The Lake District

This weekend John and I wandered north to the Lake District in Cumrbia.  We both fell instantly in love with the area.  Hills, mountains, trees, lakes, tarns, rivers, woods, stones walls, quaint villages, beautiful farms, sheep and cows and cotton-tailed rabbits. It is a glorious combination of beauty, both wild and domesticated.   

The area is a walker’s paradise with so many walking trails that they are almost too many to accurately chart.  Thanks go to Beatrix Potter and the founders the National Trust: Octavia Hill, Robert Hunter and Hardwicke Rawnsley who worked together to raise public awareness of the railway developments threatening the Lake District. Their collaboration led to the foundation of The National Trust (1885) for the Preservation of Historic Buildings and Natural Beauty, to hold land and buildings in perpetuity “for ever, for everyone” Hence, the Lake District remains as it was in their day -- relatively undeveloped and unspoiled and spectacularly beautiful.

We stayed in a little cottage in New Sawrey, Hawkshead, just down the street from Hill Top, the first home the Beatrix Potter bought with her earnings from her books of Peter Rabbit.  We spent our days hiking along lakeshores, forests and farmland. Three days there were absolutely wonderful but not nearly enough time to do it justice. I look forward to returning soon with good hiking boots, rain gear, and an up-to-date guidebook of trails.  (Yes, we got lost using a 1992 guide book.)

Hill Top: Beatrix Potter's beloved home

This is the land that Beatrix Potter worked to hard to preserve

Tarns How (Tarn means little lake)

Tarn How is an easy walk -- just 2 miles around the lake

with beautiful views everywhere you look.

Thanks to the National Trust, the land is very much like it was 150 years ago.

I don't know why I find gates and styles so appealing

We didn't see many fishermen.  We did see 4 scuba divers in this lake though!

We enjoyed a bit of blue sky one evening

The lake near Hill Top

The beauty of the Lake DIstrict

Lake District Notables:Beatrix Potter (1866-1943) is best known for her beautifully illustrated children's books of Peter Rabbit, Jemima Puddle-Duck and friends. She spent many childhood holidays in the Lake District and these influenced her work. Squirrel Nutkin sailed on Derwentwater and Hawkshead was the setting for The Tale of Johnny Townmouse.
With the profits from her highly successful publications, Beatrix Potter bought Hill Top farm, and other hill farms and estates in the Lake District. She became an expert Herdwick sheep breeder and the first female president designate of the Herdwick Sheepbreeders' Association. When she died in 1943 she left 14 farms, sheep and 4000 acres of land to the National Trust.

William Wordsworth’s (1770-1850) 'Daffodils' poem beginning “I wander’d lonely as a cloud” is the quintessential Lake District poem. Born in Cockermouth, just north of the National Park, he went to school in Hawkshead.  He returned to his beloved Cumbria after attending Cambridge University.Wordsworth’s Guide through the District of the Lakes published in 1820 sparked off the first beginnings of mass tourism to the area.

His words on the mountains of Lake District: "in the combinations which they make, towering above each other, or lifting themselves in ridges like the waves of a tumultuous sea, and in the beauty and variety of their surfaces and colors, they are surpassed by none".My favorite lake:  Tarns How (or the Tarns)Great place to stay: The Gardener’s Cottage at Garn’s Manor in New Sawrey. Or Rose Barn in Outgate.