The Lake District

The Lake District | The Seasons
The National Trust | Historic Houses and Gardens

Introduction to the Lake District

How can one précis? Well! The Lake District is accessible year-round, beautiful, unspoiled, boasts almost every activity there is, offers gardens, stately homes, museums, art galleries, watersports, golf, walking, climbing, fishing, horse riding, pony trekking, antique hunting, gourmet dining, sightseeing...

The names of quaint villages roll off the tongue - Windermere, Grasmere, Keswick, Ambleside, Hawkshead, Crosthwaite, Troutbeck, Winster, Patterdale, Kendal, Clappersgate...

...and lakes and tarns - Derwent Water, Coniston, Tarn Hows, Ullswater, Esthwaite Water, Thirlmere, Wastwater, Ennerdale, Water, Buttermere, Crummock...

...and mountains and fells and the streams which cascade down them - Great Gable, High Street, Sour Milk Ghyll, Scafell Pike, the Langdale Pikes, Helvellyn, Fairfield, Blencathra, Skiddaw.

But perhaps we should allow Wordsworth the last words,

Rude is this edifice... yet to these walls
The heifer comes in the snow storm, and here
The new-dropped lamb finds shelter from the wind.
And hither does one poet sometimes row
His pinnacle... and beneath this roof
He makes his summer couch, and here at noon
Spreads out his limbs, while, yet unshorn, the sheep
Panting beneath the burden of their wool,
Lie round him, even as if they were a part
Of his own household: nor, while from his bed
He through that door-place looks towards the lake
And to the stirring breezes, does he want
Creations lovely as the work of sleep,
Fair sights, and visions of romantic joy.

William Wordsworth On the Island at Grasmere Lyrical Ballads 1805