Produced by Chuck Greif, MFR and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive)
Beautiful
Lakeland
[Illustration]
“Who comes not hither
Ne’er can know,
How beautiful
The world below.”
--_Wordsworth._
By Ashley P. Abraham.
[Illustration: Near Ferry Nab, Windermere
“An August Afternoon.”]
Beautiful
Lakeland
By ASHLEY P. ABRAHAM
Nature I’ll court in her sequestered haunts,
By mountain, meadow, streamlet, grove or dell,
Where the poisèd lark his evening ditty chants,
And health, and peace, and contemplation dwell.
--_Smollett._
With 32 full page Monogravure Illustrations (copyright)
By G. P. ABRAHAM, F.R.P.S., Keswick.
published by
G. P. ABRAHAM, KESWICK.
1912.
Contents
PAGE
CHAPTER I. An appreciation: The cause and history of Lakeland 5
” II. Windermere and Ambleside 12
” III. Grasmere and Rydal 19
” IV. Thirlmere, Derwentwater and Bassenthwaite 24
” V. The Buttermere Round 32
” VI. Ullswater, Helvellyn and Kirkstone Pass 39
” VII. Coniston, Wastwater and Furness Abbey 45
List of Illustrations
The Head of Buttermere and High Crags--(_Cover_)
Near Ferry Nab, Windermere--(_Frontispiece_)
The Island, Grasmere
The Old Mill, Ambleside
The Middle Reach of Ullswater--“After Rain”
Windermere from Orrest Head
The Langdale Pikes
Windermere from Furness Fell
Waterhead and the Langdale Pikes, Windermere
Ambleside and Wansfell
Stock Ghyll Force, Ambleside
Grasmere Lake and Village
Grasmere Church
Rydal Water and Nab Scar
Thirlmere and Helvellyn
Keswick and Derwentwater
Derwentwater from Friar’s Crag--“A Rift in the Clouds”
Friar’s Crag, Derwentwater
The Head of Derwentwater
Derwentwater and Skiddaw
Borrowdale and the Bowder Stone
Buttermere and Crummock Lakes
Crummock Water--“Solitude”
“The Devil’s Elbow”
The Head of Ullswater
Ullswater from Silver Point
Stybarrow Crag, Ullswater
Striding Edge, Helvellyn
Kirkstone Pass and Brothers’ Water
Coniston Water and the Old Man
Wastwater--“A Gathering Storm”
An Ascent of the Needle, Great Gable
Furness Abbey
Beautiful Lakeland.
CHAPTER I.
An Appreciation: The Cause and History of Lakeland.
It may be fearlessly asserted that those portions of the counties of
Cumberland, Westmoreland and Lancashire known as the Lake District,
contain more natural beauty, more literary associations and more
diversity of charm than any other similar area of the whole of the
Earth’s surface.
Within the small space of thirty square miles, scenes of the wildest
grandeur and the most tranquil beauty exist side by side. From the grim
recesses of Scawfell and Great Gable one can pass in two or three hours
to the placid haunts of Windermere. The stern solitudes of Wastwater can
be visited upon the same day as the peaceful shores of Derwentwater,
“set like a gem amid the encircling hills.”
The moors and bare corries of Scotland, the foliage-clad slopes and
llyns of North Wales, the lakes and valleys of Switzerland, all have
their counterpart and seem to meet in Lakeland. Indeed, the diversity of
the landscape in so small a tract of country is nothing short of
marvellous. This diversity is perhaps the feature that first impresses a
stranger, but almost at the same time the compactness of the whole
claims his notice. Here one picture succeeds another without pause.
Half an hour’s walk will accomplish as great a change as would half a
day’s walk in most of the other beauty spots of the country.
It is no doubt a fact that there are isolated prospects elsewhere which
are as beautiful and impressive as these, but in most cases they are
separated by tracts of intervening country which are deadly dull. Here
is no dulness. The feasts of beauty are as great on the way from
Derwentwater to Ullswater, or between Coniston and Windermere, as they
are at these prospects themselves. The indefinable line of beauty is
omnipresent. From end to end and from side to side of this favoured spot
there is scarcely an unlovely feature, if we except the quarries and
mines which mar some few localities.
It may be thought that because the higher mountains barely top three
thousand feet the sense of space and immensity will be lacking. But
really this is not so. The truth is that the proportions of a mountain
are determining factors of greater moment than its mere height in feet
or its bulk. Who that has traversed Kirkstone Pass or skirted the edge
of Buttermere on a hazy August day, can doubt this? The atmospheric
conditions of Lakeland lend a sense of altitude and suggestiveness such
as the clearer air of great mountain ranges rarely conveys. This
exquisiteness of proportion impressed Wordsworth so greatly that he
actually compared the beauties of Lakeland with those of Switzerland,
and, needless to say, our homeland lost very little in the comparison.
Wordsworth may be thought to be a biassed authority, yet it is the
repeated testimony of a very great number of travellers that, whilst
they have seen wilder, more sublime and grander scenes elsewhere, they
have seen nothing so beautiful as Lakeland.
And such is my own impression. My vocation takes me for a month or two
every year to Switzerland, yet not a summer passes but I return from the
glacier world of the great Alps feeling, as Penrith is neared and
glimpses of the Langdale Pikes and the sweep of St. Sunday’s
[Illustration: Grasmere and the Island
“At Evening.”]
Crag over Ullswater are caught, that I have seen nothing better in all
my wanderings abroad. Indeed, it ought to have been Lakeland’s own poet,
and not Kingsley, who wrote
“While we see God’s signet
Fresh on English ground,
Why go gallivanting
With the nations round?”
It is hardly the province of a work like the present to treat of the
geology of this beautiful district, but it may prove of interest to
touch concisely upon the processes which have conduced to the formation
of such a wonderful whole.
Why are Skiddaw and several of the hills in the north of Lakeland
rounded in contour and possessed of no precipices worthy the name? What
accounts for the cliffs and jagged outlines of the Langdale Pikes, the
Pillar, or Scawfell? Wherefore all the various beautiful and retiring
dales and side valleys, and, most pregnant question of all, whence came
the Lakes themselves? No appreciative or thoughtful visitor but must
have pondered upon these things and been somewhat puzzled. Many, I know,
have dismissed the matter by concluding that the whole district is due
to some vast upheaval of bygone ages. No such simple explanation will
cover all the facts.
The earliest causes of Lakeland were complex and various. It has several
times been submerged beneath the sea, when layer upon layer of mud and
sediment was deposited to the thickness of thousands of feet. Skiddaw,
Saddleback and others of our Northern fells are composed of these layers
of soft rock. Weathering processes have rounded their contours and left
to them the graceful flowing outlines which we now admire. Volcanoes
also have played no unimportant part. Violent eruptions took place near
Keswick and to the south of it and ejected material--boulders, huge
masses of rock and fine dust--the greater part of which fell again
almost vertically and deposited rock to the depth of at least twelve
thousand feet. This has since been exposed to climatic influences, and
been greatly reduced in bulk. The mountains of Borrowdale, Scawfell and
Great Gable, amongst others, are formed of this volcanic _débris_; hence
their hard, jagged and precipitous nature. A great part of them was
ejected from Castle Head, the favourite view-point above Keswick, which
is beyond doubt the crater of an extinct volcano.
Thus we see that the Lake District is mainly composed of two different
kinds of rocks, one of a clayey and easily-moulded nature, the other of
an unyielding volcanic type, jagged and angular. It is very greatly due
to the juxtaposition of these two different types that the Lake District
possesses such diversity of outline. So much for the rocks of which the
mountains are formed. But how came they to assume their present shapes?
The answer is fairly simple. The Lake District, as we know it to-day,
was quite recently, that is in a geological sense (a little matter of
ninety-three million years ago!) a vast dome-like tract situated about
four-thousand feet above the level of the surrounding country. After it
had finally emerged from the sea, rain in torrents fell upon this dome.
Rivers were formed. These followed the usual downward course of water,
and as they flowed they slowly wore definite channels for themselves.
Down these channels they swept, carrying with them small pebbles and
earth which wore away the softer rocks underneath. This went on for
millions upon millions of years. Hundreds of streams flowing in various
directions, eating the rock out and bearing it in minute particles to
the sea, left the higher grounds untouched and it is these higher
grounds which we now know as the mountains of Lakeland.
And now as regards the Lakes themselves. Influences into
[Illustration: The Old Mill, Ambleside]
which it would be tedious to enquire led to the warm winds and waters of
the Gulf Stream being cut off from the district. The atmosphere became
intensely cold. Instead of warm rain as heretofore, snow fell. This
heaped up thicker and thicker until it compressed into ice which, in the
form of glaciers, began to slide down the valleys previously hollowed
out by the streams. The great Glacial Period set in. The glaciers tore
up stones, earth and rocks and carried them along in their course. These
great file-like masses of rock-embedded ice scooped out huge hollows in
the river beds beneath.
Then the Gulf Stream again brought its benignant influence to bear upon
the district. Warmth came and rain fell again. The glaciers began slowly
to melt and disappear: the rivers resumed their normal flow. At once the
great hollows were filled with water and it was these water-filled
hollows which first constituted our lakes. Since that time the lakes
have in many cases been altered in shape. For instance, Derwentwater and
Bassenthwaite were in times past one lake, but the _débris_ brought down
and deposited by the river Greta has divided it into the two beautiful
sheets of water with which we are now familiar. Incidentally, the
glaciers had a great influence upon the shape and contours of our
mountains, rounding, polishing and smoothing them into their present
forms.
Such is a very incomplete _resumé_ of the happenings of by-gone æons
which have given to us our lovely district.
It would be pleasing could we follow its history with such certainty,
but this is where Lakeland falls short. Of legend, folklore and historic
records it possesses comparatively little. In early times this wildly
secluded corner of England was given over for the most part to swamps,
wild beasts and dense forest. Its earliest inhabitants were the
Brigantes, one of the tribes of aboriginal Britons. Tacitus mentions
them in a half-hearted uncertain manner and their dealings with the
Romans, but as to the extent to which they occupied the district, or in
what numbers, is not known. Several of the local names of villages and
mountains were given by them, and these place-names, together with some
few relics, are the strongest confirmation we have of the existence here
of these early Britons.
The Romans who followed after them left numerous proofs of their
occupation--bridges, roads, stations and various articles of household
use. What the Romans did in Lakeland is not clear. Perchance they were
enticed here by the suspected mineral wealth of the mountains, or were
engaged in subduing the savage Brigantes. Perhaps, being cultivated
people, they rowed about on Windermere, held pic-nics on Belle Isle or
lazed about the countryside admiring the beauties of nature! All this is
the merest conjecture.
After the Romans had left Britain, and the Danes and Saxons had usurped
the rest of England, the Lake District was probably held by the Lakeland
Britons as one of their last strongholds and places of refuge. The
tourist passing over Dunmail Raise--the high pass between Grasmere and
Thirlmere--is shown to this day the heap of stones marking the grave of
Dunmail, the last of the Cumbrian Kings. Near here, in the year 945, he
and his gallant band gave battle to the Saxon King Edmund. Dunmail held
the high ground for some considerable time, fighting valiantly until he
was treacherously attacked in the rear and ultimately cut down. Thus
disappeared the Britons from Lakeland. So goes the story, and the heap
of stones on Dunmail Raise certainly gives local confirmation. It is
said, also, that Dunmail’s crown was sunk in Grisedale Tarn, but here
corroborative evidence is lacking for it has not yet been recovered.
Under the Heptarchy, Cumberland and Westmoreland no doubt witnessed
their share of border warfare, but at this time, and for long after the
Norman Conquest, the Lake District itself appears to have
[Illustration: The Middle Reach of Ullswater
“After Rain.”]
been the abode of outlaws and was practically unvisited. Later, the
Abbots of Furness allotted great portions of land in their domain to
their “villeins.” This gave a lead to the Feudal Lords who gradually
followed suit, and thus the outlying parts of the district became dotted
with farms and homesteads. These ultimately encroached further and
further into the mountains.
With nobody to dispute their ownership, these “small holders” built
stone walls up the mountain sides to mark the boundary of their claim
and to form enclosures for their stock. These walls, hundreds of years
old and apparently meaningless to us to-day, still form a very
characteristic feature of the scenery. It may be thought by some that
they are a disfigurement, but if so this is due to the cutting down of
much timber and woods which no doubt formerly hid them from view. In any
case they are grey, lichen-covered, and in entire keeping with the
district. From this period onward, whilst guarding their homes and
possessions from predatory bands of freebooters, the Lakeland yeomen or
“statesmen” steadily improved their holdings, cleared the forests,
reclaimed the marshes and gradually gave to the countryside the aspect
it wears to-day.
It was about the year 1700 that people first began to take an interest
in its scenery, the poet Gray being, in 1767, the first person of note
to visit it. His writings and descriptions of the scenery did much to
make it known to the outside world. Indeed, he was the real discoverer
of Lakeland, the precursor of those bands of tourists who, in yearly
increasing numbers, visit it for the sole purposes of feasting upon its
beauty and drinking in its elevating and healthful influences.