After 124 years, National Trust finally wins control of island that inspired its creation
WHEN a tiny island in the Lake District was sold at auction in 1893, concerned locals feared it marked the end of national ownership of the idyllic landscape.
And one admirer was so angered by the sale he vowed to establish an organisation so it could never happen again – and the National Trust was born.
Now, 124 years later, the National Trust has finally acquired the place that inspired its creation, after the owner of Grasmere Island left it to the Trust in her will.
The Trust has now pledged to protect the non-populated island ‘for ever, for everyone’ after it was given to them by the generous benefactor.
The island’s former owner, who did not want to be publicly recognised, knew about its historic role in the foundation of the Trust and vowed to return it to national ownership after her death.
The sale of the wooded 1.78 hectare island in Lake Grasmere, Cumbria, infuriated Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley – a great defender of the Lake District – who recognised that no organisation existed to protect the landscape from private ownership and potential development. Soon after the sale, the first official meeting took place between Canon Rawnsley, Sir Robert Hunter and Octavia Hill – the trio who founded the Trust in January 1895.
Speaking of the need for the organisation at the time, Canon Rawnsley said: ‘It is notorious that during the last two years the top of Snowdon, the island in the middle of Grasmere Lake, and the Lodore Falls have all come into the market.
‘Had such a Trust as that now proposed been in existence, each of these places might have been obtained for the nation.’
The poet William Wordsworth once called Grasmere ‘the loveliest spot that man hath ever found’, and could see the island from Allan Bank House, where he lived from 1808 to 1811.
Dave Almond, National Trust manager for Allan Bank and Grasmere, said: ‘It’s fantastic that 124 years after the private sale of Grasmere island, the view that can be enjoyed from Allan Bank and that has inspired so many, will now be protected for ever, for everyone.’