In Unfamiliar England / A Record of a Seven Thousand Mile Tour by Motor of the Unfrequented Nooks and Corners, and the Shrines of Especial Interest, in England; With Incursions into Scotland and Ireland.

by Thos. D. Murphy

But come! We may not stop at Dove Cottage for the night; it would now offer but sorry cheer, and Windermere seems the most available place to tarry. We pass close to the water’s edge along Grasmere, and Rydal brings up new associations of the poet—here on the “Mount” overlooking the tiny lake is the house where Wordsworth lived in his later and more prosperous years, still the home of his granddaughter, we are told. But the tripper is not welcome and the envious tangle of trees and shrubbery denies to the wayfarer even a glimpse of the house.

The beautiful situation of the Lowwood Hotel attracts our attention as we follow the margin of the lake, but we pass on in our swift race for Windermere. Coming thither we inquire of a policeman in the market place for the best hotel. He is diplomatic enough to disclaim fitness to judge, but adds confidentially, “You’ll make no mistake if you go to the Hold Hengland; that’s where the quality goes.” We thank him—praise Heaven that is all one is expected to do, or in fact, may do for a policeman in Britain!—but when we view the Old England we are seized with regret that we passed Lowwood with its magnificent frontage on the lake. It is nothing to retrace the half dozen miles to the most pretentious hotel in the Lake District, though probably far from the most comfortable, and certainly anything but the place for travelers of an economical turn. What motorist could forget or forgive the charge of half a crown for simple garage—two and one-half times the standard price in England! Still, the view of the lake from Lowwood as the evening falls compensates for many shortcomings. The twilight has transformed the limpid waters into a sheet of dull silver, touched with faint rose hues from the last glow of the sun. The hills beyond stand in dark blue outline against a pale opalescent sky and the dim gray towers of Wray Castle rear their massive bulk in the foreground. There is no more enchanting view from the shores of Windermere Lake and we saw it under the most favorable conditions.

A sharp change has come over the scene when we resume our journey in the morning. A light rain is falling and the mist hovering over the lake half hides the distant hills. Gray tones predominate everywhere, contrasting cheerlessly with the brilliance of the preceding day. But such a day may be looked for as the rule rather than the exception, for the rainfall of the Lake District is much the heaviest in England. We pass Ambleside at the head of the lake, and follow the steep, ill-kept road, slippery from the rain, to Coniston, a very quiet village, nestling at the foot of the great hills at the head of Coniston Water. In the churchyard here John Ruskin was laid to rest—a Celtic cross marks the spot—and a museum in the town contains many of his sketches and manuscripts. The road southward closely follows Coniston Water, though with many slight but sharp undulations, winding through a dense growth of young trees. We pass directly under Brantwood, the plain old house where Ruskin lived, and catch glimpses of the oriel window of leaded glass in which he was wont to sit at his work. The house is situated on a wooded hillside and commands a fine view of the lake. The road from Brantwood to the end of the lake is so narrow, so tortuous and so obscured by the trees that extreme caution is necessary. It is still early and the way is quite clear; we experience no trouble, yet we are glad indeed to get into the main road to Dalton and Ulverston.

Furness Abbey, once neglected and rather inaccessible, has more recently become one of the best known and most easily reached of the historic spots of northern England. Among the multifarious activities of the late Duke of Devonshire, was the building of the railroad that leads to Barrow-in-Furness and the development of that town into an important port of sixty thousand inhabitants. A few miles north of the town are the extensive ruins of Furness Abbey, a Cistercian foundation of the twelfth century, situated in a narrow valley underneath overshadowing hills from which the red sandstone used in the building was taken. The keen business sense of the duke recognized in this splendid ruin a decided factor to assist in his plan of development. The grounds surrounding the abbey were converted into a handsome park, a station was opened on the railroad just opposite, and a large hotel was built near by.

Furness Abbey, however, carefully groomed and in charge of voluble guides posted in the minutest detail of architecture and history, can hardly impress one as it did when, a lonely and crumbling ruin, it was the goal of only the infrequent visitor. Its story is a long one but of interest only to the specialist or antiquarian. To the layman the tales of the different abbeys seem wonderfully alike: founded in religious zeal, a period of penury, then of prosperity, and finally one of great power and affluence. Then came the quarrel of Henry VIII. with Rome and through the activity of the king’s agents the abbeys were plundered and partially destroyed. The direct damage inflicted by the looters was usually limited to tearing the lead from the roofs, smashing the windows, and defacing the tombs. Then followed the long ages of neglect and the decay consequent upon the rains of summer and the storms of winter. But more than all other causes that contributed to the ruin and sometimes complete effacement of the magnificent abbey buildings, was the vandalism that converted them into stone walls and hovels—every one became the neighborhood quarry and in many instances we owe the fragments that remain to the solidity that made tearing down a difficult task.

Furness Abbey is well worth a visit. While only fragments of its walls remain, excavations have been made with such care and intelligence that one has the whole groundwork of the great establishment before him and may gain from it an excellent idea of monastic life. With the sole exception of Fountains, it is probably the most extensive monastic ruin in Britain, and while it lacks much of the beauty and impressiveness of its Yorkshire rival, it serves to give one a better insight into the daily life of the ancient occupants. Judged by our standard, it must have been a rigorous, cheerless life, though it probably contrasted more favorably with conditions of its own time. There is today a growing belief that, on the average, the life of the monks was not so easy nor so corrupt as apologists for the ruthless despoilation of the abbeys would have us think.

I have consumed in these vagaries the space that I should have devoted to the description of the abbey; but descriptions are easy to be had and the best of them will fall short of the interest and beauty that awaits the visitor to the charming Lancashire ruin. One may well stay a day at the hotel, than which there are few in England more comfortable, more beautifully located, or better in appointment.

We have covered three thousand miles in our wanderings and a certain weariness possesses us. We feel that a rest of a day or two will not come amiss, and no place within reach appeals to us as old York. To our notion the resort towns with their ostentatious hotels—Harrogate and Ilkley are nearer—cannot compare with the cathedral city and its Station Hotel as a place where one may be at ease. The Station, with its unpretentious and prosaic name, is the property of the railway company, a great rambling building of yellow brick, unhampered by limitations of space and so arranged that every guest-room has light and air from the outside. There are spacious and finely kept grounds in front and at some distance to the rear is the station, but not close enough to disturb the quiet of the hotel.

But York is full two days’ journey at our rate of traveling; there is much to see on the way and our route will be anything but a direct one. We leave Furness Abbey in the early afternoon and the skies, which had cleared as we reached Coniston, are lowering again. The road by which we came carries us to Ulverston, and from thence we soon come to Lake Side, at the lower end of Windermere. The fine road to the north closely skirts the lake, but the trees stand so thickly that we catch only occasional glimpses of the water. A light summer shower is falling, and the fleeting sun and shadow over the mirrorlike surface, mottled with patches of gleaming blue and almost inky blackness, gives us another of the endless phases of the beauty of Lakeland. For seven or eight miles we keep close to the shore, through Bowness to Windermere, two quiet little towns largely given over to hotels and lodging-houses. The great vogue of the Lake District as a resort is comparatively recent, and as a consequence one finds in these towns a mingling of the ancient and modern. Windermere, which grew out of the little village of Birthswaite, is especially accessible, being reached in about an hour by train from Manchester.