Recent news from around the Lake District includes a story in the Westmorland Gazette that the National Park Authority is now looking forward to further plans for the future of its Brockhole visitor centre by the shore of Windermere. Much has been done over the past year or so but we can look forward to imaginative new plans to unfold over the coming years.

A TEAM led by one of the country’s leading firms of landscape architects has been appointed to map out and design the next phase in the major redevelopment of Brockhole, the Lake District Visitor Centre on the shores of Windermere….
More from the Westmorland Gazette at:
Company has designs on future of Brockhole

Another piece of very welcome news is that the Via Ferrata at Honister Slate Mine has been shortlisted for a national tourism award. Especially given the ridiculous penalisation of Honister last year, and the refusal of planning permission for their proposed zip wire, it is to be hoped that they win the award. Maybe then (hoping against hope!) both bureaucratic and populist opponents of progress in Lake District tourism will begin to realise that they’re fighting against informed opinion.

Anyway, back to the Via Ferrata. For anyone who doesn’t know what this is I include here the brief description given by the newspaper, but there’s much more at: Honister Via Ferrata

The via ferrata offers an access route to the top of Fleetwith Pike and involves people scured by harnesses edging along the historic cliff-edge using metal ladders, hand rungs and bridges to reach the summit, which offers stunning views over Buttermere and Crummock Water….
More, again from the Westmorland Gazette, at:
Via ferrata at Honister shortlisted for national tourism gong

That’s it for today, folks. I’ve probably upset some of my readers yet again, but I promise never to shrink from expressing clearly my views about what is best for this beautiful region – and that is not to “preserve it in aspic” so that once-every-five-years visitors can come and admire it in contemplative silence. Let’s get the young people here (and I say that as someone knocking on toward seventy).

Great news for the osprey watchers of the Lake District.  BBC News Cumbria reports

A female osprey has been spotted in Cumbria at the start of the nesting season. …. The unidentified female was spotted on a nest near Keswick on Friday but it is not known if she will remain. Ospreys fly south to Africa during late autumn, returning to the UK towards the start of April. A pair of ospreys first nested near Bassenthwaite Lake in the Lake District in 2001 and raised a single chick – the first for more than 150 years ….

Read more on BBC News Cumbria:  Osprey spotted on nest in Cumbria

It is, of course, early days still but let's hope that once again we see not only ospreys but osprey chicks by Bassenthwaite Lake.

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Elsewhere in the Lake District, at Grizedale Forest, there's more good news (again via the BBC) and this time for the mountain bike enthusiast. A new 1 km trail has been developed at the highest level of difficulty, “black”.  See:  Lake District black grade mountain bike trail opens

I spent this morning away from the usual Friday morning work on my web sites to put the finishing touches to a submission to the Secretary of State for the Environment and send it off by email. Today is the final day to say whether you approve or disapprove of the proposed enlargement of the Lake District and Yorkshire Dales national Parks.

In very short summary, I disapprove.

In slightly longer summary I have three main points:

• I am not opposed to extension of the two parks per se. Over the past sixty years they have done a lot of good things and are to be encouraged. However, I have significant reservations about the present proposals.
• No extensions should take place unless and until the national park authorities are placed under far greater accountability for promoting the economic well-being of the local populace to balance up their current obligations relative to environment and conservation.
• If, however, the extensions do go ahead what remains of the integrity of the historic county of Westmorland should be maintained by ensuring that all Westmorland areas fall within the Lake District National Park and do not end up being controlled from the other side of the Pennines.

In case anyone is interested I’ve put a pdf file of my (short, only two sides) submission up for download at:
National Parks Extensions – Submission March 2012

Beatrix Potter is one of the names that quickly comes to many people’s minds when they think of the Lake District. However, unlike William and Dorothy Wordsworth, she was not native Cumbrian. She was a London-born lady who fell in love with the Lake District early in life during holidays there with her family in the 1870s and 80s.

She created the much-loved characters of Peter Rabbit, Jemima Puddle-Duck, Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and many more, and from the first publication of The Tale of Peter Rabbit in 1901 wrote a steady stream of beautifully illustrated children’s books, combining her skills of painting and writing in a way that attracted rapid fame and fortune.

Beatrix fell in love also with her publisher, but her well-to-do family considered him to be rather below her station in life and were opposed to the relationship. His early death, during the period of their secret engagement, left Beatrix Potter devastated.

Shortly before his death in 1905 she had invested a legacy and money from her royalties on purchasing Hill Top Farm at Sawrey in that part of Lakeland which then was the northern tip of Lancashire (now, since the 1974 county boundary changes, incorporated into the new county of Cumbria). She spent as much time there as she could, but frequently the demands of her family led her to spend extensive periods in London.

Hill Top eventually became Beatrix Potter’s home. Over the years she acquired considerable areas of land and was an enthusiast for the Lakeland sheep breed, the Herdwick. She married a local lawyer (once again considered by her family to be beneath her), becoming Mrs. Heelis and living in the Lake District until her death at the age of seventy-seven in 1943. Beatrix Potter’s long relationship with the Lake District is well illustrated in this book. Click on the graphic for details.

Beatrix Potter Attractions

From her base at Sawrey Beatrix Potter she explored great areas of the countryside around and became an active preserver of Lake District landscape, buying extensive tracts of farmland to protect it from what she considered to be inappropriate development; this is now in the capable hands of the National Trust. Her home, Hill Top, Sawrey, is open to the public. (Note: Hill Top is a small property so a queuing system is in operation at peak times; it also closes for one day each week).

In Hawkshead the former law offices of her husband, William Heelis, are now the site of the Beatrix Potter Gallery, run by the National Trust.

There is also a Beatrix Potter attraction, The World of Beatrix Potter, in Bowness-on-Windermere which includes (to quote the publicity material), “… all 23 Tales by Beatrix Potter, brought to life in a magical indoor recreation of the Lakeland countryside, complete with sights, sounds and even smells.”

This past weekend my wife and I took a short trip by Ullswater, mostly in the car. I wasn’t very energetic but wanted to be outside so we drove from Appleby to Glenridding and up into Patterdale as far as the Brotherswater Inn.

At the Head of Ullswater on a February Afternoon

It wasn’t an especially good February day weatherwise, but the Lake District is special at all times of years and even when a bit dull and misty. From time to time the light improved a little so I was able to get a few pictures to share here. We parked the car in Glenridding with the intention of taking a gentle stroll down to the Ullswater Steamers jetty but first diverted into the National Park information centre from which we emerged several pounds lighter (wallets, not body weight!) from some modest book-buying, and of course carrying the afternoon’s stock of Kendal Mint Cake.

Glenridding - The Greenside Copper Mine is high in the valley

Glenridding today is a tourism centre but in past centuries was populated substantially by miners seeking lead and other minerals in the mountains around. For hundreds of years they tunnelled into the rock extracting (and sometimes failing to find) the precious ores. Looking at the scenery today it is easy to forget that the hillsides that look so solid are in fact penetrated in all directions by miles of tunnels, shafts and caverns – the work of twenty or more generations of the hardy people of these mountains.

Head of Ullswater - Looking toward Patterdale from Glenridding

Following our stroll to the jetty and back (no rucksacks, boots or anything too energetic today!) we headed up Patterdale in the car. I had hoped for a photo of Brotherswater but by this time the light was poor so we turned at the Brotherswater Inn, came back down to the National Trust carpark and ate our sandwiches. From here I took this photograph of Hartsop – another old mining village now devoted to tourism.

Hartsop, Patterdale

Some day I’d like to walk up past Hartsop to Hayeswater and The Knott, stopping from time to time to reflect on the centuries when men toiled inside these mountains around Ullswater to give our ancestors the metals they needed for life in the towns and cities. Happily, there was rarely loss of life in Cumbrian metal mining, either here or at Coniston, the Newlands Valley and other major ore mining sites, but who today would want to climb a mile up a mountainside, summer and winter, to crawl into a dark damp hole at daybreak only to emerge as the sun went down or later? These were men!

Holes in the Crags

Hotels by Ullswater

Holiday Cottage near Ullswater

Click on the image above or here for details of Fellgate Farm, Helton, near Ullswater.
Holiday cottages elsewhere in the Lake District

Ullswater is easily visited while staying in centres such as Keswick, Ambleside and Penrith and here is a selection of hotels close to the lake.

• Glenridding Hotel
• The Inn on the Lake
• Patterdale Hotel
• Leeming House
• The Brackenrigg Inn
• Rampsbeck Country House Hotel
• Sharrow Bay Hotel

Google just now served me a link to an LDNPA document, dated today, discussing alternatives for the Park authority’s position on the extension of national park boundaries, and in particular the proposal from Natural England that substantial parts of Westmorland should be incorporated into the Yorkshire Dales National park. I see that the Park authority meeting was to be held today, so maybe I’d be better leaving any comment until I see their decision on how to respond to this issue. On second thoughts I’ll comment briefly before discovering the outcome.

The Flag of Westmorland

Admittedly the more remote areas often feel ignored and neglected by their existing authorites (as well as by the tourist board) but if this is the reality then surely a more sensible response would be for central government to give the district and county councils a kick up the rear rather than imposing another layer of unelected bureaucracy on the local populace.

Protect Westmorland From Further Dismemberment

Having said that, if expansion has to go ahead I find it almost beyond belief that extensive areas of Westmorland should be placed under the control of an authority based on the other side of the Pennine watershed in Yorkshire. Westmorland is an ancient historic entity. It lost much of its identity by its administrative county being merged into Cumbria but its further dismemberment surely must be resisted.

If the Orton Fells, with areas stretching almost to Kirkby Stephen and Appleby-in-Westmorland, are to be in any national park they should be kept with the western parts of the old county in the Lake District. Historic identity matters.

I was writing a piece on my “Lake District in Books” site when it occurred to me how much material I’d written there over recent months referring to the history of the region. This post is substantially a survey of things I’ve written there in the past, brought together for readers of the Around-England blog. It also gives me an opening at the end of the piece to be opinionated once again on the subject of development and over-conservation.

I recently posted an item on the other site about a great book on the landscape history of Northwest England: England’s Landscape: The North West by Angus Winchester. This one covers a wide area, taking in Cumbria, Lancashire and further afield. Other books mentioned in the past have been more focused on Cumbria, and especially the Lake District.

The English Lakes – A History by Ian Thompson is an excellent survey, in just short of 350 pages, of the background to the Lake District as we have it today. In my opinion this title should be on the bookshelf of everyone who loves Lakeland.

The next title is much narrower in scope. A Lakeland Valley Through Time, produced by The Staveley and District History Society, concentrates on the history of Staveley, Kentmere and Ings. It is a good example of how a local group can produce interesting and well-presented history that is sharply focused on a small group of villages.

Historic Farmhouses in and around Westmorland narrowed the view down in a different way to individual farmhouses. This is not easy to find now in good condition but R. W. Brunskill’s Traditional Buildings of Cumbria contains much of similar interest, if not the detail on individual Westmorland properties. The National Trust has played a major role in the conservation of the Lake District landscape, both natural and built, and continues to do so. Last year I wrote a brief item on two histories of the National Trust in the Lake District.

Turning to industry and economics the Lake District, along with surrounding areas of Cumbria, has an extensive railway history – even if most of it has now gone. The history of rail in the lake counties by David Joy is a must for anyone looking for a comprehensive overview. Individual lines also have their own histories. A more academic work, The Lake Counties from 1830 to the Mid-twentieth Century: A Study in Regional Change, by Marshall and Walton, reviews a century of economic and social change in the region, which is of course the context in which its transportation history developed. The last two chapters are especially valuable on the growth of the tourist trade and of environmental conservation.

All these histories are stories of change over many centuries, leading to what we see today – both above and below ground. Think for a moment of the generations of men working in the Coniston coppermines, deep underground in what are now cavers’ tunnels (but only for those competent to handle the hazards!). Those miners left what at the time were “scars” on the landscape but now they are part of the precious historic character of the region.

Uploaded to YouTube by EdvinDeadman in February 2009

That is a modern film but here below is a 1926 film of slate quarrying, from the Honister Slate Mine which today is once again producing slate products to go around the world in addition to being one of the region’s important tourist attractions – in spite of its opponents! (honisterslatemine YouTube.com)

Well so far we’ve had copper and slate. What about other industrial products of this region? There was the “lead” in pencils – which, of course, is not lead at all but graphite. This was mined in one of the most beautiful valley of Lakeland, Borrowdale down which runs the young river Derwent on its way to Derwentwater. Maybe another day I’ll put up a video of pencil manufacturing in Keswick but for now we’ll move slightly outside the boundaries of the Lake District National Park to Nenthead, near Alston, on the western edge of the North Pennine moors where there was extensive lead mining and today there is a visitor centre. (Uploaded to YouTube, December 2010, by North Pennines Archaeology Limited northpennarch).

That’s Lake District History, But What Of Its Future?”

A subject dear to my heart is Lake District industrial archaeology. Too often the region is treated as though its landscape is totally “natural” and that it must therefore be preserved absolutely unaltered for future generations to enjoy. Forgotten are the generations of Cumbrian men and women who laboured on these mountains and fellsides to carve out livelihoods, to support their families as miners, quarrymen and farmers. In so doing they changed it for ever, and left us the beautiful and interesting place we have today. (See the book on the left).

The legacy of these workers of the past is admired, their derelict buildings are restored and promoted as visitor attractions, but in the twenty-first century (and here comes my provocative thought for the day) Cumbrians are now expected to have only minimal impact, and preferably none, on their surroundings apart from helping to restore it to an imagined romantic vision of past environmental glory. There are even calls to take sheep off the fells!

A study of our history should teach us that change is part of living. Seeking to put an idealised past into deep freeze risks bringing about the slow death of our local communities, then what will future historians have to write about apart from a large tourism facility expensively preserved in aspic for the admiration of visitors?

The Lake District and its surrounding areas are beautiful, but to remain so they must also continue as a genuinely lived-in, and therefore changing, landscape or in the long-term run a severe risk of decline, an unintended consequence of well-meaning preservation.

Related Posts:

To Protect? Or to Preserve?

Toward Environmental, Social and Economic Balance

This afternoon I was in the process of preparing another article on Wordsworth for after Christmas (Yes, occasionally I do manage to do things in advance!) when I came across a video of Jeremy Irons reading “Daffodils”.

I hadn’t planned on putting up anything new today but am sure that many of my readers here on Around-England will enjoy this. On a cold, damp winter’s day how good it is to be able to picture the golden flowers “tossing their heads in spritely dance”.

Wasn’t that good! Spring is only three months away. Or does that sentiment offend my friends who are lovers of snow-covered mountains? Yes, I agree, there’s beauty in all the seasons.

Video from YouTube

An article in yesterday’s Yorkshire Post reports the closure of a popular scenic route.

Forestry chiefs have permanently closed a North Yorkshire road that regularly tops lists of the best drives in the country, to restore tranquillity to the picturesque valley. The Forestry Commission has announced it has closed a three-mile stretch of woodland road through Newtondale Forest, near Pickering, which is one of England’s most spectacular valleys.
[To read more]

In the course of the article three reasons for the closure are given:

• To restore tranquility
• Landslips making navigation difficult
• High cost of repairs

The last two of these are understandable in these financially straightened times. The first, though, raises questions. The North York Moors steam railway runs through the valley. It’s not exactly silent. The report says that walkers will now be able to “enjoy the peace and quiet without the roar of passing motor traffic.” Was there really such a “roar”? It isn’t the A1, after all.

My main concern, however, is the closure of a highly scenic route to many who are simply unable to navigate it on foot. In many elderly couples there is often one who is unable to walk any distance. Must they now be split up for only one of them to enjoy this splendid countryside. No, most likely they’ll neither of them go. And what about the disabled who used to be able to enjoy a drive through the forest?

I’m sure the Forestry Commission didn’t mean it that way but it is an effectively ageist decision, and will make things more difficult for many disable people. Sad.

The Commission says that it has consulted widely about the closure, and maybe there are considerations of which I am unaware. My reason for writing about this here, however, is less related to the specific case than to a concern that this should not become the forerunner of many similar decisions.

[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 and mining museums in Keswick. And don’t forget the National Park visitor centre at Brockhole.

The National Trust

has several properties in the region and if, either deliberately or due to hitting a bad patch of weather, you decide on a programme of indoor visits you could well benefit from joining the Trust rather than paying separately for each location. With your National Trust membership ticket you get free access to all its properties, which can be a considerable saving if you vist several – and remember, the membership lasts for a year so you’ll have access to properties in other parts of the country. If you live in England or Wales you may even be surprised at what’s available to visit almost on your own doorstep as well as in the Lake District.

The National Trust (which, incidentally, is not a government body; this is sometimes misunderstood because of its name) owns large areas of the countryside in the Lake District National Park. Apart from areas of water it owns many hill farms which are let out to tenant farmers who take good care of the landscape to protect it for future generations. It also owns houses and gardens of historic or other special interest. Here are just some of the National Trust properties you could visit while in Cumbria:

• Acorn Bank Garden and Watermill, Temple Sowerby, nr Penrith
• The Beatrix Potter Gallery, Hawkshead
• Sizergh Castle, nr Kendal
• Wordsworth House, Cockermouth (William Wordsworth’s birthplace)