On our main Lake District web site there is a picture, from a painting by Alfred Heaton Cooper, of Thirlmere before the forest. That views the lake from the western bank and looks toward Helvellyn and the southern end of the recently enlarged reservoir.  I’ve now found in my postcard collection a view in the opposite direction, pointing north.

The card, a tinted photograph, was posted in 1909 and so probably dates from the early years of the century, not long after the merger of the original two lakes, Leathes Water and Wyburn Water, to form the Thirlmere reservoir as we have it today. (For a note on the lake names in this area see the Thirlmere page on our main site).