In the past I’ve mentioned here a variety of energetic activities in the Lake District - running, walking and cycling.  On September 13th, however, there’s a new one.  It’s the “Great North Swim” - a mile in Windermere.  (No, I won’t call it “Lake” Windermere as in some of its publicity; there’s only one lake in the Lake District and that’s Bassenthwaite Lake!)

Anyway, whatever the water’s called, it’s going to be a cold wet experience in which around a thousand people are expected to participate - including some of Britain’s finest swimmers.

Several charities will be benefiting, including The British Red Cross and Marie Curie Cancer Care.

For more on this see Swimming in Windermere.

That’s all for now,

- David Murray -
England’s Lakes

It was the year before I was married. (I’ll let you work out when that was; I’m just indicating that it was well within living memory). Windermere was frozen over for several weeks during that winter, and for the first time for many years it was safe to skate over large areas of its surface.

Going back a bit further - that is, a few thousand years - not only was the lake frozen, but it was under several hundred feet of ice as the glaciers of the most recent ice age (I won’t say “the last”, as it might not be, in spite of what we’re told about global warming) …. Anyway, as I was saying, just over ten thousand years ago Windermere was under a massive glacier.

Strictly speaking that isn’t true, for at that time there was no Windermere. There were two much smaller lakes, one up at the Ambleside end, and another down toward Newby Bridge. In between the two, Claife Heights (now on the western side of northern Windermere) and Cartmel Fell (now on the eastern side of southern Windermere) were joined together in one continuous belt of hills, and the two lakes were in totally separate valleys ….. although both valleys were invisible under the cold solid white stuff.

As the glacier crawled its way down toward the sea at Morecambe Bay it carved a swathe through the hillside and allowed the waters of the two lakes (once they’d thawed, centuries later) to run together and create a single lake, the longest in England, that we now know and love as Windermere.

My bookcases have for decades now carried a wide range of books about the Lake District. However, I have very few that focus on just a single lake … because there are very few such books in existence. There is, however, an excellent book about Windermere: Portrait of Windermere, by Christopher Taylor. I bought mine twenty-five years ago when it first came out and have dipped into it repeatedly down the years. The paragraphs above owe much to my most recent dipping.   Click on the title or the graphic above to find a copy through Biblio.com

Or click on this link for more on other Lake District Books

That’s all for now,

- David Murray -
England’s Lakes

The redevelopment of Waterhead, Ambleside, was bound to be controversial. Reconciliation of the many inevitably conflicting interests are difficult enough in an ordinary town or village but when it’s in a national park, and especially when it’s by Windermere, you can guarantee a good debate.

The Westmorland Gazette a few days ago published an article on the latest compromise proposal. Here’s the link so that you can follow what is being talked about for the future of this important area on the Windermere shore.

- David Murray -
England’s Lakes

In an article about Bassenthwaite Lake on my English Lakes site I mentioned the Lake District Osprey Project, and provided a link to the video camera. The watchers up in the Lake District this year believe (from observing the behviour of the parent birds) that at least one chick has now hatched.

Down at Rutland Water the Rutland Osprey Project is watching two nests this year, one occupied by the pair that have nested there for several years and the other by a couple in which the female is a four-year-old offspring from the older local pair. The first pair appear to have three chicks but the second have had problems recently, and observers fear that the eggs may have been damaged; no chicks have been seen. If you’re based in, or passing through, the East Midlands don’t miss a visit to Rutland Water. It’s a beautiful area, a few miles to the west of the A1 trunk road, south of Newark and Grantham and not far from Stamford. The Rutland Water Nature Reserve has superb visitor centres at Egleton and Lyndon, close to the water.

The two projects have excellent web sites:

• The Rutland Osprey Project
• The Lake District Osprey Project

- David Murray -
England’s Lakes

What is now the Keswick Country House Hotel was originally built by the company that in 1865 launched the Cockermouth, Keswick & Penrith Railway. As their new railway line into the northern Lake District replaced the previous three-hour (minimum!) journey from the Penrith mainline station by horse-drawn coach, the tourist trade expanded rapidly. A new hotel was needed alongside the station. A hundred and forty years later the hotel has adopted twentyfirst century standards while the station house now houses several executive class rooms as an extension of the hotel. The trains stopped coming to Keswick more than thirty-five years ago.

Last night while searching through a pile of old Lake District brochures in my study, looking for something entirely different from what I eventually found, I came across a book I’d forgotten about but which I presumably bought on a visit to Keswick some years back. It kept me up late reading. Here it is, a fascinatingly detailed account of the history of the railway line that ran east to west across the northern lakes area.

I’ve created a page about it on our English Lakes site with the title, “By Train to Keswick“, but if you really want to know more about this piece of Lake District history, click on the book here to see whether there’s a copy available from Biblio.com. Alternatively, try Amazon.co.uk.

Note: This book seems now to be quite rare. Shop around between the two sources here, as each will probably list several alternative book dealers - and prices tend to vary widely.

- David Murray -
England’s Lakes

I am not a fisherman! That needs to be made clear from the start. I’m not going to pretend on this blog or web site to be the possessor of either knowledge or experience in this field. When my children were in their teens, twenty-five or more years ago, I had a short-lived urge to fish with them but it never developed (a bit like my golf!) … and then some burglars took my tackle and I never got around to replacing it.

So, where can I refer people for good solid information about fishing in the Lake District? I’ll certainly include short snippets on the pages about individual lakes or rivers based on information drawn from others, but for real information from experts I’ll have to send you elsewhere.

Fortunately there is such a place. It’s a marvelous site called, believe it or not, “Lake District Fishing“. Take a look at it. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

- David Murray -
England’s Lakes

It seems that the predictions of British people holidaying in our own islands this year are coming true. For several decades the lure of reliable sunshine in Spain and elsewhere in the Mediterranean has been a greater attraction than the beauties of the English coastline or the grandeur of the Scottish and Welsh mountains. The same has been true to a lesser extent with respect to the Lake District although this has continued to be a favourite domestic destination.

Wastwater, from Strands
by A. Heaton Cooper,c.1905

The ever-present possibility (or more) of experiencing the rain which is at the root of their attractiveness is something of a turn-off for many; we like our lakes and streams, and the green grass, but we’d rather it rained at a different time or on someone else.

This year, however, although our pounds will still buy more dollars than has been usual for many years, the euro is even stronger, and therefore holidaying in the euro-zone becomes more expensive. Add to this the rapidly escalating price of oil and therefore of long-distance travel, and holidays in the home-country begin to have an economic attraction once again.

I hope the Lake District benefits from this, although I also have some other hopes, including that the increased load, if it fully materialises:

1. will be spread across the region and not concentrated too much in the “honey-pot” locations of Bowness, Ambleside, Grasmere and Keswick; there are so many other wonderful places to visit around Cumbria;
2. will include a large proportion of people moving around responsibly on foot over the hills, and not merely burning up the fuel on the Lake District roads that they’ve saved by not flying to Majorca.

If you’re thinking of the Lake District for either a long or short break this year, take a look at Coniston Water, Ullswater and Wastwater. And scan the National Trust web site for further ideas as to locations.

- David Murray -
England’s Lakes

The English Lake District is well-known for its water and its mountains, but maybe less known for its gardens. And yet this “most beautiful corner of England” contains some magnificent gardens of many different varieties.

I recently came across a book that I’d missed noticing when it was first published. (Obviously my eyesight must be going in addition to my hearing, as apparently it has been well displayed in bookshops - and not only in Cumbria).

Gardens of the Lake District, by Tim Longville, is published by Frances Lincoln, 2007 [ISBN: 0711227136] and is a book not to be missed by anyone with an interest in either Lakeland or gardens. It is superbly illustrated with pictures of some magnificent gardens, many of which are open for visiting by the general public.

Next time you’re planning a visit to the Lakes use this book to help choose which gardens to visit, and if you’re too far away to visit in body let the book transport you there in mind.

Clicking on the book image above will take you to Biblio, an international network of online book dealers. You’ll be able to check there what is available, both as new and used copies, in your part of the world and order on-line.

- David Murray -
England’s Lakes

Last weekend it was a 112-mile cycling event over the Lakeland passes. This coming Sunday it’s the Brathay Windermere Marathon in which runners do a circuit of the lake. Much nicer scenery than the London Marathon! And a lot steeper in places as well.

Where’s Keswick? I recall more than twenty-five years ago collecting a London-based colleague from Manchester airport to drive to see a client on the West Cumbrian coast. When we’d been on the way for about an hour, and were somewhere near Lancaster, she wondered where on earth we were headed. I had to explain that we were not yet half way to our destination and that we were about to go through the mountains. I think she’d expected us to be almost in Glasgow by that time. After all, there’s not much in the North apart from the mill towns, is there! Those few days in Cumbria were quite an eye-opener for someone from the South who appeared to consider even the Midlands a foreign country.

This came back to mind when a day or two ago on a TV quiz show a team of highly knowledgeable quizzers were completely stuck when asked which lake was close to the town of Keswick. They eventually guessed at Coniston, after considering Ullswater as another possibility. It reminded me of the fact that after a generation and more of summer holiday destinations shifting from the British Isles to Spain, the Mediterranean and further afield many of our English countrymen and women know very little of the geography of our own country - and in the case of the Lake District that’s in spite of the millions of tourists that visit every year.

On our “England’s Lakes” web site there is plenty of material from which to learn about this most beautiful corner of England. There’s now a page on each of the major lakes, and these will be updated, enlarged and added to (including more photos, and artists past and present) as time goes on. There’s a page of Lake District books with a variety of links to make purchase convenient whether or not you’re based in the UK. So happy reading and, whether or not you can visit this year, enjoy the lakes and mountains.

Oh, and by the way, the “books” page includes the boxed DVD set of the two BBC series on Wainwright Walks.

Best wishes,

- David Murray -
England’s Lakes

This coming Sunday drivers had better be on the lookout for hundreds of cyclists if they’re planning to be on the Lakeland roads. The Fred Whitton Challenge involves 112 miles of hard riding over Lake District passes including Kirkstone, Honister, Newlands, Whinlatter, Hardknott and Wrynose. It’s organised for charity (The Dave Rayner Fund and MacMillan Cancer Relief) by the Lakes Road Club in memory of their former secretary Fred Whitton who died of cancer in 1999. From small beginnings that year with just sixty riders, in 2008 it is expected that a thousand cyclists will start from Coniston … and hopefully most will arrive back at Coniston later in the day. The fastest time, set last year, is just under 5 hours 46 minutes and no-one with even the slightest knowledge of the terrain could say that this is anything less than astonishing.

- David Murray -
England’s Lakes