“What is there for an eleven year old in the Lake District?” I heard that question a few days ago, and it set me thinking.

Firstly, I suppose one has to challenge the idea that there is such a thing as a standard model of eleven year old.  Of course not.  There are girls and boys, energetic, sporting, artistic, studious, inquisitive, imaginative, gregarious, solitary, pessimistic, optimistic,  quiet, talkative, … ,  all the variety of characteristics that will carry through into variety of adults.

Some will want to make their own enjoyment in walking, clambering up hillsides, mountain biking, swimming, rowing, and other active pursuits.  There are organised activity centres for the energetic outdoors.

The enthusiastic young photographer or painter will find no shortage of subjects to challenge their artistic abilities. Some may be interested in historical things. How about a visit to “ancient” Rheged near Penrith or the Museum of Lakeland Life in Kendal?  Did you know that pencils came from the Lake District? There’s even a pencil museum in Keswick for both the historically and the artistically inclined.

Old railways?  The Lake District has two.  There’s the “full size” version with steam trains running on the old, and now restored, branch line from Haverthwaite to Lakeside near the foot of Windermere.  Then there’s the “little railway” that climbs up into the mountains from Ravenglass on the west coast, a great afternoon out for both children and adults.

Do you want to know how a nuclear power station works?  Just up the road from the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway is Sellafield with its excellent visitor centre (although at the time of writing this it was undergoing maintenance work; check their web site for details).

Interested in wildlife and nature?  How about the osprey viewing point by Bassenthwaite?  Or the freshwater aquarium at Lakeside? And talking of animals, for the imaginative among us, whether children or not, there are three Beatrix Potter attractions in the central lakes area.

Then again, the young poet might be fascinated by a visit to William Wordsworth’s cottage at Grasmere, or the recreation of eighteenth century life at his birthplace in Cockermouth.

This is just a start.  On our Lakes web site we include several lists of things to do and places to go around the main centres.  Check out also the range of National Trust locations in the Lakes. And whatever you do, don’t miss the national park visitor centre at Brockhole.

As for adults, so also for children, in addition to simply appreciating the beauty of the place there is no lack of things to do in the Lake District.

It was announced a few days ago that The Great North Swim, organised by Nova International, a company founded by Brendan Foster the 1976 Olympic bronze medallist, is to be held again at Windermere in the English Lake District.

Last year was its first, and was oversubscribed at 2,500 entries.  This year it will be spread over 2 days, September 12th and 13th, allowing 5,000 people to take part.  In addition to the big names of swimming it is expected that thousands of ordinary people will swim the mile-long open water course from a spot on the lake shore by the Low Wood Hotel.

If you’re a swimmer there’s time to train, but possibly very little time to enter as this event is likely to be extremely popular and places are limited.

A range of charities will benefit from this outstanding Lake District event, including Diabetes UK, Cancer Research UK and Lifeboats to mention only three.

The High Court has ruled in favour of the Lake District National Park Authority and its Windermere lake speed limit. A group known as the Keep Windermere Alive Association had attempted to trigger a full legal review of the speed limit which was imposed four years ago.

The response to this will inevitably be mixed, with some of the boating community distraught but many others pleased at the preservation of a quieter lake environment.

I’m old enough to remember when colour photographs, either Lake District photos or any others, were rare. Nearly all of us had black and white film in our cameras, and such colour photos as there were tended to have very poor colour quality.

Then along came affordable good quality colour film. Like many others I moved over from prints to 35mm slides. It saved printing cost and you could project them onto a screen or wall to show to family and friends. Only much later did I revert to printed photos, but somehow I never felt that my colour prints had quite the same character as the old black and white.

Recently I’ve been examining the Francis Frith archive and have been delighted to find some excellent photos. These are not only the street scenes of towns and villages for which the archive is possibly best known, but also lake and mountain views.

Ullswater, 1888.
Reproduced courtesy of Francis Frith.

The above photograph of Ullswater, taken in 1888, is one example of the wealth of photographic Lake District beauty available on the Frith site. The Crummock Water scene below is another. I’m currently collecting a set of my favourites for display on a new lake district photos site. Meanwhile I’ve created a few pages of vintage photos at thelakedistrict.inoldphotos.com

Crummock Water, 1893.
Reproduced courtesy of Francis Frith.

I think it will be clear by now that my own answer to the question in the title, “Must Lake District Photos be in Colour?” is a resounding “No!”

I came across a Lake District photograph this afternoon and felt I had to share it here. The site on which I saw it gave permission to use the photos it displays. Just in time I discovered that my latest “find” had in fact been stolen from someone’s portfolio, should not have been on the site where I found it, and to display it here would have been a breach of copyright. It was a stunning lake scene with snow-tipped mountains in the distance. I wish I could take photos like that!

To me it was yet another illustration of the variety of pursuits to which the English Lake District so wonderfully lends itself. Walking, climbing, boating, fishing, cycling, ….. . The list goes on and on, but whereas all of those can give much pleasure to the person directly engaged in the occupation Lake District photographs can bring pleasure to many others beside the photographer.

Well I can’t show that particular photo here just yet, but decided to post a modified version of what I’d written about it. If I can track down the photographer I’ll try to get permission.  I did think of putting an alternative here, but my mind was so full of the one I’d seen that to show another immediately now would almost inevitably be presenting it as second-best, however goood it might be.

Two bits of Lake District news in today’s post.

As for stationary objects I’m not referring to Janice who refuses to be dragged out of her bed on time in the morning, nor Bill who won’t be budged from the telly on Saturday afternoon.  No, I’m talking about a real statue, one that when it’s erected should stay put for many a decade.

Although the Westmorland Gazette went a bit too far recently in referring to Alfred Wainwright as “one of Kendal’s most famous sons” when in fact he was born in Blackburn, Lancashire, it is nevertheless excellent news that Kendal is to raise the funds for permanent bronze memorial to the town’s most famous 20th century resident.  May it come quickly and last long.

My second snippet is certainly not about staying in the same place for long.  It’s a reference to the mountain bike endurance race scheduled for 29th March at the Whinlatter Forest Park.  The Altura Whinlatter Challenge has apparently already passed 200 entrants.  Let’s hope that this latest Lake District mountain bike event is successful.  30 miles over this terrain is more than I would ever have attempted in my youth (even if there’d been such a thing as a mountain bike in those days) and I admire those young people with the energy, enthusiasm and dedication to training that’s needed to pit themselves successfully against the challenging course.

Recently I travelled up to the Lake District in the north of England to visit an elderly maiden aunt.  I say, “elderly,” but that’s not really an adequate expression.  She’s approaching a hundred and two years old.   She still has a lively interest in the doings of her large brood of nephews and nieces, and the even larger numbers of great- and great-greats as well.  But also she thinks a lot about the past.

Having been born in 1907 there’s a lot of past for her to think about, and her memory is still amazingly intact.  Old photographs fascinate her, and this made me think of how important it is to record in writing for future generations something about those people on the sepia tinted pictures of yesteryear before no-one any longer has a clue who they were.

Memories, of course, often involve places as well as people. In family collections it is often the snaps of people rather than places that have survived. Photos of fondly remembered places as they were many years ago are often limited to a few creased old postcards. Occasionally a treasure hoard of old photographs is discovered and what memories they bring flooding back as they appear in the local newspaper.

Windermere, Sunset 1926.
Reproduced courtesy of Francis Frith.

The English Lake District for a century and a half has been one of the most photographed areas of Britain.  How good it is to know that many photographs - of lakes, rivers, towns, villages and individual buildings - have survived and are available to massage the memories of generations of lovers of Lakeland.

Holidays past, childhood homes, honeymoons among the mountains, visits to grandparents, sunny afternoons rowing on Derwentwater, the “steamers” on Windermere, paddling in the Rothay and scrambles up Scafell; all these and more come back to life through an old photo on the wall.

Increasingly, as photos of distant places long ago become conveniently traceable over the Internet, people living even thousands of miles across the world’s oceans can find and acquire beautifully printed copies of these records of the past.  More and more homes around the world are displaying fondly a picture of England’s Lake District, a valued legacy from the photographers of generations past.

—
David Murray, a native of Cumbria, is owner of a growing portfolio of niche websites including some about the English Lake District.  thelakedistrict.inoldphotos.com and lakes.around-england.co.uk are two of his sites about which he is especially enthusiastic.

A few minutes ago I was tidying some magazines in my office when I came across a pile of Country Walking back issues. What immediately struck me was the frequency with which the Lake District featured on the front cover. Here are just a few.

This excellent monthly magazine not only contains articles describing great walks in many parts of the country, but also includes expert reviews of a wide range of outdoor equipment (gear and gadgets) relevant to the enthusiastic walker.

The photography is excellent and the writing of a high quality - clear and easily read. Each month also there is a series of route sheets, covering walks in many parts of the UK, conveniently sized for cutting out and laminating; each one has a relevant section of OS map.

For the Lake District enthusiast the February 2009 issue of Country Walking has an article on Buttermere as well as two Cumbrian walks in the Routes section.

Click above on the photo or here to order a year’s subscription, saving over buying monthly from the newsagent, and ensuring that you don’t miss a copy. And how about a gift subscription for a friend or family member?

In a previous posting I mentioned recently visiting the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway after staying overnight at Muncaster Castle.  During the same trip, while further north, I had a chance to slip into Michael Moon’s bookshop in Whitehaven.  I’d not gone for anything in particular but enjoyed maybe thirty minutes just browsing around and came out with a small paperback book about the Coniston railway.

Nowadays many people may be surprised to know that Coniston ever had a railway, but in fact for almost a hundred years there was a branch line from Foxfield through Torver to Coniston.  The Coniston copper mines were the principal reason for its existence in the early days but by the time it was eventually functioning in 1859 cheaper sources of copper were available from other areas of the world (globalisation is nothing new!) and in later years it became principally a tourist line - a wonderful entry point to the southwestern Lakes and, although popular, far less crowded than Windermere.

Personally I recall travelling on it as a child, catching the train from Askam, on the southern shore of the Duddon estuary with my grandfather and changing at Foxfield for the short trip up to Coniston.
That was in the early 50s. The line became seriously uneconomical and closed to passengers in 1958.

I may eventually write something more extensive on our main Lake District web site, but for the moment will finish by recommending anyone interested in old Lakeland railways to buy:

The Coniston Railway by Robert Western (ISBN: 978 0 85361 667 2) from Amazon.co.uk. (By the way, if Amazon says they have none look below the “out-of-stock” paragraph; there may be Amazon 3rd party dealers with copies; that was the case when I checked just now).

Over the past thirty years of driving up to Whitehaven, I’ve often looked across the valley to Muncaster Castle on the hillside above the River Esk not far from Ravenglass. Last week, though, I had reason to stop there. On my way north in the morning, and looking for somewhere to spend the night before driving back south, I spotted a B&B sign outside the gate to the castle’s plant centre.

Muncaster Castle west front, c1955
Reproduced courtesy of Francis Frith.

Many of the commercial links on my “Around-England” sites are there because I earn commission from them. I never apologise for that as like everyone else I need an income. However, I’m happy also from time to time including links to businesses from which I receive no commission when I feel they deserve special recommendation. This is one of those times.

During a long career I’ve spent much of my time out and about around the UK and further afield, staying overnight in everything from country village pubs and b&b acommodation to five star hotels. Rarely, however, have I experienced B&B to the standard of Muncaster Castle “Coachman’s Quarters”. I was welcomed warmly by the ladies in the office, and having been shown around and booked my room I drove on to Egremont, Whitehaven and Workington before returning to Muncaster in the evening.

The room itself, with en suite shower room, was comfortable and scrupulously clean (and with a plentiful supply of tea and coffee - a key point with me). The substantial cooked, “full English”, breakfast with lots of options was just what I like when away from home. The accommodation can also be booked for self-catering, and there was a well-equipped kitchen and dining area just down the corridor from my room. I could have used if I’d wanted (and had the food with me). My preference though was to sit back with a book in the comfortable armchairs of the spacious lounge which, being a winter night with few people travelling in this area, I had entirely to myself.

The castle and gardens are not open to visitors at this time of year, so in the morning before heading south to my next appointment I did a small detour down to the coast to visit the famous Ravenglass and Eskdale narrow gauge railway. Sadly, being out of season there was not a puff of smoke or jet of steam to be seen but it was pleasant to cast my mind back to that first visit as a child almost sixty years ago and a later visit in my early twenties to introduce my fiance to this less well known part of the Lake District National Park.

Well that’s enough maudlin diversion; let’s get back to today! If you’re en route to the West Cumbrian coast or visiting the Western Lakes you’ll find it hard to get better b&b than the Coachman’s Quarters at Muncaster Castle.