THE main road running North from Grasmere to Thirlmere, over Dunmail Raise, rises to a height of eight hundred and fifty feet. On a hot summer’s day it is a long sultry grind, whether one be walking or driving in a char-a-banc, for the two things are much the same here. About half-a-mile out of Grasmere the coachman pulls up his horses and intimates that if any of the gentlemen would like to walk, the horses would not object. This procedure led a humorous American gentleman, who had paid the usual fare from Windermere to Keswick, to exclaim when he reached the top “Wa’al, I guess I never walked so far for 7/6 in all my life before”!

But this walk up Dunmail Raise is a blessing in disguise, for the pedestrian has thus more opportunity of studying the country-side and particularly of drinking in the lovely retrospect to “Grasmere’s peaceful vale.” He will have time also to stop near the foot of the last steep bit and see the Lion and the Lamb on top of Helm Crag, mentioned in Wordsworth’s verse. The curious rocks up there bear a striking resemblance to these animals, but if your driver should ask if you saw the Lion and two Lambs, be very wary, for when you say “No” he will chuckle, crack his whip and exclaim “No? and no wonder for t’ other lamb’s inside of t’ lion”! At the top of the Raise, marked by the huge pile of stones over King Dunmail’s grave, we pass from Westmoreland into Cumberland and get our first glimpse of Thirlmere. A long easy gradient takes us merrily downward until we see the full length of the lake and realize once more what a wonderful country we

are in. The change in the character of the prospect is most striking; the sylvan scenery of Grasmere and Rydal is replaced by a loneliness and sombre beauty that might belong to another part of the world. And still we are less than four miles from Grasmere! The bare flank of Helvellyn on our right and the stony slopes of Steel Fell opposite have a charm of their own, as also have the interspersed rock and wood of Fisher and Raven Crags ahead, with the cone of Skiddaw peeping over them to the North.

Ere long we pass the end of a road leading off to the left. This trends along the western side of Thirlmere and was built by the Manchester people after they decided to use the lake as their reservoir. It was feared that the necessary damming and flooding of the mere, together with other engineering work, would mar its beauty, and for a short time ugly scars were certainly left. But the hand of time has now almost hidden these, and the “new road” on the western side of the lake is an ample recompense for any temporary spoliation. Moreover, it has opened up some beautiful scenery. Now-a-days, the tourist can gaze across at Helvellyn and obtain an adequate idea of its beautiful curves and outline—an impossibility from the “old road,” for it runs along the mountain’s breast too closely.

At the south end of Thirlmere we come upon the little township of Wythburn—a few houses and farmsteads, tended by one of the many “smallest churches in England.” It is locally know as “the Cathedral.” Our coach stops by the church-yard wall and we, at least some of us, stroll inside the sacred edifice. Others stroll inside an edifice of a different kind which is on the opposite side of the road! We are of the church party, however, and are well repaid by following the “narrow path.” Not because of the appointments of the church itself, although they are seemly enough, but because of the topical verses by various poets which are framed at the entrance. They savour somewhat of a poet’s competition, from which perhaps Hartley Coleridge emerges at the top with the following terse, but beautifully human, description of the church itself:—

The main road continues towards Keswick level and straight for some distance. The view across the lake is almost unchanged until we top Park Brow and gaze down the beautiful Vale of St. John, with the carven front of Blencathra hemming it in at the far end. The jutting crag on its right is the famous Castle Rock, the scene of Sir Walter Scott’s “Bridal of Triermain.” He describes a knight approaching it at twilight and “reining in his steed,” alarmed because he saw “airy turrets and a mighty keep and tower” in front. The resemblance to a castle is difficult to trace; perhaps Sir Walter’s knight had called at the Inn at Threlkeld before he set out!

We do not go down St. John’s Vale, but leave it on our right and traverse the parallel Vale of Naddle. This debouches upon the Greta Valley lower down, but our road climbs the steep hill to the moor, and soon overlooks the fertile plain of Keswick. Bassenthwaite Lake is in the far distance, with the majestic mass of Skiddaw guarding it on the north. Whatever disappointments the Derwentwater scenery may have in store for us (and I do not think it will have any) the first glimpse we obtain of it to the west, with the lovely outlines of Causey and Grisedale Pikes beyond, will be voted but little short of perfection. This approach to Keswick is one of the “tit-bits” of Lakeland and I know many people who have gone home cherishing this as the most memorable view they have seen.

The market town of Keswick, situated on the south bank of the

river Greta, has often been called the metropolis of the Lake District. It is certainly the largest town in Lakeland, but as there are much larger elsewhere and because visitors do not come here for the sake of the towns, we can dismiss it in a few words. It should be said that as a centre for the tourist it has no rival in the North of Lakeland. It possesses ideal accommodation for visitors, from the magnificent and first-class Keswick Hotel, beautifully situated on the banks of the Greta, to the homely temperance hotel and comfortable private apartments. Char-a-bancs leave Keswick daily by the dozen during the summer for all parts, and, although it is then a busy place, the rowdy tripper element is lacking. Its staple industry is that of lead-pencil making, but the days are gone when the famous Borrowdale plumbago was found and worked locally, and the pencil industry now employs but few hands. Keswick is better known as the venue of the parent convention. From it have sprung all the other religious conventions at home and abroad and during the end of July people congregate here from all parts of the world. The little town is filled to its utmost capacity and at this time it is a place to be avoided by all but conventioners.

Whilst by no means ugly in itself, Keswick is not remarkable for beauty. What it lacks in this way, however, is more than atoned for by its surroundings. A mile to the north of it is the impressive Skiddaw and Blencathra group, a perfect blaze of colour when the heather blooms or when the dying bracken catches the sunlight and splashes their breasts with molten gold. “A great camp of single mountains, each in shape resembling a giant’s tent” bounds it on the west and south, with Derwentwater and Bassenthwaite nestling snugly at their base. Out to the eastward is the fertile valley of the Greta with the spur of Helvellyn overlooking it—truly a galaxy of interest and beauty of which Keswickians may be passing proud.

But Derwentwater itself, and its wonderful setting, will rightly claim our first attention. An imposing sheet of water roughly oval in shape and about three miles long by a mile across, with shores indented and cut up into dozens of secluded creeks; a surface dotted with richly wooded islands, possessing the charm of personal and historic associations; the whole surrounded by an amphitheatre of mountains “rocky but not vast, broken into many fantastic shapes, peaked and splintered” and with narrow valleys opening up between them; reflecting faithfully stern precipice, velvet-like meadow, foliage-draped hillside, with here and there a white farmstead showing through, and mountain ghylls that “pour forth streams more sweet than Castaly”—such is Derwentwater.

Ruskin, in his “Modern Painters,” has said in effect that this lake as seen from Friar’s Crag affords one of the three finest prospects in the whole world. And as we stand on the fir-grown rocky promontory, but five minutes’ walk from Keswick, on a still summer morning and gaze up between the islands to the “Jaws of Borrowdale” and the Scawfell mountains shimmering in the blue haze; or upon a sullen day in March when the fell-tops are obscured by clouds and the sun sends long streamers of light through the rifts to the disturbed surface of the water; or when a southerly gale sweeps down from Lodore, staggering the Scotch firs, dashing the breakers against the crag and recoiling in spindrift and foam—under whatever conditions this view is regarded it will be generally conceded that Ruskin was justified in his opinion. The island quite close at hand on the left is Lord’s Island, once the home of the Earls of Derwentwater. The precipice above it is Walla Crag and it was up a steep rift in its face—the one marked by the white stone near its top—that Lady Derwentwater fled with the family jewels. Her lord was lying under sentence of death in London for espousing the cause of the Pretender, and this desperate, but, alas, unavailing climb was undertaken with the object of journeying to ransom his life.

That was in 1715. A thousand years before, the large island far up the lake was the home of Saint Herbert, the fidus Achates of the venerable Saint Cuthbert who often visited him here. So great was their mutual love and esteem that they expressed a desire that both should die at the same time “so that their souls might wing their flight to Heaven in company.” And although on Saint Herbert’s Island,

The splash of white in the gorge to the left of the island is the Fall of Lodore, rendered famous by Southey, the Keswick poet laureate. But a detailed description of Friar’s Crag and its surroundings is beyond the scope of this book, as well as of the writer’s ability, so perhaps we had better pass on to fresh scenes.

The best general view of Derwentwater is to be obtained from the eminence Castle Head, and indeed, for the amount of effort entailed, this is perhaps the best view in all Lakeland. From the actual top, the whole of the lake with its beautiful islands is visible. It occupies the place of honour in the foreground and is surrounded by mountains of almost every shape and variety. The craggy group at the head of Borrowdale—Scawfell and its satellites—the long grassy sweep of Maiden Moor, Catbells, and, round to the right, the double hump of Causey Pike rising above Barrow and Swinside, with Grisedale Pike beyond; and thence away to pointed Skiddaw, Blencathra and the Dodds of Helvellyn, present a diversity of form and colour that it would be difficult to surpass. Gilpin (no relation, by the way, to John of that ilk) described the lake as “Beauty lying in the lap of Horror.” That was in the eighteenth century. Just the other day an old Keswick woman expressed the opinion that “there’s nowt to mak’ sec’ a fuss about, for efter aw its nobbut a mix up of t’ fells, wood and watter.” Our attitude towards the mountains has undoubtedly changed in the last two hundred years and familiarity has, in some cases, bred contempt. If the tourist has not yet attained to the latter stage, he ought not to leave the district until he has seen Derwentwater from Castle Head.

The Druid’s Circle, on the hill about two miles above Keswick, is well worth a visit. However mistaken these ancients may have been in their ideas of worship, there can be no gainsaying the fact that they knew what they were about when they chose the site of their Temple. How much better and more inspiring this rude circle of stones high up on the mountain, surrounded by the everlasting hills and purified by all the winds of Heaven, than the often stuffy edifices of latter-day worshippers! However, to those whose tastes lie in the direction of more modern sanctuaries, Crosthwaite Church cannot but appeal. It is somewhat singular that its strongest charms should be those of antiquity and situation. Its square weather-beaten tower, sheltered by the mighty Skiddaw, is in wonderful harmony with its surroundings. As regards its antiquity, there is evidence that a church occupied the present site before the Conquest, but it has been restored more than once since then. It was given by Richard Coeur-de-Lion to the care of Fountains Abbey, in 1198—quite a respectable time ago. The recumbent marble memorial of the poet Southey, momentoes of the Derwentwater family, and the old fourteenth-century font are amongst the chief objects of interest inside the church, while in the church-yard is a horizontal slate tomb marking the poet’s last resting-place.

Bassenthwaite Lake lies to the north-west of Derwentwater and is only separated from it by low-lying alluvial ground which, after heavy rain, is sometimes flooded to such an extent that the two lakes are joined. The drive around Bassenthwaite occupies half a day and is well worth taking, if only to obtain a proper idea of Skiddaw. Seen from the west side of the lake the mountain is most shapely and amazingly

rich in colour, but perhaps is more imposing when “shrouding his double front among Atlantic clouds”—a not unusual occurrence. The ride along the margin of the lake through Wythop Woods, over Ouse Bridge and back across the breast of Skiddaw, is one of singular beauty. The prospect from Applethwaite Terrace on the return journey was one of which Southey ever spoke with delight; it was his favourite view and indeed when seen at sunset, with Grisedale Pike outlined against a golden sky, and the intervening level spaces suffused with a rich afterglow, it is one that will survive in the memory after others are forgotten.