An impromptu, spontaneous and rather quick posting from the west side of Coniston Water, where we have just taken the van for a short autumn break. Saturday afternoon was very pleasant, so we wandered up the lakeside from Torver to Coniston itself . Wandered lonely as the clouds, in fact, which were hovering scenically at all kinds of heights over the water.
SUNDAY – Hill walking
And then Monday, it was persisting down all day, as the Lakes are wont to do. So it was an indoors cultural triple header of the Ruskin Museum, Wray Castle, and Hill-Top Farm
Ruskin Museum, Coniston
An intriguing set of themes spread across a few small rooms : geology of the area, the mining industry ( copper and slate ), the development of the railways which took those products south and brought tourism to the area in Victorian times, and the life of John Ruskin.
The shiniest new exhibit was a reconstruction of the Bluebird, in which Donald Campbell set world water speed records in the 60’s …
Lianne’s comment on that room was ” I only see blokes in here “.
Wray Castle
A kind of Victorian folly, an estate house dressed up as a medieval castle .
Can’t actually visit much of the insides, but what you could enter was given over to a centennial exhibition of the disastrous Everest expedition of 1924. There’s a more inclusive focus on the Sherpa perspective, and culture – the fact they were the ones lugging oxygen tanks up for the colonisers to use , for example, and how many died because Mallory’s lads triggered an avalanche. Makes you proud to be British. And then this display of appetising foodstuffs from a 1975 follow up …
Hill-Top Farm : Beatrix Potter’s open-house
Finally, a nostalgic nose around the cottage that provided the scenery for classics like “The Tale of Samuel Whiskers” and Tom Kitten.
I loved spotting the original source of pages from the books
And almost next door, the pub featured in Jemima Puddle-Duck .
….and it hasn’t changed much inside, either.
TUESDAY – drier weather, so we cycled around Coniston water, Hawkshead, and through Grizedale.
Even located the improbably-named Rusland and had sarnies on its church wall. Cracking circuit.
…and then Wednesday, back home.