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Attractions

River Eden near Appleby on a Wintry Afternoon

January 17, 2012

Three more shots of the beautiful Eden Valley. Before reaching the centre of the town the River Eden passes Bongate (the place where in ancient times the ‘bondsmen’ used to live), down below the cliff where Appleby Castle stands proud. Here is a cold January midday shot of the river, reduced in level from what [...]

Still More Wordsworth Places in the Lake District

January 3, 2012

Recently I’ve written several times about Lake District places associated with William Wordsworth, the great nineteenth century romantic poet. In addition to describing a visit to Wordsworth House in Cockermouth and seeing the tremendous work that has been done to recover from the devastating floods of November 2009, I posted a further article summarising the [...]

Arley Hall and Gardens, Cheshire

December 7, 2011

Recently I promised to include weekly items on attractive places further south than my recent Cumbrian and Pennine posts. Regulars here will have noticed very little activity of any kind since then. I’ve been working on a major new feature of the site (secret! husshhh!) to be launched shortly and was rather distracted from routine [...]

Going to the Wordsworth House? Which one?

December 6, 2011

Wordsworth House, Cockermouth “We’re going to the Wordsworth House this afternoon.” “Oh good. You’ll enjoy that. Which one?” It’s easy to imagine that kind of conversation between Lake District visitors over a lunch table. Currently there are three houses with strong Wordsworth connections open to the public, and before long the three will be four. [...]

Our Winter Visitors

November 23, 2011

During the summer months the North of England welcomes visitors in their hundreds of thousands from all around the globe. Those human visitors drop off after September but we then start to see a different kind of visitor, flying in from colder climes. This morning I spotted two reports of White Fronted Geese arriving from [...]

The River Eden at Appleby This Afternoon

November 17, 2011

The sunshine attracted me away from the keyboard after lunch today. My target, with cameras, was the River Eden at Appleby (or, to give it its full name, Appleby-in-Westmorland). What the warplanes circling and thundering overhead were aiming at, in addition to making white trails in the almost cloudless sky, is anyone’s guess. Ignoring the [...]

Brockholes, Preston – “An Unreserved Reserve”

November 11, 2011

Brockholes Nature Reserve just outside Preston is a remarkable initiative of the Lancashire Wildlife Trust. I am old enough to remember the building of Britain’s first motorway. And it wasn’t the M1; it was the M6 Preston bypass. For almost forty years I would regularly drive the seven or eight miles from home to join [...]

Nature Reserves in the North of England

November 10, 2011

The North of England has a remarkable number of nature reserves, and I’ve decided to include a directory to many (hopefully most) of these on Around-England.co.uk. For starters I’ve now launched version 1 of a page entitled “The RSPB in the North of England“. At present it contains just a simple listing, a brief indication [...]

Some Places to Visit in the Lake District

October 28, 2011

[Updated from a 2008 post]In addition to the lakes themselves there is a wide variety of things to do in the Lake District. There are places to visit ranging from the literary connections of Dove Cottage at Grasmere (home of the poet William Wordsworth) to the practicalities (although also with artistic potential) of the pencil [...]

Cairns on Wild Boar Fell

October 27, 2011

The photo below is of Wild Boar Fell, looking over the western side of Mallerstang Common from near Pendragon Castle in the Upper Eden Valley. If you look carefully you can just see the little points sticking up from the table top of The Nab, to the left of the picture. Here now is a [...]

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