The Lake District: Legends of Lakeland
Poets, fellrunners, shepherds, artists, guidebook writers, bakers, adventurers, children’s authors: celebrate the Lake District’s 70th birthday with the favourite walks of eight of Lakeland’s biggest fans.
Poets, fell-runners, shepherds, bakers, adventurers, children’s authors celebrate the Lake District’s 70th by sharing favourite spots.
IN JUNE 1930, a 23-year old man from Blackburn strolled up onto Orrest Head near Windermere and caught his first view of the Lake District. That moment ignited a love affair that resulted in a seven-volume masterpiece:
A Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells. Starting in 1952, a year after the Lake District became Britain’s second national park, Alfred Wainwright devoted 13 years to his project, producing one page every evening after his day job as Kendal Borough Treasurer.
Each guidebook is a delight, with detailed pen and ink drawings of the fells and footpaths, and hand-written descriptions of the different routes – always informative, often lyrically beautiful, and sometimes with humour that belies his gruff reputation. In all he catalogued 214 fells – now known as the Wainwrights – and walking the lot is a much-loved challenge that would give you a rich understanding of every corner of this park.
Or you could choose a notable Wainwright to explore. Dove Crag, best climbed as part of the spectacular Fairfield Horseshoe near Ambleside, was the first he ever wrote about; Blencathra – ‘one of the grandest objects in
Lakeland’ – gets the most pages (36); and he thought little Castle Crag in Borrowdale sat in the ‘loveliest square mile in Lakeland’.
But it was Haystacks near Buttermere that he chose as his final resting place. The rough bobbles of this ‘shaggy terrier’ of a hill cradle Innominate Tarn, ‘a quiet place, a lonely place’ where Alf’s second wife Betty McNally scattered his ashes in 1991. In Memoirs of a Fellwanderer he wrote of his intention: ‘And if you, dear reader, should get a bit of grit in your boot as you are crossing Haystacks in the years to come, please treat it with respect. It might be me.’
He wasn’t the only guidebook author to adore Cumbria: The Lakeland Peaks by Walter Poucher is another classic. Sometimes known as the ‘photographic Wainwright’, he spent long hours – often sporting full make-up and perfume from his other job with Yardley – to finding just the right spot, and the perfect light, for an image, before marking routes on it in clear white lines. Like Wainwright, his favourite place was out here in the north-west lakes, and his ashes were scattered at Low Fell on Fellbarrow, just north of Crummock Water.
WALK HERE: Find detailed route guides for Haystacks and Fellbarrow at lfto.com/bonusroutes ▶