“It’d been four months since I climbed a fell. I felt a soul-deep pull – and it could be answered.”

STUART MACONIE

MOST PEOPLE WOULD call Binsey unremarkable. Its one real claim to fame is that it is the most northerly of the 214 fells that Alfred Wainwright listed in his Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells. Should you want to bag them all then, you’ll need to make that trip up past Caldbeck and Ireby and almost into Border country.

But it’s a charming little hill with a rocky summit and a sprawling tumulus that’s been shaped into a wind shelter and even the oft curmudgeonly AW acknowledged that “on a warm clear day... the purple heather and the glorious panoramic view together make Binsey one of the best places for spending an hour of undisturbed peace and enjoyment.”

Or, he adds mischievously: “Take the family.”

I have always had a soft spot for it. And even more so after this morning. It’s been four months since I climbed a fell, or have even been to Cumbria. Unlike certain other people in the region, I stuck to the rules and did not visit my little bolthole in the top righthand corner of the Lake District for sixteen weeks or so. I had dealt with any nagging worries about my eyesight by merely looking around a bit. I stuck to the rules like the poor deluded sap I was. And whilst I’ve thought about the Lake District daily, I don’t think I knew just how much I’d missed it all until we were on the forest road, the one that runs from Greystoke to Caldbeck alongside the dense, deer-packed woods.

Coming up the M6, I’d had the occasional frisson, yes; on seeing the shapely bulk of Black Combe across Morecambe Bay, at the first glimpse of the Howgills and the heart-shaped wood near Tebay. But it was only when I saw the outline of the lonely northern fells that I felt a real soul-deep pull. And fortunately, this time it could be answered.

You park at Binsey Lodge, if you’ve come by car of course. Back when Wainwright wrote about Binsey in 1962, the No. 71 bus from Keswick stopped here, but that was back in the days when buses ran for the

As I looked at Criffel from Binsey, I spotted a lone harebell near the summit. The harebell is the county flower of Dumfriesshire. These lovely wildflowers look fragile, but they are as tough as old boots as well as beautiful. And this is the month to see them at their best. So keep ’em peeled. Hear Stuart on Radcliffe and Maconie, BBC 6 Music, weekends, 7am to 10am.

benefit of local travellers, not faraway shareholders.

You should find a little spot in the layby anyway. And after that, you can’t go wrong. Just head up the track, keeping your eyes fixed on the not-that-distant horizon. Binsey’s ascent may be longer than it looks at first, but any reasonably fit walker could do it within an hour, even allowing for numerous looks back over your shoulder, east, west and north.

And there will be plenty of those, because Wainwright was bang-on when he said this insignificant hill was ‘much too good to be left out’. Looking north is the long sandy arm of the Solway Firth, with the peak of Criffel in Dumfriesshire clearly and visible on the other side. To your right, the gloomy and grand North Pennines, whilst left is the whole length of Bassenthwaite Lake and the blue hills of the Loweswater and Ennerdale fells beyond.

But best of all is the view back south. This is the place to get to know the geography of the quiet but lovely northern fells. And here is what I always think of as the ‘backstage shot’ of Skiddaw. Not the huge, visage that looms impressively over Keswick, but a sneak glimpse of its broad shoulders and, well, marvellous hindquarters, of Bakestall and Ullock Pike and the silver dancing thread of Dash Beck.

That walk, to the falls of Whitewater Dash and Great Calva, had been my last walk before Foot and Mouth had put the hills out of bounds for months in 2001. This exile had not been as long but it had felt worse somehow, with lives in peril and the whole fragile world becalmed and anxious. So to look at these beloved hills was strange and sweet. I had walked every one of those tops and now I felt lucky to have those memories but more blessed by the thought of days on them to come, if the universe allows.

And then, as I mused deeply thus, a man bounded up enthusiastically and said ‘I know you! You’re Terry Abraham!’ And it felt that normal life in all its silliness was coming back to the hills we love.