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.

The Westmorland Gazette reports that plans are afoot for major changes to the provision of tourist advice in the Lake District.

Several existing advice centres are to close and in future it looks as though information provision will increasingly have to be funded by the tourist industry. I’m not going to express an opinion on the proposals as I have not been able to look at them in any detail. However, I hope that, whatever is eventually decided, there will continue for years to come to be adequate access for Lake District visitors to reliable advice in a wide range of locations.

New £300k plan to provide Lake District tourist advice centres
MORE than £300000 could be made available to help set up new tourist information facilities across South Lakeland.

Winter visits to the Lake District are the subject of a 12-page beautifully illustrated feature article in the January issue of Country Walking magazine. The idea that Cumbria is a northern county to be visited only in the summer is well and truly demolished by its photographs. The Lake District is beautiful throughout all seasons of the year.

Most appropriately, given last month’s disastrous “once in a thousand years” rainfall and flooding of many areas of the Lake District (not only those prominently featured in the national news media), the article concludes with a reminder that it is still possible to donate to the Cumbria Flood Recovery Fund and Fix the Fells.

For those who are not feeling up to energetic outdoor exploration during the winter months there are of course many indoor attractions and activities that are open all year round, mostly of a unique Lake District character unavailable anywhere else.  I referred to some in the Coniston area in a recent post on this site, and plan to add more along this line in the near future.

Finally for today, I see on the Ordnance Survey’s online-magazine blog a suggestion that hikers might expand their interests to take in rock climbing.

Lake District hikers may enjoy rock climbing

Ordnance Survey, 8 Dec 2009

Those on a hiking or camping holiday in the Lake District may wish to follow the advice of the Daily Mail and indulge in some rock climbing while they are there.

I do agree, but given that it’s now cold, wet and in high places icy, I hope that anyone taking up the suggestion will get good advice, watch the weather and the clock, go prepared and well-equipped, and not add to the mountain rescue statistics.

And then finally finally, don’t forget to subscribe to Country Walking magazine so as not to miss an issue. Click on the image below to subscribe.

Natural England today announced that a consultation is being launched to consider extensions to the Lake District National Park. Two of the areas being examined are the Birkbeck Fells to Whinfell, and Helsington Barrows to Sizergh Fell and the Lyth Valley. A third area covers the Orton Fells which the proposal says will be considered with a view to joining either the Lake District or the Yorkshire Dales National Park.

Further details on the Natural England site at:

Consultation announced for proposed extension to Yorkshire Dales and Lake District National Parks
11 December 2009. Natural England today announced that it will launch a public consultation on four proposed extensions to the Lake District and Yorkshire Dales National Parks. The new areas lie between the two National Parks and the consultation will seek views on whether they have the qualities necessary to be in a National Park, whether they should be given National Park status, and where the boundaries should be drawn. …….

Jill Stannard, who has for some time been acting chief executive of Cumbria County Council was today confirmed in the post. I congratulate her and wish her well in the post.

It may seem strange to some people that a blog written by someone who does not live in the county, and which is mostly concerned with the attractions of the Lake District countryside, should bother itself about who runs the local government bureaucracy.

Well firstly, it needs to be recognised how much of what happens in the county is influenced by the County Council. For example, the roads on which both residents and visitors travel around are its responsibility. I also recently wrote about the importance of the county archives to local and family historians with an interest in the human heritage of Cumbria. And these are only two of the multitudinous activities for which it is responsible.

My second reason for mentioning it is more personal. In thirty years as a management consultant I can say without a shred of exaggeration that the most enjoyable years were those in the mid-80s when I worked for around half of my time in Cumbria, much of it in close association with three men who were or were to become the county’s first three chief executives, Roland Whitfield, John Ford and John Burnet.

Plus, I have a special bond with the county, not only from that period but also from the fact that although remaining a proud Lancastrian from having been born on the Furness Peninsula well before the 1974 county reorganisation I deeply appreciate my “dual nationality” as a “Lancastrian Cumbrian” descended from a long line of Westmorland farmers.

So, Jill Stannard, I wish you well as you face up to leading the county administration into a challenging future.

Back in the early-70s, when what is now Cumbria was spread between Cumberland, Westmorland, and parts of Lancashire and Yorkshire, I became a frequent user of the county record offices. What began as a family history search became a local history study, and I came to appreciate the great value of the archive services maintained and operated by our county councils. Students of Lake District history would be in great difficulties without them.

Life has changed since then. There was no such thing as a laptop computer, and any thought of a handheld pda such as a Palm or Blackberry was the stuff of science fiction. Search rooms were small, and one sat at tables with paper and pencil poring over boxes of papers – yes, the originals, not images on a screen. Such indexes as existed were typescripts, and much of the contents of many boxes had never yet been indexed.

Of course the functions of a county record office are wider ranging than to provide a service for amateur, or even professional, historians. The county archivist has statutory duties with respect to the documentation of the various local government bodies. Nevertheless what most people these days experience is the provision of information in the form of old, even ancient, documents recording the history of towns, villages, parishes, houses and families.

Those of us with an interest in Lake District history, or Cumbria family history outside the National Park, owe a great debt to the professionalism of the staff at the record offices in Carlisle, Kendal, Barrow and Whitehaven. They, however, need modern facilities in which to provide the ever more sophisticated services we ask of them.

It is good, therefore, to know that the building of the new state-of-the-art Carlisle record office is under way and completion is expected late in 2010. The major task of packing for the move is already in progress. Apparently volunteers to help with this massive “house move” are still being sought. Click here for more details if you’re interested.

The header photo both of this blog and our “English Lakes” site is of Ullswater. The second largest body of water in the Cumbrian Lake District, Ullswater is much less commercialised than the larger Windermere. There are few significant centres of human habitation. At the northeastern end of the lake is the small village of Pooley Bridge. At the southern end is Glenridding, and this is the focal point of an article in the December ‘09 issue of Country Walking magazine.

Headed “48 hours in Glenridding” the article suggests walks over Place Fell on a Saturday followed by Glenridding Dodd on the Sunday morning. It also points to places to while the time away over a meal, and of course advises a trip on the Ullswater Steamer.

One of the outstanding features of Country Walking is its monthly selection of walks in places all over Britain. These “Route Cards” are graded for difficulty and arranged to be cut out and carried with you for reference. Detailed maps are included, and helpful notes on such matters as refreshments, public transport and public toilets (where there are such things). The Place Fell walk (‘Challenging’) and the Glenridding Dodd circuit (mostly ‘Easy’ but with a couple of steep and rough sections) are described in detail in this month’s selection of 27 walks.

Subscribe to Country Walking.

Next month’s issue (January 2010) has “The Lake District in Winter” as a major theme. Don’t miss it.

I’ve just noticed this morning that Amazon.co.uk have the Wainwright Walks complete BBC series 1 & 2 presented by Julia Bradbury on offer at half price for the DVD boxed set. (Click on the box)

This would be a great gift for someone who loves the English Lake District, or even for someone who needs introducing to Lakeland.  My recommendation would be to grab a set while they’re available at this price.

Also, if you’re a Julia Bradbury fan there are other DVDs available there: Wainwright Walks Coast To Coast [2009] and Railway Walks with Julia Bradbury [2009]. In fact there’s an amazing offer if you take all three together.

On our main Lake District web site there is a picture, from a painting by Alfred Heaton Cooper, of Thirlmere before the forest. That views the lake from the western bank and looks toward Helvellyn and the southern end of the recently enlarged reservoir.  I’ve now found in my postcard collection a view in the opposite direction, pointing north.

The card, a tinted photograph, was posted in 1909 and so probably dates from the early years of the century, not long after the merger of the original two lakes, Leathes Water and Wyburn Water, to form the Thirlmere reservoir as we have it today. (For a note on the lake names in this area see the Thirlmere page on our main site).

Yesterday, 2nd November, the Lonely Planet Travel Guide company published its “Best of Travel 2010″ listing.

The English Lake District feautures as one of only two European regions in the Top Regions part of the listings.

Those of us who know and love the Lake District are not surprised that the listing is merited, but gratified that its excellence has been recognised in a global context. With its combination of outstanding landscapes, history and culture where better to visit in the British Isles than the Cumbrian lakeland.