Category Archives: Natural History

The Savage Temple at the Heart of Scafell

Wainwright compared Scafell Crag to a great cathedral where a man may lose all his conceit. I set off for Lord’s Rake and the West Wall Traverse with Wainwright archivist, Chris Butterfield and Lakeland Routes author, Richard Jennings to rediscover a sense of awe, experience the spiritual power of savage places and ponder whether we all need to reconnect with the sublime.

Cults of Nature

Norman Nicholson called it a cult of nature. Even at this early hour, a long line of pilgrims snakes up the grassy zig zags to Lingmell Col, above which the boulder field awaits: the desolate rocky desert at the summit of England’s highest mountain—Scafell Pike.

The author looking up at Mickledore Pikes Crag, Great Gable and the Lingmell Col path in the background - photo by Chris Butterfield
The author looking up at Mickledore; Pikes Crag, Great Gable & the Lingmell Col path in the background – photo by Chris Butterfield

All this began with a book. Until the late 1700’s, no-one visited Lakeland for pleasure. It was seen as a savage wilderness. Then in 1756, Edmund Burke published A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, in which he ascribed aesthetic taste to two fundamental instincts: self-propagation and self-preservation. All objects perceived by the senses appealed in some degree to one or other of these. Objects that were pleasing and gentle, suggesting comfort and safety, appealed to the instinct of self-propagation, those that were great and vast, suggesting fear and wonder aroused the instinct of self-preservation. The category of things that appealed significantly to the instinct of self-propagation, he called the Beautiful; the category that aroused the instinct of self-preservation, he called The Sublime.

The Sublime inspired the Picturesque movement in art. Suddenly, gentle pastoral scenes and sylvan idylls were out of fashion and savage wildernesses were in vogue. Apostles of the Picturesque like William Gilpin and Thomas Gray visited Lakeland and published accounts of their travels, exaggerating the height of the mountains and peppering their prose with heady hyperbole—the crags were terrible (in the literal sense of terror-inducing), and the towering heights were awful. They had found a sublime landscape—one that could shock and awe, and their early guidebooks fanned flames of interest.

Then came the Romantics. For the Lake Poet, William Wordsworth, the rugged integrity of the dalesmen and their close harmony with nature offered a panacea for all the ills industrialisation and urban living had inflicted on society. Gray never ventured much further than the Jaws of Borrowdale and thought the idea of climbing Skiddaw comically impossible, but Coleridge narrowly escaped death descending Scafell’s hazardous Broad Stand and experienced a religious-like rapture at having survived. William Hutchinson had described Wasdale as a valley infested by wildcats, foxes, martins, and eagles, but for Wordsworth, “no part of the country is more distinguished by sublimity”.

As the Victorians flocked to Lakeland so their relationship with the fells became more physical. Climbing Skiddaw became a must, and the more adventurous embraced rock-climbing. Owen Glynne Jones published a hugely popular book, Rock Climbing in the English Lake District, which remains a vibrant distillation of the dashing spirit of the age.

For Nicholson, these cults of nature are “symptoms of a diseased society, a consumptive gasp for fresh air”. They have arisen “because modern man has locked himself off from the natural life of the land, because he has tried to break away from the life-bringing, life-supporting rhythms of nature, to remove himself from the element that sustains him, in fact, he has become a fish out of nature.” But this is not only a sign of disease, “it is also a sign of health—a sign, at least, that man guesses where the remedy might be found.”

Krampus

It’s nearly 50 years since Nicholson published The Lakers, his insightful history of those early Lakeland writers, yet hordes still flock to these hills. Scafell Pike has become a bucket list must for YouTubers, Instagram photo op’ers, and charity-eventers, all faithfully following the crowd, checking social media as they go, some streaming Spotify, some carrying beers and disposable BBQ’s for summit parties… and amid this hubbub, I can’t help wondering whether we’ve forgotten what it is we came here for.

Deep Gill Buttress
Deep Gill Buttress/Symonds Knott

My misgivings run deeper than the litter and the wildfire risk, although these are increasingly alarming. In On Sacred Ground, the second of two beautifully written books documenting a genuinely awe-inspiring walk of 7000 miles through from the southern tip of Italy to Norway’s northern cape, Andrew Terrill describes how, in Salzburg, he stumbles on Krampusnacht, a gruesome Halloween-like parade of horned monsters roaming the streets, striking delighted terror into the crowds of wide-eyed children.

“Krampus has inhabited Austrian folklore for centuries. The creature originated thousands of years ago in pagan rituals as a horned wilderness god. In medieval times, Christianity appropriated them, inserting them into religious plays as servants of the Devil. By the seventeenth century, Krampusse found themselves paired inextricably with Saint Nicholas, and celebrations on Saint Nicholas Day soon featured saint and monster side by side, the evil Krampus a useful tool for convincing doubters to follow a righteous path.”

“I found myself wondering what effect Krampus would have had on my own childhood. I hadn’t thought much about wild nature while growing up in suburban London. I’d barely known it existed…

“The culture I’d been raised within insisted that I was separate from nature and above it; that it existed for my use. But the threat of Krampus might have helped me question that, might have hinted at my true place in the natural order of things. It might have reminded me that nature could never be controlled. That it deserved great respect. Perhaps it was something the human race needed too, and desperately; a critical reminder that wild nature would run rampage and devour us all if we stepped too far out of line.”

The Roaring Silence

The sublime is all about escaping the trappings of civilisation and facing the savage grandeur of the wilderness, reminding ourselves we are a tiny grain of sand on a vast shore with towering cliffs and pounding waves; it means feeling humbled and insignificant in the face of something so ancient and immense. And yet, here we are venturing into it brandishing all the trappings of the modern world like shields to keep Krampus at bay.

As John Pepper writes in Cockley Beck, one of the keys to fully engaging with the exhilarating wonders of nature is to shut off the noise of everyday living, and yet (even in 1984) we’d come to think of such a roaring silence as an existential threat.

‘”Anything for a quiet life,’ we sighed, and filled it with noise. The racket we engineered to escape from ourselves was more too than the relentless product of transistors, hi-fis, TVs, videos, one-arm bandits, space invaders, pubs, parties, theatres, musical events, football matches and all the other forms of popular entertainment. It was the shrieking of newspaper headlines and advertisement hoardings, high fashion, low fashion, modern architecture, paperback jackets and political panaceas.

“It was the ‘buzz’ we got from alcohol, drugs, coffee, tea and flattery; from gurus and meditation. The excitement of screaming at one’s wife, of gossip, and watching our cities in flames. The sound of our wheels and wings speeding us from nowhere to nowhere but sparing us the exigencies of having to be somewhere. It was the garbled silences administered by Valium. The graffiti over our walls, the two fingers everywhere thrust in the air… A man on the top of Scafell, plugged into ‘The Archers’”.

Wainwright: an Apostle of the Sublime

Yet awe is all around on the path to the Roof of England. We just need to put our phones in airplane mode, leave our earbuds at home, step away from the crowd, fall silent, and drink it all in. And if you really want spiritual transcendence, take a detour off the beaten path where it veers left for Lingmell Col…

“By going forward, a profound hollow is entered amongst a litter of boulders and scree fallen from the enclosing crags. The surroundings are awesome. Pikes Crag soars into the sky on the left, ahead is the gap of Mickledore, topping long fans of scree and rocky debris, and towering on the right the tilted cliffs of Scafell Crag dominate the scene and seem to threaten collapse. This grim fastness is Hollow Stones, and its deep confinement between high and near-vertical walls of rock will make sufferers from claustrophobia and others of timid disposition decidedly uncomfortable.”

Scafell Crag and Shamrock from across the scree of Hollow Stones
Scafell Crag and Shamrock from across the scree of Hollow Stones

The words are those of Alfred Wainwright, whose Pictorial Guides continue to inspire legions of fellwalkers. Of Hollow Stones, Wainwright penned perhaps the perfect expression of the Sublime…

“A man may stand on the lofty ridge of Mickledore, or in the green hollow beneath the precipice amidst the littered debris and boulders fallen from it, and witness the sublime architecture of buttresses and pinnacles soaring into the sky, silhouetted against racing clouds or, often, tormented by writhing mists, and, as in a great cathedral, lose all his conceit. It does a man good to realise his own insignificance in the general scheme of things, and that is his experience here.”

The Pinnacle and Pisgah Buttress from the top of Deep Gill
Scafell Crag: The Pinnacle and Pisgah Buttress from the top of Deep Gill

At the conclusion to his final Pictorial Guides, AW lists his six best Lakeland mountains. Number one is Scafell Pike; curiously, its sibling, Scafell doesn’t make the list. And yet for all the magnificence of Pikes Crag and Pulpit Rock, Wainwright wasn’t looking at the Pike when he wrote than beatific paragraph, he was facing Scafell.

“The most formidable of these natural bastions is Scafell Crag which towers in supreme majesty above a stony hollow in the fellside: a vertical wall of clean rock some 500 ft high, divided by gullies into five buttresses, the whole appearing to be totally unassailable…

“The aspect of the Crag from below is intimidating, even frightening, and it is so palpably impossible for common or garden mortals to scale that none dares venture up the rocks from the safe ground at the foot, readily acknowledging that those who do so are a superior breed. But Nature has provided a breach in the defences of the Crag by which active walkers may gain access to its innermost secrets, make intimate acquaintance with magnificent and spectacular rock scenery, and emerge unscathed at the top: an achievement earned only by arduous effort and much expenditure of energy. This is the only route on Scafell Crag where walkers can tread safely without encountering serious climbing and without danger to life and limb. Lord’s Rake and the West Wall Traverse are special privileges of the fellwalker and make him feel that perhaps he is not too inferior after all.” (Fellwalking with Wainwright).

Whatever his head counselled, Wainwright’s heart belonged to Scafell Crag. I’m here with Chris Butterfield, a Wainwright archivist who has amassed a vast collection of the author’s books, letters, sketches, and printing materials, and our friend Richard Jennings, who runs the brilliant Lakeland Routes website. Chris has climbed Scafell before, but never by Lord’s Rake and the West Wall Traverse, and he has come here today in search of awe.

A Pagan Place: Lord’s Rake and the West Wall Traverse

Chris looks puzzled as Richard leaves the rough path to Mickledore and starts up a stiff fan of scree, heading for what looks like an impenetrable wall of crag. Wainwright’s breach in the defences is concealed from view, making the act of striking out for Shamrock a fitting leap of faith. The gradient is steeper than it first appears, and the scree is loose and shifts easily underfoot. Ahead the soaring wall appears to grow taller with every step. At its centre is the Scafell Pinnacle. In 1898, O. G. Jones and G. T. Walker broke climbing convention by shunning cracks and gullies and heading straight up its rock face. Five years later, an attempt to do something similar lead to the deaths of R. W. Broadrick, A. E. W. Garrett, H. L. Jupp, and S. Ridsdale. As we climb beside the foot of Shamrock, an unobtrusive cross carved into the rock comes into focus. It is a humble memorial to these four men, a cenotaph, standing not in a mossy graveyard but on the mountain where they fell—the ground they considered hallowed.

The cross at the foot of Lord's Rake
The cross at the foot of Lord’s Rake

As we near the cross at the base of the Pinnacle, the sham dissolves. Proximity reveals what the angle of approach had kept concealed— like the parting of the Red Sea, a navigable channel appears between these tidal waves of rock—a steep scree and boulder strewn gully separating Scafell Crag from its illusory shoulder, Shamrock. Here is Wainwright’s breach in the defences—this is Lord’s Rake.

Chris and Richard ascending Lord's Rake
Chris and Richard ascending Lord’s Rake

We start up this wild craggy corridor, clinging to its jagged walls in forlorn hope of solid footing. Halfway up, a striking feature appears on the left—a chockstone blocks the entrance to Deep Gill creating a cave, vivid green with moss, flanked with scales of slate, like a gaping reptilian mouth. Deep Gill is the inner sanctum of Wainwright’s great cathedral, and this is its gatehouse, but the way in is a rock climb above the chockstone, mere mortals like us must settle for a side entrance, albeit one of immense grandeur.

The cave at the bottom of Deep Gill
The cave at the bottom of Deep Gill
The cave in Deep Gill above the chockstone of the first
A second cave lies above the first in Deep Gill. Its first two pitches are rock climbs

The top of the first section of the Rake is littered with large boulders, the remains of a larger chockstone that fell and shattered in 2016. If you scramble the boulders, you can follow the Rake through four more distinct sections, two descents and two more ascents (all striking though none as dramatic as this first). However, to do so would be to enter the nave of the great cathedral and walk straight out into the cloisters. To approach the altar, means climbing out of the nave into the chancel. A faint trod forms a natural staircase up the left wall. Richard leads the way up on to the West Wall Traverse—a footpath along a slender shelf above Deep Gill, which rises to meet the Traverse.

Chris and Richard pause for breath by the boulders at the top of the 1st section of Lord's Rake
Chris and Richard pause for breath by the boulders at the top of the 1st section of Lord’s Rake
Richard leads the way onto the West Wall Traverse below the towering Pinnacle
Richard leads the way onto the West Wall Traverse below the towering Pinnacle – photo by Chris Butterfield

Here, eyes are compelled upward to the imperious tower of the Pinnacle. Wainwright’s simile of a great cathedral captures the sudden soaring rush of awe and wonder it instils; but to me this is a pagan place—a colossal savage temple. The Pinnacle looks like a vast hooded hawk—an immense stone idol, humbling the beholder. As you steal along the Traverse in hushed reverence, it only appears to grow in stature, until eventually you see how the cleft of Jordon Gap separates it from the muscular mass of Pisgah Buttress.

The Pinnacle and Pisgah Buttress from the top of Deep Gill
The Pinnacle and Pisgah Buttress from the top of Deep Gill

The last pitch of Deep Gill is an easy scramble. In trying to maintain three points of contact, I’m given a stinging reminder of why this volcanic rock was highly prized for Stone-Age axe heads. I slice my finger on a razor-sharp stone. It’s a paper cut but enough for Chris to spot my trail of blood on the scree. I hope Krampus will be placated with this offering and not demand a greater sacrifice.

Awe inspiring rock scenery in Deep Gill
Awe inspiring rock scenery in Deep Gill

The wall at the end of gill is not high but looks green and slippery, only when you’re right in front of it does a hidden exit appear on your left—an easy haul over a rock step and out through a dry channel. We track round the head of the Gill to feast our eyes on the magnificent spectacle of Deep Gill Buttress, the west wall of the gill, rising imperiously from the ravine to the majestic summit of Symonds Knott.

The Pinnacle and Pisgah Buttress from the ground above Deep Gill
The Pinnacle and Pisgah Buttress separated by the Jordan Gap
Deep Gill Buttress rising from the depths of Deep Gill
Deep Gill Buttress rising from the depths of Deep Gill

A slender grassy shoulder leads to Pisgah Buttress, and we pull ourselves up the rocks to its top. Across the plunging ravine, the West Wall looks even more monumental, and to our right across the cleft of Jordan Gap is the summit of the Pinnacle. I lack the climbing skills to make the sheer descent and re-ascent, but it is thrilling to stand so close. I spy the modest cairn on its summit and recall O. G. Jones’s mention of a tobacco tin stashed discretely below it, in which Victorian climbers left their calling cards. I wonder if it still there. Chris is gazing around enrapt. The view of Great Gable is astounding.

The summit of the Pinnacle from Pisgah Buttress
The summit of the Pinnacle from Pisgah Buttress
The author on Pisgah Buttress
The author on Pisgah Buttress – photo by Richard Jennings

The Savage Temple and the Roof of England

Wainwright declared, “The face of Scafell Crag is the grandest sight in the district, and if only the highest point of the fell were situated on the top of Deep Gill Buttress, perched above the tremendous precipices of stone, it would be the best summit of all”. The fact that Symonds Knott is not the summit, and the real summit is offset, somewhat removed from this sublime drama, was a disappointment to him, and the fact that much of the rest of Scafell lacks the awe-inspiring majesty at its heart, is perhaps why Wainwright, the accountant, the objective quantifier, marked it down in relation to its marginally higher sibling. But for Wainwright the poet, the romantic, the eloquent apostle of the sublime, this “towering rampart of shadowed crags” is “the greatest display of natural grandeur in the district, a spectacle of massive strength and savage wildness… an awesome and humbling scene.”

Deep Gill Buttress
Deep Gill Buttress / Symonds Knott

Chris has an early draft of AW’s Fellwalking with a Camera. It contains a page on the West Walk Traverse which was dropped from the final publication (much against Wainwright’s wishes) as the photograph was slightly out of focus. In the text he describes Deep Gill as “the most enthralling place in Lakeland”.

We wander back to the head of the gill from where Wainwright sketched the Pinnacle and Pisgah Buttress, including himself bottom right as “the Oracle”. Last year Chris published a book called Wainwright Memories in which he takes Andrew Nicol, Wainwright’s publisher back to the scenes of several photoshoots and retraces a holiday the pair took with their wives in Scotland. Andrew had the unenviable task of persuading AW to cooperate with publicity initiatives, but he soon learned to broach such matters the right way, and a deep respect and friendship grew between the two men. The book is a warm, touching, and nostalgic insight into that friendship. One of its themes involves recreating old photographs from the Scottish trip and Lakeland locations, with Andrew looking remarkably unchanged and Chris or his wife Priscilla, or her sister, Angela, or Angela’s husband, Glenn standing in for AW or Betty or Andrew’s wife, Bernice. We are certainly not going to let Chris get away without recreating Wainwright’s iconic Deep Gill sketch now. Richard takes charge, fishing out a copy of The Southern Fells and painstakingly arranging Chris’s position.

Chris recreates Wainwright's iconic sketch
Chris recreates Wainwright’s iconic sketch – photo by Richard Jennings

Once done, and after a brief visit to the true summit, we pick our way down the eroded scree of a natural amphitheatre to the puddle that is Foxes Tarn, then scramble down its gully to ascend Mickledore from the Eskdale side. After gazing in hushed reverence at the “the sublime architecture of buttresses and pinnacles soaring into the sky”, we venture back through Hollow Stones, to join the hordes descending the “tourist route” from Scafell Pike.

I understand why AW cited Scafell Pike as number one on his list of six best Lakeland mountains. There is something special about the feeling that you are standing on the Roof of England—the nation’s highest ground. I remember being there in the golden light of a winter afternoon, with snow on the ground and the low sun bathing Yeastyrigg Crags and Bowfell in an ethereal amber glow. Despite the biting cold, everywhere emanated a magical warmth. It felt like hallowed ground.

And yet, it was only when I turned my head that my pulse truly quickened. Scafell had fallen into shadow, and across Mickledore, Scafell Crag reared like a mighty black tower, fierce and intimidating, the realm of Krampus—a savage temple at the sublime heart of Lakeland.

Further Reading:

Chris’s book Wainwright Memories is a must for Wainwright enthusiasts and is available from his website:

Richard’s Lakeland Routes website is a treasure trove of detailed trip reports and local history. Well worth checking out:

https://www.lakelandroutes.uk

Acclaimed nature writer, James Perrin has called Andrew Terrill’s On Sacred Ground, “the newest classic of our outdoor literature”. On Sacred Ground and its prequel, The Ground Beneath My Feet are available from Amazon:

John Pepper’s Cockley Beck – a Celebration of Lakeland in Winter is an enthralling account of the author’s rejuvenating experiences, overwintering in a Spartan Duddon Valley cottage. Robert MacFarlane has called it “one of the great classics of British nature writing”. It is out of print but secondhand copies can be found. First published in 1984 by Element Books Ltd, Shaftesbury. I believe there was also a later edition by the History Press.

Norman Nicholson’s The Lakers is a breathtaking distillation of the work and motivations of all the early Lake District writers, interwoven with Nicholson’s own beautifully evocative prose. It is also out of print, but secondhand copies are relatively easy to find. First published in 1955 by Robert Hale, but a softback edition was published in 1995 by Cicerone.


    Enjoyed this post?

    Like to receive free email alerts when new posts are published?

    Leave your name and email and we'll keep you in the loop. This won't be more than once or twice a month. Alternatively, follow this blog on Facebook by "Liking" our page at https://www.facebook.com/lakelandwalkingtales

    Whiskey Man: Lanty Slee – a Legend of Langdale

    Wainwright described the square mile between Tilberthwaite and Langdale as “one of the loveliest in Lakeland”. In the 1800’s it was home to a notorious bootlegger, famed for his ingenuity, audacity, and ability to outwit the authorities. I walk from Rhunestone Quarry, over Holme Fell, to Tarn Hows on the trail of Lanty Slee.

    Mountain Dew

    Over Little Langdale Tarn, Lingmoor extends a long flank, dressed in the earthy tones of winter scrub—ochre, umber, and maroon. Where its slopes fall to Blea Tarn, the shadowy Langdale Pikes rise like rough-hewn turrets, carved from the bedrock by elemental forces. To the northeast, low-lying cloud conspires to paint the curve of the Fairfield Horseshoe as the rim of a mighty volcano, plumes of white mist belching from its crater like ash and steam.

    Langdale Pikes from Rhunestone Quarry
    Langdale Pikes from Rhunestone Quarry

    The illusion is fitting as these ancient hills were indeed spewed from the vent of a submarine volcano somewhere in the vicinity of the Scafells, then transported, submerged, compacted, pressured, exposed, and sculpted by the relentless effects of tectonic shifts, ice, and water over hundreds of millennia. As Ian Jackson explains so well in his book, Cumbria Rocks, it was this very journey that formed the rippling patterns which make Coniston green slate so alluring. They are the swirling imprint of tides and waves, the watermarks of the deep Ordovician ocean that once covered these hills.

    Two centuries ago, quarrying here in Tilberthwaite was rife, excavating fellsides already peppered with copper mine levels, and creating the landscape that Wainwright described as “pierced and pitted with holes—caves, tunnels, shafts and excavations”. But these scars are not a blot. To quote Wainwright again: “Wetherlam is too vast and sturdy to be disfigured and weakened by man’s feeble scratchings… The square mile of territory between Tilberthwaite Gill and the Brathay is scenically one of the loveliest in Lakeland (in spite of the quarries) and surely one of the most interesting (because of the quarries)”.

    Tilberthwaite Level
    Tilberthwaite Level

    Behind me, Rhunestone quarry on Betsy Crag has gouged a long gully in the fellside. After decades of disuse, nature is slowly reclaiming this cross-section, softening its splintered sides with speckles of lichen and sprouting foliage from its fissures. A grass walkway divides the gully into two distinct pits. The crumbled remains of buildings nestle beneath walls of stacked spoil, and a long flat slab provides the roof of an arch, the gateway to the higher reaches of the upper pit. But it’s this pit’s lower reaches that have drawn me here, for during a short spell in the mid 1800’s, they produced more than slate. I scramble down a grassy bank, and climb with care down a loose and shifting bed of slippery spoil, damp with morning dew. And I smile at the thought, because Morning Dew (or Mountain Dew) had another meaning here.

    Rhunestone Quarry, Tilberthwaite
    Rhunestone Quarry, Tilberthwaite
    Rhunestone Quarry, Tilberthwaite
    Rhunestone Quarry, Tilberthwaite
    Rhunestone Quarry, Tilberthwaite
    Rhunestone Quarry, Tilberthwaite
    Rhunestone Quarry, Tilberthwaite
    Rhunestone Quarry, Tilberthwaite

    In the very bottom, lies a small opening, a cave entrance, crowned with mossy grass and overhung with the spindly branches of a rowan. It’s pitch dark inside, but torchlight reveals a sunken floor submerged in emerald water. In times gone-by, any water collected here would have been distilled into something altogether more potent, for in the tight confines of this cave, Lanty Slee made Mountain Dew.

    Lanty Slee's Cave
    Lanty Slee’s Cave
    Lanty Slee's Cave
    Lanty Slee’s Cave

    Lanty Slee was a notorious bootlegger, and Mountain Dew or Morning Dew was slang for his whiskey—although to place an order you supposedly had to enquire whether he’d had a good crop of “tatties” (potatoes). He started operating in a small way in the early 1820’s, and by 1840, he was producing 400 to 500 gallons a year and supplying a good many residents of the Langdale, Tilberthwaite, Yewdale, and Colwith area—much to the consternation of the excise men whose duty it was to shut him down. To evade their clutches, his whiskey-still was constantly on the move, and several quarries and cottages in the area claim to have hosted it for a while.

    Little Langdale and Fairfield Horseshoe over Lanty Slee's Cave
    Little Langdale and Fairfield Horseshoe over Lanty Slee’s Cave

    Tee-total in Tilberthwaite

    Indeed, last year as I was returning from a fell walk and approaching one such cottage, a scene reminiscent of Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner unfolded—a gentleman with a “long grey beard and glittering eye” stopped me with a quizzical expression and engaged me in conversation. His was not a dark story of superstition and ancient curses, however, he was extremely convivial and excited to know which peaks I had visited. As a former fellwalker and quarryman, he was full of warm nostalgia for the higher ground, and when I admired his cottage, the conversation got really intriguing.

    “Oh, I’ve had those history types round,” he said. “They reckon it’s where Lanty Slee had one of his stills. See those steps over there. There were pipes and all sorts under there, and the floor’s been concreted, but you can tell it’s moved. I’d love to know what used to be down there.”

    In 1841, a similar cottage gave up its secret. On the 2nd October, the Kendal Mercury reported:

    “On Tuesday last the Exciseman, having received information of a still being at work, proceeded with the Hawkshead police to a lonely cottage at Tilberthwaite, five miles from Hawkshead, the residence of Lancelot Slee to search for a hidden store, and after a careful examination they discovered the place of the works in a vault excavated under the stable, the entrance to which was by a trap-door at the head of the stall, under the horse’s fore feet.

    The stall was kept well filled with straw, and if Lanty had occasion to go in or come out, he had nothing to do but to call the horse by name, and repeat the necessary word, and the docile animal would instantly stand off, or rise up, for the free ingress or egress of his master. The flue of the boiler was ingeniously carried underground into the chimney of the cottage.”

    According to the Westmorland Gazette:

    “All the traps were hoisted off to Ambleside, whiskey and all; and it is supposed that there were some of the strongest spirits that ever were made, for those that only smelled were sent half sensover. It is said that a Tee-total Society is going to be commenced by the mountaineers, for they say that they can be as good temperance chaps as any when Lanty’s whiskey is done, and he must make no more.”

    Whatever they told the reporter, the dalesmen had other ideas. When the seizure of another Lanty’s stills made the papers, twelve years later, The Gazette’s Sawrey correspondent recalled what had happened previously: “A few years ago, when the worm and the still had been taken, and were lodged at Ambleside, a party of dalesmen went by night, broke into the warehouse that contained the apparatus, and, on the proprietor returning from a six month’s sojourn at the tread-mill, he was presented with his much-loved and valuable engines.” Another report suggests this pattern of events had happened at least three times before.

    Hodge Close and Holme Fell

    From Rhunestone quarry, I double back to the Tilberthwaite/Langdale track and take the footpath that skirts Moss Rigg Wood, detouring into the trees to take a look at Moss Rigg quarry. This is the rumoured location of another of Lanty’s stills. Great walls of chiselled slate rise like cubist sculptures from a deep pit lined with spoil. A screen of garnet and ginger twig—larch and silver birch—softens the angular stone, as nature, here too, reclaims what’s hers.

    Moss Rigg Quarry
    Moss Rigg Quarry

    Beyond the wood, the path brings me to Slater bridge over the Brathay, which Wainwright describes as “the most picturesque footbridge in Lakeland, a slender arch constructed of slate from the quarries and built to give the quarrymen a shorter access from their homes”.

    Two thirds of a mile from Stang End, I come to Hodge Close, where old quarry buildings have been repurposed as holiday lets, the Old Riving Shed still named for its former function. Here quarried boulders, known as clog, would be split along lines of weakness, called bate, by rivers working with hammer and chisel.

    A few yards further on, the ground drops away dramatically to Tilberthwaite’s most celebrated and visited quarry pit. Sheer walls of slate, iron-red with haematite, plunge to a deep pool of copper green. A charcoal grey tunnel opening sits just above the water line like a huge skeletal eye socket. This feature has given rise to the name, Skull Cave, for when photographed along with its reflection in the water and the image turned on its side, the scene resembles a skull. The resemblance doesn’t stop there. From inside the cave, another opening, less prominent from above, resembles a second eye socket, and the narrow pillar of rock dividing them becomes a nose, giving the impression of standing inside a giant stone skull. No doubt these macabre illusions helped in the cave’s selection for location filming in Netflix serial, The Witcher.

    Hodge Close
    Hodge Close
    Hodge Close
    Hodge Close
    Hodge Close
    Hodge Close
    Hodge Close
    Hodge Close
    Hodge Close
    Hodge Close

    Beyond the pit, a path leads up through the trees, past disused reservoirs, to the flanks of Holme Fell, its lower contours feathered with auburn-branched larches and tinted ginger with rusted bracken; its craggier tops are dressed in chocolate waistcoats of winter heather, like the fleeces of Herdwick yearlings. Norman Nicholson once described the Yewdale Fells as “vicious crags, not very high, but fanged like a tiger”. The image extends to their next-door-neighbour. Holme Fell’s southern face plunges to Yewdale in a series of steep rocky drops: Raven Crag, Calf Crag, Long Crag, and Ivy Crag; but if these are the bared teeth of an alpha predator, the gentle approach from the north is a stroll up the soft nape of its neck. The top of its head is the finest of viewpoints for a landscape washed in the earthen tones of winter: clay red, ochre, russet and charcoal, and hatched grey with spoil. Coniston Water snakes southwestward like a sliver of molten silver; the Langdale Pikes are a slate-grey castle, conjured from Middle Earth; and the old reservoir sparkles like a sapphire amongst the scrub.

    Langdale Pikes from Holme Fell
    Langdale Pikes from Holme Fell
    Coniston Water from Holme Fell
    Coniston Water from Holme Fell
    Langdale Pikes from Holme Fell
    Langdale Pikes from Holme Fell

    Herdwicks and Mrs Heelis

    A scramble down the summit rocks leads to the subsidiary peak of Ivy Crag, and a descent to Yew Dale Tarn, nestled below the trees of Harry Guards Wood. I pass Yewdale Farmhouse, with its seventeenth century spinning gallery, used for drying Herdwick wool. The farm was bequeathed to the National Trust by Herdwick Breed Association President-Elect, Mrs Heelis, better-known beyond these parts as Beatrix Potter.

    Yew Tree Tarn from Harry Guards Wood
    Yew Tree Tarn from Harry Guards Wood
    Yew Tree Farm
    Yew Tree Farm

    Across the road, a path climbs through the trees beside the crystal cascades of Tom Heights—a hypnotic dance of wood and waterfall. At the top is Tarn Hows, landscaped by the Marshall family in the 1800’s. Along with Yew Tree Farm, it was part of the Monk Coniston estate, which Beatrix Potter bought from the Marshalls on behalf of the National Trust. Once the Trust had raised sufficient funds, it purchased part of the estate from her, but kept her on as estate manager, which led to some colourful clashes with their land agent. Beatrix bequeathed them the remainder in her will. Today, Tarn Hows is one of Lakeland’s top attractions, but for all its serene waters and arboreal splendour, it’s not my primary destination this afternoon. I’m still on Lanty’s trail and a little further up the Cumbria Way lies High Arnside Tarn. Its waters are a draw for anglers, but around 1853, they may have had another use too.

    Waterfall Tom Heights
    Waterfall Tom Heights
    Waterfall Tom Heights
    Waterfall Tom Heights
    Tarn Hows
    Tarn Hows

    Contraband in Colwith

    That year, the seizure of another of Lanty’s stills again made the papers. On Saturday 26th of March, the Westmorland Gazette reported:

    “A remarkable discovery of a cave containing an illicit still and all the appurtenances for the illegal manufacture of whiskey was made on the 12th inst. by Mr. Bowden, officer of inland revenue of this town. The locale of this discovery was on the farm of Mr. Lancelot Slee, High Arnside, Colwith, Little Langdale, about five miles from Ambleside and six from Coniston. The secluded character of the place, and the crafty concealment of the cave, renders it a matter of some wonder how Mr. Bowden contrived to discover and find access to it.

    The cave has been evidently hollowed out entirely by labour. It is situated near the edge of a somewhat precipitous bank, the abrupt natural fall of one field of the farm into another. The access to it is not at the side, but perpendicularly through a hole at the surface, covered with a flat stone or flag. This aperture, which no doubt did the double duty of a chimney as well as a door, was covered carefully over with brackens. On descending it was found that the sides and floor and roof of the cave were all flagged, the flags of the roof overlapping each other quite in a clever workmanlike style, so as to throw off the water towards the bank above-mentioned. Strong posts and rafters made this subterranean retreat secure from any danger of falling in. The size of this underground apartment is about three or four yards long by two or three yards broad, and at the end where the contraband work was transacted a man could stand up-right. The mode by which that indispensable requisite, water, was supplied for the distilling process formed part of the ingenious adaptation of the place. A little mountain rivulet was contrived, by a small dam about twenty or thirty yards from the cave, to aid in the illicit production of ‘mountain dew’. When it was wanted the little stream found its way to the cave under a covering of turf and brackens, and having done its office this Alpheus of the whiskey-still sank underground and re-appeared about four or five yards from the cave like any ordinary drain. When not wanted for distilling a stone just shifted at the dam turned it off to another field, as though for the simple purpose of irrigation.”

    Local historian, Phil Burrows has made it his quest to seek out the locations of Lanty’s stills, and with the help of the current residents of High Arnside Farm, he thinks he has found the spot where Mr. Bowden triumphantly uncovered this cave. Without a full archeological dig, he cannot prove it, but if he’s right, the stream that Lanty so cunningly diverted would have been an outflow from High Arnside Tarn.

    High Arnside Tarn
    High Arnside Tarn

    In 1897, The Lakes Herald reported the passing of exciseman, Mr. D. Flattely, and reminisced about the cunning of the bootleggers he’d made a career of chasing.  Chief among them was Lanty, who it was claimed could produce a bottle of his whiskey within 5 minutes, anywhere within a 20 mile radius of his home. Indeed, one magistrate was foolish enough to believe he’d got the better of Slee on this score:  

    “It is related that upon one occasion when Lanty had been in durance over night, and appeared in the justice room next morning, one of the magistrates—I think it was Dr. Davy—said to him, ‘I am told that you are able to furnish your friends with a glass of spirit at any time when desired, but I think we have broken the spell this time.’ Considerable was the merriment as Lanty produced a full bottle from his capacious coat pocket, and holding it up replies, ‘Mappen’ ye’r rang. Will ye hev a touch’.”

    While the excisemen occasionally uncovered his stills, they never found where Lanty stashed his bottles. And despite his best efforts, neither has Phil Burrows. In a landscape so potted with holes, perhaps it’s not surprising, but maybe, just maybe, everyone has been looking in the wrong place.

    Matters of the Spirit

    In 1916, Jonathan Denwood and John Denwood published a book called Idylls of a North Countrie Fair, in which they documented, in dialect, a series of recollections, stories and conversations with colourful local characters at Cumbrian fairs. The 8th August edition of the Penrith Observer carried a review. The reviewer is a little sniffy at the coarseness of some of the language used, concluding, “The introduction of these words and phrases—there are many of them—mars the pleasure of the reader, and will not let him leave the book lying about for his women folk to read.” However, some of the sketches are so entertaining that he overcomes his prudish distaste:

    “the best of them is the account of Lakeland smugglers… This purports to be the reproduction of a ‘crack’ Mr. J. M. Denwood had more than twenty years ago with an old resident of Little Langdale, who professed to know Lanty Slee, a noted smuggler of his time; at any rate he told some capital stories about him which are chronicled in most readable style.

    Then there was Whisky Walker, a Borrowdale quarryman, who was an adept both at distilling whisky, in illicit fashion, and in disposing it. He is described as a man who was ‘weel behaved, weel larned, an’ far travelled.’

    Then there was this little dialogue about one of the characters of Lakeland whose supposed merits have often been written about, and quite as frequently discounted:

    “Was he [Whisky Walker] any relation to Wondeful Walker, the famous Wasdale priest, John!

    Ah couldn’t tell ye that.

    Did you know Wondeful Walker, John!

    No, but Ah knew his dowter at was weddit on t’lanlword at Cunniston, an Ah’ve hard it said he was wonnerfal oald scrat, ‘at nivver did a turn for any of his neighbors widoot he was weel paid. He hed a laal kurk, a laal salary, an’ a big lot o’ barnes, but he mannished to seave a fortun ‘at when he deid com to mair nor his wages he’d iver eddled.

    (I knew his daughter who was married to the landlord at Coniston, and I’ve heard it said that he was a wonderful old penny-pincher, that never did a turn for any of his neighbours without being well-paid for it. He had a little church, a little salary, and a big lot of children, but he managed to save such a fortune that when he died it came to more than all the wages he’d ever earned).

    Did he aid and abet the smugglers, John!

    Ah’ll nut say that, but t’ meast of t’ kurks in them days war used as hidin’ pleaces by t’ smugglers an’ whisky makkers. Ah know a family vault in a country kurkyard ‘at Lanty Slee an’ me hev sleeped in an’ hidden stuff in mair nor yance or twice, fra daybrek till t’ neet fell again.

    (…most of the churches in those days were used as hiding places by the smugglers and whisky makers. I know a family vault in a churchyard that Lanty Slee and me have slept in and hidden stuff in more than once or twice, from daybreak to nightfall.)

    What, beside coffins, John!

    Aye, it t’ wick fwok we war flate on, nut t’ deid uns.

    (Aye, it was the living folk we were wary of, not the dead ones.)

    Did the priests connive at your doings!

    Weel, they war niver agean takkin owt they could git for nowt, nor agean buyin’ a sup spirits on t’ cheap.”

    Never let it be said that the 19th century clergymen of Borrowdale and Langdale were anything less than dedicated to all matters of the spirit!

    Lanty Slee's Cave
    Lanty Slee’s Cave

    Sources/Further Reading

    All these newspaper reports are available through the British Newspaper Archive, but for those without a subscription, local history writer, Raymond Greenhow has done a fine job of collating all the detail and more into a chronological portrait of Lanty, rooted in fact.

    https://scafellhike.blogspot.com/2020/06/lanty-slee-and-his-mountain-dew.html

    Phil Burrows has made an intriguing and highly entertaining video about his quest to uncover all of Lanty Slee’s hideouts and his theories about High Arnside Tarn.  Well worth a watch:

    Ian Jackson’s book, Cumbria Rocks is a fascinating guide to the geology of Cumbria, written by an expert but aimed at walkers. Accessible and readable, it is packed full of brilliant photographs and profits go to the Cumbria Wildlife Trust. It is published by Northern Heritage and available from their website:

    https://www.northern-heritage.co.uk/product/search/cumbria-rocks-60-extraordinary-rocky-places-that-tell-the-story-of-the-cumbrian-landscape

    The following modern day interview on sirgordonbennett.com gives fascinating details insights into to the process of riving slate:


      Enjoyed this post?

      Like to receive free email alerts when new posts are published?

      Leave your name and email and we'll keep you in the loop. This won't be more than once or twice a month. Alternatively, follow this blog on Facebook by "Liking" our page at https://www.facebook.com/lakelandwalkingtales

      Thorstein – A Viking’s Adventure In Lakeland

      Thorstein of the Mere is a fictional tale of how Coniston Water got its old name. It blends bloody history and ghostly legend in a compelling picture of life in Dark Age Lakeland. Inspired by Collingwood’s novel, I walk from Beacon Tarn to the Giant’s Grave in the footsteps of Celts and Vikings.

      Legends of The Northmen

      The son of a giant, and a shapeshifter with the ability to change sex, Loki was a companion to Odin and Thor, but his penchant for playing tricks would prove his downfall. When he tricked the blind god, Höd into killing Balder, the most loved of all the gods, his punishment was severe.

      Giant's Grave. Woodland
      Giant’s Grave. Woodland

      Loki was bound to a rock with the entrails of his son. Above, hung a great serpent that would drip venom on him. To spare his torment, Loki’s wife would catch the venom in a bowl, but when the bowl was full, she would have to leave his side to empty it. While she was gone, the venom would splash onto Loki’s face. His spasms of pain were the cause of the earthquakes.

      The story is a central tenet of Norse mythology, but intriguingly, it is depicted alongside Christian scenes of the crucifixion on a tall sandstone cross in the churchyard at Gosforth, near Wastwater. The Gosforth cross is intriguing testimony to the blending of Celtic Christian and pagan Viking cultures in 10th century Cumbria.

      The reasons for the Viking invasion are themselves misted in legend. They concern the mythical Danish king, Ragnar Lodbrok, who distinguished himself through many raids on the east coast. Ragnar’s sons, Bjorn Ironside, Ubba, Sigmund Snake-in-the-Eye, Halfdan, and Ivar the Boneless gained such fame as warriors that their father felt compelled to outdo them. Ragnar bragged he would conquer Britain with just two boats, but his efforts were thwarted by Ella, King of Northumbria, who executed Ragnar by throwing him into a snake pit. To avenge their father’s death, Ivar, Halfdan, and Ubba raised a large army and set sail. 

      On arrival in Britain, Ivar declined to fight and headed for Northumbria to make peace with Ella. In return, he asked for as much land as he could cover with a bull hide. The king agreed, but Ivar was cunning. He stretched the hide as thinly as it would go then cut it into fine strips. Sewn together, they created a cord large enough to encircle York, which duly became his Viking capital, Jorvik. Ivar then sent for his brothers and their armies. They defeated Ella and executed him by carving the blood eagle into his back (a gruesome torture, which we can only hope existed solely in the imaginations of the saga writers).

      But Ivar the Boneless and Halfdan step out of the pages of mythology and on to the pages of history when they arrive in Britain. In 865 AD, they really did lead the Great Pagan Army that proceeded to conquer the kingdoms of East Anglia, Mercia, and Northumbria. Viking ambitions to conquer Wessex were finally thwarted by Alfred The Great in 878 at the battle of Edington. A settlement was reached in which the east of England—East Anglia, East Mercia (East Midlands) and Northumbria (which included Yorkshire)—would be under Danish rule, while Wessex, and West Mercia would remain Anglo-Saxon.

      But Cumbria was not part of England. It was part of Strathclyde, an independent Celtic kingdom which stretched up above the Solway to where Glasgow now stands. It had largely resisted incursions by the Saxons, the Scoti, and the Danes. The Vikings that settled along its coastal plain were not Danes but Norwegians, arriving by way of the Orkneys, Dublin, and the Isle of Man. While undoubtedly fearsome warriors, they do not seem to have shared the desire to subjugate and rule. They were farmers and frontiersmen seeking new lands, or perhaps, their independence from a recently unified Norway. They helped shape the Cumbrian landscape by clearing forests for pasture; they may even have introduced the Herdwick sheep. In such turbulent times, their desire to self-govern was similar to that of the indigenous Celts, and they learned to live alongside each other, if not in perfect harmony, at least in a loose tactical coalition of common interest.

      Coniston Water from The Beacon
      Coniston Water from The Beacon

      A Saga of the Northmen in Lakeland

      Such is the world that provides the setting for W. G. Collingwood’s 1895 novel, Thorstein of the Mere. The eponymous mere is Coniston Water, and the novel is Collingwood’s imagined tale of how the lake got its original name, Thurston Water. Its subtitle, A Saga Of The Northmen In Lakeland, is a mission statement. Collingwood was a scholar of the Norse sagas, and an archaeologist who excavated several Lakeland sites. His novel is an attempt to credibly portray what life must have been like in Cumbria in the 10th Century, both for the Vikings and the Celts. The principal characters are imagined, but the story is woven around four historical events—the treaty in Bakewell (920), the Treaty of Dacre (927), the battle of Brunanburh (937), and the battle for Cumbria (945)—that helped shape Anglo-Saxon England and Brittonic Cumbria.

      When Alfred the Great died, he was succeeded by his son, Edward the Elder, who succeeded in driving the Danes out of East Anglia and Mercia until only Northumbria remained under the Danelaw. In 920, Edward summoned the other British kings and chieftains, including Ragnald—the Viking king—and Owain—the Celtic king of Strathclyde—to a meeting in Bakewell, where he persuaded them to accept his overlordship in return for peace and the retention of their kingdoms.

      Thorstein is a young boy at this time, growing up at Greenodd, by the mouth of the River Crake. The South Lakes is home to several Norwegian settlements, centred on Ulfar’s Town (Ulverston). Ulfar is a friend and neighbour of Thorstein’s father, Swein, and his town acts as a meeting place for the Thing—an assembly where the local Northmen agree common laws and discuss trade and harvests. Further north is another Norwegian settlement under the control of their kinsman, Ketel. Ulfar, Swein, and Ketel, are summoned to Bakewell alongside Owain. Swein has no argument with the Saxon king but becomes enraged by the presence of Ragnald the Dane, an old enemy. Edward’s diplomacy prevails, however, and he persuades Swein to agree, if not to Edward’s overlordship, then at least to peace.

      Thorstein’s early years are relatively idyllic, growing up in a fine Viking timber house, learning to till the land and look after sheep and cattle, playing in the river and dreaming of setting sail and claiming new lands. Then in 927, one of the Celtic fell-folk, a red-headed giant of a man, appears from the forest to deliver a burnt arrow. It is a summons. Swein had heard from chapmen (itinerant tinkers) that Edward and Ragnald had both died and been succeeded by their sons, Athelstan and Sigtrygg. Sigtrygg had tried to extend the boundaries of the Danelaw, but Athelstan had been quick to push him back. But now it seems that Sigtrygg too has died and Athelstan has conquered York to proclaim himself King of all England. For fear the Saxon king’s ambitions will not stop there, King Constantine of Scotland and Owain are mobilising against him. The Lakeland Northmen are urged to join them. The giant will return in several days to lead them over the mountains to join the host.

      Wool Knott, Blawith Common
      Wool Knott, Blawith Common

      ~

      W. G. Collingwood

      At the Ruskin Museum in Coniston three of Collingwood’s watercolours hang alongside Ruskin’s own. Collingwood was Ruskin’s assistant—his aide du camp as Ruskin called him—and founder of the museum. Some think that Collingwood would have achieved more had he stepped from Ruskin’s shadow, but these paintings are not overshadowed. One of the Coniston Coppermines Valley, brooding clouds swirling around the Bell, holds my attention longer than anything else in the room. Collingwood was highly attuned to the Lakeland landscape, and his vivid descriptions in the novel are as evocative as his paintings.

      Coniston Mountains across Blawith Common
      Coniston Mountains across Blawith Common

      ~

      The Giant’s Demand

      The Celtic giant leads the Northmen over the wild moorland of Blawith Common, to Hawkshead and the banks of Windermere, where they find the ruins of Galava, the Roman city of Ambleside—its former magnificence is evident even though its buildings are crumbling. From there, they follow the old Roman road past Rydal and Grasmere to Thirlmere, then east from Blencathra to Dacre near Eamont where their massed forces gather. But they are no match for Athelstan’s Saxon army, which is already encamped, and to avoid a bloodbath, they accept Athelstan’s overlordship and pledge that none shall attack their neighbours.

      Beacon Tarn from Wool Knott
      Beacon Tarn, Blawith Common

      On their return to Greenodd, Swein asks his Irish wife, Unna to converse with the Celt and ask what gift they can give him as a reward for guiding them through the mountains. His reply shocks them. As political insurance, he wants to foster one of their children. Swein refuses, but over the coming months, children of thralls (servants) and shepherds go missing and are found dead in the woods, and the Northmen remain on high alert.

      The worry of the fell-folk slowly subsides, but the peace with Athelstan is fragile, not least because the Danish King Guthferth Ivarson of Dublin (who was not part of the treaty) uses Cumbria as a through route to mount raids on York. Aware of how cut-off they from their kinsmen further north, the various Norwegian communities agree to congregate at an annual Althing. As a venue, they choose Legburthwaite at the head of St John’s in the Vale—the spot where they parted after the Treaty of Dacre.

      Thorstein Finds the Mere

      Meanwhile, Thorstein has grown into a strong and curious thirteen-year-old, thirsty for adventure. He and his brothers know “by hearsay of wide lakes among the fells, lying all alone for the first adventurer to take and hold”, and Thorstein imagines that if he could only track the Crake, he might discover “the great water”. Swein has warned his children to always keep in sight of home, “but he might as well have warned the smoke not to go out of the chimney”. Thorstein persuades his elder brother, Hundi, to go with him, and the two boys set off up the valley of the Crake. There are none of gentle pastures that grace its banks today. The shores are thick with forest, and their journey becomes a demanding ghyll scramble. By the time they reach the spot where Lowick bridge now stands, Hundi has had enough and turns back, but Thorstein battles on alone, climbing Lowick force and navigating the swamp beyond until, “when the wood thinned, and the waterway broadened, and the world grew brighter, and lo, beyond, a great gleam of blue, and a blaze of golden sky”.

      Coniston Water from The Beacon
      Coniston Water from The Beacon

      Thorstein has discovered his mere and sleeps like a squirrel in the boughs of a great oak. In the morning, he sets off for Greenodd to fetch witnesses so he can claim the lake as his territory, but before he has gone far, he is hit on the head with a cudgel. When he comes round, he is being dragged through the wood by the red-headed giant, and his henchmen. The giant has his fosterling, and Thorstein is about to enter the world of the fell-folk.

      Juniper, Blawith Common
      Juniper, Blawith Common

      Blawith Common – Home of the Celtic Fell-Folk

      “BEYOND the heather was the giant’s home, on the fell between Blawith and Broughton. On one hand were the waste wet mosses of the moor, and on the other hand, far below, the great flats of Woodlands, surrounded by the tossing rocky range of Dunnerdale fells, from Brimfell on the right hand away down to Black Comb and the glittering sea.”

      In describing this terrain, Collingwood the storyteller morphs briefly into Collingwood the archaeologist:

      “Upon these moors, here and there you can find the walls of their buildings, and even in little corners what may be chambers, or store-houses, or fire-spots, or what not, curiously built of great stones: but all quite different from the farm buildings of our own people, and plainly the relics of an earlier race. Within these homesteads there are heaps that are round and hollow in the midst, with a gap for a doorway, and edged with stone within and without. Though the top of it is fallen in, one can see that such a ruin might have been a hut shaped like a beehive, and roofed over like those Pict-houses they tell of in other parts: high enough inside for a man to stand up in, and big enough for him to lie at length. When we dig into them, we find potsherds, and bones of their feasts, the charred stones and ashes of their fires, and now and then a scrap of iron or bronze, on the paving or along the skirting of the dry-stone wall. Also, hard by, one may light upon plenty of graves where the fell folk doubtless lie buried. Indeed, upon Blawith moor, under the Knott, there is a great barrow in which folk digging found burnt bones, and you can see the tall stone that stood at the head still standing there. They call this place the Giant’s Grave: and old neighbours tell that it is the burial place of the last of the giants who dwelt in that moorland village, and that he was shot with an arrow on that very fell side, and so was killed, and his race ended.”

      Giant's Grave. Woodland
      Giant’s Grave. Woodland
      Ancient Settlement
      Ancient Settlement

      ~

      Cudgel-wielding giants no longer stalk Blawith Common. Nor are you likely to meet armed Northmen coming from Ulfar’s Town, although you may encounter walkers making a similar trek along the Cumbria Way.

      In the early half-light of an October morning, Beacon Tarn is all mine, its pewter waters, a tranquil pool of timeless memory, hemmed with soft banks of bracken, muted colour gradually returning with the daylight, twilight tones turning to autumnal tints of mulberry, russet, and mustard. Collingwood once taught his protégé, Arthur Ransome, that the unique spirit of a place has as much to do with layers of memory as with the rocks and trees, and this ancient landscape is steeped in the ambience of his novel.

      Beacon Tarn
      Beacon Tarn
      Beacon Tarn

      I follow the Cumbria Way beneath Wool Knott as far as Tottlebank Heights then track right. When I reach the far end of Blawith Knott, the red sea of bracken parts to reveal an expanse of scrubby grass and scattered boulders, some natural erratics, but one, at least, is a solitary standing stone, marking the ancient grave of a giant. A little further on are the remains of a settlement, just as Collingwood describes.

      Giant's Grave. Woodland
      Giant’s Grave. Woodland
      Ancient Settlement
      Ancient Settlement
      Ancient Settlement
      Ancient Settlement

      As a Northman, Thorstein is appalled by the primitive crudity of their huts, their semi-wild cattle, and the meekness of their Christian religion, worshipped with simple wooden crosses. But the giant’s daughter takes a shine to him, and with time, a bond between them grows.

      “The child who had nursed him gave him to understand that her name was Raineach, that is Fern: and indeed she was not unlike the bracken when it is red in autumn, and she was slender and strong and wild as its tall fronds that smother up the hollows among the boulders on the moors.”

      Boulders near Giant's Grave
      Boulders and bracken near Giant’s Grave

      From the summit of Blawith Knott, I look out across the wild expanse to the Coniston mountains, which emerge like shadows from chiffon veils of cloud—the charcoal forms of spectral fells.  Beneath White Borran, two large ancient cairns lie shrouded in shoulder-high bracken, and sparse junipers stand like stunted sentinels.  I climb to the rocky summit of Wool Knott, and gaze over Beacon Tarn, slate blue in breaking sun, to the fiery flanks of Beacon fell beyond. From the shore, I climb to the top of the Beacon, and suddenly below, there is the long slender body of Thorstein’s mere, cool and languid, under wooded slopes.

      Coniston Water from The Beacon
      Coniston Water from The Beacon

      ~

      The Battle for Cumbria

      Thorstein spends three winters with the fell-folk. With time, they appear less uncouth, and he learns their prowess as hunters and fishermen. His bond with Raineach strengthens until the two are inseparable, and although he still dreams of absconding, he now imagines taking her with him. In the end, it is Raineach who instigates their escape.

      It is 937, and the peace has broken, Constantine and Owain are again rising against Athelstan, and this time the Irish Danes have joined their alliance. The Lakeland Northmen will fight alongside them. Promising Thorstein the opportunity to see his father, the giant and a few of his men take the boy over the fells to Thirlmere, where they encamp with their kin in the Iron Age fort at Castle Crag on The Benn. Raineach follows against her father’s wishes.

      Castle Crag fort, The Benn
      Castle Crag fort, The Benn

      The Battle of Brunanburh is an overwhelming victory for Athelstan. Owain is killed and his throne passes to his son, Domhnall. Swein dies too. The giant had meant to keep Thorstein as a ransom in case of trouble with the Northmen. Now with the boar dead, the piglet is a liability, and the giant means to kill him, but Raineach overhears and alerts Thorstein. The two make their break for freedom over the fells, arriving back at Greenodd in time for Swein’s wake.

      What ensues is an engrossing tale of adventure, love, and betrayal. A twist sees Thorstein declared an outlaw and forced to take refuge on Peel Island in the middle of his mere. The real truth behind his transgression disseminates, however, and Hundi and his friends prevail on Thorstein to attend the Althing to clear his name.

      Outside the sanctity of the Althing, Thorstein’s outlaw status means he is vulnerable to attack. As such, he takes a circuitous route by way of St Patrick’s Dale (Patterdale). Here, he meets two battle-bruised Celtic warriors. They inform him that Edmund has joined forces with Constantine’s successor, Malcolm, to invade Strathclyde. He has Domhnall’s army in retreat. Domhnall now plans to lure the Scots and Saxons into a narrow mountain pass, where his men can hide in the wooded slopes and ambush the advancing Saxons by rolling great boulders on them. Domhnall is heading for the Thirlmere, right where the Northmen are innocently gathering for their Althing. Thorstein must get to Legburthwaite early to warn them.

      The battle for Cumbria in 945 is as shrouded in legend as the story of Ragnar Lodbrok. According to the myth, Domhnall (corrupted to Dunmail by the Anglo-Saxon tongue) is slain by the Saxons and buried at Dunmail Raise. To keep his crown from Saxon hands, a few of his elite bodyguards, seize the crown, climb the slope of Raise Beck, and fling it into Grisedale Tarn. Every year, Dunmail’s ghost army returns to retrieve the crown and bid Dunmail rise again.

      Historians concede that a battle probably did take place. It is likely Edmund won and gifted the rule of Strathclyde to Malcolm, but it is also likely that Domhnall survived. Later, he may even have regained control of his kingdom.

      In Collingwood’s version, Thorstein crosses Striding Edge and experiences a premonition of the coming bloodshed—a vision as ghostly as the legend that would grow up around it. Ultimately, however, events unfold in line with the historical narrative, albeit with a little poetic flourish—Domhnall casts his own crown into Grisedale Tarn as he melts into the mountain mist with Aluin, the woman who has been his undoing.

      Grisedale Tarn
      Grisedale Tarn

      To learn Aluin’s story, and the fate of Thorstein and the Northmen, you will have to read the novel. Not only is it a fine, swashbuckling adventure, but as a credible imagining of life in Dark Age Cumbria, it is hard to beat.

      I am not alone in that opinion. Arthur Ransome said this:

      “For myself, the Lake Country and my own childhood would not have been what they were if I had not known Mr. W.J. Collingwood’s ‘Thorstein of the Mere’”.

      Sources/Further Reading

      A translation of The Saga of Ragnar Lodbrok and his Sons:

      http://www.germanicmythology.com/FORNALDARSAGAS/ThattrRagnarsSonar.html

      In this fascinating edition of Countrystride, archeologist, Steve Dickinson talks about the Gosforth cross, the Vikings in Lakeland, and a possible lost kingdom:

      https://www.countrystride.co.uk/single-post/countrystride-90-the-vikings-in-cumbria

      A little more on the Battle of Brunanburh from Diane McIlmoyle. (Please note the Giant’s grave Diane mentions is not the same as the one in my article). Diane’s article also includes links at the end to further posts of hers on the Treaty of Eamont Bridge (Dacre) and Dunmail’s battle with Edmund and Malcolm:


      The following books were also very helpful and well worth reading:

      Schama, Simon. 2000: A History of Britain, at the edge of the world? London: BBC Worldwide.

      Eastham, Paul. 2019: Huge and Mighty Forms, Why Cumbria Makes Remarkable People. Cockermouth: Fletcher Christian Books.

      Carruthers, F. J. 1979: People called CUMBRI. London: Robert Hale. 


        Enjoyed this post?

        Like to receive free email alerts when new posts are published?

        Leave your name and email and we'll keep you in the loop. This won't be more than once or twice a month. Alternatively, follow this blog on Facebook by "Liking" our page at https://www.facebook.com/lakelandwalkingtales

        Over The Edge: The Soaring Majesty of Pinnacle Ridge

        Pinnacle Ridge on St Sunday Crag is a head-rush of wonder and adrenaline, but as a grade 3 scramble, I had long imagined it beyond my capabilities. Then something happened, and I found myself on belay on one of Lakeland’s most dramatic arêtes.

        “Somewhere in an old guide-book, published more than fifty years ago, I remember reading: ‘St. Sunday Crag IS the Ullswater mountain,’ and, when you come to think about it, it’s not a bad description. For St. Sunday Crag dominates the western reach of Ullswater far more dramatically than Helvellyn and, in a sense, commands the whole length of the lake better than any other mountain”. So wrote Harry Griffin in The Roof Of England in 1968. He expresses surprise at how walkers and climbers have long overlooked “this long line of crag, as big as several Napes Ridges crowded together” when, “the Grisedale face of the mountain, which drops nearly 2000‘ in half a mile is one of the most dramatic fellsides in the country… Rock climbers had missed it for years and only started making climbs there 12 years ago”.

        These days, walkers are a more regular feature thanks in no small part to a book published eleven years before Griffin’s: Alfred Wainwright’s, The Eastern Fells. Wainwright completists now regularly discover St Sunday Crag by way of Birks or Arnison Crag, or by Deepdale Hause from Grisedale Tarn or Fairfield. Few brave its most dramatic ascent, however, as that lies within the liminal realm where walking ends and climbing begins. Pinnacle Ridge is a grade 3 scramble, much celebrated by those who have experienced its airy drama, but in Wainwright’s view, the grade 1-classified Jack’s Rake on Pavey Ark is “the limit” for fellwalkers, and like many others, I had long imagined Pinnacle Ridge to be beyond my capabilities.

        Looking back down Pinnacle Ridge
        Looking back down Pinnacle Ridge

        Then something happened. On the evening of April 1st, I spotted a Facebook post by Graham Uney Mountaineering offering fellwalkers, who want to step up a level, a guided and roped scramble over this iconic arête. Underneath was a comment from Nikki Knappett saying, “that looks amazing”. I know Nikki. We’ve been Facebook friends for a while but finally met in February when we both attended a three-day winter skills course in the Highlands. Having braved the frozen slopes of Cairngorm together, climbing Pinnacle Ridge seemed an appropriate next step. The offer was for two fellwalkers who would be roped together and share a climbing rack. It would be well outside my comfort zone, but sometimes you have to seize opportunities when they arise, and I was pumped full of Dutch courage, courtesy of a glass or two of Rioja, so I replied, saying, “I’m up for that, if you are”. Nikki messaged me almost immediately to say “Are you serious? YES!!”, and we emailed Graham before either of us could chicken out.

        Our initial date of May 10th had to be abandoned due to high winds and persistent rain. We rescheduled for June 27th, which just gave me longer to contemplate whether this snap decision had been the act of a colossal April Fool. But now the morning has arrived, excitement holds sway over nerves.

        We meet Graham in the car park of the Patterdale Sports Club. He has asked us to bring big rucksacks to accommodate the climbing gear, and promptly hands me a harness and 30m of rope to stow. He offers me a helmet, but I’ve brought my own. It’s currently acting as a makeshift lunch box, but my utilitarian packing is soon disrupted when the heavens open, and I dive to the bottom of my bag for waterproof over trousers.

        The author and Nikki (photo by Graham Uney)

        Nikki roars with laughter as my Gore-Tex over trousers are still patched with pink duct tape replete with unicorns, courtesy of misstep with a crampon on Cairngorm, and trusting Hayley Webb, a Winter Mountain Leader with a wicked sense of humour, to “fix” them for me.  No sooner are they on than the rain stops. Such is the power of the pink unicorns. Now, Graham and Nikki won’t let me take them off.

        We walk through Grisedale to the end of the Elmhow plantation, then leave the main path to zig zag steeply up hill, roughly following a beck. As we approach Blind Cove, the gradient eases and we track right below the crags. Across the valley, the east ridge of Nethermost Pike rears sharply upward to meet the summit plateau. Just a little further south, the Tongue makes a similar upward thrust to the top of Dollywagon Pike. These are stiff ascents: I’ve made both in recent weeks to try and build fitness in preparation for today. Each is rich in wild mountain drama, yet from each, my eyes wandered across the valley trying to pick out Pinnacle Ridge. I failed on both occasions. Graham assures me this is not unusual. The ridge is hard to spot from a distance, and the initial challenge that faces most scramblers is finding the start.

        Dollywagon Pike
        Dollywagon Pike

        In his classic book, Scrambles in the Lake District: North, Brian Evans instructs you to cross two small scree shoots and then a larger one, then look out for a rowan tree about 45m up on the right hand side. Graham tells me the rowan tree blew down some years back. Furthermore, what counts as a small scree shoot seems somewhat open to interpretation. We all agree when we reach the larger one but depending on your definition, we’ve crossed anything from zero to about eight of the smaller kind. Luckily Evans’ final landmark, “a prominent gun-like block higher up the ridge” is a more reliable clue. Graham points it out, and we walk up to a small grassy ledge below a wall of blocks and boulders. To the right, the ground banks down into a gully.

        The climb to the start of Pinnacle Ridge
        The climb to the start of Pinnacle Ridge

        Here, rope and harnesses are retrieved, and Graham talks us through the gear we’ll be using: slings, nuts, and cams or friends will provide temporary means of attaching carabiners to the rock to create belays for the rope which he now ties to our harnesses. Graham will lead and create these secure anchors. When he shouts, “you’re on belay”, that is our cue to move. Nikki will go second. I will go last and remove whichever nut, cam or sling we were hitherto attached to, twist it to compact, and clip it to my harness, then return it to Graham when we next converge. He will inspect my work like a sergeant-major offering the slightest of nods if it passes muster or a rueful, “that’s a right dog’s dinner” if I present him with a tangled mess.

        Roping Up on Pinnacle Ridge
        Roping Up on Pinnacle Ridge

        He shows us how to tie a clove hitch in the rope to attach to a carabiner, providing a secure hold when taut, and easy adjustment when slack. Then he cheerfully exclaims “this way” and disappears into a groove in the wall of boulder, his head emerging seconds later a few feet higher. Nikki and I hasten into the breach to see where he’s putting his hands and feet. He disappears over a parapet and a minute or two later, we hear, “You’re on belay”.

        Graham twisting a nut (so to speak)
        Graham twisting a nut (so to speak)

        Nikki smiles then turns to face the rock, but there’s a problem. Nikki has much shorter legs than Graham and can’t reach the footholds he used. At first, she laughs, but after three or four abortive attempts, she turns to me with a look of genuine concern and whispers, “I’m not sure I can do this”.

        I try to sound encouraging when I say, “of course you can”, but I needn’t have worried. Before the words have left my lips, Nikki’s expression hardens into a steely determination, and she looks again, this time spotting less-obvious options. She can’t get her foot over the parapet like Graham did, but she can get a knee on to it, and it’s enough purchase to haul herself over.

        Nikki and Graham starting up the jumbled blocks
        Nikki and Graham starting up the jumbled blocks

        The rope between us goes taut, and I’m reminded of the obvious: when Nikki moves, I must move too. I feel a guilty relief that the holds aren’t quite such a stretch for me. As we converge, Graham grins and asks, “what kept you?”. Nikki laughs and exclaims indignantly, “I’ve only got short legs!” It’s an exchange that will become something of a refrain.

        Learning to move in synch has its teething problems. I have to anticipate when Nikki’s next move is going to be successful (which it usually is), or when she’s going to step back down and reconsider. My initial failure to do so results in an inadvertent kick in the head. Nikki apologises profusely and reminds me she only has short legs. The mistake was all mine, but thanks to Graham’s insistence on helmets I scarcely felt the knock. With my attention duly sharpened, I read the next abortive attempt correctly and move my fingers before they get trodden on. Nikki succeeds on her third attempt, and suddenly I’m obliged to move quickly to avoid pulling her back down.

        As we reconvene at the top of the step, the ridge opens out before us, and we survey the scene with a head-rush of wonder and adrenaline. The next section is an erratic jumble of blocks, rising like toppled dominos to the gun-like boulder we spotted from below. Beyond, the ridge tapers to a slender spine above the plunging cleft of the gully. The spine is spiked with pinnacles, like the plates on the back of a stegosaurus.

        Graham climbing the jumbled blocks on Pinnacle Ridge
        Graham climbing the jumbled blocks on Pinnacle Ridge
        Graham climbing the jumbled blocks on Pinnacle Ridge
        Graham climbing the jumbled blocks on Pinnacle Ridge

        Under Graham’s supervision, Nikki ties us on to the carabiner and we watch Graham pick a route up over the blocks and boulders. Once on belay, we follow his line. Our next resting point affords a vista over the foot of Ullswater, an “L” shaped oasis of muted blue amid the forest green of its banks. The dappled fells are lighter shades, a dancing ephemera of sunlight and shadow.

        Ullswater over Grisedale
        Ullswater over Grisedale

        When we reach the top of the jumbled blocks, it looks as though the onward path is barred. The pinnacles sit atop a castle wall of rock. It looks unbreachable. Graham leads on and stops at the foot of a chimney which looks as unassailable as the walls we have passed. This is what Evans calls The Crux, and this is where he advises the use of rope even to those with climbing experience. Earlier, Graham had explained how climbing grades like Diff (Difficult) and V Diff (Very Difficult) are considered relatively moderate these days, but they were named by early pioneers who lacked the equipment we have now. Pioneers like Owen Glynne Jones, whose book, Rock climbing in the English Lake District did much to popularise the sport.  Indeed, Jones’s book is illustrated by the Abraham Brothers’, who produced iconic photographs of Victorian climbers standing proudly atop Scafell Pinnacle or Pillar Rock in nailed boots and tweed suits. Apparently, there was a surge in demand for “grippy” tweed to tailor such garments. Nikki looks up at the Crux and exclaims, “we could do with grippy tweeds!” Graham laughs and says, “It’s funny you should say that as at one point in his book, O G Jones says, ‘imagine a foothold that isn’t there, and put your foot on it’. That’s what we’re going to have to do here!”

        The Castle Wall
        The Castle Wall
        Heading for the Crux on Pinnacle Ridge
        Heading for the Crux on Pinnacle Ridge

        He points to a crack in the wall, and then to a couple of small footholds on the wall opposite. Using these as a springboard, he jams a fist into a fissure in the sidewall, steps across the gap and places a foot into the crack. It doesn’t appear to be resting on anything, but it supports him well enough to pull himself up an over the crest. When he gives us the go-ahead, Nikki attempts to follow.

        The Crux on Pinnacle Ridge
        The Crux on Pinnacle Ridge

        Such is the height of the wall in proportion to the length of rope separating us, that I must follow too before she reaches the top. Nikki can’t reach the fist jam that Graham used but throws her weight across the gap and relies on momentum to carry her across to the foothold that isn’t there. It works well, and as she gets a handhold over the parapet, I follow suit. The crack must narrow inside as the toe of my left boot finds a secure hold. I want to push up and use the momentum trick to get my belly over the top of the wall, but Nikki has stalled. Her short legs are struggling to reach the higher footholds that Graham used to propel himself over. I’ve nothing to hold on to, so I lurch right getting my fingers over the ledge and the sole of my right boot balanced on the slightest of rocky knuckles. I have an uneasy sensation of being suspended in mid air. At this point, Nikki asks if I can take a step back. It’s impossible from this angle with no other handholds, and a worried silence ensues. We appear stuck in a stalemate where neither of us can move.

        The Crux on Pinnacle Ridge
        The Crux on Pinnacle Ridge

        Then, that look of steely determination returns to Nikki’s face. She looks up and shouts, “have you got me, Graham?”

        “I’ve always got you, Nikki, you’re tied to my rope”, comes the reply, but Nikki hasn’t waited for it. From nowhere, she summons a burst of upward energy that carries her knee over the top. There’s a lot of grappling around, but she’s laughing now and asking if she looks like a “graceful walrus”. Soon she’s over and safe, and it’s my turn to worry. I’m not in the ideal position to push off, but, inspired by Nikki, I just go for it and happily, it works. I pull myself up, getting my right knee over the edge and my left foot onto a rocky spur which gives me the purchase I need to complete the move, albeit no more gracefully.

        Contemplating the Crux (photo by Graham Uney)

        We’re now on top of the castle wall, below which the grassy bank drops abruptly into the gully. The next challenge is to negotiate the crenellations. Graham grins, “You’ve done the hardest part, all of you have to do now is walk along the top of the pointy bits.”

        The Pinnacles on Pinnacle Ridge
        The Pinnacles

        It’s easier than it looks, yet just as exhilarating. Graham was slightly economical with the truth, however, in suggesting that all the hard bits were over. The spine culminates in the largest pinnacle and we regroup on top. The way off lies down a sloping slab which looks a little too smooth for comfort. There’s a large drop to the right. To ensure we are all secure during this traverse, Graham says we must change the order. I will go first, still belayed from the pinnacle. He’ll feed out just enough rope to get me over while negating the risk of falling far should I slip. He then hands me a sling to place over a boulder at the other end so we can belay him.

        Just walk over the pointy bits (photo by Graham Uney)

        We survey the slab together. Graham points out that the direct route down to the rocky platform at the base is over the smoothest part of the slab, but by veering right, the rock is more broken and a couple of angled boulders act as steps off the face and on to the platform. There is no room for error here, however, as this way lies right above the chasm.

        The Pinnacles on Pinnacle Ridge
        The Pinnacles on Pinnacle Ridge

        I turn in and, gripping tight with both hands, start to down climb, feeling around with my feet for holds. They prove hardest to find above the boulders. Persistence discovers the slightest of ledges, but the last reach backward on to the boulder is uncomfortably far, and I’m filled with the uneasy feeling of stepping off the rock into the void. After seconds that feel like minutes, my foot reaches the reassurance of solid rock, and I step down on to the boulder. From here, a simple sideways step gains the platform.

        Nikki has watched and concluded that the boulder is a step too far for her, so she opts instead to tackle the smooth face head on. She must have donned her imaginary grippy tweeds, either that or the rock face is more finely ridged than it looks, as she affects what amounts to a very well controlled slide. Graham is impressed, and once we have secured the sling, he follows her route.

        Between here and the top is another tower of irregular blocks, but hand and footholds abound, and the exposure is less extreme. This final section feels like child’s play compared to what we have just done.

        The final blocks on Pinnacle Ridge
        The final blocks on Pinnacle Ridge

        At the top, I look back over the spiky magnificence of the ridge, rising like a fossilised dinosaur from the gully, and a warm radiance of elation washes over me. I have always thought the phrase, “conquering a mountain” reeks of misplaced arrogance, but I get it now. It’s not the physical mountain we are conquering, but the mental one born of our own doubts and misgivings. With expert guidance and shared know-how, with technique, teamwork, a little trial-and-error, and the invaluable assistance of imaginary footholds and grippy tweeds, such conquests are possible. Even for those with short legs, which apparently includes Nikki, although she can’t remember whether she’s mentioned it.

        The final blocks (photo by Graham Uney)
        The final blocks – Nethermost Cove as a backdrop (photo by Graham Uney)

        More Info / Further Reading

        Find out more about Graham’s courses at:

        https://www.grahamuneymountaineering.co.uk/

        … or find him on Facebook:

        https://www.facebook.com/grahamuneymountaineering

        Read about our Cairngorm adventures, learning Winter Skills with Hayley Webb Mountaineering:

        A Bustle in the Hedgerow

        Hedgerow Diary—Cartmel Valley, 2021/22

        When lockdown kept me from the mountains, I woke up to what was right on my doorstep. During those first few weeks of tight restrictions, I would make a daily circuit of four country lanes. As the restrictions eased, I ranged a little further, exploring in earnest the low hills that ring the Cartmel Valley.

        But that short walk around the lanes remained, and still remains, my lunchtime ramble. It’s a landscape very like the one where I grew up: small rotational farms; hay meadows rich in wildflowers; compact fields with hedges and wide margins where micro wildernesses thrive.

        The more I focused on the minutiae, the more I saw: a perpetually changing cycle of life, growth, decay, and regeneration. As the hedgerows became more familiar, they became less familiar, and I came to appreciate how they constantly evolve.

        I started to learn the names of the wildflowers, the types of lichen even, and from May 2021, I began to keep a diary of photographs and descriptive writing—a paragraph or two, roughly every two weeks, documenting those changes.

        The following pages are that diary. They chart twelve months in the life of the hedgerows and hillsides of the Cartmel Valley.

        Navigation: each month has its own page. Use the green buttons to move through sequentially or the picture links below to jump straight to a particular month.


          Enjoyed this post?

          Like to receive free email alerts when new posts are published?

          Leave your name and email and we'll keep you in the loop. This won't be more than once or twice a month. Alternatively, follow this blog on Facebook by "Liking" our page at https://www.facebook.com/lakelandwalkingtales

          Loweswater Gold: the Remarkable Mysteries of Mellbreak

          Beguiling lakes, stiff scree slopes, a champion ale, a superlative waterfall eulogised by a Lake Poet, and a tragedy with a supernatural twist, I go in search of mystery and majesty in Loweswater.

          Loweswater Gold

          I’m heading for Loweswater. I have heard tell it is a magical realm where the lake is filled with a golden ale, as fine as any ale to have passed the lips of mortals. Ancient enchantments ensure the lake looks (and tastes) like water, but as it is magically syphoned into cellars of the Kirkstile Inn, it is transformed into the aptly named Loweswater Gold, crowned Champion Golden Ale of Britain in 2011. If I fail to return, do not mourn me. Be assured I died happy…

          Mellbreak


          The Kirkstile Inn sits beside the church (or kirk) in the village of Loweswater, and nestles in the shadow of Mellbreak, which rises like a rough-hewn pyramid beyond. Graphite grey in early morning shadow, Mellbreak’s tapering profile and plunging declivities suggest a mountain of Alpine proportions, but this is an illusion. The fell is a meagre 1676 feet high, and neither is it a pyramid. Behind its northern façade of Raven Crag and White Crag, Mellbreak stretches into a ridge with a wide summit plateau; it is shaped like the hull of an upturned boat and sports two summits.

          Mellbreak over the Kirkstile Inn
          Mellbreak over the Kirkstile Inn

          Such knowledge does little to diminish the daunting profile which its north face presents. It looks unassailable. I’m hoping this too is an illusion; for to experience the true magic of Loweswater Gold, it is necessary first to complete a quest in the form of a fell-walk, and today, that quest is Mellbreak.

          The Direct Ascent


          Wainwright advocates the direct route of ascent, straight up the stiff scree to the right of Raven Crag.  As I approach along the track from Kirkgate farm, the prospect loses none of its intimidating countenance. The slope looks severe, but this is the way Wainwright deems the grandest, so with blood already pumping in anticipation, I climb over grass to where the rivers of cinnamon scree snake steeply upward through chocolate heather to the steel-grey crags above.

          The scree slopes of the direct ascent Mellbreak
          The scree slopes of the direct ascent Mellbreak

          Calves soon convulse in sharp pangs of protest, and the loose shale punishes hard-won progress by forcing feet to slide back one step for every two gained. A little way up, the path forks, the left-hand route makes a few wise zig zags before disappearing below the face of White Crag.  I’m not entirely sure where it emerges.  Keeping on ahead looks the tougher proposition, but at least the outcome is clear: it enters a steep sided gully, which Wainwright calls the “rock gateway”. Footing becomes firmer within the gateway and before long, I am climbing out on to Wainwright’s “first promontory”, a rocky shelf which provides an edifying view back over the blue iridescence of Loweswater, shaped into an elongated heart by distortions of perspective and the green incursion of Holme Wood on its western shore.

          Blake Fell and Loweswater from Mellbreak
          Blake Fell and Loweswater from Mellbreak

          Loweswater is remarkable for being the only lake in Lakeland that does not drain outward towards the sea.  Instead, its outflow, Dub Beck, empties inwards into Crummock Water, whose blue expanse comes into view a little further up the slope. Whiteless Pike, another charcoal pyramid, casts a perfect dark reflection on Crummock’s ripple-free sheen, cobalt blue under clear April skies. 

          Rannerdale Knotts over Crummock Water and Butterm
          Rannerdale Knotts over Crummock Water and Buttermere

          Twin Peaks


          Above the crags, the going is easier, and the north summit is quickly gained. This is the more satisfying of Mellbreak’s twin tops, capped with a triangular cairn and ringed with heather. From here, the aspect over Loweswater comes into its own, hemmed by the steep flanks of Blake fell and Burbank fell to the south-west, and the twin summits of Darling Fell and Low Fell to the north-east. Straight ahead, beyond the water, stretches a flat expanse of coastal plain, eventually merging into a hazy wash of blue, the merest hint of the Irish sea.

          Loweswater from Mellbreak's north summit
          Loweswater from Mellbreak’s north summit

          The south summit is marginally higher. It lies two-thirds of a mile away across a scrubby depression, straw yellow with winter grass still awaiting spring’s rejuvenating touch. Yet, across this featureless plateau, the skyline is a feast of mountain drama: to the north-east, Whiteside, Grasmoor and Whiteless Pike rise like a holy trinity of primordial might, angular and dark, cocoa-dusted with winter ling. Red Pike and High Stile rear in response, and over Hen Comb, Great Borne is a mossy dome above plunging northern crags.

          Whiteless Pike and Rannerdale Knott
          Whiteless Pike and Rannerdale Knotts
          Great Borne from Mellbreak
          Great Borne from Mellbreak

          Buttermere and Crummock Water

          In 1802, Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote to Sarah Hutchinson, “Conceive an enormous round Bason mountain-high of solid Stone / cracked in half & one half gone / exactly in the remaining half of this enormous Bason, does Buttermere lie, in this beautiful & stern Embracement of Rock”. Mellbreak’s south top rewards with a view that does full justice to such a description: Buttermere occupies the bottom of a rocky corridor, flanked by High Snockrigg and the Newlands fells on one side and the High Stile range on the other. At the far end, Fleetwith Pike supplies the south-eastern wall. Yet from here, it looks as though the basin is complete, with Mellbreak itself forming the northern flank.  With descent, the illusion is punctured, as the end of Crummock Water comes back into view, and you realise how the valley sweeps round to hug the eastern flank of Mellbreak rather than terminating at its foot. A small strip of farmland separates Buttermere and Crummock Water; similar meadows divide Crummock Water from Loweswater; and you sense how these remote communities are connected by their lakes.

          Buttermere from Mellbreak's South Summit
          Buttermere from Mellbreak’s South Summit

          A Supernatural Tale


          In her book, Life in Old Loweswater, Roz Southey recounts the closest thing Loweswater has to a ghost story. On the 22nd of December 1774, the Cumberland Pacquet reported a story of a mysterious death with supernatural associations. The victim was an apprentice to a shoemaker who lived in Buttermere. The paper withheld names, so Roz calls the boy, Will, and the shoemaker, Pearson. Mrs Pearson had sent Will on an errand to deliver shoes to farmsteads around the three sibling lakes. The rain was relentless, and as Will covered the long miles home in the fading light, he started to worry that he had lost his way. Eventually, he glimpsed a familiar humpbacked bridge and hurried to cross, elated to find he was not far from home. 

          In his haste, he stubbed his toe and fell to the ground. As he nursed his foot, he was nearly blown over the edge by a horrendous gust of wind that seemed to come from nowhere.  The river was in spate, and white water gushed ferociously over the rocks below. Will clung to the parapet for dear life. Eventually the freak gale abated enough for him to crawl back off the bridge and on to the track, where suddenly, there was no wind at all, nor the slightest hint that there had been one. Afraid that some malign force was at play, Will added three miles to his journey home to avoid crossing the bridge. 

          When he arrived at the shoemaker’s, Mrs Pearson berated him for his lateness, and laughed in disbelief at his preposterous tale. She sent him upstairs to change and fetch his fellow apprentices for supper. When Will failed to join them, she sent one of the other boys to look for him.

          The stricken lad swore to the coroner that he found Will sitting on the stairs, strangled by the crupper of a saddle that hung above. The coroner was baffled as to how anyone could have got himself into such a position, especially by accident (and all who knew him testified to Will’s joyful love of life).  The inquest returned a verdict of accidental death, but Mrs Pearson’s had her doubts. Her suspicions were dark and intangible.

          Grasmoor from Scale Beck
          Grasmoor from Scale Beck

          Scale Force and Hen Comb


          I descend south to where Black Beck flows east to Crummock Water, through a narrow funnel of land between Mellbreak and the opposing slopes of Gale Fell. I follow the beck to a footbridge below Scale Knott. Ahead, Crummock Water is a dark pool transformed into gleaming azure where it escapes the shadow of Rannerdale Knotts. I turn off the path and cross the footbridge, walking in the footsteps of Coleridge, following Scale Beck up to a ravine on the flank of Red Pike, which the Lake Poet described as “a dolphin-shaped peak of deep red”. Here, the beck comes thundering off the mountain in the mighty cataract of Scale force, “the white downfall of which glimmered through the trees, that hang before it like the bushy hair over a madman’s eyes” (Coleridge). At 170ft, Scale Force is Lakeland’s highest waterfall, and it is utterly beguiling.

          Scale Force
          Scale Force

          The Lake Poet continued his journey west past the foot of Mellbreak and the head of Mosedale. This is the way I go too, as far as Hen Comb, whose steep grassy southern slopes I start up. The summit is another fine viewpoint for Buttermere and Fleetwith Pike.

          Buttermere and Fleetwith Pike from Hen Comb
          Buttermere and Fleetwith Pike from Hen Comb

          At the top, I sit in the sunshine and watch a man rambling up the long northern ridge from Loweswater. When he reaches the top, he beams at me and exclaims, “What a perfect day for doing this. Cap it all with a pint of Loweswater Gold at the Kirkstile Inn”. He must have read my mind.

          Mellbreak over Loweswater Gold
          Mellbreak over Loweswater Gold

          Further Reading

          You can find a PDF version of Roz Southey’s book, Life in Old Loweswater, here:

          http://www.derwentfells.com/pdfs/LifeInOldLoweswater2019.pdf


            Enjoyed this post?

            Like to receive free email alerts when new posts are published?

            Leave your name and email and we'll keep you in the loop. This won't be more than once or twice a month. Alternatively, follow this blog on Facebook by "Liking" our page at https://www.facebook.com/lakelandwalkingtales

            Walk Out To Winter: New Skills

            Winter Skills in the Cairngorms

            I head for the snow-capped majesty of the Cairngorms to learn winter skills and meet some remarkable people with inspiring tales of courage, devotion, and survival. (Although, the less said about the pink unicorns, the better.)

            The High Road

            Beyond Perth, the landscape changes. The sprawl of human conurbation melts into the rear view mirror as the road handrails the River Tay and enters the Craigvinean Forest. Slender trunks of silver birch, white as winter ghosts, fan into filigrees of garnet twig, and dark towers of Scots pine wear tam o’ shanters of Caledonian green.

            The road climbs out of the woods and into the hills, lightly flecked at first, but slowly, steadily, the snow line creeps lower, until up ahead, rises a pure white winter peak. A tremble of excitement. This is what I’m here for.

            Loch Morlich
            Loch Morlich

            Winter’s touch turns our green hills into Alpine mountains and amplifies our wonderstruck response. But it introduces new levels of treachery. An understanding of winter terrain and its inherent hazards, together with the tools and techniques required to navigate it successfully are vital. Microspikes can only get you so far, so I’m heading for the Highlands to learn some winter skills.

            Walk out to Winter

            Hayley Webb

            It’s taken longer than the miles on the map suggest. I’d booked on to a day-long course on Helvellyn in February 2020, but Storm Dennis put paid to that. It was rearranged for March 16th, but due to an administrative cockup, no instructor turned up. I climbed Helvellyn anyway with another would-be pupil, Matt Napier. Matt turned out to be a sound-engineer who had just returned from Paris. The events he was due to work had been cancelled because of coronavirus. “Anyone I might have heard of?” I asked. “Madonna, “ he relied. “I’m Madonna’s monitor engineer”. I learned lots about life on the road with Madonna, and Roger Waters, and Kylie, but we learned no winter skills. We wouldn’t have anyway—there was no snow.

            I arrived home to the announcement that we would be going into lockdown and a very apologetic email from the course organiser offering a refund or a rebooking, although it was uncertain when. I had a little rant on Facebook, and Hayley Webb got in touch.

            “I’ll teach you”, she said, and she sent me details of a course she was planning in the Cairngorms for 12 months’ time. It was three full days on the mountain, which sounded far more substantial in terms of what I’d learn.  Hayley taught me to navigate so I know what a good instructor she is. What’s more, in a former life, Hayley was a chef, and she would be doing all the catering. Well this would be the icing on the traybake. I would have to wait a year, but 2020 would be a year when all our lives were put on hold. This would be something to look forward to when it was all over.

            Cairngorms
            Winter in the Cairngorms. Photo by Hayley Webb

            COVID


            Only it wasn’t all over. By February 2021, we were back in lockdown, and the rules in Scotland were even stricter. Hayley was forced to postpone all her bookings, and this being weather dependent, it would mean waiting another year. I signed up straight away.

            It was a terrible time for mountain leaders, as it was for anyone trying to keep their own business afloat. Hayley took a job at Sainsburys, packing orders for home delivery. There, she met Gemma Grewar, another mountain leader, who had taken a job as a delivery driver.

            On Radio 6, I heard Tom Robinson recount a conversation with an Amazon driver. She told him his gig at the Barbican, two years earlier, had been one of the best she’d seen. She was young. Not typical of his normal audience demographic, so out of curiosity, he asked her why she had attended. “I was your sound engineer,” she replied. I thought of Matt Napier and hoped he was keeping his head above water.

            Hayley Webb

            Lagganlia Outdoor Education Centre

            COVID still isn’t over, but the latest Omicron variant is proving generally less severe, and life is taking tentative steps back to normal. This morning, the Facebook Messenger group, which Hayley set up to keep us all looped in, was a flurry of negative test photos and excitable examples of overpacking—we were bonding in our desperate bids not to leave anything behind. Now, we are all about to meet for the first time.

            As I turn off the Aviemore road at Kincraig and cross the bridge over the River Spey on the edge of Loch Insh, a frisson of anxiety creeps in. I’m minutes from Feshiebridge, the Lagganlia Outdoor Education Centre, and Caeketton lodge, which will be our home for the next four nights, and I realise just how insular I’ve become as a result of all the restrictions. I have a gregarious, outgoing side, but also an introverted side, which has grown to dominate of late. Now, the thought of spending four nights and three whole days with a group of total strangers (Hayley excepted—although we’d only met once) feels intimidating.

            That feeling evaporates the second I walk through the door to the warmest of welcomes. The room is already buzzing with convivial conversation and filled with enticing cooking aromas. Hayley shows me to the four-bed bunk room, I’ll be sharing with Rob, a police community support officer and fellow guitarist with a gentle sense of humour and a passion for wild-camping. We are two of only three men on the course. The other is Andy, but Claire has already bagged him. Which is fair enough considering they are partners, although she made that deliberately unclear in her mischievous message to the group earlier, where she raised one or two eyebrows by insinuating she that was getting first dibs. This soon proves typical of Claire’s wicked sense of humour, perfectly matched by Andy’s dry wit. In the course of conversation, I learn they are seasoned long-distance walkers, veterans of several national trails, but Claire has an aversion to steep descents, a fact she discovered recently on Striding Edge, which she ended up crossing on all fours. She has booked a one-to-one course with Hayley in April to try and overcome it, but in the meantime, the next three days hold obvious concerns. That she is here, ready to confront her fears, shows genuine courage.

            Kit

            After supper, it’s kit inspection—to check we all have suitable ice axes, and crampons, and compatible boots. I award myself Brownie points for having purchased the same ice axe as Hayley, but she tells me my crampons are really designed for boots with a slightly stiffer sole. They’ll be OK, but I should be vigilant in case they pop off.

            My boots are three-and-a-half season boots, that will take a flexible crampon. Winter boots are better as they have a stiffer sole, but the added stiffness makes them less comfortable to walk in all year round. If you want boots you can use in all seasons, you are looking at a comprise. Three-and-a-half season boots make the compromise in favour of comfort, while B1 winter boots make it in favour of rigidity. If I am to get serious about walking in full winter conditions, I would be best investing in a pair of B2 boots, which are optimised for crampon use and insulation.

            Hayley introduces Gemma, her fellow Winter Mountain Leader and Sainsburys veteran. Gemma is here to assist in case they need to split the group or work on specifics with individuals. This comes as a relief to many of us who are worried about our fitness levels.

            Finally comes an appraisal of the weather. Researching conditions and adjusting plans accordingly is key. Wind speeds upwards of 60 m.p.h. are forecast for tomorrow, so we’ll not be going anywhere near the summit of Cairn Gorm..

            As we all turn in, Hayley and Gemma study maps to determine where we are likely to find snow at safe altitudes, while keeping as far as possible in the rain and sleet shadow.

            Loch an Eilein

            In the morning, we stuff sandwiches and delicious homemade tray bakes into our rucksacks, stow ice axes and skiing goggles, don gaiters and waterproofs, and set off for Loch an Eilein.

            Ahead of the storms, the air is crisp and dry, the sun extending fingers of white gold around the hems of soft grey cloud pillows, turning tranquil waters to liquid silver. Loch an Eilein means Loch of the Island, and the island in question hides a castle in a copse of trees. The castle started life as a fortified tower built by a notoriously ruthless grandson of Robert the Bruce, known as the Wolf of Badenoch. A curtain wall was added in the 1600, ninety years before the castle was besieged by defeated Jacobites fleeing the Battle of Cromdale. In 1745, it hid fugitives from the Battle of Culloden. A snapshot of Scottish history in a setting unfathomably older. The castle is now home to ospreys.

            Loch an Eilein
            Loch an Eilein. Photo by Rob Rushforth

            As the path snakes between the tall pines of Forest of Rothiemurchus, mossy woodland aromas fill our nostrils; and twigs sprout white beards of reindeer lichen. Hayley tells us the woods are home to capercaillie. From the Gaelic, capall coille, meaning “horse of the wood”, the capercaillie is a black, turkey-sized member of the grouse family. They can be aggressive if cornered, and have been known to harass dog-walkers. All the same, I’d love to see one.

            Loch an Eilein
            Loch an Eilein. Photo by Rob Rushforth

            Avalanche Awareness

            We’re ascending, so when we emerge from the woods we hit the snow line, and the learning starts. We’re surrounded by high hills, and Hayley has us observe how the eastern faces are snow-laden, while western faces are sparse and potentially icy: the prevailing wind was from the west last night, blowing the snow over the ridges to create loaded eastern slopes. We look for cornices, overhangs of compacted snow that could break away causing avalanches. The risk is heightened when fresh powdery drift settles on top of hard, compacted snow, but the top can freeze creating a crust and giving the illusion that all is firm. Hayley demonstrates on the bank by the side of the path. The snow is crunchy, but she excavates a section with her axe and reveals soft powdery stuff beneath, ice below that. She jumps on top and stamps down with her boot. The snow cracks into a tile and slides off.

            Winter Skills in the Cairngorms
            The party en route to ice-axe training. Photo by Hayley Webb.

            Self Arrest

            We find a knoll with a reasonable gradient and walk to the top, using our boots to kick steps in the yielding snow, sinking deeper with each step. It’s tiring, and Hayley bids us remember this when planning winter walks—add extra time, don’t be over-ambitious with distance. From the top she has us slide down on our bums, following each other’s line until we create four compacted slippery runs with soft, gentle, rock-free run offs at the bottom. It’s time to don helmets and learn how to self-arrest with an ice-axe.

            The Ministry of Funny Walks. Photo by Hayley Webb

            We’ve already learned how to hold the axe—hand over the top and the pick end facing backwards—to use the shaft and spike like a short trekking pole, but that grip also allows a rapid lift to the chest if you feel yourself slipping. The idea is to nestle the blunt adze into the hollow beneath your clavicle, then turn as you fall, driving the sharp pick into the snow, with your full weight on top of it.  You grab the other end with your free hand and look down the shaft to optimise your position. Oh, and remember to lift your feet into the air, so that if you’re wearing crampons, they don’t dig in and catapult you head over heels down the slope. It’s a lot to remember in the split-second panic of a slip, and if you’re ever to use it in anger, it would have to be second nature. We practice over and over, safe in the knowledge that failure here meets a soft landing. Hayley marches round like a Strictly Come Dancing instructor, barking orders on body-line and position. It’s exhilarating and exhausting.

            Ice-axe training. Photo by Hayley Webb
            Rob daggering with an ice axe & kicking steps

            Gemma notices Claire hanging back and quietly, unobtrusively, takes her aside for a one-to-one counsel.

            Meanwhile, black clouds have been moving up the valley. When the wind whips up and horizontal sleet stings our faces, we don ski goggles and begin the long tramp back down.

            I chat to Nikki, a solicitor who’s been a Facebook friend for a while, but this is the first time we’ve met. She’s every bit as warm, loud, chatty, and full-of-fun as I imagined. And every bit as passionate about mountains—although after a year dogged with bereavement, injury, and a recent bout of COVID, her fitness has waned and she’s found today a struggle. Not that anyone else would notice.

            And Andrea, who works freelance, teaching kids about nutrition and cooking and a host of other stuff that sounds richly rewarding. She was in the army and was stationed for a while in Herford, Germany, where my Dad was posted in my mid-teens. We reminisce about Herforder Pils, Gluhwein, and Christmas markets.

            In the evening, after a hearty meal, we learn to read avalanche forecasts and determine which faces will be safe and which hazardous for us to tread in the morning.

            Cairn Gorm

            The next day we decamp to the ski centre car park, and with the Met Office predictions of kinder weather holding true, we start up the slopes of Cairn Gorm. We learn to kick snow steps with our boots, and to cut them with our axes. When our feet no longer sink in, we don crampons. “Walk like John Wayne,” says Hayley, “because you have sharp spikes sticking out the sides of your boots, and you don’t want to rip the bottom of your waterproofs. Rob forgets and nicks a small slit in his over-trousers. A little further on, I do the same.

            Winter Skills in the Cairngorms
            Learning to walk in crampons. Photo by Hayley Webb
            Winter Skills on Cairn Gorm
            Daggering with ice axe and kicking in with front points of the crampons. Photo by Hayley Webb

            Once we have the hang of things, Hayley and Gemma have us running down a slope to appreciate the grip the crampons afford.

            “How are you feeling, Claire?” shouts, Hayley.

            “Great!” replies Claire, raising her ice axe in triumph before joining the downward race, her demons conquered.

            Point 1141

            A steep ridge leads up to Point 1141 (higher than Scafell Pike, yet unnamed). On this slope we find névé, snow that has partially melted and refrozen to form a hard, compacted surface. With the crampons’ teeth biting hard, and no more sinking, the going becomes easier despite the gradient.

            Ascending to Point 1141 on Cairn Gorm
            Ascending to Point 1141. Photo by Rob Rushforth.

            As the ridge narrows, Gemma counsels us to keep 10m or more from the north eastern edge, where the slopes are loaded. If a cornice breaks, it takes a significant amount of snow from the ridge top with it, and it will take you too, if you’re too close.

            A rocky path is mostly free of snow, and Hayley insists we walk some of the way on it to get use to the feel of crampons on rock,  uncomfortable, but sometimes necessary in mixed terrain.

            Crampons on rock. Photo by Hayley Webb.

            As we approach the top of the ridge, the cloud is beginning to break. Loch Morlich appears in the distance, a sliver of duck egg blue in a nest of forest green. Rob looks down the long line of the ridge and observes that you really couldn’t afford to make a mistake if you were practising ice-axe arrests here.

            “Oh I dunno,” quips Andy, “you’d stop moving by the time you reached Inverness”.

            Loch Morlich from Cairn Gorm
            Looking over Loch Morlich
            Monadhliath Mountains from Cairn Gorm

            Point 1141 sits 104 metres below the summit of Cairn Gorm and is marked by a large cairn. It is enveloped in clag, but as we rest, the mist dissipates and unveils an astonishing view. Across a corrie, the buttressed mass of Fiacaill Ridge tapers to a jagged arête above plunging precipices, rendered in monochrome by streaks of snow, exposed black rock, soft sun and heavy shadow. It’s as if we have stepped into a finely hatched pencil sketch, an ink drawing, a sublime larger-than-life etching. Hayley is seldom lost for words, but here, she falls silent in wonder.

            Fiacaill Ridge, Cairn Gorm
            Fiacaill Ridge, Cairm Gorm
            Fiacaill Ridge, Cairn Gorm
            Fiacaill Ridge, Cairn Gorm
            Hayley lost in wonder. Photo by Lesley Varnham.

            Loch Morlich

            It’s not the only transcendental moment of the day. On the drive back to the lodge, we pass the shore of Loch Morlich, just as the sun is about to set. Through the trees, we spy an onyx sheen illuminated with mirror images of the mountains. Hayley pulls over, and we run to water’s edge to lose ourselves in a tranquil tableau of snow-capped summits, reflected in perfect symmetry.

            Loch Morlich
            Loch Morlich
            Loch Morlich
            Loch Morlich

            Shelter on Windy Ridge

            The following morning we head up Cairn Gorm’s Windy Ridge. In fresh snow, we follow recent tracks of mountain hare. We cross a ski-slope, its wooden fence bejewelled with glittering formations of wind-ridged ice. We enter a disorienting world of near whiteout, but not quite: the tops of boulders are still visible through the snow. In total whiteout, there is no distinction between ground and sky.

            Cairn Gorm
            Icicles on Windy Ridge
            Cairn Gorm
            Icicles on Windy Ridge. Photo by Hayley Webb.

            Hayley relays a hair-raising story of being caught in a blizzard here. It came in twelve hours earlier than expected, and with no phone signal, she and her friends were unaware of the revised forecast. They dug deep snow shelters, in which to ride it out, but when it refused to abate, they navigated off the mountain using a compass and pacing techniques, through trenches they carved with their axes. The experience convinced Hayley that she had what it takes to train as a winter mountain leader.

            Digging snow shelters is what we do next, using the adze end of our axes. Ours are not deep enough to see out a blizzard (that would take hours) but sufficient to afford temporary respite from the bitter, biting wind.

            Walk out to Winter
            Andrea in her show shelter

            Rob and I wear gaudy badges of shame for failing to walk like John Wayne. Last night Hayley offered to patch our torn waterproofs with duct tape, without telling us her duct tape is bright pink and sports unicorns. “It’s all I’ve got,” she said with a wicked smirk as she handed them back.

            Back in the warmth of the lodge, I chat to Lesley. In September 2019, her young daughter was diagnosed with cancer and underwent several harrowing cycles of chemotherapy. She’s in remission, but until now, Lesley has not left her side. Lesley’s life was put on hold so she could devote everything to caring for her child. This is the first time that she has done something for herself. She is humble and unassuming, and her story has touched all our hearts.

            In the morning, I drive Lesley and Charlotte to the station in Aviemore; and as I turn the car around to begin the journey home, I reflect on three inspiring and transformative days of crucial skills, challenging weather, and impossibly majestic landscapes, all spent in the company of some truly remarkable people.

            Winter skills on Cairn Gorm
            Into the white

            You can find Hayley Webb’s Mountain Adventures page on Facebook:

            https://www.facebook.com/HayleyWebbAdventures/


              Enjoyed this post?

              Like to receive free email alerts when new posts are published?

              Leave your name and email and we'll keep you in the loop. This won't be more than once or twice a month. Alternatively, follow this blog on Facebook by "Liking" our page at https://www.facebook.com/lakelandwalkingtales

              Haweswater and the Lost Kingdom of Mardale

              When the Manchester Corporation built Haweswater Dam in 1936, they consigned two centuries-old villages to the bottom of a reservoir. Before the flood, the valley had boasted a celebrated inn, a tiny church, and a hall strong enough to resist the explosives of the Royal Engineers. It even had its own monarch.  I pull on my boots and go in search of the lost kingdom of Mardale.

              The Drowned Valley

              Sun gleams off the bonnet of an open top car, a Lanchester perhaps, as a smiling woman steers between the stone parapets of Chapel Bridge. In the distance, where Selside and Branstree meet, the twin ravines of Rowantreethwaite and Hopegill beck form deep folds in the fellside, and the Old Corpse Road climbs steeply out of the valley.

              Chapel Bridge - the lost kingdom of Mardale
              Chapel Bridge, Mardale Green

              A bell is ringing from the tiny church, encircled by old yews taller than its tower, and the jubilant shouts of children travel up the dale from Measand school. A peal of raucous laughter erupts from the courtyard of the Dun Bull Inn, and the sounds of whistles and dog-barks waft down from Riggindale where shepherds drive a flock toward the washfold.

              The Dun Bull Inn - the lost kingdom of Mardale
              The Dunn Bull Inn, Mardale Green

              I open my eyes, and the vision dissolves. Now, all is water. I’m standing at the end of the Rigg, the wooded promontory that juts out into Haweswater, a reservoir constructed by the Manchester Corporation between 1936 and 1941. At its far end stands the dam that raised the level of the natural lake. Pewter waters now cover the valley—the centuries old villages of Measand and Mardale Green have been submerged, a rural civilisation lost less than a hundred years ago.

              Haweswater

              The Manchester Corporation & Haweswater

              My vision was a flight of the fancy, a montage of the imagination, conjured from old photographs and contemporary accounts of life before the flood. One photograph persists in my mind’s eye—that of the woman in the car.  On first glance, it appears idyllic, but look closer, and the seeds of doom have already sprouted. A series of small white marker posts line a long pale scar, recognisable to anyone today as the road. But the old road ran on the opposite side of the valley. This is the new one, still under construction. The old road carried villagers to and from their homes, but five or six years on, those homes and the road alike would be lost below the rising waters. The new road would carry walkers, bird-watchers, sightseers, and reservoir workers to the head of an extended lake, in a waterlogged valley, unpopulated but for the new Haweswater hotel. The road opened in 1937, the same year the church tower was pulled down and the Dun Bull demolished. The main body of the church had gone a year earlier, its stones and windows repurposed to build a water take-off tower, which stands roughly in line with the natural head of the lake.

              Holy Trinity Church - the lost kingdom of Mardale
              Holy Trinity Church, Mardale Green
              The Water Take-Off Tower, built with the stones and windows from the church,
              The Dun Bull Inn half-demolished

              “No-one else protested, we were the only ones,” Helena Bailey told journalist and writer, Karen Barden, in 1995. Helena was the daughter of the Vicar of Burneside. Her family had holidayed in Mardale year upon year from 1914 to 1929; she felt like a local. Helena would have been four on her first visit, nineteen on her last. She recounted how she and brothers and sister stealthily followed the surveyors and pulled out every one of those marker posts. But the teenagers were no match for the Manchester Corporation, and few others could muster the fight.

              “There had been a world war,” she explained. “The country was exhausted. People just wanted to get on quietly with their lives.”

              “And this proposal also meant jobs, for hundreds of men.”

              I look north to Wood Howe, once a wooded knott, now a tree-crowned island. Today, a stretch of silver water maroons it from the Rigg. Beneath the surface, lie the remains of Holy Trinity church. The church was built in the late 1600’s, on the site of a much older oratory, supposedly constructed by the monks of Shap Abbey. In 1729, its churchyard was consecrated for burials: until then, the dead had to be wrapped in cloth and carried on pack ponies over the Corpse Road to Shap.

              Wood Howe from The Rigg
              Wood Howe from the Rigg. Holy Trinity Church is below the water.

              In October 1935, the bodies of those interred here were exhumed. With ironic precedent, they were nearly all reburied at Shap. That August, the last service was held at Holy Trinity. It drew a congregation many times too large for the nave and chancel, which could accommodate just 75. Everyone else stood outside and listened to the sermon over loudspeakers. It was preached by the Bishop of Carlisle. All joined in a rousing chorus of I Shall Lift Up Mine Eyes to the Hills. Among those present was former Vicar of Mardale, Revd. H. F. J. Barham. This had been his parish for twenty five years. He couldn’t bring himself to enter the church. Helena couldn’t bring herself to attend.

              Holy Trinity Church - the lost kingdom of Mardale
              Holy Trinity Church, Mardale Green, showing the children’s gallery

              Before the flood, the natural lake had been divided almost in two by a natural promontory formed by Measand Beck. The larger southern lake was known as High Water, and the smaller northern one as Low Water. The narrow funnel connecting them was called The Straits. On Measand Promontory stood Measand Hall, and Measand Beck Farm.

              The Last Days of Measand

              On Monday 12th October 1936, the Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail reported:

              “The Haweswater valley, one of the most secluded and peaceful places in the Lake District, echoed yesterday with the sound of explosions when Territorial offices of the Royal Engineers (East Lancashire Division) blew up three buildings on land which will be inundated. These buildings have been homesteads for five or six hundred years. Measand Hall, tenanted by the squires of Mardale for generations, stoutly resisted a new plastic explosive which was being tested for the War Office. At first only ounce charges were used. These made a great noise and raised clouds of smoke and dust, but the walls withstood them. The charges were increased, and these showed the quality of the new explosive, the walls crumbling to pieces instead of flying into the air. Mr. Leonard Kitchen and his family, who lived 40 yards from the hall at Measand Beck Farm, had retreated to safety so many times when the charges proved ineffective that he decided to go on with dinner. When the hall did collapse Mr. Kitchen’s windows were shattered and plaster fell on his Sunday joint.”

              My friend, Richard Jennings, has been researching the valley, and he assures me Leonard’s last name is a misprint. He was a Kitching. I have no credible claim to kinship, but it makes me smile to know that my namesakes farmed in Mardale before the flood.

              Measand Hall - the lost kingdom of Mardale
              Measand Hall
              Measand Beck Hall - the lost kingdom of Mardale
              The Kitching brothers outside Measand Beck Farm

              Richard is here now, with his handsome Border collie, Frankie. We’re going in search of a much older story concerning another venerable Mardale family.

              The Lost Kingdom of Mardale

              The reign of King John was turbulent. The King fell out with the Church and then the barons. He was excommunicated by the Pope and forced by the rebel barons to sign Magna Carta, the closest thing we have ever had to a constitution. Seven years earlier in 1208, John had a foiled a smaller plot, known as the Canterbury Conspiracy. One of the perpetrators was Hugh Holme, whose ancestor came over with William the Conqueror. Hugh became a fugitive from royal retribution. He fled for Scotland but never reached the border, choosing to hide out instead in a cave in the remotest part of Riggindale, the small valley that forks off Mardale between Riggindale Edge and Kidsty Pike. When King John died, Hugh didn’t return to reclaim his lands. He settled in the valley. The residents prized him for his wisdom and worldly knowledge, and they gave him an honorary title. From then on, the head of the Holme family would always be known as the King of Mardale.

              The Holme family were pillars of the community. They built the vicarage and did much to support the church. Some sources have also credited the Holme family with the building of a tower on Wood Howe, but in his 1904 book, Shappe in Bygone Days, Joseph Whiteside claims the tower was the work of an eccentric proprietor of the Dun Bull, named Thomas Lamley. Lamley’s aim was to build a structure tall enough to see over into neighbouring Swindale and Patterdale. Such an ambition would have required a tower nearly 2000 ft in height. Lamley gave up when it reached 20 ft, conceding that perhaps it wasn’t going to work. The tower doesn’t seem to have stood for long, but it does appear in a Thomas Allom print.

              In 1885, Hugh Parker Holme, the last King of Mardale, was laid to rest. His death ended a family line much loved and revered in the dale. But what of their arrival here? Is the story of Hugh’s flight from King John true? Even today, the OS map names a spot on the lower slopes of Rough Crag as Hugh’s Cave but is this really where the fugitive baron hid from the King? Richard, Frankie, and I are going to investigate.

              Mardale Green and Wood Howe by Thomas Allom -the lost kingdom of Mardale
              Mardale Green and Wood Howe (showing the tower) by Thomas Allom

              Remote Riggindale

              We step around the toppled trunks of larches, victims of the violence wrought by Storm Arwen in November. Deciduous conifers, sparse with winter. Those still standing are feathered with delicate fans of twig, black against the steely grey of the lake, as if sketched in ink. A twilight world in monochrome. Yet as we emerge from the dense canopy of the Rigg, the early morning sky is lightening, turning Haweswater China blue. The silhouettes of broad leaf trees twist into spindly traceries, like woodcuts. Ahead, Swine Crag is a drab olive pyramid, rising from a bed of ginger bracken. Across Riggindale, the graphite slopes of Kidsty Pike dissolve into wispy mist. Overhead, the clouds are duck-egg blue, but above the snow-flecked Straits of Riggindale, the early sun ignites an amber glow—a warm band of ethereal light bathing the valley in primordial mystery.

              Haweswater from the start of the Rigg
              Entering Riggindale
              Frankie in Riggindale

              We pass an old stone barn and handrail a dry stone wall, black as granite in the creeping shadow; we meet Riggindale Beck and fall in step; its hissing waters whisper intangible truths. Rough Crag rears above on our left, untouched by the celestial glow. It is dark and severe, a forbidding wall of tumbling scree and precipitous outcrops, peppered with wiry, twiggy tangles of mountain ash. A place of shadows and secrets, and perhaps a legendary cave.

              Rough Crag
              Riggindale in early morning light

              Hugh’s Cave – Hideout of the First King

              Ahead the stream curves into a tiny oxbow. The ground is becoming increasingly soggy, but I resist Richard’s suggestion that we head for the slopes as I have taken a compass bearing from the bend in the beck to where the OS map places the H of Hugh’s Cave. Richard is sceptical of its value, names on maps are often put where they obscure the fewest features and should only be read as approximations. Besides, he is convinced he has spied the cave from Kidsty Pike, a few years back, and thinks we should spot it easily from this distance. As we reach the oxbow, he does. I follow the line of his outstretched finger and pick out the chiselled boulder perched as a lintel above a black hollow. A skeletal rowan stands like a sentinel. I fish out my compass. It lies right on the bearing.

              Richard and Frankie set off for Rough Crag

              We start to climb, calves twinging in protest at the steepness of the scree. Soon we are scrambling over boulders. Rocky outcrops well up in waves, obscuring our target. I become disoriented, but Richard spots the rowan, and we lock back on course. The cave entrance is hidden but the rowan and lintel remain in view, yet despite our exertions, they seem forever the same distance away.

              Traversing Rough Crag
              Frankie and the imagined cave

              Eventually we reach a small grassy rake which leads up over a boulder to the rowan and the cave entrance. Only now we’re here, we uncover the deception: there is no cave. The lintel sits atop another boulder that slopes inward, creating a small alcove, which contrives in shadow to resemble an entrance.

              Flummoxed but undeterred, we soldier on towards the jutting wall of Riggindale Crag, below Caspel Gate and Long Stile, that rugged stairway to the summit of High Street. Our efforts are unfocused, casting searching glances at rocks in the hope of finding an opening. Eventually, we spot one. Straight ahead, where the crags form into an almost vertical wall, a leaning boulder forms a crude arch over a dark recess, which might—just might—run deeper into the cliff. But alas, we are foiled again. As we draw near, the deceptive shadow dissipates, and reveals nothing but solid rock.

              Is this Hugh’s Cave?

              Back at the valley bottom, both boulders resume their illusory forms, and as we track back along the far shore of the beck, past the old wash fold, another deception is unmasked. Richard spots the cave he spied from Kidsty Pike. It is nothing more than a square slab of black rock.

              Rewilding

              Over the shoulder of Kidsty Pike, we settle on a grassy outcrop overlooking the lake, above the submerged course of the old road. In 1921, Councillor Isaac Hinchliffe of Manchester wrote an article for the Journal of the Fell and Rock Climbing Club in which he painted a fragrant picture:

              Hawewater from the Coast to Coast path, above where the old road used to run.

              “I hope the new road will be innocent of stone walls and iron railings, with wide margins some three or four yards where possible, with unobtrusive fences hidden by kindly growths which now for the most part fringe the road from Burn Banks to Mardale. Heather and gorse and ivy, blackthorn, holly and mountain ash, wild raspberries and blackberries, honeysuckle, wild roses, the Guelder rose, convolvulous and the meadow-sweet, which now scents the air even to one passing in a motor-car, the primrose, foxglove, and that beautiful and prolific plant, the wild geranium or meadow crane’s bill, to say nothing of the humble daisy and buttercup, or the tiny ranunculus which brightens the mossy wayside pools, the March violet, wild thyme, and a hundred other beautiful plants which now grow wild alongside or near to the present road. Patches of lady’s bed-straw and parsley fern will always relieve the grey monotony of the screes.”

              Sadly, the Manchester Corporation did build a wall, and they replaced much of the indigenous flora with commercial forestry. Happily, much of the incongruous conifer has now been cleared—the dense larches on the Rigg are one of few the remaining outposts. The slopes of Selside and Branstree have been sensitively replanted with native broad leaves. In the years to come, the valley may once again resemble the councillor’s idyll.

              Rowantreethwaite Beck and the Old Corpse Road (to the left of the ravine)

              Richard is disappointed we didn’t find the cave, but part of me is secretly pleased. The romantic in me wants to imagine it is still there somewhere, its mouth hidden under tumbled boulders and filled with scree—a secret guarded by the mountain. I stare south-east across the water to where Holy Trinity lies submerged, then north to where Measand once stood. Perhaps it is better that Mardale keeps its mysteries hidden.

              Wood Howe and the Rigg, and the waters covering Mardale Green

              Mardale Uncovered

              In the summer of 1976, after months of drought, the level of the reservoir dropped so low that the ruins of Mardale Green emerged. It happened again in 1984, and the Westmorland Gazette published a book, Mardale Revisited, by journalist and photographer, Geoffrey Berry. Berry contrasted photographs of the muddy remains with old pictures and accounts of Mardale as it once had been.

              The village emerged for the third time in 1995, and the paper published a second edition of Berry’s book with an addendum by Karen Barden, who interviewed Helena Bailey and Joyce Bell. Joyce was four-and-a-half when she attended the final service at Holy Trinity Church with her mother, Lucy.  Her parents, like theirs before them, had run the Dun Bull Inn. She remembered her mother’s reaction to visiting the ruins in 1976:

              “She was very upset, but not bitter and could pick everything out. It was in a better state then.

              “She played war with a couple at Chapel Hill going through the ash heap with a riddle. She said it was sacrilege and they had done more damage than the water.”

              “The village had lain forgotten until then. A beautiful valley which had been totally ruined. It would never be allowed now and shouldn’t have happened then.”

              Karen’s addendum is short but poignant, sympathetic to such emotional ties, and indignant, angry even, at the unfolding circus:

              “They have arrived in their thousands along with ice cream sellers and others keen to make a fast buck from Mardale’s misery.

              “An empty packet of 20 Regal lies where once there would have been a tomb. Wrappings from cheese and onion crisps and a Wall’s Cornetto carelessly tossed to a ground, normally over 50 feet under water.”

              Mardale appeared again last summer (2021).  I didn’t visit. I had done so three years earlier, in 2018, when the village was partially revealed. I chose a weekday evening. There were few people around, and it felt tranquil. Chapel Bridge was still submerged, but I could walk along the old walled track to the remains of the Dun Bull Inn and the farms of Grove Brae and Goosemire. It was fascinating if disquieting to enter the lost village, yet part of me felt I was intruding.

              A Sting in the Tail

              Looking out over the waters now, I try to imagine how Lucy must have felt; how she must have longed for people to leave this sunken chest of treasured memories to rest in peace. The residents sacrificed their homes and their heritage for the sake of progress. Yet there was a sting in the tail. On 8th May 1933, Mr. Alan Chorlton, MP for Bolton, addressed Parliament with the following words:

              “Looking at the existing condition of supplies in industrial areas, we have the extraordinary position that Manchester years ago before the decline in trade, went in for a scheme of supply of additional water to cost £10,000,000. Since that scheme was started there has been a change in the condition of world affairs which has so reduced the trade demand, that, with the movement of new industries elsewhere, this great scheme is not now called for. In fact there is more than sufficient water from existing supplies in that area.”

              The reservoir went ahead regardless. I hope that Chorlton was wrong. I hope the water really was needed. But more than anything, I hope his words never reached Lucy’s ears. It would have been devastating to think that it was all for nothing.

              Credits/Further Reading

              A big thank you to Richard Jennings for sharing much of his research and furnishing me with some of the stories retold here. Richard’s own website is rich source of local history (as well as a host of great walking routes). It is well worth checking out:

              https://www.lakelandroutes.uk/local-history/

              Councillor Hinchliffe’s account of Mardale before the flood appeared in the Volume 5, No. 3 of the Journal of the Fell and Rock Climbing Club. It makes fascinating reading. You can find it on-line here:

              https://www.frcc.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Vol5-3.pdf

              Geoffrey Berry’s book, Mardale Revisited was published by the Westmorland Gazette in 1984, but it is worth seeking out the second edition from 1996 with the addendum by Karen Barden. ISBN: 1 901081 00 1

              For more from me on Mardale, Riggindale and ascending High Street by Rough Crag, see:


                Enjoyed this post?

                Like to receive free email alerts when new posts are published?

                Leave your name and email and we'll keep you in the loop. This won't be more than once or twice a month. Alternatively, follow this blog on Facebook by "Liking" our page at https://www.facebook.com/lakelandwalkingtales

                Four Great Books About Lakeland or Walking

                As 2021 draws to an end, I review four great books about Lakeland or walking: James Rebanks portrays three generations on a Cumbrian fell farm and finds the key to a sustainable future in the teachings of his grandfather. Chris Townsend walks Scotland’s spine. John Bainbridge takes us on furtive forays into Forbidden Britain; and Beth Pipe teams up with Karen Guttridge to blaze a new Lakeland trail, connecting the district’s distilleries..

                Four great books about Lakeland or walking. 1) English Pastoral

                English Pastoral

                An Inheritance

                James Rebanks

                2020, Allen Lane

                Change doesn’t always come from those in power. Sometimes it happens quietly from the ground up as ordinary men and women find the courage of their convictions.

                English Pastoral is a remarkable book: a work of rare lyrical beauty and an argument of astonishing power. Moreover, it is acutely in tune with the zeitgeist: as the world grows impatient with the hollow greenwash slogans of politicians, here is a simple honest testament, a voice of integrity, and an insight of major environmental significance.

                It is a book written by a Cumbrian fell farmer, renouncing the ecologically damaging efficiencies of industrial agriculture (efficiencies he once embraced), in favour of a sustainable model rooted in the past. But it is not a declamatory manifesto or dry scientific treatise. Instead, it is an engaging human-interest story spanning three generations of a family on a small farm in Matterdale.

                Woven from threads of reminiscence, it begins as the author recollects how his grandfather taught him to farm. His grandfather had a strong connection with the earth, born perhaps of walking behind a horse-drawn plough, feeling every trough and stone as the blade cut into the soil. He never lost that understanding, even when he reluctantly replaced the horse with a tractor. Rebanks remembers a day his grandfather jumped down from the tractor to rescue four curlew’s eggs from the path of the plough, diligently restoring them once the furrow had been cut, and watching from the gate to check that the bird returned.

                It was a relationship with the natural world that many of his generation possessed. Yet, two decades later, the face of farming had changed drastically. Tractors were three-times the size, combine harvesters were ivory towers of technology, driven by contractors in air-conditioned cabs with music blaring. Cows were no longer grazed on pasture but packed into barns to be fed silage and commercially produced foodstuffs. That connection with nature had been severed, and the curlews (like many other species) were in decline.

                The centuries-old practice of small mixed rotational farming was jettisoned in the name of science. You could farm industrially, stripping out hedges, ploughing right up to the edges, and sowing the same crop in the same field year after year, replenishing nutrients through the magical application of chemical fertilisers. It seemed like progress, and yet, there were worrying signs that it might be the wrong road. 

                When Henry died, a unexpected discovery sent a mini shockwave through the valley. Henry had been the last of the old guard, stubbornly refusing to modernise, eschewing chemicals in favour of manure, making hay instead of silage, mowing late. He was well liked, but perceived as a relic, marooned in the past. When his land was put up for sale, an analyst reported that the soil was the best he’d ever tested.

                To glimpse where this industrial highway might lead, Rebanks visits the Midwest. Here the tone turns chilling bleak. It is worth pausing to pay tribute to the transportive quality of the writing. Rebanks has a poetic way with words. The way he describes the landscape is painterly. We can almost smell the grass of the Matterdale meadows and, equally, taste the dust of the American near-desert, where much of the top soil has blown away and the vast acres of crop are choked with weeds, grown resistant to the pesticides. Much of the work is automated, administered by drones, while farming communities languish, their incomes gone, their buildings dilapidated, their windows dressed with confederate flags and Trump stickers—testimony to a collective refusal to face facts, placing faith instead in charlatans with ready-made scapegoats.

                Back home in Matterdale, Rebanks changes course. He brings in ecologists and begins restoring biodiversity: planting trees, laying hedges, re-wiggling rivers, fencing off boggy areas to create wetland habitats, cultivating hay meadows and resowing indigenous wildflowers. And the rewards come quickly. Curlews return. Barn owls appear. 

                He is not alone. Many of his neighbours are following suit. The benefits are not financial, but the work is vital. Unhelpfully, the government pursues destructive trade deals with nations still wedded to the industrial model. Some activists demonise stock farming, advocating a vegan future, where swathes of land are designated as wilderness while the rest is given over to intensive crop production. But those intensive methods are the very ones that have been destroying the soil. They are unsustainable.

                Rebanks doesn’t claim to have all the answers, but he is busy doing what his grandfather did—making sure that what happens within the boundaries of his own farm is done right. He humbly suggests that in a world of noise, living quietly might actually be a virtue. By farming in harmony with nature, he shows that agriculture and wilderness can co-exist. Change doesn’t always come from those in power. Sometimes it happens quietly from the ground up as ordinary men and women find the courage of their convictions.

                I grew up in a village of small mixed rotational farms; several surround the place where I live today. Thanks to English Pastoral, I no longer view them as a link with the past, but a signpost to the future.

                Follow James on Twitter @herdyshepherd1

                Next: Along the Divide by Chris Townsend


                  Enjoyed this post?

                  Like to receive free email alerts when new posts are published?

                  Leave your name and email and we'll keep you in the loop. This won't be more than once or twice a month. Alternatively, follow this blog on Facebook by "Liking" our page at https://www.facebook.com/lakelandwalkingtales

                  In the Footsteps of Wainwright – Striding Edge to Catstycam

                  “For Those Who Tread Where I Have Trod”

                  In 1930, Alfred Wainwright crossed Striding Edge for the first time. It was shrouded in mist and doused in rain. For all its terrors, it sparked a passion that led AW to pen his celebrated Pictorial Guides, documenting 214 Lake District fells. This year, I walked the same ridge en route to Catstycam to bag my final “Wainwright”. As I recount my precarious negotiation along craggy crests and plunging precipices, I consider what it was about an antisocial pen-pusher from Blackburn that made him such an inspiration.

                  An Ex-Fellwanderer Remembers

                  “Before reaching the gap in the wall we were enveloped in a clammy mist and the rain started…We went on, heads down against the driving rain, until, quite suddenly, a window opened in the mist ahead, disclosing a black tower of rock streaming with water, an evil and threatening monster that stopped us in our tracks. Then the mist closed in again and the apparition vanished. We were scared: there were unseen terrors ahead. Yet the path was still distinct; generations of walkers must have come this way and survived, and if we turned back now we would get as wet as we would by continuing forward. We ventured further tentatively and soon found ourselves climbing the rocks of the tower to reach a platform of naked rock that vanished into the mist as a narrow ridge with appalling precipices on both sides. There was no doubt about it: we were on Striding Edge.”

                  Striding Edge
                  Striding Edge from the Summit Plateau

                  Thus writes Alfred Wainwright in Ex-Fellwanderer, recalling his second full day on the Lakeland Fells. He was 23 and having saved £5 from his spending money, he recruited the company of his cousin, Eric and embarked on the first holiday he had ever had. The pair had arrived in Windermere two days earlier and climbed Orrest Head, where the sight of “mountain ranges, one after the other” proved a startling revelation for a young man who knew little of the world beyond the “tall chimneys and crowded tenements” of industrial Blackburn. Well it did for Alfred, Eric fell asleep in the grass. There would be no sleeping the following day, however. Alfred, or AW as he preferred, was on a mission and dragged his cousin up High Street because he had read about the Roman Road that once ran over it.

                  High Street was my first mountain too and for the same reason: I hadn’t yet heard of Wainwright but I had heard about the Roman Road, and the sight of High Street rearing above Haweswater in all its wild, rugged magnificence made the notion seem so implausible, I just knew I had to go up there. In 1998, I made the climb from Mardale Head, following directions in a Pathfinder guide, which I bought expressly because it contained that very walk. 

                  In 1930, AW and Eric ascended Froswick from the Troutbeck Valley and walked over Thornthwaite Crag to High Street’s summit. Wainwright took comfort from the thought that the Romans had walked that way 2000 years earlier. For one unnerving moment, I thought I was coming face to face with a ghostly legion. My ascent along Riggindale Edge had been breathless not only for the exertion but for the richness of the unfolding panorama. As I reached the top of Long Stile, however, my head entered the clouds literally as well as metaphorically. Not that I cared, it was immensely atmospheric, and I was busy imagining cohorts of legionaries marching beside the summit wall. Then all of a sudden, I realised I could hear them.  Slowly their outlines started to emerge from the mist, moving two abreast in strict military two step. Part of me wanted to run, but I was rivetted to the spot transfixed by the image crystallising in front of me… It was somewhat deflating to discover their armour was Gore-Tex and their spears were trekking poles. I swear I have never since seen a party of fellwalkers march with such precision.

                  I made a round of Mardale Ill Bell and Harter Fell, but AW and Eric followed the line of the old road for quite some way before descending to Howtown and walking along the shore of Ullswater to Pooley Bridge.  The very next day they set off for Striding Edge:

                  “In agonies of apprehension we edged our way along the spine of the ridge, sometimes deviating to a path just below the crest to bypass difficulties. We passed a memorial to someone who had fallen to his death from the ridge which did nothing for our peace of mind. After an age of anxiety we reached the abrupt end of the Edge and descended an awkward crack in the rocks to firmer ground below and beyond, feeling and looking like old men.”

                  Striding Edge from High Spying How
                  Striding Edge from High Spying How

                  The experience filled Eric with dread, but it sparked a passion in AW that would consume him for the rest of his life.  In 1955, he published the first of his Pictorial Guides, The Eastern Fells, in which he described Striding Edge as “the finest ridge there is in Lakeland”.

                  Helvellyn swiftly followed High Street for me too, chiefly because my Pathfinder Guide drew a parallel between Striding Edge and Long Stile. Just as it had for Wainwright, High Street had sparked a passion in me, and I was hungry for more.

                  Pipe & Socks: Discovering Wainwright

                  In the weeks between tackling Long Stile and Striding Edge, my wife, Sandy, and I popped into Kendal Museum to see our friend, Meriel, who worked there. She was talking to an outdoorsy couple in front of a display case containing a walking jacket, boots, a pipe, and a pair of old socks that had belonged to Alfred Wainwright. Meriel explained that Wainwright had been Honorary Curator of the museum between 1945 and 1974, and as her own maiden-name was “Wainwright”, visitors frequently assumed (wrongly) that she was related to him. The couple laughed and stared at the socks with a kind of hushed reverence.

                  Intrigued, I sought out a second-hand copy of one of Wainwright’s Pictorial Guides and immediately began to understand why fellwalkers held him in such esteem. The book was totally unlike my Pathfinder Guide. It contained no handy advice on parking or refreshments.  The walks weren’t graded as easy, medium, or hard. The maps were not official OS versions, but hand-drawn impressions that morphed into sketches; yet every page felt sacred, as if the author was imparting arcane secrets. The book communicated an almost religious devotion, a profound understanding, and a deep, deep love for this remarkable landscape.

                  The weather was kinder to me on Striding Edge than it had been to AW and Eric; I found it utterly exhilarating. Inspired, I went on to tackle Scafell Pike, the Coniston Fells, Great Gable, Crinkle Crags, the Langdale Pikes and more. And yet, somehow, as the years passed, with work, and moving house, and everything else life throws at you, my newfound passion for the fells dwindled. Eventually, in 2015, Storm Desmond flooded the gym I had joined and forced me to think about an alternative form of exercise.  I bought a new pair of walking boots and headed for the hills. I never renewed my gym membership.

                  I bought all the other Pictorial Guides and immersed myself in them. Yet to start with, I would cherry pick my walks, always favouring the high fells. Two years on, my great friends and neighbours, Paul and Jeanette would persuade me to attempt all 214 hills that AW documents. Some of the smaller ones have the most spectacular views, they said, and your understanding of how everything fits together grows exponentially. 

                  All of which is why I am now heading towards Lanty’s Tarn with a mind full of memories. You see my Pathfinder guide took me over Helvellyn via its Edges, but it missed out Catstycam.  When I repeated the walk several years ago, I made the same omission. Today, Catstycam will be my 214th Wainwright, and I shall reach it by repeating one of my first mountain experiences: Helvellyn via Striding Edge and Swirral Edge.

                  Nature’s Cathedrals—Striding Edge

                  As I climb the slopes of Keldas, I’m gifted a glance at Ullswater, shining like a silver plate, the backward scene a moody wash of early morning monochrome, but ahead, the sun breaks through the leafy canopy to render all in summer colours, the tarn a sparkling cut of aquamarine. I remember spotting a red squirrel here, twenty three years ago, the first I had seen since moving to the Lakes.

                  Ullswater from Keldas
                  Ullswater from Keldas

                  Today should have been a shared celebration with friends, but unexpected events forced a last-minute reschedule. No-one else was free today, but the weather forecast was perfect, and I was too impatient to wait longer. Yet as vivid memories of first fell walks flood back, part of me is grateful for the solitude to indulge them. Today marks a significant milestone in a journey, not only physical but emotional, through a landscape that has come to possess me entirely, just as it did the man whose footprints I have been following.

                  Lanty's Tarn
                  Lanty’s Tarn

                  I emerge from the trees into Grisedale and follow the path that climbs steadily to the Hole in the Wall—up slopes where pink foxgloves rise like beacons from a rippling sea of green bracken. Two magnificent ridges dominate the forward view: one rising dramatically to enclose Nethermost Cove and attain the summit of Nethermost Pike, and beyond, the airy majesty of Dollywagon’s craggy Tongue. I’m yet to climb either—so while I’ll attain the last of Wainwright’s summits today, there are many more adventures lurking in the pages of his guides.

                  The Tongue Dollywagon Pike
                  The Tongue Dollywagon Pike
                  Grisedale -The path to the Hole in the Wall
                  Grisedale -The path to the Hole in the Wall

                  From the Hole in the Wall, I’m greeted with the glorious vision of Helvellyn, looking every bit like an immense organic castle, its summit a broad stronghold rising above the languid navy moat of Red Tarn. It is defended on either side by the crenelated walls of its Edges, terminating in conical pyramid of Catstycam; to reach it via two of Lakeland’s most dramatic ridges promises to be the finest of adventures—a precarious negotiation along craggy crests and plunging precipices.

                  Helvellyn & Catstycam over Red Tarn
                  Helvellyn & Catstycam over Red Tarn
                  Catstycam over Red Tarn
                  Catstycam over Red Tarn

                  The going is easy at first but gets craggier from Low Spying How. Soon the rocky turret of High Spying How looms. This is Wainwright’s black tower. Partially glimpsed through mist, its true height unknown, it must have been an intimidating prospect for two fledgling fellwalkers. In today’s brilliant light, it is less daunting, yet still imparts a frisson of nervous excitement, as on reaching the top, you are greeted with the sight of Striding Edge tapering to a slender Toblerone before rising in a steep upward sweep to the summit plateau high above.

                  Striding Edge from High Spying How
                  Striding Edge from High Spying How

                  But where are all the people? Reports of late have suggested Striding Edge is overrun, and I was worried I’d be joining a thronging queue. I’m not entirely alone—I’m one of a handful of walkers, but we’re well spaced out, and no-one else is currently in view. It’s reassuring to know that if you pick your time, even on a Saturday in summer, there are still opportunities to wander lonely as a cloud.

                  I pass the memorial that did so little for AW and Eric’s peace of mind. It reads:

                  “In memory of Robert Dixon of Poolings Patterdale who was killed on this place on the 27th day of Nov 1886 when following the Patterdale Fox Hounds.”

                  On reaching this point in Terry Abraham’s Life of a Mountain film, Stuart Maconie professes, “I’m not sure I’m a fan of memorials on mountains—sends out the wrong message.”

                  A narrow bypass path runs below the crest on the right, but it feels more adventurous to clamber along the naked rock. Besides, I find three points of contact more reassuring than walking along a narrow ledge where one misstep could send you tumbling.

                  Striding Edge
                  Striding Edge

                  I recall the exhilaration I felt when I first stepped out on Striding Edge, and the years have done nothing to diminish the feeling. To my left, the slopes drop abruptly into the wild green bowl of Nethermost Cove, and to my right, to the inscrutable blue waters of Red Tarn.

                  A little further along, I glance back to High Spying How. The ridge looks every bit like the spiky spine of a fossilised dinosaur.

                  Striding Edge
                  Striding Edge

                  The King & the Pen Pusher


                  AW grew up in poverty. His father was an alcoholic stonemason who drank what little he earned between long bouts of unemployment. AW adored his mother who made sure the children never went hungry even when it meant going without herself. Despite exceptional academic promise, AW left school at 14 to help put food on the table.

                  He started as an office boy in the engineer’s department at Blackburn Town Council, but soon transferred to the Treasurer’s office and studied at night school to become an accountant. He embraced work with a passion and attributes the failure of his first marriage to the mismatch between his own ambition to climb the professional ladder and his wife’s reluctance to leave the bottom rung. At Kendal, he rose to become Borough Treasurer, and it’s easy to think of his move to Cumbria as the logical next step in an upward trajectory. But it wasn’t. It was a voluntary step down, which involved a pay cut. Reaching the next rung was no longer his motivation. He moved here to be closer to the hills, and although he remained diligent about his work, his heart now belonged to the mountains:

                  “Down below I was a pen pusher. Up here I was a king; a king amongst friends.”

                  The fells were to give the spiritual nourishment that organised religion had failed to provide:

                  “At Blackburn I had attended chapel. Now I worshipped in nature’s cathedrals”.

                  For me too, these hills have become hallowed ground.

                  Helvellyn

                  Striding Edge ends in an abrupt drop—a scramble down a craggy chimney. As bad steps go, however, it isn’t Lakeland’s worst—hand and footholds abound, and with due care and attention, it is tackled with relative ease.

                  Striding Edge, Helvellyn
                  Looking back at the bad step from the scramble to the summit plateau

                  What remains is the stiff climb to the summit plateau. On the approach, it looks daunting, but it’s an illusion that serves to test your resolve. Close up, the gradient is less severe and a plethora of options reveal themselves. It is worth pausing on the little rocky platforms to gaze back at Striding Edge, which now looks razor sharp. The aspect is best seen from the top, where a smug smile of self-congratulation is permitted.

                  Red Tarn and Striding Edge
                  The author in front of Red Tarn and Striding Edge

                  A memorial to Charles Gough, who died here in 1805, is a poignant reminder of the dangers. Gough’s death made him, or more particularly his dog, something of a celebrity, but to learn more of their story, you’ll either have to climb Striding Edge or read my first ever blog:The Stuff of Legend—  http://www.lakelandwalkingtales.co.uk/grisedale-tarn-helvellyn/

                  Looking west from the summit, I recall AW’s remark about “mountain ranges, one after the other”, but today, it’s the north-eastern aspect, over Red Tarn to Catstycam, that sets my pulse racing.

                  Swirral Edge & Catstycam

                  A large cairn marks the start of Swirral Edge. People talk of Swirral Edge as the less difficult of the two, but the initial scramble down bouldery rocks is the rival of anything on Striding Edge. The going gets easier after that and all too soon, I’m climbing the slope of Catstycam.

                  Red Tarn from the scramble on to Swirral Edge
                  Red Tarn from the scramble on to Swirral Edge
                  Swirral Edge & Catstycam
                  Swirral Edge & Catstycam
                  Swirral Edge & Catstycam
                  Swirral Edge & Catstycam

                  At the summit, I delve into a rucksack for a prop that I have painstakingly placed between sheets of stiff cardboard to protect it. In our age of social media, it’s customary on completing the Wainwrights to take a summit selfie with a sign saying “214”. Sandy is an artist, so I asked her if she could draw me a doodle of a pipe—well I thought it more iconic than the socks. She did much better than that and produced a larger-than-life cardboard cut-out beautifully painted to look like a 3D pipe, replete with a puff of smoke bearing the magic number.

                  Swirral Edge from Catstycam

                  The trouble is there’s no-one else here and my arm is barely long enough to to take a selfie that fits in me, the pipe, and Ullswater curving away in the distance. After several squinting attempts, I just about manage it. Shortly afterwards, a girl arrives and grins as she obliges by snapping me with a wider sweep as the backdrop. The views are majestic, and I sit long in quiet contemplation.

                  Catstycam
                  The Author with pipe on Catstycam.jpg

                  In places, Ex-Fellwanderer descends into the rant of an old man at odds with the modern world. Yet the digs are not directionless. His most extreme suggestion—that convicts be used in vivisection experiments—is not just Daily Mail style vitriol but part of a passionate plea against performing such atrocities on animals. AW loved animals and poured the royalties from his books into building an animal sanctuary—a selfless act in a decade that celebrated selfishness.

                  Even before the 1980’s, the quest for ruthless efficiency was driving out values AW held dear:

                  “I retired from the office early in 1967, and was glad to go. I had enjoyed the work immensely but methods of accounting were changing…Computers and calculating machines and other alleged labour saving devices, which I could not understand, were coming in and pushing out the craftsmen”.

                  A master craftsman is exactly what Wainwright was: a man whose ledgers were almost works of art, and who would go on to pen his stunning Pictorial Guides in the same immaculate copperplate handwriting. It is wrong to think of these are mere guidebooks. Guidebooks are functional things, carefully targeted at specific segments of the market. Wainwright’s books are works of spiritual reverence. His devotion to nature was a form of worship he knew could cure many modern ailments. He describes the fells as “the complete antidote to urban depression”.

                  A party of energetic young people arrives on the summit. One lad is curious about the pipe. He’s heard of Wainwright and comes to sit beside me, eager to know more. I fish out my copy of the Eastern Fells and watch as he turns the pages, transfixed. When they leave, he turns back to me and says, “I’m going to get that book. I’m going to get them all”, and I feel as if I have passed on a little piece of magic.

                  Swirral Edge from Catstycam
                  Swirral Edge from Catstycam

                  Eventually, I leave too, and make my way down the lonely north-west ridge to the old Keppel Cove dam. As I follow the steep path, I remember the dedication at the start of Ex-Fellwanderer: “for those who tread where I have trod”; and I feel proud to count among them.

                  Keppel Cove Dam
                  Keppel Cove Dam
                  Keppel Cove Dam
                  Keppel Cove Dam

                  Further Reading

                  For more information about Wainwright’s books, visit Wainwright archivist, Chris Butterfield’s splendid website:


                    Enjoyed this post?

                    Like to receive free email alerts when new posts are published?

                    Leave your name and email and we'll keep you in the loop. This won't be more than once or twice a month. Alternatively, follow this blog on Facebook by "Liking" our page at https://www.facebook.com/lakelandwalkingtales

                    Wonderwall – The hidden world of Crinkle Gill

                    Crinkle Crags via Crinkle Gill

                    A breathtaking scramble on to Crinkle Crags, through the ravines and rock pools of Crinkle Gill, is nearly blocked by a waterfall known as “The Wall”.

                    The Mists of Time

                    Trepidation and euphoria are the two faces of that coin we flip each time we step out of our comfort zone. Apprehension and self-doubt weigh heavily, cajoling us to wriggle out of the challenge; and yet rarely do we feel more alive than when we conquer our misgivings. For me, that has a habit of happening on Crinkle Crags.

                    My forays into the fells began twenty three years ago. These days, when I find myself tutting at ill-equipped fell-walkers, it does me good to remember that that was me back then. Walking like John Wayne for the best part of a week after attempting Scafell Pike on the hottest day of the year taught me that jeans are not a fellwalker’s friend, but it was Crinkle Crags that was to give me my first real wake up call.

                    I had a decent guidebook, an OS map, and a compass, but I didn’t know how to use the latter properly. If I had, I’d have realised it was little more than a toy, capable of pointing north, but with no facility for taking a bearing, even if I’d known what one was. Fortunately, on this occasion, just knowing which way was north would prove my salvation.

                    I hadn’t intended to be reckless: my guidebook warned that Crinkle Crags was a walk for a fine day, the path along the ridge being sketchy and hard to follow in mist. As I left Stool End Farm, the sky was a clear expanse of blue, but by the time I reached Red Tarn, clouds were gathering, and by the time I reached Long Top, the summit, they were down. Crinkle Crags is a ridge comprising 5 peaks (the Crinkles) running in a straight line south to north. Long Top is the second. With moderate visibility, they unfurl in front of you and you simply follow the ridge between them. Now, in the clag, I couldn’t see the third, let alone the fourth and fifth. I could make out a path, however, and the security of knowing I was following in the footsteps of others gave me courage enough to continue.

                    Cloud closing in on Crinkle Crags

                    Pretty soon what started as a mild thrum of unease built into a cacophony of anxiety. This was wrong. I was descending. My rudimentary compass was at least capable of showing I was heading west. Carrying on in this direction would deposit me in the wilds of Upper Eskdale, miles from my car, miles from anywhere. I retraced my steps back to the crest and forced my rookie self to forgo the faux security of the trod and venture north into the pathless mist. I can still remember the heady mix of elation and relief when the murk resolved into the Third Crinkle.

                    Before I reached the fourth, I heard the welcome sound of voices, and out of the gloom appeared a party of about twenty fell-walkers. Relief must have been written large on my face as they welcomed me to their number, urging me to “stick with us. Martin’s very good. He knows what he’s doing.”

                    Martin was their leader, an officious little man, somewhat pumped up with a sense of his own importance. Not that I was complaining—confidence born of experience was exactly what I wanted, and I was happy to be led.

                    Or at least, I was until we started descending towards Eskdale again. Having made this mistake once, I was anxious not to repeat it, and I spoke up. Martin dismissed my concerns, and several of his disciples turned to repeat, with pious assurance, that “he knows what he’s doing”. To me, the evidence said otherwise, and for the second time I had to make a difficult wrench in favour of reason over apparent security. Only this time, I wasn’t alone. A Liverpudlian couple walked over and confided that they were thinking the same. Together, we left the party, regained the ridge, and found the two remaining Crinkles. At Three Tarns, lurking beneath a shadowy Bow Fell, we found the path down The Band that led us back to Great Langdale.

                    That evening, I watched the local news with dread, awaiting a story about a group of fellwalkers missing on Crinkle Crags. Thankfully, no such report emerged. Perhaps Martin knew what he was doing after all. But I had learned a valuable lesson. The next day I bought a proper compass and started learning how to use it.

                    The next time I was on Long Top, I tackled the Bad Step, a short but near vertical scramble out of a gully blocked by chockstones that I had baulked at on that first occasion. This time, I would learn that patience and persistence pay dividends, yielding handholds not obvious on first inspection.

                    Over the subsequent years, Crinkle Crags had come to feel like an old friend, still richly endowed with dramatic scenery, but no longer a keeper of secrets to set my pulse a racing. I was wrong.

                    Answering the Call

                    When the phone rang, it was Richard, “Jaclyn and I are doing Crinkle Crags via Crinkle Gill on Thursday. We wondered if you’d like to come?”

                    We’d been planning to meet up, but I’d envisaged something a little less demanding. I was still to fully lose my lockdown legs. Richard has a knack of taking me out of my comfort zone, however, (we did Sharp Edge and Jack’s Rake together), and his enthusiasm is infectious: “It’s like entering another world, you’ll forget you’re in Great Langdale. It’s nothing you can’t handle, mainly walking, some easy scrambling and just a couple of big waterfalls near the end that are a bit tricky”.

                    It was the “bit tricky” part that provoked the tingle of misgiving, but even so, I heard myself agreeing.

                    “Good”, said Richard. “Bring microspikes and a helmet”.

                    Oxendale Beck and Browney Gill

                    Oxendale Beck is formed where three principal gills that collect the run-off from Crinkle Crags commingle. Buscoe Syke starts as a trickle near Three Tarns at the northern end of the ridge and flows south-east to become Hell Gill, before cascading majestically over Whorneyside Force; Browney Gill tumbles down from the waters of Red Tarn, nestled between Pike O’ Blisco and the southernmost Crinkle. Between them, Crinkle Gill flows east, cutting a deep ravine in the slopes beneath the Third Crinkle. Once we’re out of the trees around the Old Dungeon Ghyll Hotel, we can see it—a purple scar on the pale green face of the fell.

                    Crinkle Crags and Crinkle Gill
                    Crinkle Crags and Crinkle Gill

                    A popular route to Crinkle Crags climbs above Browney Gill to Red Tarn and tackles the ridge south to north. We follow it as far as Oxendale Beck, but turn right, tracking the bank a little way before descending to its bouldery bed. A spell of dry weather has reduced the weight of water, leaving a broad tumble of rocks, worn smooth and round, their grey faces streaked yellow with lichen. Between the boulders, jets of water hiss white and collect in limpid pools of mineral hues: green, turquoise and rust.

                    Oxendale Gill
                    Oxendale Gill

                    Wet stone is slippery as hell and we pause to don microspikes, which grip damp rock as effectively as they do ice. This is where we suffer a setback. As Richard stretches the rubber harness over his left boot, it snaps—an unseen tear from a previous trip finally giving out.

                    He’s determined to continue, “I’ll just have to keep out of the water”, he says. “It shouldn’t be difficult today, but I’ll probably have to bypass the waterfalls.”

                    I can see the disappointment in his face. Jaclyn looks relieved.

                    “You can still do them!” he exclaims to her with a smile. She laughs, then turns to me to explain that she has long had a phobia about water, which she’s desperate to overcome for the sake of their four-year-old daughter. She’s been making tremendous progress, but this will be her biggest test to date. My comfort zone suddenly seems much closer than hers.

                    We stride on up the beck, clambering over the boulders, Richard hugging the dry ones, Jaclyn resisting the urge to do the same. Shortly before the confluence of Crinkle Gill and Whorneyside Gill, a narrow tree-lined ravine opens on the left, its walls of mottled rock so straight it resembles a railway cutting. Water cascades over littered stones to form a languid pool at its mouth. This is the entrance to Browney Gill. Browney Gill and Crinkle Gill quickly diverge, but in their initial stages, they are separated only by a grassy tongue. Crinkle Gill starts as an open boulder bed, so Browney Gill holds more initial interest. We enter the narrow leafy gorge and scramble gently upstream. Everything is bathed in dappled light, shifting hues of yellow and green. Langdale already seems distant.

                    Browney Gill entrance
                    Browney Gill entrance

                    Crinkle Gill – The Pool and the Dam

                    As the ravine begins to widen, we make our exit up the bank of the grassy tongue running down from Gladstone Knott. We cross the thin trickle of Isaac Gill and drop into the bed of Crinkle Gill itself. It’s not long before it too cuts into a ravine. As walls of mossy rock converge, green with bracken and overhung with rowan, our eyes are drawn to the distant Crinkles, looming like majestic pyramids ahead. They are our lofty destination, but we have many hurdles to cross first.

                    Rock Pool Crinkle Gill
                    Rock Pool Crinkle Gill

                    Now the walls become steeper, the tree canopy obscures the wider world, and Crinkle Gill becomes its own realm, pushing Great Langdale and Crinkle Crags out of mind. Richard’s mental map divides the gill into four distinct sections. Each harbours obstacles which the scrambler must overcome. He has names for them all. Overhead, a fallen tree spans the banks like a bridge and heralds our first challenge, The Pool, a deep basin collecting the water that shoots over a barrage of boulders. The scramble looks simple, but the pool has no obvious bypass. Richard explains the way around involves a tricky traverse of the ravine’s nigh vertical right wall. I anticipate a soaking, but as we reach the water’s edge, we find some enterprising soul has manoeuvred two large rocks into the bottom to make a ford. We’ve been spared our first trial.

                    We venture on over water-rounded rocks. Everywhere, boulders hiss with swishing cascades, and we wade through crystal pools, copper green and iron red. All are but overtures, however, for what lies ahead. The first section ends in a barrier that Richard calls The Dam, a 10ft wall formed around a large chockstone. I stare in wonder. It’s beautiful. It looks like the fantastical head of a giant insect: atop the mossy green armour of its mandibles is perched a giant eye of black granite, while the crashing cataract at its centre resembles a probing white proboscis, plumbing the myrtle green waters below. I’m roused from this flight of fancy by the need to circumvent it, which is accomplished easily enough, in the event, by pulling ourselves up the pitched rocks to its right.

                    The Dam, Crinkle Gill
                    The Dam, Crinkle Gill
                    The Dam, Crinkle Gill
                    The author on the Dam (photo by Richard Jennings)

                    Crinkle Gill – The Chute and the Overhang

                    The gill bends left to start its second section and narrows to a long course of rapids, which Richard calls The Chute. The rocks on the right provide an obvious climb. The stone is green with moss, but mostly dry. Richard tackles the damper sections with caution but encounters no difficulties. Jaclyn climbs last, apparently unfazed by the crashing torrents to her left.

                    The Chute, Crinkle Gill
                    The Chute, Crinkle Gill
                    Richard Scrambling The Chute
                    Richard Scrambling The Chute
                    Richard Scrambling The Chute

                    At the head of The Chute, the wall of the ravine becomes a large slab of overhanging rock with the beck forced into a narrow gap beneath it. Scrambling up the cascade and ducking under the overhang is awkward, but we tackle it stoically, aware that greater tests lie ahead.

                    The Overhang, Crinkle Gill
                    The Overhang, Crinkle Gill
                    The Overhang, Crinkle Gill
                    Jaclyn under the Overhang (photo by Richard Jennings)

                    Crinkle Gill – The Canyon of Carrion

                    Now, the ravine deepens, hemmed in by high walls of crag comprising dark slabs of gun-metal grey. Richard calls this section, The Canyon. Surprisingly, there are sheep here, hardy Herdwick mountaineers drawn down by the prospect of water, or shelter, or some tasty flora not to be had on the grassy slopes above. As we enter the mouth, three ewes bolt past us, escaping the confines for a grassy rake that leads to open fell. A little further on, we disturb a raven feasting on dead flesh. As it takes flight, the walls echo with its indignant croaks and the downbeat of big black wings. Then the putrid stench of carrion assaults our nostrils and we find the body of a ewe. She must have fallen from the crag above. Beside her is a smaller carcass—the young lamb that loyally followed her to its death.

                    The Canyon, Crinkle Gill
                    The Canyon

                    As we emerge from the tunnel, sunlight illuminates the rocks, and a small frog hops over white stone crackle-glazed with charcoal lines. As we look up our eyes are greeted with remarkable vista: the Third Crinkle rears above the head of the gill, a colossal white dome, defended by plunging walls. Shadowy gullies hint at lines of weakness, breaches that might afford an upward passage.

                    The Frog
                    The Third Crinkle above The Wall
                    The Third Crinkle above The Wall

                    Crinkle Gill – The Wall

                    But the way ahead is barred by the biggest obstacle we will face: a large waterfall, which Richard fittingly calls The Wall. It is a formidable rampart. The watercourse is defined by slabs, worn to the shape of a man rising from a crouch.  A sparkling cataract shoots down his torso, crashes into his lap, before running over his knee to drop vertically into the pond beneath. It’s a sight both exhilarating and terrifying. When we’re standing right in front of it, looking up in anxious wonder, Richard points out a grassy rake behind us that leads out of the gorge—an escape should we desire it. But we don’t—it’s time to step out of the comfort zone; everything we have encountered so far feels like a rehearsal. But Richard won’t manage this safely without microspikes. It occurs to us that if I go first, I can throw mine down for him to use. I’d hoped to watch and learn, but strangely, I’m not fazed. I can see the route, and my confidence is bolstered when Richard talks me through it, pointing out a shallow ledge that is the key to the upper section.  From there, I’ll have to put a knee in the stream to get over the lip, he tells me.

                    The Wall, Crinkle Gill
                    The Wall, Crinkle Gill

                    I walk around the glassy pool to the sheer face of slate grey stone, its damper sections maroon with algae. At its foot, a narrow ledge leads to the cascade.  Stepping over onto the boulders, I climb slightly away from the water to a grassy bank which leads, in turn, up to slab of exposed stone. Moving back beside the torrent now affords the footholds I need to reach the lap. Before I know it, I’m standing on the narrow shelf we spied from below. My outstretched hand is level with the parapet.  There is another good foothold, but I can’t reach it without something to grip, and I can find nothing but precarious tufts of grass.  I spend what feels like an eternity hunting around. Just when I wonder whether I’m stuck, patience and persistence pay off. My hand chances on a smooth spur of stone. It’s all the grip I need to pull myself up high enough to get a knee in the water and a hand on to the rock at the far side. I’m now lying firm but prostrate over water gushing off a steep lip. A final inelegant heave, part shuffle, part wiggle, part crawl gets me over the edge. I stand up in triumph and throw my microspikes down to Richard. Much to Richard’s delight and surprise, Jaclyn opts to come next, tracking my route and my long hunt for handholds. For a horrible moment I think she’s going to slip, but she doesn’t, and she effects a similar wriggle over the edge (perhaps with a tad more elegance). I expect Richard to make it look easy, but even with his experience, the hunt for handholds in the final section is long and tense.

                    The Wall, Crinkle Gill
                    The author on the Wall (photo by Richard Jennings)
                    The Wall, Crinkle Gill
                    The author on the Wall (photo by Richard Jennings)
                    The Wall, Crinkle Gill
                    The author on the Wall (photo by Richard Jennings)
                    The Wall, Crinkle Gill
                    Jaclyn makes it over the Wall
                    The Wall, Crinkle Gill
                    Richard makes it over the Wall

                    Crinkle Gill – The Fallen Man, Dour End, & the Amphitheatre

                    Beyond The Wall, a massive, toppled boulder rests like a buttress against the side of the ravine. Richard tries to think of a name for it. Its top resembles the chiselled face of an Eastern Island head; “The Fallen Man”, he declares.

                    The Fallen Man, Crinkle Gill
                    The Fallen Man
                    The Fallen Man, Crinkle Gill
                    The Fallen Man
                    The Fallen Man, Crinkle Gill
                    The Fallen Man

                    The head of the gill now opens into a savagely beautiful amphitheatre: a vast natural cathedral of craggy pillars, lofty domes, and cavernous alcoves. I take a moment to stare enrapt, feeling hopelessly small amid this hidden temple of mountain grandeur.

                    The Amphitheatre, Crinkle Gill
                    The Amphitheatre

                    Three gullies diverge like aisles, the leftmost is the nave, and this is the one we follow. It leads us to our last major obstacle—a shadowy waterfall, which Richard has christened Dour End. It’s a challenge, but we are now veterans of The Wall, and we have its measure. I go first again so I can throw back my spikes. Jaclyn shows no hesitation in following. The top section is smooth like a water slide and I see no way up it, so opt for steeper pull over rock and grass to its right. When Richard appears over the parapet, it’s obvious he found a way to follow the water.

                    Richard follows the water over Dour End
                    Richard follows the water over Dour End

                    Crinkle Crags

                    We climb through a gully littered with fallen trees and emerge on to open fell. We stand on a grassy knoll and drink in the heady views over Great Langdale and the Langdale Pikes. After hours immersed in world of cascades and canyons, dappled light and dramatic vistas, crystal rock pools and crashing cataracts, it’s a shock to be back on familiar ground.

                    Great Langdale from the grassy knoll
                    Great Langdale from the grassy knoll

                    Our journey replays on fast-forward in my head, and for an instant, I am back on The Wall, groping for an elusive handhold, the water crashing vertically down the sheer face; and now I’m hit with the trepidation I was too focused to feel before. As it subsides, a warm wave of euphoria washes over me. I look at Jaclyn, who’s face is etched in a quiet smile—her phobia well and truly conquered—and I see Richard beaming with pride.

                    The Third Crinkle is bathed in sunshine, but Long Top is shrouded in low lying cloud, and suddenly, I’m transported back twenty three years, reliving that one small step into the clag and that one giant leap in my outdoor education. Crinkle Crags—ever a mountain for overcoming misgivings.

                    Further Reading / Route Info

                    For detailed information on the route we took, check out Richard’s route guide on his excellent Lakeland Routes website:


                      Enjoyed this post?

                      Like to receive free email alerts when new posts are published?

                      Leave your name and email and we'll keep you in the loop. This won't be more than once or twice a month. Alternatively, follow this blog on Facebook by "Liking" our page at https://www.facebook.com/lakelandwalkingtales

                      Skiddaw Stories

                      Skiddaw House, Great Calva, Bakestall, Skiddaw

                      How Skiddaw spawned the world’s first rock band; why England’s loneliest dwelling sparked a constitutional crisis; the tragic death of a child at a shepherds’ meet; and the night a founder member of the National Trust set Skiddaw’s summit ablaze.  I walk over Great Calva and Bakestall to one Lakeland’s highest peaks in search of Skiddaw stories.

                      Music of the Stones

                      Derwent Water from Skiddaw
                      Derwent Water from Skiddaw

                      The Skiddaw Rock Band live at the Victoria Hall, Keswick all sounds a bit Spinal Tap until you notice the byeline says “musical stones” not “musical stoners” and the date is 22nd September 1891. The “rock band” in question was a large lithophone—think xylophone or glockenspiel but with strips of stone rather than wood or metal. It was assembled by Joseph Richardson, a Cumbrian stonemason, using hornfel stones he collected from a quarry on Skiddaw. Hornfels are produced when the extreme heat of volcanic lava bakes the surrounding rock, metamorphosing it into a fine-grained, crystalline form. The name derives from the German meaning horn-stone, a reference to its tough and durable nature, reminiscent of animal horns. When struck with wooden mallets, hornfels produce a musical sound, superior in tone to the slates more commonly used in lithopones. 

                      It took Richardson thirteen years to diligently collect, shape, and assemble his lithophone. It was not the first Lakeland example: in 1785, Peter Crosthwaite, founder of the Crosthwaite museum, a forerunner of Keswick museum, collected a set of “musical stones” from the sand beds of the River Greta. Thirty years later, a Mr Todhunter of Kendal assembled a second set. But Richardson’s was the most impressive, spanning a full eight octaves. The work consumed him and plunged his family into poverty. From 1837, however, the finished Rock Band would start to bring Richardson and his sons significant renown as musicians, as they toured Britain and the Continent. By 1848, the lithophone had been augmented with steel plates and Swiss bells, and one year later, the Richardsons would perform selections from Rossini and Handel for Queen Victoria at Buckingham Palace.

                      Joseph Richardson died in 1855, but the Rock Band’s appeal endured, hence the advert for a concert at the Victoria Hall, which appeared in an 1891 edition of the English Lakes Visitor. The lithophone is now housed at Keswick Museum. In recent years, Brian Dewan and Jamie Barnes, transported it to the shore of Coniston Water to perform a new work, composed by Dewan, for the Coniston Water Festival. The performance was broadcast on the radio and repeated in 2006 in both Leeds and Liverpool. In January of that year, BBC Radio 4 aired a documentary about the stones, titled, “The World’s First Rock Band”, presented by percussionist, Evelyn Glennie.

                      Now, the door is open for Richardson’s sounds to grace cutting edge electronica, courtesy of Virtual instrument developers, Soniccouture, who have sampled the lithophone to create a sound library for electronic music composers. Their website offers some intriguing demo pieces: the tones are transporting, beautiful and haunting: they evoke wide open spaces, air, light, spiritual exuberance; the lonely majesty of mountain landscapes. As Soniccouture themselves note, they sound ancient, far older than the lithophone itself—but of course, the lithophone was built from little strips of Skiddaw, and Skiddaw is 500 million years old.

                      Skiddaw – The Treeless Forest

                      Lonely is perhaps not a word anyone making the steep climb over Jenkin Hill on a weekend would associate with Skiddaw. But there is more than one way up this mountain, and a long trek along its eastern flank, following a section of the Cumbria Way, to tackle it from the north via Bakestall, is one you’re much more likely to have to yourself.

                      I leave the small Gale Road parking area at 7:30 am (with Lakeland acting as post lockdown magnet, I bagged the last space). I start up the Tourist Route toward the Hawell memorial, a fine Celtic cross, commemorating three members of a shepherding family respected for their Herdwicks which grazed these slopes. The inscription includes a verse by National Trust founder, Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley:

                      “Great Shepherd of thy Heavenly Flock
                      These men have left our hill
                      Their feet were on the living rock
                      Oh guide and bless them still.”

                      Glenderaterra Valley
                      Glenderaterra Valley

                      Shortly before the cross, the Cumbria Way parts company with the beaten track to cross a beck and skirt the toe of Lonscale Fell. It soon rounds the foot and heads along the eastern flank, looking down on Glenderaterra Beck, which cuts a narrow gorge between the Skiddaw massif and Blencathra. The sky is clear, the September sun making good on its promise of an Indian summer, but the seasons are starting to turn: the Green Man’s face is already ruddy with the first blushes of Autumn, russetting large swathes of bracken and turning the heather brown. These treeless slopes are known as Skiddaw Forest. Wainwright describes it as “a place incredibly wild and desolate and bare, its loneliness accentuated by the solitary dwellings of Skiddaw House, yet strongly appealing and, in certain lights, often strangely beautiful”. It is a place of pyramids. Ahead, over the yellowing shoulder of Burnt Horse ridge, Great Calva rises like a shaded pencil impression of Giza’s great tomb. From the foot of the ridge, Lonscale Fell’s pointed eastern peak commands the rear view—a soaring mass of sculpted slate, nearly five times as high as Egypt’s man-made imitation.

                      Great Calva over Lonscale Fell
                      Great Calva over Lonscale Fell

                      A Cenotaph

                      Skiddaw’s mines and quarries yielded more than slate and musical hornfels. In the years following WW2, Harold Robinson of Threlkeld climbed Blencathra many times. On each occasion, he filled his pockets with pieces of white quartz from the lead mine where he worked. He used the stones to build a large cross on the Saddle as a memorial to his friend, Mr Straughan, who was killed in active service in 1942. Straughan had been the gamekeeper at Skiddaw House, perhaps England’s most secluded dwelling, now visible ahead, among a Spartan stand of trees.

                      Lonscale Fell East Peak and Burnt Horse Ridge
                      Lonscale Fell East Peak and Burnt Horse Ridge

                      Skiddaw House – England’s Loneliest Dwelling

                      Skiddaw House was built in 1829 as a shooting lodge for George Wyndham, Earl of Egremont.  The building was divided in two. The gamekeeper lived in one half and the shepherd in the other. It also had rooms for the Earl and his shooting parties. Wyndham’s descendants became the Lords Leconfield. One of these, George Henry Wyndham, the 3rd Baron Leconfield, resumed his military career (after a 19 year break) to fight in WW1. In 1919, he put part of his estate, Scafell Pike, in the custody of the National Trust in commemoration of those who died in the Great War. And so it is that two of Lakeland’s best known mountain memorials have links to this lonely hostel.

                      Skiddaw House
                      Skiddaw House

                      So sequestered is Skiddaw House that it caused a constitutional crisis in 1890. On September 6th of that year, the Westmorland Gazette published the following article:

                      “THE SHEPHERD OF SKIDDAW FOREST

                      A Constitutional Nut to Crack

                      The remote township of Skiddaw, in Cumberland, is the scene of a constitutional struggle. In Skiddaw, there is no church, no post office, no police station, and indeed no population save the solitary occupant of the only house of which the population boasts. It is by and on behalf of this individual that the struggle with the state is being carried on. He is the shepherd of what is known as Skiddaw Forest, although the term is used to designate a region that is destitute of anything that may be called a tree. Being neither a pauper, a criminal, nor a lunatic, living in his tenement continuously, and at peace with himself, he claims the right of a British citizen to exercise the franchise. It is here that the difficulty has arisen. There are no overseers of Skiddaw to make out a voters’ list, and, further, there is no place of worship or public building whereon to post it. Overseers of adjoining townships decline to meddle in the matter and the result is deadlock. In ordinary circumstances a refusal to pay taxes would probably elicit from some quarter or another some ingenious solution of the difficulty. But unfortunately the rates appear to be paid by the landlord’s agent to the Cockermouth Union, so that our luckless shepherd makes no direct payment that might be witheld. In the old days had he been possessed of resources, not to say local influence with himself, he might have bribed himself, voted for himself, and unanimously lent himself to sit in Parliament for Skiddaw. But this royal road was long ago closed for repairs, and has never been reopened. Under these circumstances, it is not easy to see what the shepherd of Skiddaw Forest is to do. If he were to get himself appointed as a local census clerk, to count himself next April, then his house, where this operation would be conducted, might perhaps at a stretch be called a populous place within the meaning of the Act. But even then there would be no overseer to post his name upon it, and he would have to remain without the privilege and the dignity of the franchise unless he could be made an overseer as well. It is to be feared that the noble British Constitution has been framed in ignorance of the needs of Skiddaw.”

                      Dead Crags
                      Dead Crags

                      Demoralization and Neglect – a Tragic Death

                      In 1863, Skiddaw House made the news for an altogether sadder reason. On August 6th, the Whitehaven News carried a story about “The shocking death of a boy from intoxicating liquor”. Lord Leconfield’s gamekeeper, Donald Grant, had hosted a shepherds’ meet at which the drink flowed a little too freely. Grant’s 10 year old son, Peter, was cross-examined at the inquest, and told how the shepherds had encouraged him and his friend, Thomas Hodgson, to drink rum and gin. The shepherds denied this, although one did admit to giving Hodgson gin and water when he asked for it. The quantity Thomas imbibed proved fatal, and the examining doctor had “no hesitation in saying that he died from the effects of drinking intoxicating liquors producing congestion on the brain”. The shepherds were spared manslaughter charges because the Coroner was unable to trust any of the evidence—all present (including little Peter) had been drinking, so their recollections were unreliable. The paper reported the Coroner’s concluding remarks: “(he said) it was a sad thing to think that boys of such tender years should be allowed to take drink, and he thought it showed that those who had given the drink to the boys were in a sad state of demoralization… They had killed the deceased through sheer neglect”.

                      The Hostel

                      In 1957, the Leconfield estate was broken up and Skiddaw House sold to a local farmer. Shepherd, Pearson Dalton, stayed on to work for the owner and, for twelve years, lived in Skiddaw House alone (except for goats, a cat and five dogs). His residency earned him a rare human cameo in Wainwright’s Pictorial Guide to the Northern Fells.

                      John Bothamley leased Skiddaw House in 1986. He renovated it, and it was run as a hostel by the YHA until 2002, after which, it fell into disrepair. It was rescued by a registered charity, the Skiddaw House Foundation, and reopened as independent hostel associated with YHA. In a recent episode of the excellent Countrystride podcast, former wardens, Martin Webster and Marie-Pierre Gaudez, talk to host Mark Richards about their many years in residence there, recalling operating by candlelight, even after installing a generator, and clearing snow from the beds before the roof was fixed. So strong was their attachment, Marie-Pierre becomes quite emotional in recalling their eventual, difficult decision to move on.

                      Great Calva
                      Great Calva

                      Watchtowers – Great Calva and Bakestall

                      Just past Skiddaw House, a wooden footbridge crosses the stripling River Caldew to the heather-clad flank of Great Calva, the purple of its summer pomp already faded to the chocolate brown of approaching winter.  Wainwright describes the heather on these lower slopes as “troublesome” and advises that burnt patches give the easiest passages, but with the gamekeepers long-gone, these are no longer to be found. The path soon peters out, and although we’re out of season for ground-nesting birds, my instinct not to disturb drives me to affect a gait straight from Monty Python’s Ministry of Silly Walks, taking long looping strides in order to land on sparse patches of bare earth. It makes for a tiring ascent, and, nearing the top, the reappearance of a path is a cause for celebration.

                      Looking down the fault line from Great Calva
                      Looking down the fault line from Great Calva

                      Wainwright describes Great Calva as “the watchtower of Skiddaw Forest”, and draws attention to its pre-eminent position at the head of a huge geological fault, which creates a trough through Lakeland, running from the foot of the fell, down the Glenderaterra Valley, through St John’s in the Vale, over Dunmail Raise to cradle the waters of Grasmere, Rydal Water and Windermere.  Although AW is somewhat sniffy about it, the northern aspect is inspiring too: it looks out over Binsey, the last bastion of Lakeland, to the Solway Firth and to Scotland. What arrests my eye, however, is the western view of Skiddaw itself. The mountain presents a benign face here, trading grassy slopes for the steep scree and craggy drama it displays to the west; but there is one notable exception: the scooped bowl of Dead Crags, delineating the massif’s northern outpost, Bakestall. Here, it is if the ground has been gauged away leaving sheer cliffs of chiselled granite, buttressed with mighty towers of imposing rock and riven with dark plunging gullies.  This is where I head, descending Great Calva’s western slope, to the cascading glory of Dash Falls, and from there, on up the stiff pull of Birkett Edge, which skirts the southern rim of the bowl, affording magnificent views of the crags. The top of Bakestall is another fine viewpoint for the flatlands beyond the fells, but today it is proving a little too popular with a swarm of flying ants. I retreat a long the ridge, gently climbing to the summit of Skiddaw itself.

                      Dead Crags, Bakestall
                      Dead Crags, Bakestall
                      Dash Falls
                      Dash Falls
                      Dead Crags
                      Dead Crags
                      Dead Crags
                      Dead Crags

                      Summit Smoke

                      Today, Lakeland’s fourth highest top is basking in sunshine, but on a June evening in 1887, this and several surrounding summits were ablaze with beacons. In the last pomp of empire, and somewhat against the wishes of the Queen herself, Britain pulled out all the stops to celebrate Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley, vicar of Crosthwaite, passionate conservationist, poet, and eulogiser of Skiddaw shepherds, was also a big fan of bonfires. The jubilee gave him ample excuse to organise a relay of fell-top bonfires and fireworks with Skiddaw at its centre.  The Annadale Observer published this eye-witness account:

                      “As I got on top of Skiddaw, the last vestige of a smoke-wreath cloud curled away from the top of Pillar Mountain, and far and wide the hills of Cumberland and Westmoreland stood, grey purple, against an almost cloudless sky. The Solway burnt like a flood of gold flushed with rose, for an after-glow of great beauty lay upon the waters… Then I saw torch touch the pile, and in an instant the whole mass leapt into a flame and flung out a great flag of fiery vapour, a perfect sheet of rich gold light that followed just behind a cloud of pitchy black smoke. At the same moment I heard the National Anthem pealing round the fire, and learned afterwards that it was heard in the Crosthwaite valley far below, a weird aerial music that made the folk wonder. I ran towards the top. Ere I had got down the incline and up the rise the Low Man had been enkindled. Grisedale Pike had fired three rockets and was ablaze; Swinside stood out like a pillar of flame, and Catbells was gloriously alight. Far up Borrowdale two more beacons glared; one shone above Manisty on Maiden Moor. Blencathra leapt up into golden tongues of fire, and as I gazed what seemed like a flood of molten lava poured down Catbells towards Newlands, and gleamed in streams of liquid gold; a pretty kettle of tar upset there I suspect.”

                      For the second time in her reign, music born of Skiddaw had honoured Queen Victoria.

                      Longside Edge from Skiddaw
                      Longside Edge from Skiddaw

                      Further Reading/Listening

                      Countrystride Skiddaw House episode:

                      https://www.countrystride.co.uk/single-post/countrystride-51-skiddaw-house-loneliest-house-in-england

                      Soniccouture Skiddaw Stones Sound Library demos:

                      https://www.soniccouture.com/en/products/35-rare-and-unique/g4-the-skiddaw-stones/

                      More on the history of Skiddaw House from their own website:

                      https://www.skiddawhouse.co.uk/history

                      Evelyn Glennie gets involved with building a successor to Richardson’s lithophone

                      https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/aug/18/stone-xylophone-evelyn-glennie

                      Information on Harold Robinson and the Blencathra cross comes from The English Lakes – Tales from History, Legend and Folklore by David Ramshaw (P3 Publications, Carlisle, 1996)


                        Enjoyed this post?

                        Like to receive free email alerts when new posts are published?

                        Leave your name and email and we'll keep you in the loop. This won't be more than once or twice a month. Alternatively, follow this blog on Facebook by "Liking" our page at https://www.facebook.com/lakelandwalkingtales

                        Faeries Wear Boots

                        Green Crag, Harter Fell & Hard Knott

                        A waterfall liberated from Victorian excess; the southern outpost of Wainwright country; two tragic deaths; and a faery Court of Forlorn Hope, lurking in the shadow of the Scafells… Tales of Eskdale from Green Crag, Harter Fell, and Hard Knott.

                        Slate-grey faces of fissured rock stare solemnly from beneath a swarming canopy of foliage, a tangled green profusion of liverwort, fern, lichen, and moss. Tall trunks of sparse, spindly trees twist upward to meet a narrow crack of sky, a pale canopy above the steep jungled sides of the ravine. The air is sultry with spray from the pearl-white cascades hissing and crashing down dark walls of crag.

                        Stanley Ghyll
                        Stanley Ghyll

                        When the railway brought Victorian tourists to Ravenglass, Eskdale’s Stanley Ghyll was high on their must-see schedule, but Victorian curiosity was almost its undoing. Back then, Stanley Ghyll was part of the Dalegarth and Ponsonby estate, which served as a nursery to nearby Muncaster Castle.  In thrall to exotica, many country estates were busy planting rhododendron, a novel Asian import that was suddenly all the rage. Muncaster was no exception, and in 1857 various species were planted on the nursery estate, including the common invasive ponticum variety, which soon took hold in Stanley Ghyll. It spreads quickly, outcompeting native flora and forming a dense canopy that shuts out the light and suppresses germination of other plant species.

                        A hundred years later, Stanley Ghyll was overrun, its celebrated falls mostly obscured; its biodiversity threatened, as were its visitors. Hidden hazards lurked. Rhododendron “root jacks” rock, rendering it loose and unstable; and forty years ago, a tragedy occurred. On Friday 27th June 1980, the Millom Gazette reported that “the neighbourhood of the waterfall has been made very dangerous by earth breaking away, being especially dangerous in wet, slippery weather”. At the time, newspapers were still in the habitat of describing women in terms of their husband’s accomplishments, so we learn little of Mrs Abraham from the article, not even her first name, only that she was the wife of Mr Alfred Abraham, a retired Chemist from Ormskirk. He and his wife had been staying at Eskdale Green, when they decided to pay a visit to Stanley Ghyll. Despite her 75 years of age, Mrs Abraham was described as a “very active woman”. The couple were walking near the top of the waterfall when, tragically, she slipped and fell 60 to 80 feet on to the rocks below. Her husband attempted to climb down but was unable to reach her, so he went for help at Dalegarth, over a mile away, returning with Gamekeeper Massicks, some foresters, and Police-Constable Martin, who despite the considerable difficulty afforded by the dangerous ground, managed to get Mrs Abraham’s body out of the ravine. Alas, she was already dead.

                        Stanley Ghyll
                        Stanley Ghyll

                        Stanley Ghyll is now a Site of Special Scientific Interest on account of its rare ferns. In 2019, the Lake District National Park (the current owners) began an operation to remove nine hectares of rhododendron to let the indigenous woodland regenerate. In doing so, they discovered several loose and hazardous rock faces and several fallen and unsecured trees lying directly above the path—which is why the upper footbridge is now padlocked. Signs warn of the imminent danger of falling rocks, and of the ongoing work to render the site safe.

                        Stanley Ghyll
                        Stanley Ghyll

                        Even at a safe distance, the liberated cataracts are magnificent. I turn heel at the gate and walk back through woods, the early morning air fresh with the scent of mossy awakenings.

                        ~

                        Stepping-stones lead across the River Esk to St Catherine’s church, just outside Boot. They too look slippery and challenging, and I’m glad my journey continues on this bank.

                        Stepping stones across the River Esk
                        Stepping stones across the River Esk

                        “On the crest of moorland between the Duddon Valley and Eskdale there rises from the heather a series of serrated peaks, not of any great height but together forming a dark and jagged outline against the sky that, seen from certain directions, arrest the eye as do the Black Cuillin of Skye.” The words are Alfred Wainwright’s, describing the coxcomb ridge that reaches its zenith in Green Crag, which he chooses as the southern boundary of “fellwalking country”. They have arrested my eye many times, usually fleetingly while I’ve been driving across the lonely expanse of moorland that is Birker Fell. But parking up, crossing the boggy scrub, and gaining Green Crag from the high ground would feel like cheating, so I’m making the ascent from the valley (as Wainwright says I should).

                        I handrail the River Esk as far as Low Birker Farm, where I join the old peat road up to Tarn Crag. For Wainwright, the acquaintance with these old peat roads is one of the defining joys of this walk, characteristic as they are of old Eskdale. As I approach the farm, a cacophony of bleating and barking, clipped commands and sharp whistles drifts over the trees from the open fell beyond. I am about to witness another practice, centuries old, and unlike the peat roads, still an essential part of Eskdale life. The shepherds are bringing their flocks of Herdwicks down from the hill. As I round the wood and gain the open slopes, the peat road forks left but the first of the Herdies are charging in from the right. The sight of me stops them in their tracks. They turn tail and scamper off in the opposite direction. I feel guilty: the shepherds and their dogs haven’t put in hard hours seeking, rounding, herding, and driving these sheep down the narrow fell tracks only to have me turn them back. Luckily, the sheep stop a few yards hence, wary of the dogs further up. They watch as I take the left fork. With me safely out of sight, they’ll return.

                        With height, the whole spectacle unfurls like an oil painting. Beneath the riven slate of naked crags, over outcrops of mossy grass, and through waves of copper bracken, tireless collies coral the dispersed flock into a funnel of white, chocolate, and charcoal fleeces. Herdies are tough in spirit as well as body, and they confound the will of the dogs as far as they can. Over to the left, clear of the main flow, three escapees hide behind a tree. Out of sight but not out of mind, it seems—the sheep dogs know their game; eventually, a border collie bounds from behind a rock, and their cover is blown. A little further up the track, I meet an old shepherd who tells me he’s heading down this way to thwart those intent on using this track as an escape route: it’s a favourite trick apparently. I can tell his knowledge is hard-won.

                        Bringing in the Herdwicks Tarn Crag
                        Bringing in the Herdwicks Tarn Crag

                        Near the top of the track, stands the ruins of an old peat hut. Built to house turf cut from the moor, it is slowly crumbling back into the fellside. In 1960, Wainwright lamented, “Time has marched fast in Eskdale: at the foot of the valley is the world’s first atomic power station, and peat is out of fashion. Alas!”. Three years earlier, a fire at the Windscale reprocessing plant had constituted Britain’s worst nuclear incident.  That must have been at the forefront of his mind. But cutting peat also came with an environmental cost. Peat bogs are carbon sponges. Scotland’s peat moors trap more carbon than all of the UK’s woodland put together. After centuries of draining our wetlands to make farmland or stripping them for turf, we’re now scrambling to protect them.

                        Peat Hut Tarn Crag
                        Peat Hut Tarn Crag
                        Peat Hut, Tarn Crag
                        Peat Hut, Tarn Crag

                        Watching the Herdies, you’d be forgiven for thinking time stands still in Eskdale, but it continues to march fast. Sellafield’s Calder Hall Atomic Power Station closed in 2003, and its Windscale reprocessing plant is due to cease operations in 2021.  Eventually, they, too, will go the way of the peat huts.

                        As I reach Low Birker Tarn, my boots start to squelch, but here is a sight to make the spirit soar. For me, hard wooden pews and the smell of musty hymn books have never managed to elicit a religious response; yet put me before the sheer green force of Stanley Ghyll, or the dark turrets and jagged crags that rise from this windswept moor, and tell me that here be water sprites or faery fiefdoms, and I might just believe you. I cross a moat of sodden peat hags and track beneath the irregular battlements of Crook Crag to the primordial tower of Green Crag. It is well-defended, but a little speculation reveals a breach in the crags, which affords an easy scramble to the top.

                        Crook Crag and Green Crag
                        Crook Crag and Green Crag
                        Perched boulder by Crook Crag
                        Perched boulder by Crook Crag
                        Green Crag
                        Green Crag

                        Here is the southern outpost of Wainwright country—a fine grandstand from which to survey a brooding autumnal wilderness of drab olive, fiery copper, and maroon, stippled with mauve crag and sparse patches of coniferous green. The capricious sky is overcast, wrapping the shadowy Scafells in thin veils of mist.  Eastward, the colossal, cupped hand of the Coniston Fells encloses a sliver of silver—the glinting waters of Seathwaite Tarn, its outlet, a thin white trickle spilling over the gnarly knuckled thumb of Grey Friar.

                        Coniston Fells and Seathwaite Tarn
                        Coniston Fells and Seathwaite Tarn

                        While Victorian sightseers flocked to Stanley Ghyll, the more adventurous set their sights on Scafell Crag and the nascent sport of rock climbing. Its buttresses and gullies are named for pioneers, and a cross carved into the rock at the foot of Lord’s Rake commemorates a 1903 climbing accident—the worst in Britain at the time. Twenty-nine years later, humble Harter Fell, rising like a pyramid from the pine-green of Dunnerdale Forest, was to claim a horror of its own. On July 29th, 1932, the papers were preoccupied with the violence erupting on the streets of Germany, where the ascendant Nazis were venting their anger at election results which had (as yet) frustrated their grab for power. An accident on a Cumbrian fell merited only a few words; but the Dundee Evening News found space for several more.

                        “PINNED UNDER A ROCK

                        Climber’s Ordeal

                        A young man, Eddie Flintoff, of Hayworth Avenue, Rawtenstall, was seriously injured whilst climbing Harter Fell, a mountain about 2000 feet high at Eskdale, Cumberland.

                        He arrived on holiday at the Stanley Ghyll Guest House, Eskdale, a few days ago. 

                        He was one of a party of 35 who set out to climb Harter Fell, three miles from the guest house.

                        The party, which included a number of women, was in charge of the host, Mr M’Lean, and they reached the summit of the mountain without mishap.

                        In starting the return journey, it is stated, Mr Flintoff decided to descend by the face of the mountain instead of taking the usual gully route.

                        Suddenly rocks on which he was standing gave way, and he was carried down a number of feet and partly buried under a rock weighing about 25 cwts (1.25 tons).

                        Crowbars Useless

                        Mr M’Lean, who has only one arm remained with the party, while Mr H. Eccles, the guest house secretary, hurried to Askdale (sic) to obtain iron crowbars with which to lever the rock and release Flintoff.

                        Eight men of the party remained to render assistance, but were unable to release Flintoff owing to the weight of the rock.

                        Mr Eccles telephoned to Whitehaven, 25 miles away, for the ambulance and a doctor. On his return, Flintoff was liberated. He had been under the rock for two hours, but he had not lost consciousness.”

                        Dr Henderson sedated Flintoff with morphine and chloroform, and stretcher bearers carried him down to Boot, from where he was taken to Whitehaven hospital.

                        Eddie Flintoff would never learn where the events in Germany were to lead. He died a few days later of his injuries.

                        Harter Fell is less than half a mile from the foot of Crook Crag, but reaching it is an adventure. The liminal ground is a quagmire, a sea of unstable sphagnum that sucks at my boots. I set my sights on a drystone wall which climbs the fellside—the OS map shows a right-of-way beside it—but the journey there is indirect. I cross a stream and follow a roundabout route, leaping from heathery tuft to heathery tuft (heather being good indicator of drier ground).

                        Harter Fell from Green Crag
                        Harter Fell from Green Crag

                        The heather stops a few hundred feet short, and what lies beyond is best described as a lake. Thwarted, I attempt to track right, but the ground near the stream is too soft. After sinking nearly knee deep, I retreat toward Crook Crag, bound the stream at my initial crossing, and try the other side. Thankfully, the islands of heather persist here, and it is with some relief that I gain the slope of Harter Fell.

                        Green Crag and Crook Crag from the quagmire
                        Green Crag and Crook Crag from the quagmire

                        The right-of-way on the map does not translate into a path on the ground, but the wall is a handy guide. There are crags above, but the map shows a way between where the contours are gently spaced. My rudimentary navigation skills do not let me down, which is just as well as a couple who I passed at the bottom have decided to follow me. Near the summit, we pick up the path coming up from Spothow Gill. This should have been Eddie Flintoff’s way down. It was my intended route too, but from the summit, the view of the Scafells is ever more bewitching and I decide to strike on for Hard Knott.

                        Scafells from Harter Fell
                        Scafells from Harter Fell

                        By the time I reach the cairn at the top of Hard Knott Pass, it’s 4pm and I’m a long way from my car. The enchantment here is palpable, though, and on this overcast afternoon, it is dark in flavour, steeped in primeval drama. As I climb beside Hardknott Gill, damselflies flit on gossamer wings, slender flashes of yellow and black, their enormous eyes, dense clusters of photoreceptors scanning for prey. The summit cairn stands like an altar before a synod of stone deities: Slight Side, Scafell, Scafell Pike, Broad Crag, and Ill Crag huddle ahead like a congress of colossi holding court: their sharp-chiselled profiles are black in the brooding light, and their muscular crags extend like crouched limbs. They form the Roof of England; and in their shadow lies the realm of a faery king.

                        Damselfly Hard Knott
                        Damselfly Hard Knott
                        Hard Knott
                        Hard Knott

                        In 1607, William Camden published Britannia, the first topographical and historical study of Great Britain and Ireland. At Ravenglass, he noted that the locals “talke much of king Eveling, that heere had his Court and roiall palace”. Three centuries later, in an article for The Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, R G Collingwood dug deeper, unearthing mythical connections between Eveling and Arthurian legend, and concluding “Ravenglass is Fairyland”. Stories of King Eveling diverge: was he husband to Morgana La Fay, the sorceress, who was, by turns, Arthur’s ally and his foe? Was Eveling perhaps another name for Affalach, Lord of the Underworld, Lord of The Isle of Apples, otherwise known as Avalon, where even now, Arthur is said to sleep? An anonymous article on the Brighthelm Stane Library website tells a darker tale: Eveling was King of the Court of Forlorn Hope, a capricious tyrant, grown vain and insular by the time King Arthur came knocking. 

                        Scafell and Slight Side
                        Scafell and Slight Side
                        Bow Fell from Hard Knott
                        Bow Fell from Hard Knott

                        Eveling’s court was at Ravenglass, but his Rath, or stronghold, was a ring of stones within the old Roman fort of Mediobogdum, just below the summit of Hard Knott. Arthur had a Dream of Albion, and he travelled the land beseeching princes and chieftains to unite with him. Most bent their knees in homage, but not Eveling. He saw nothing but a naïve boy and took affront that such a nobody should fail to show due deference to the great faery king. He demanded Arthur return to the Rath after dark, when Eveling and his court would be holding a moonlit ball. Then, Eveling would teach Arthur the proper manner of a monarch.

                        Arthur and his army withdrew to the valley bottom where they camped, quite possibly where the village of Boot now lies. But a solitary figure stayed behind on the hill. When darkness fell, and the faery courtiers began their revelry, Merlin conjured a mist that enveloped the mountain. When it cleared, all traces of Eveling and his court were gone. Well, not quite.  According to local superstition, travellers, passing the circle of stones on certain nights of the year, may yet spy the faery throng trapped in their eternal dance. Fall in step with them at your peril, however, as to do so is never to return.

                        Scafell massif from Hard Knott
                        Scafell massif from Hard Knott

                        Further Reading / Sources

                        Read the full King Eveline story on the Brighthelm Stane library website:

                        http://brighthelmstane.hartsofalbion.co.uk/the-tale-of-king-evelings-rath/

                        Find out more about the Stanley Ghyll restoration:

                        https://www.lakedistrict.gov.uk/caringfor/projects/stanley-ghyll-closure

                        More about the invasive properties of rhododendrum:

                        http://www.countrysideinfo.co.uk/rhododen.htm


                          Enjoyed this post?

                          Like to receive free email alerts when new posts are published?

                          Leave your name and email and we'll keep you in the loop. This won't be more than once or twice a month. Alternatively, follow this blog on Facebook by "Liking" our page at https://www.facebook.com/lakelandwalkingtales

                          Secrets of the Screes

                          Illgill Head, Whin Rigg, Miterdale, Burnmoor Tarn

                          Two ghost stories, an old corpse road, a hidden valley, a homicide, and a tragic vanishing: I walk over Illgill Head and Whin Rigg to discover the secrets of the Screes.

                          Silhouettes of branch and twig entwine in a spindly tracery, a filigree of black wood to frame a lake of aquamarine. This sleepy copse still skulks in Sca Fell’s shadow, while beyond the trees, bright morning rays cast Wastwater as a dazzling blue gem. Even at this early hour, the far bank is lined with cars and campervans. Since the end of our first lockdown, this loneliest of Cumbrian lakes has drawn crowds, intent on swapping the beaches of the Mediterranean for these rugged and altogether wilder shores; but here at Brackenclose, beyond the car park and the campsite, there is solitude.

                          Wastwater from Brackenclose
                          Wastwater from Brackenclose

                          The empty shell of the climbing hut stands like a skeleton beneath a canopy of ancient oaks. Temporary wire fence-barriers block access.  This was the Fell and Rock Climbing Club’s first hut, architect-designed and purpose-built on this small tract of land at the head of England’s deepest lake.  It opened in 1936, a temple of sorts for those whose spiritual nourishment was to be found in scaling the Scafells. Some did not survive their adventures and lie buried close by in the graveyard of St Olaf’s—England’s tiniest church in the lee of its highest mountain. Last year, the hut was badly damaged by fire and now stands in ruins, a sepulchre to past glories. There is something strangely apt in its mournful ambience, however, for this footpath is an old corpse road.

                          No-one was buried at St Olaf’s before 1901. The churchyard wasn’t consecrated until then. For centuries before, the people of Wasdale had to carry their dead over the foot of Sca Fell, around the shoulder of Burnmoor Tarn, and across Eskdale Moor to St Catherine’s church in Boot. This ancient right of way was their coffin route.

                          An old stone packhorse bridge leads over the twin becks of Hollow Gill and Groove Gill; its paving and its walls of local stone look organic, weathered and irregular, as if the mountain had taken pity on the processions of coffin bearers and rearranged its scree to smooth their passage. Beyond the bridge, a rear-guard of solitary rowans marks the last of the tree line, their bright red berries in primary contrast to the aquatic blue of Wastwater. The lake’s far shore is hemmed by clay-red fells, terminating in the fractured bell of Buckbarrow. On this side, the grassy slopes of Illgill Head rise yonder, hiding the precipitous face it presents lakeward.

                          Wastwater from the Corpse Road
                          Wastwater from the Corpse Road

                          I leave the corpse road at a gate and follow a drystone wall up the fellside, crossing the wall above Straighthead Beck and climbing soggy slopes toward the ridgeline. With height, a heady vista over Wasdale Head unfurls, like some immense primeval Valley of the Kings. Kirk Fell and Lingmell throw down chiselled ridges, like colossal natural pyramids, mossy green and purple in their lower reaches, rising to dark faces of naked slate. They are mere gatekeepers to Great Gable, which towers above, a sharp angular edifice of sculpted granite. Higher still, Sca Fell lurks in shadow, a muscular presence, intimidating, but as yet, ill-defined. Sunlight floods Yewbarrow, illuminating every crack and crevice of its gnarly, fissured forehead above its eastern skirts of scree. Beyond Mosedale’s hollow, Pillar looms like some gargantuan hippo god, stirring from slumber in a devastating show of strength.

                          Kirk Fell Great Gable Lingmell
                          Kirk Fell Great Gable Lingmell
                          Great Gable
                          Great Gable
                          Pillar over Yewbarrow
                          Pillar over Yewbarrow

                          At a little shy of 2000 ft, Illgill Head is a modest foot-soldier in the company of such Titans, but between its summit and that of neighbouring Whin Rigg, it drops to Wasdale so abruptly and with such cascading drama that Wainwright declares, “no mountain in Lakeland, not even Great Gable nor Blencathra nor the Langdale Pikes, can show a grander front”. It is as if some ancient elemental god conjured a storm of such force it shattered the bedrock and gouged a ruptured cliff of plunging ravines and jagged arêtes. These are the Wastwater screes, and the path that hugs the cliff edge promises airy exhilaration.

                          Wastwater Screes
                          Wastwater Screes
                          Wastwater Screes

                          The summit plateau is smooth and grassy with little hint of the imminent drama. Nearing the edge, scooped hollows reveal sudden glimpses of the lake, then the flank falls rapidly away in a succession of sheer drops, perilous scree gullies and sharp ridges. These arêtes bear names like Bell Crag, Bell Rib, and Broken Rib. The skeletal image is apt—it’s as if the smooth flesh of earth and grass has been torn off to reveal the bones of the mountain.

                          Wastwater from Illgill Head
                          Wastwater from Illgill Head
                          Wastwater Screes
                          Wastwater Screes
                          Wastwater Screes

                          Of the arêtes, Broken Rib on the Whin Rigg side is arguably the finest. Its name evokes the Arizonian desert, but it protrudes like a Transylvanian castle, hewn straight from the rock, a rampart replete with pointed turrets and hefty buttresses, and a long sheer drop to the bracken-clad scree at its foot. A precarious trod picks a way along its slender top, affording a pulse-quickening prospect over Wastwater to the pyramids at his head. The lake is a polished iridescent pane, Egyptian blue like stained glass. It is astoundingly beautiful, but it is a beauty spiced with danger and laced with loss: for nearly forty years ago, Broken Rib harboured a tragic secret.

                          Broken Rib
                          Broken Rib

                          In July 1983, French engineer, Francis Marre, and his wife, Michelle, received a postcard from their daughter, Veronique. It said, “It is very nice here. I am enjoying myself. I am disappointed I cannot speak more English. Will see you in two weeks’ time”. But a fortnight later, Veronique failed to arrive home in Paris as planned. The 21-year-old agricultural student had disappeared on July 31st after setting off from Wasdale Youth Hostel for Grasmere. Her distraught mother would tell reporters, “Veronique would not just disappear of her own free will, I am sure of that. She would have let us know if she could, but I think she has been kidnapped or killed or had some sort of accident”.

                          Broken Rib
                          Path along the top of Broken Rib

                          Det. Chief Inspector Steve Reid organised one of the biggest searches ever seen in Lakeland. Tracker dogs and mountain rescue teams were deployed, but Veronique was nowhere to be found. Then several months later, divers in Wastwater made a gruesome discovery. What at first appeared to be an old roll of carpet, turned out to be a hessian sack containing the body of a woman. She had been strangled, and her body tied, weighted down, and dropped from a dinghy into the deepest part of the lake. The perpetrator had made a glaring oversight, however. He’d forgotten to remove her wedding ring, which was inscribed with her initials, those of her husband, and the date of their wedding, 15-11-63. This was clearly not Veronique. The body was quickly identified as that of Margaret Hogg, reported missing by her husband in 1976.

                          Wastwater from Broken Rib
                          Wastwater from Broken Rib

                          With Margaret’s story grabbing the headlines, Veronique’s plight was relegated to the inside pages. The search for her continued, of course, but to no avail. Det. Chief Inspector Reid would say later, “it was as if she had vanished of the face of the earth”. 

                          Detectives and mountain rescue team members never quite gave up hope of finding her, though, convinced she must be here somewhere on the surrounding fells. On May 6th, 1985, they were proved right.  A climber, named Mike Parkin, noticed a piece of clothing that had been washed out by rain. It lay in a gully 300ft below the top of Broken Rib (and about 1000ft above the lake). The remains of Veronique’s body were close by, lying where she must have landed after falling from the arête. The mountain had taken her to its bosom, shrouding her in bracken and heather, hiding her from the eyes of the searchers.  Over time, her rucksack had eroded, spilling out the garments that eventually betrayed her whereabouts.

                          Broken Rib
                          Broken Rib

                          Before her life was cut so cruelly short, I hope Veronique got to see this landscape on a day like this. The visibility is extraordinary. It’s hard to express how edifying it is to see so far. To the west, over a verdant patchwork of coastal plain, the Irish Sea is a sweeping wash of blues and mauves. From its ephemeral shimmer rise the shadowy profiles of Snaefell and the mountains of the Isle of Man. Beyond the island’s northern tip, I glimpse the shore of Ireland; I can see the high ground of Wales and the hills of southern Scotland.

                          I leave the escarpment, climb over Whin Rigg’s summit, and down to where the deep trench of Greathall Gill divides its grassy slopes like an ancient earthwork.  Beyond is Irton Fell. A path drops down its eastern flank into woods filled with the scent of bark and berries, resin and moss; at the bottom lies one of Lakeland’s best kept secrets.

                          Greathall Gill
                          Greathall Gill

                          An old stone packhorse bridge, dreadlocked with ivy, leads over the River Mite into the secluded little valley that bears its name, Miterdale. A solitary lane wends in from Eskdale and peters out at a parking area. A young family are paddling in the river. We are the only people around. A donkey wanders down to the edge of his paddock to check me out, but quickly loses interest when I fail to produce Polos.

                          Bridge over the River Mite
                          Bridge over the River Mite

                          Across another bridge, I find a languid scene of pastoral serenity, the road now a mettled farm track running beside the river.  Even Whin Rigg presents a tamer front. Gone are the wild ferocities of the Screes. Here, its white crags are mere outcrops on gentler slopes of heather, turned mustard and burgundy in anticipation of autumn. Trees soften the lower reaches, giving way to rolling grass, cropped close like parkland.  I follow the track to Low Park farm and out though its yard to the river. A ford marks a parting of ways. I stick with the west bank, entering wilder terrain, overrun with gorse, thistle, and bracken. Just before the last stand of trees is Bakerstead farm, once maintained by Wyndham School (in Egremont) as an outdoor pursuits centre, but now boarded up in an eerie echo of a legend that pervades here. For Miterdale Head, a short way beyond, is the haunt of the Beckside Boggle.

                          Bakerstead Farm
                          Bakerstead Farm

                          In the early 1800’s, High Miterdale farm is said to have been home to Joe and Ann Southward, a sober and industrious couple who’d managed to each save a nest egg from their jobs as farm labourer and servant girl. Eventually, they had enough to wed and buy a farm of their own. An ancient packhorse route ran past the gate, but the old Nanny Horns Inn now stood empty and had fallen into disrepair. High Miterdale was a lonely and remote location. They had each other, however, and before long, they were blessed with a son. Hard work soon paid dividends, and Joe was obliged to visit Whitehaven on business. He would be away for a night, leaving Ann to look after the farm and their young child.  That evening, an old woman wrapped in shawl stopped at the door to ask how much further it was to Boot. She had walked far and was afraid she would not make her destination before dark. Ann took pity on her and offered her lodging for the night.

                          The old woman settled by the fire, supped porridge, and nodded off to sleep. Ann started to doze too, but she was abruptly awakened by a loud clank as something heavy and metallic fell to the floor. To her horror, she saw it was a long sharp open-clasp knife, of the kind carried by soldiers. The woman must have been clutching it under her shawl, only the shawl itself had slipped to reveal the face, not of frail elderly woman, but that of a coarse thick-set man.

                          Over the fire hung a cauldron of molten fat, which Ann had been heating to make tallow candles. In fear for her life and that of her son, she filled a dipper full of the boiling liquid and poured it over the imposter’s head, filling his gaping mouth and choking him to death.

                          When Joe returned the next day, they buried the man in the grounds of the old inn, together with money and trinkets he had doubtless stolen from other farms. But his wretched spirit would not lie quiet and haunted them with such ferocity that they were forced to abandon the farm, as were all others who subsequently tried to make it their home. It now lies in ruins.

                          Ruins High Miterdale
                          Ruins of High Miterdale farm or the Nanny Horns Inn perhaps?

                          You’d be forgiven for thinking that the River Mite flows out of Burnmoor Tarn, but you’d be wrong. A slither of land hides one from the other. Burnmoor Tarn’s outflow is Whillan Beck, a tributary of the River Esk, while the River Mite collects the run-off from Tongue Moor, which sits below the summit of Illgill Head. I climb the Tongue and follow a path across its shoulder to the slopes above the tarn. This is another place of ghosts.

                          The corpse road tracks the far shore. One of the countless funeral processions to come this way is said to have borne the body of a young dalesman. On reaching the tarn, the cortège was disrupted: something unseen startled the horse carrying the coffin, causing it to bolt into the mist. Despite the best of efforts, neither horse nor coffin could be found. The news that her dear young son had been denied a Christian burial proved too much for his mother. Her frail heart gave out, and a matter of days later, another procession set out for Eskdale, this time bearing her own coffin. As they reached the place where her son’s horse had bolted, the same thing happened, and her horse took off in fright too. Another search was mounted, and this time, it fared better. A horse and coffin were recovered, but it was not the mother’s, it her son’s. Her own body was never found, never laid to rest, and ever since, there have been reports of a phantom horse, with a long wooden box strapped to his back, galloping across this lonely moor.

                          Sca Fell and Burnmoor Tarn
                          Sca Fell and Burnmoor Tarn

                          I look down at the dark inscrutable waters, then I raise my eyes to the mountain that towers above. How many lives have played out in Sca Fell’s shadow? How many births, marriages and deaths has it witnessed? It has stood for 450 million years, human civilisation for a mere 6,000. How infinitesimal is our presence compared to its own? We barely register on its timescale. Yet somehow, this humbling realisation produces a profound sense of euphoria. It does us good to be stripped of our pretentions, to recognise our own insignificance in the face of a world so much bigger and so much older. We spend lifetimes striving to be remembered when what really matters is that we are here at all.

                          It’s a rapture familiar to many fellwalkers, and, given her rapport with the landscape, I’m certain Veronique must have felt it too. I like to think so, as it suggests her life, though short, was richly fulfilled.

                          Sources / Further Reading

                          If I’ve left you wondering at the story behind the gruesome discovery of Margaret Hogg’s body in Wastwater, I tell it here:

                          The details of Veronique’s disappearance were gleaned from contemporary newspapers, particularly the Newcastle Journal 25th July 1984, 8th May 1985, and 6th July 1985 editions.

                          The most famous account of the Beckside Boggle was penned by Alice Rea in her book, The Beckside Boggle and other Lake Country Stories, published by T Fisher Unwin in 1886, but you can find it online here:

                          https://www.fivenine.co.uk/family_history_notebook/background/miterdale/beckside_boggle.html

                          The story of the lost coffin near Burnmoor Tarn is well known, but I first read it in my copy of Lakeland Ghosts, by Gerald Findler: Dalesman Books, 1984 (first published 1969).


                            Enjoyed this post?

                            Like to receive free email alerts when new posts are published?

                            Leave your name and email and we'll keep you in the loop. This won't be more than once or twice a month. Alternatively, follow this blog on Facebook by "Liking" our page at https://www.facebook.com/lakelandwalkingtales

                            Song From The Wood

                            Rusland Horizons Greenwood Trail 3

                            With the arboreal serenity of High Dam Tarn, the heather-clad open fell, the mountain panoramas, and the spooky story surrounding the woods at Fearing Brow, Rusland Horizons’ Greenwood Trail 3 is a rich and varied walk. As I learn about the Trust’s conservation work in this beautiful valley between Windermere & Coniston, I discover a link to a man I once knew: a charcoal burner who lived in the forest and made yurts; as it transpires, that was only one chapter in a truly remarkable life.

                            High Dam, Rusland Heights, Fearing Brow, Finsthwaite
                            Path Junction Rusland Heights
                            Path Junction Rusland Heights

                            In my recent post about Dixon Heights, the sight of semi-feral fell pony in the soft light of a summer evening provoked a flight of fancy about Rhiannon, the Celtic horse goddess, sometimes depicted as an ethereal white mare.  About a week after posting that article, my friend, Sarah, showed me a video she’d taken on Dixon Heights of a young foal.  Rhiannon was standing over him protectively. Was Rhiannon the mother, I wondered? Yet, when the foal trotted off to greet a black mare, I realised how big and muscular Rhiannon looked in comparison. Then Rhiannon lowered his undercarriage and there could be absolutely no doubt about his masculinity.

                            Several days later, I discovered the Fell Pony Adventures’ Facebook page. This Equestrian Centre runs the Hades Hill herd of indigenous fell ponies that graze Dixon Heights (Hades rhymes with shades). I posted a picture of Rhiannon, which they loved and helpfully informed me, “George, this is Hades Hill Geronimo – 8 year old Registered Fell pony stallion who’s running with the mares”. 

                            Geronimo! Definitely not Rhiannon, then.

                            White horse, Dixon Heights
                            Geronimo

                            The page made interesting reading. The Equestrian Centre is committed to the preservation of the breed, now classed as vulnerable by the Rare Breeds Survival Trust, but also to the ponies’ heritage as working animals (a tradition stretching back to Roman times).  The centre offers wild camping pack pony treks to hidden corners of the Lake District. Indeed, I had just read Joanna Eede’s excellent account of one in the May/June 2020 edition of Lakeland Walker. Intrigued, I clicked through to their web site to read more about the organisation. The herd is now managed by Tom Lloyd, but it was established in 1957 by Tom’s father, Walter. Walter had been inspired by a letter in Horse and Hound Magazine, contradicting a claim that there were no pure bred ponies running wild in the country any longer. The correspondent, Miss Peggy Crosland, had stated that there were indeed still herds of fell ponies on the Lake District Fells. Walter got in touch and ended up buying two Heltondale mares in foal. Hades Hill lies on Shawforth Common in Lancashire, but in the early nineties, Walter moved to Cumbria with his ponies; Tom took over the herd in 1994, which is how Geronimo came to have the run of Dixon Heights.

                            Lockdown taught me the joy of waking up to what is right on your doorstep. The Dixon Heights post prompted Mandy Lane to get in touch and ask whether I had done much walking in the Rusland valley. To my shame, I admitted I’d done very little. Mandy explained she was a volunteer with Rusland Horizons, a charitable trust dedicated to conservation of the natural environment in the valley that lies between Windermere and Coniston. The trust also promotes education in the landscape and the revival of traditional rural skills.  Mandy told me about the Greenwood Trails, which Rusland Horizons has created with the help of local school children, and she gave me the address of their website. In the About section, I learned that the newly renamed Rusland Horizons Trust is a successor organisation to the Lottery-funded Rusland Horizons Landscape Partnership Scheme.  However, Rusland Horizons Trust began life in 1987 as an independent charity called Woodmanship Limited, formed to continue the work of Walter Lloyd, “a well-known coppicer and woodsman in the South Lakes area”.

                            Mossy wall by High Dam
                            Mossy wall by High Dam

                            Might this be the same Walter Lloyd? I Googled Walter and found his obituary in The Guardian. Walter died in 2018, aged 93, after what, by any standards, had been a remarkable life. What hit me first, however, was the picture staring back at me from the page: a kindly face, eyes sparkling with vitality and mischief, framed by a shock of wild white hair and matching moustache; for it was a face I’d known.  Not well, and only briefly, over twenty years ago, but someone I’d known, all the same…

                            When I first moved to Cumbria in 1998, I signed up for Tai Chi lessons in Kendal. Walter was in the same class, an unmissable character, full of warmth, charm, and humour, turning up in battered jeans and a check shirt, smelling of woodsmoke. Despite being in his early seventies, he told me he was a woodsman and a charcoal burner, who made yurts and lived in a horse-drawn wagon in the woods near Newby Bridge.

                            …I read on and discovered he’d been very much more than that.

                            Walter grew up in Cornwall, where he showed a greater inclination for roaming the countryside with his donkey than he did for school.  In the end, his parents packed him off to boarding school, but when war broke out, the school was evacuated to Wales where Walter met a company of charcoal burners who would prove a seminal influence. With the nation at war, Walter joined the Royal Navy and served off the Normandy beaches on D Day, and on the Artic convoys, for which he was recently awarded a medal by Vladimir Putin.  After the war, he gained a degree in agriculture from Cambridge University and turned his hand to farming.  After founding the Hades Hill herd, his annual trips to the Appleby Horse Fair and his prowess as a folk fiddle player ingratiated him with the gypsy horsemen society. Walter helped scupper official attempts to shut down the festival.

                            To supplement his meagre farm income, Walter pursued a parallel career as an Emergency Planning Officer for Greater Manchester, a role which saw him appear on television advising people what to do in the event of a nuclear attack: he pulled a bottle of whisky from his pocket and said “Drink all of it. You’ve got four minutes. Die happy!”.  Walter also founded Civil Aid, which trained people to help out in emergencies, and offered a life-saving service at the explosion of free music festivals in the 1970’s: from a second-hand “Green Goddess” military fire engine, he dispensed drinking water, blankets, and vegetable curry to hungry and borderline-hypothermic hippies.

                            When he retired, Walter moved to the South Lakes where he was instrumental in reviving a number of derelict woodlands and re-establishing traditional crafts, still capable of producing local income from coppiced wood: charcoal-burning, coracle making, swill basket-weaving and rope-making (using Herdwick wool gathered from fences). In doing so, he inspired a generation of would-be artisans to abandon the rat-race and pursue their dreams of living closer to nature, forging a living from the land using almost forgotten skills.

                            Before Walter’s time, the woods around Stott Park were coppiced to produce birch, ash, and sycamore wood for the Bobbin mill. During the nineteenth century, hundreds of Cumbrian mills supplied the bobbins essential to the cotton industries of Lancashire and Yorkshire. Stott Park is the only working example left. The British textile industry flourished at the start of the twentieth century, but the outbreak of WWI destroyed the export market and the cotton mills closed. With demand for bobbins plummeting, Stott Park adapted its machines to make wooden tool handles and managed to survive as commercial enterprise until 1971. It is now a working museum run by English Heritage. The mill recently won silver in the Small Visitor Attraction category at the Enjoy England awards, (although medium and larger-sized visitors are also welcome, I believe).

                            Stott Park Bobbin Mill
                            Start Park Bobbin Mill

                            The Bobbin Mill is the starting point for Rusland Horizons’ Greenwood Trail 3. As I step out of the car into dazzling August sunshine, I feel I couldn’t have picked a better day to explore Walter’s old stomping ground. I follow the small country lanes towards Finsthwaite and turn right on to a track that passes the National Trust High Dam car park and information boards. The track becomes a rough path, entering Bell Intake woods and climbing beside a stream. Before long, I reach the leaf-green pool of Low Dam. In 1835, Finsthwaite Tarn was dammed to provide a water supply to drive the Stott Park waterwheel. Low Dam is a small catchment pond on the outflow from High Dam, the much larger tarn restrained by the dam wall.

                            High Dam appears a little further up the slope, a shimmering oasis of arboreal serenity, its languid surface an ephemeral dance of reflected leaves, twigs, trunks, and branches. Sunbeams dispersed through tall trees light the waters in an impressionist palette of greens and golds, sun-kissed yellows, and earthy browns, stippled here and there with blue polka dots of sky. I cross the bridge over the outlet and follow the footpath that encircles the tarn, walking slowly, lazily, bathing in the reflective calm of this little sea of tranquillity. About half-way up the western shore, the Greenwood Trail turns left to follow an old enclosure wall out on to open fell. Too enchanted with the tarn to take the trail on my first lap, I stick with the shore path up around the head of the water and down its eastern bank. A wooden boardwalk provides sure footing over a mire awash with sweet-scented bog myrtle. Electric blue dragonflies flit over foliage, and dead foxgloves stand like rusted fence posts against drystone walls mottled with lichen and softened with moss.

                            High Dam
                            High Dam
                            High Dam
                            High Dam
                            High Dam
                            High Dam
                            High Dam
                            High Dam

                            When I reach the trail junction for the second time, I follow the enclosure wall out of the wood to much wilder terrain beneath the slopes of Great Green Hows. The ground turns marshy, but a boardwalk crosses the worst sections. I’ve left all human company behind, but a newt darts over my foot. On reaching a stone stile, I’m met with a sudden sweeping prospect over the Rusland Valley and Grisedale Forest to the Coniston Fells. The Old Man stands proudly centre, flanked by Dow Crag on the left, and Brim Fell, Swirl How, and Wetherlam on the right, all soft grey silhouettes except where the southern tip of the Lad Stones ridge has found the morning sun.

                            Coniston Fells from below Yew Barrow
                            Coniston Fells from below Yew Barrow
                            Rusland Heights
                            Rusland Heights
                            Great Green Hows
                            Great Green Hows

                            A wooden signpost, replete with a Greenwood Trail arrow, points south to Rusland Heights. The OS map shows no path, but the trod is mostly clear and helpfully marked in indistinct stretches by white-topped posts. The open fell is awash with seasonal colour: green summer bracken interleaved with autumnal copper, outcrops of heather in vibrant purple, soft mauve, and chocolate brown—a last parade of high summer on the cusp of autumn. I pass rocky outcrops and deep green holly bushes, cross another stone stile, and handrail an old drystone wall to the highest point. Here, a grand panorama of Lakeland peaks awaits. The entire Coniston range from Caw to Wetherlam occupies the western aspect, while tracking north, I can see Seat Sandal, the Fairfield Horseshoe, Red Screes, Stoney Cove Pike, Thornthwaite Crag, High Street, and Ill Bell. Froswick is all but hidden in shadow, but Yoke, Harter Fell, and Kentmere Pike are discernible. Dark shadowy forms all, like the ghosts of fells below the celestial snowy peaks of cloud above.

                            Red Screes from Rusland Heights
                            Rusland Heights
                            Rusland Heights

                            Beyond a wall junction, the path starts to descend then climbs again on slopes of yellow gorse and purple heather. A little detour up a rocky knoll affords a glimpse of Boretree Tarn, its iridescent waters, dragonfly-blue below the wooded rise of Yew Barrow. The path initially skirts the wood, descending through a small rock-walled gorge to a reed-lined pond at its edge, then it dives into the trees and descends steeply to a minor road; a shady stretch, which bears the sinister name of Fearing Brow.

                            Boredale Tarn
                            Boredale Tarn
                            Rock walled gully under Yew Barrow
                            Rock walled gully under Yew Barrow
                            Reed lined tarn near Yew Barrow
                            Reed lined tarn near Yew Barrow

                            Fearing is local dialect for a ghost or evil spirit, and the ghost in question is that of Margaret Taylor, known since her untimely demise as the Ealinghearth Dobby. In 1825, driven to despair by the cruelty and callous neglect of her father, Margaret resolved to end her misery by drowning herself. She was buried at Finsthwaite, but sadly, her suffering didn’t end with the grave. Her heartless father left her funeral before she was even interred, yet Margaret’s spirit was racked with guilt, and she remained earthbound, locked in an eternal quest to find him, and to profess her devotion despite his disdain. She was said to hitch rides on travellers’ carts or fall in with those that trod the lane, always announcing her presence with strange waffling sound. The story led one eighteen-year-old lad, named Christopher Cloudsdale, to make a fatal choice. One winter afternoon he visited Rusland Smithy on an errand from the Bobbin Mill. It was after dark by the time he set off back, and despite the snow, he wouldn’t follow the road for fear of the Dobby, attempting instead to make his way over Great Green Hows. Disoriented in the dark and with his clogs balled up with snow, he wandered in circles for hours before falling and freezing to death.

                            Haunted Woods above Fearing Brow
                            Haunted Woods above Fearing Brow

                            From Fearing Brow, the trail doubles back into the wood and follows a shady avenue to Townend, where it crosses the Finsthwaite road and tracks round to the farm buildings at Tom Crag. From here, it climbs through an ancient meadow known as the Dales. The Dales were thin strips of land allocated to villagers, on which they would grow oats, barley, and vegetables. Their livestock would graze the fellside and overwinter in the wood, known as Wintering Park, which the trail now enters. There are sheep here still. I can hear a lamb before I see it. It sounds distressed, and when I catch sight, I realise it has got its head stuck in a wire fence while attempting to eat the perennially-greener grass on the other side. I walk over to try and free it, but the sight of me approaching gives it all the impetus it needs to free itself.

                            Wintering Park
                            Wintering Park
                            Freed Lamb in Wintering Park
                            Freed Lamb in Wintering Park

                            From Wintering Park, the trail crosses fields, named by Norse settlers, to Finsthwaite with its Alpine looking church. The Greenwood Trail leaflet (downloadable from the website) includes a picture of the Hunter family of Finsthwaite weaving swill baskets in Plum Green Yard in 1891. By the 1980’s, many of these traditional skills were in danger of dying out, and much of the surrounding woodland had become derelict. It seems counter-intuitive to think that cutting wood is a form of conservation, but properly managed coppicing can extend the life of trees and create habitats much richer in biodiversity. Thanks to Walter Lloyd and Rusland Horizons, these woodlands and their traditional crafts are flourishing again. A Greenwood sign reminds me this wonderful trail was devised by school children, and I acknowledge the sterling work the charity is doing in education as well as conservation.

                            Then I think of fell ponies on Dixon Heights, and I remember clumsily stumbling through a Tai Chi kata with a remarkable man I only wish I’d known better.

                            Further Reading

                            The Rusland Horizons Greenwood Trails:

                            https://www.ruslandhorizons.org/project/the-greenwood-trail.aspx

                            Rusland Horizons Home Page:

                            https://www.ruslandhorizons.org/

                            Fell Pony Experience web site – all about the Hades Hill herd:

                            https://fellpony.co.uk/about-the-herd

                            Walter’s second wife Gill Barron remembers a remarkable man:

                            https://www.thelandmagazine.org.uk/articles/many-hatted-man

                            More stories about Walter (how he tried to steal a Nazi commandant’s boat, and how he put out a stage fire at Jimi Hendrix’s last UK concert):

                            https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/stole-boat-nazis-put-out-14248037

                            Walter’s obituary in the Guardian

                            https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/12/walter-lloyd-obituary

                            CountryStride interview Walter’s son, Bill Lloyd, who has worked as a woodsman using a heavy horse:

                            https://www.countrystride.co.uk/single-post/countrystride-40-bill-lloyd-into-the-woods

                            Coppicing and woodland conservation:

                            https://www.conservationhandbooks.com/coppicing-cut-trees-conservation/

                            My Piece on Dixon Heights and Rhiannon (aka Geronimo)


                              Enjoyed this post?

                              Like to receive free email alerts when new posts are published?

                              Leave your name and email and we'll keep you in the loop. This won't be more than once or twice a month. Alternatively, follow this blog on Facebook by "Liking" our page at https://www.facebook.com/lakelandwalkingtales