The picture below of St. Oswald’s Church, Grasmere, is new to me today. This morning I was looking around one of the sites that I sometimes promote as a source of wall posters when I spotted a set of etchings that I’d never previously noticed.

Grasmere Church, etching by David Law

David Law (1831-1902) was a nineteenth century Scottish engraver and watercolourist. In his youth he served an apprenticeship as a steel engraver and was for many years employed as a map engraver in the Ordnance Survey.  In mid-life he decided to focus on artistic work and by his early forties was a frequent exhibitor at major art exhibitions throughout the UK. He was often commissioned to produce etchings for leading British art publications.

Among David Law’s etchings were several beautiful Lake District landscapes, especially in the Grasmere and Rydal area.

Framed copies are available by clicking here or on the picture above. These are “restrike etchings”, that is additional impressions from etched plates which survived intact after the original edition was published, in this case more than a century ago. The prints are hand-coloured to create high quality collector’s items.

I was about to write another blog article about Coniston Water, but was browsing through some recent entries on other people’s blogs when I came cross a marvellous description of a weekend on the water from travel writer and photographer Lucinda Manouch. I enjoyed it so much that I decided to put a link to it here for others to see.

Yes, I’ll eventually get around to writing what I’d planned for today, but for now you can enjoy Lucinda’s stimulating description of days on the water and camping at Coniston – and she didn’t restrict herself to the lake itself but also ventured a little way down the Crake, the river that flows out of the southern end of the lake and carries its water to the sea.

Swallow and Amazons (Coniston Water) – LucindaManouch.com
“… As we made the 3 hour trip to Cumbria I was still trying to decide which lake to visit. Some I had paddled before, some where just too small and some seemed a little tricky to get to. Then I saw Coniston water on the map and memories of playing Swallows and Amazons on the river as a child came flooding back. …”

By the way, if you have never read Swallows and Amazons you can get a copy here from Amazon.co.uk (no pun intended in referring to this bookseller).

The Lake District has been getting quite a bit of TV publicity recently.  We’ve seen a presenter “swim-hiking”, a hotelier doing an overnight two-length swim in Windermere – that is, the full length of Windermere and back – and although I am not an addict myself I understand that even Coronation Street has been showing a honeymoon by the lake. All of this is on top of the weather reports and recovery from the recent flooding.

Here, however, is an item that I’ve not seen anywhere else apart from the National Park web site, an important meeting tomorrow, 20th January :

Lake District National Park – Bassenthwaite Reflections

A pioneering nature reserve will be the focus of a public meeting to forge future action plans for the special wetlands area. The Lake District’s first reserve of its kind at Dubwath Silver Meadows, near Bassenthwaite Lake, will come under discussion at a gathering on 20 January. People will be asked for ideas and help in safeguarding the future of the seven hectare site which is managed by a local farmer for wetland flora and fauna. Heritage Lottery Fund backed Bassenthwaite Reflections …..

On the artistic front there’s a new exhibition starting at Brantwood, Coniston.

New Exhibition at Brantwood Coniston

Coniston artist Joy Grindrod says, “This Saturday is the start of my latest exhibition “Peat Light”, held in the Severn Studio at Brantwood, Coniston. There will be new work showing, many are of local scenes and some Scottish landscapes. It will be showing until 7th March …”

Some Interesting Links – Recent Items on Other Sites

• Britain’s big freeze in pictures: Derwentwater in Lake District turns to ice (telegraph.co.uk)
• Country diary: Lake District (guardian.co.uk)
• Fell walker swept away by avalanche survives (guardian.co.uk)
• <

The title of this post may have misled some people to think that I was going to write about the recent Cumbria floods. Not at all. This is about the lakes, and getting under their surfaces, in particular Coniston Water and Wastwater. Actually it’s all a bit light-hearted. Last night I’d just spent an entire day writing for a number of blogs and preparing photographs for them when I spotted that I had nothing for this blog today. So why not take a look at YouTube and see what might be interesting to people. There were several candidates, but eventually I plumped for something entirely different from usual, and here it is.

Plant life in coniston water

2 meters under the water at Coniston July 2009 Bailiff Wood

I can’t say that the underwater plant life of Coniston is especially exotic, but although I’m no freshwater biologist I do feel that it’s nice to see that there is life down there. As I understand it, however, Wastwater is quite different. Apparently there’s very little to be seen there … a least that used to be the case. As I wrote on my lake district web site a year or two ago, some clever guys decided to brighten up the bed of Wastwater with a collection of garden gnomes. It suddenly occurred to me that someone might have filmed it. Someone had, and put it on YouTube. So here goes:

Wastwater Gnome Garden

Well, I hope that might have entertained you. At least it’s a bit different from our normal fare

Searching through old photos today I came across the following picture of Gondola by a jetty on Coniston Water. It was taken on a cloudy day more than twenty years ago, and is not the world’s best photography, but I think it captures something of the atmosphere of Coniston on many days of the year – cloudy and not so bright – all part of the fascination of the Lake District.

The Ruskin Museum has developed considerably over the years that I have known it. Nowadays it covers a wide range of local themes and deals extensively with the lives of two great men, from very different spheres of activity, associated with Coniston in the English Lake District.

John Ruskin, the eminent nineteenth century literary and artistic figure, lived for many years at Brantwood across Coniston Water from the village. Ruskin was extremely influential in his support of traditional craft industries. He is strongly associated with the small lace industry of the area, which is one of the museum’s themes. John Ruskin died in 1900 and is buried in the village churchyard (I put photographs of the Ruskin monument in an earlier post).

Donald Campbell was very different. He was a mid-twentieth century speed enthusiast, breaking world records many times both on land and water. Coniston was host to many of his water-speed record attempts, and it was here that he died when his boat Bluebird II somersalted at high speed. He is buried in the new area of the village graveyard.

The achievements of both men are extensively portrayed in the Ruskin Museum, tucked in behind the buildings of Yewdale Road. Other major themes are the ancient local industries of copper mining and slate quarrying, as well as the distinctive stone walls of the Lake District field and fells.

During summer months the Ruskin Museum is open from 10:00am to 5:30pm, but in the winter may have shorter hours so do check before travelling far.

Recently I’ve posted several articles here with reference to Coniston. They’ve included one on visiting Coniston in the winter, another linking to our lake district site about the Coniston Coppermines, and yet another with photos of the John Ruskin monument in Coniston churchyard.

I was reminded again of Coniston yesterday when I picked up my copy of Practical Photography for January 2010. Out of the packet fell a 40+ page guide to landscape photography – “Landscape Answers”. Toward the end of the booklet is a section entitled, “Where can I shoot an iconic landscape?” Among the nine suggested locations is Coniston Water.

Absolutely right. A good choice. I can’t wait to get back there in a few weeks’ time. After all I must introduce my new camera to the Lake District at the earliest possible opportunity

Next to the entrance into Grasmere village churchyard is an old house.  It was once a schoolhouse but in 1854 Wilfred and Sarah Nelson moved in with their family of two daughters, and this became the home of Grasmere Gingerbread.

Sarah was at this time in her late-thirties, and had been employed in a number of wealthy homes in the kitchens.  It was in one of these that she had experimented with her recipe for gingerbread and brought it to perfection.

During the second half of the nineteenth century  not only did Lake District tourism grow in general terms but more specifically the flow of visitors to Grasmere increased enormously following the death of the poet William Wordsworth.  The Wordsworth family graves became a place of literary pilgrimage, and for fifty years Sarah supplied a growing clientele with her unique gingerbread until she died in the early years of the twentieth century.

Today, more than one and  a half centuries later, Grasmere Gingerbread is still made to Sarah Nelson’s original recipe, a closely guarded secret, and is sold from the same house by the entrance to Grasmere village churchyard to its many thousands of visitors every year.  I suspect that Sarah, for all her belief in her unique formula, would have been astonished to know the number of countries in the world to which her gingerbread has travelled.

This morning my wife and I went for a short walk around the Coot Lake and Whisby Nature Park near Lincoln.  We had a clear blue sky and beautiful light  At Whisby even when the leaves have gone there is a wonderful variety of colour in the browns and golds of the trees, and this morning the water was reflecting the pure blue of the sky.

I’ll not attempt a detailed account of the Whisby Nature Park just now.  That may come later, but here are three photographs.  I only had my old Panasonic DMC-FZ1 camera with me, and the pics are a little grainy, but they do illustrate how, even without hills as backcloth to the water, such small lakes can still provide a beautiful relaxing country atmosphere.

Thorpe Lake, looking west from near the Natural World Centre

Grebe Lake looking east from near the bird-watching hide

Coot Lake looking east from the Western end

As I started to write this item for our blog the newspapers, radio and TV, both local and national, were full of Lake District and wider Cumbrian stories.  More than a foot (>300 mm) of rain in little more than twentyfour hours had swollen rivers, formed lakes where previously there were none, and generally made the lives of many Cumbrian residents a misery.  Bridges had been destroyed, and it was just being reported that a policeman attempting to save others had been lost as the bridge on which he was standing was swept away.  Clearly this has been an exceptional weather event which is going to have massive human consequences. I trust that by the time this post is due to appear on the blog the big clean-up will be well under way.

It was, however, not water to this extent that was on my mind when I first thought of writing about things to do in and around Coniston in the winter.  Rather it was a simple response to the fact that things to do indoors take on an added significance in the colder months of the year.

For many decades one of the economic difficulties faced by the Lake District tourism industry was the shortness of the season.  Gradually this has been changing. Of course, the enthusiastic outdoor person may laugh at wimps who want to be inside in the warmth.  As someone who used to love the battle against an icy wind, and revel in pressing footsteps deep into mountain snow, I can empathise with that.

As the years have worn on, however, I’ve come to appreciate that pretending to be Hilary on Everest or Scott in the Antarctic is not the only way to enjoy the uplands in winter.  There are warmer occupations.  So what does the area immediately around Coniston have to offer the person who prefers to keep reasonably warm and dry?

The Ruskin Museum

In Coniston village itself there is the Ruskin Museum.  This should not be confused with Brantwood, which was John Ruskin’s home on the opposite bank of the lake from 1871 until his death in 1900, and which I’ll mention in a later paragraph. The museum is in the village itself and although it includes a considerable amount of Ruskin-related material it also covers a far wider range of local interests including the Coniston Coppermines in “Coppermines Valley” up the slopes of Coniston Old Man above the village.

Originally established by the writer and philosopher W. G. Collingwood in 1901 it has been extended substantially down the years.  It has informative displays on the local (now defunct) copper mining and slate industries as well as many local crafts. Most recently the part of the museum devoted to Donald Campbell and his waterspeed records has been greatly expanded.  Sometime in 2010 it is planned to bring the restored Bluebird to a permanent display here.

Brantwood

What John Ruskin would have thought of careering up and down the Coniston lake at 250-300 miles per hour we’ll never know, but certainly he considered the view across the water to Coniston Old Man from his study window to be more than outstanding.  I guess that under today’s planning regimes he would not have been permitted to develop the old cottage into the house as it now is, but thankfully he lived before the age of such restraints and we can now visit Brantwood to enjoy exhibits of the art and philosophy of this highly influential artist, writer and social reformer of the mid/late-nineteenth century.

To quote the Brantwood web site, its displays and activities “reflect the wealth of cultural associations associated with Ruskin’s legacy – from the Pre Raphaelites and Arts and Crafts Movement to the founding of the National Trust and the Welfare State.”  Over the years I’ve paid many highly enjoyable visits to Brantwood, and particularly recall an exhibition describing the influence of Ruskin’s thinking on Ghandi.

Brantwood, however, is not only concerned with the past.  It has a lively programme of contemporary style events.  For example, the Severn Studio has an exhibition under the title “Space and Place” showing the recent work of five south Cumbrian textile artists.

Oh, and there’s also some good food to be enjoyed!  As the house doesn’t open until 11:00 am you might want to enjoy the Ruskin Museum in Coniston village in the morning and then go on to Brantwood for lunch before touring the house in the afternoon.

Places Nearby

The above two places can easily occupy a relaxed winter’s day before the darkness falls and one retreats to a warm Coniston area hotel or guest house. A second day might involve a trip to nearby Hawkshead with its Wordsworth and Beatrix Potter connections. Or, a little further away, how about the Laurel and Hardy museum in Ulverston?

Take Care in the Winter Outdoors

Finally, if you decide that it’s the outdoors for you, then please make sure that you’re properly equipped, check the weather forecast and the daylight times … and don’t take risks on the fells.  The rescue services have enough on their plates without having you as another of their statistics.

Check Winter Opening Hours

One important point about visiting anywhere in the Lake District during the winter months (or for that matter any tourist destination around the whole of the UK outside of the big cities) is:  Check the winter opening hours.  Not only are daily times usually shorter than in the summer, but some venues may be closed totally for several weeks, especially in late-December and January. Check the relevant websites carefully before travelling far:

Brantwood – home of John Ruskin

The Ruskin Museum in Coniston village

The Beatrix Potter Gallery, Hawkshead