’s favourite childhood books, and the two men later became friends. Collingwood, who moved to the Lake District after a brilliant academic career at Oxford, was a pupil of Ruskin, and became his secretary in 1881.

New Zealand-born Hugh Walpole wrote the Herries Chronicle while he was living near Derwent Water. The four novels, set in north Cumbria, tell the story of the Herries family from the 18th century to the Depression of the 1930s. Walpole lived in Cumbria from 1924 until his death in 1941. His home, Brackenburn, received many literary visitors including J. B. Priestley, Arthur Ransome and W .H. Auden.

The Last 60 Years

The Lake District continues to attract large numbers of writers, and it would be impossible to name them all here, but here are a few of the best known from the second half of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st.

Apart from several years spent in a tubercolosis sanatorium as a teenager, poet Norman Nicholson (1914–1987) hardly ever left his home town of Millom in southwest Cumbria. His poems powerfully convey the passion he felt for his home county, and he often explored the relationship between man and landscape.

Although he no longer resides permanently in Cumbria, Wigton-born writer and broadcaster Lord Melvyn Bragg (1939–) is regarded as one of the unofficial ambassadors for the county. Many of his books are set in Cumbria, including The Hired Man and The Maid of Buttermere, based on the life of Mary Robinson (seehere), and he often speaks out on local issues.

Hunter Davies (1936–) and his wife Margaret Forster (1938–) both went to school in Carlisle and now divide their time between London and their home at Loweswater. The prolific Davies is probably best known as The Beatles’ biographer, but he has written dozens of other biographies, travelogues and children’s books. Forster’s Georgy Girl was made into a successful film starring Lynn Redgrave and Charlotte Rampling.

Cumbrian-born Sarah Hall (1974–) won the Commonwealth Writers Prize for ‘best first book’ in 2003 (Haweswater) and was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize in 2004 (The Electric Michelangelo). She grew up in the Haweswater area and now lives in Carlisle. As with so many local writers, Cumbria figures highly in her work, and it is this depiction of place that often wins her so much praise.

Another name to watch out for in the coming years is Jacob Polley (1975–). Best known as a poet, his 2009 debut novel Talk of the Town, set in and around his home city of Carlisle, was well received by the critics.

Natural History

Quaint villages, remote farmhouses and cultural heritage will always form a key element of any visit to the Lake District, but it is the mountains and lakes that are the essence of the area – the tourist industry’s raison d’être, the inspiration for poets and painters, the spiritual home for so many outdoor enthusiasts.

Geology and Bedrock

Broadly speaking, the Lake District is made up of three bands of rock running roughly southwest to northeast and sitting on top of a ‘raft’ of low-density granite. The three bands are the Skiddaw slates, the Borrowdale volcanics and the Silurian slates of the Windermere Group.