CROSTHWAITE CHURCH, KESWICK
Crosthwaite church has been subject of many pens. The history of the present building goes back beyond the great Reformation. Somewhere near this point St. Kentigern of Strathclyde raised the cross when banished from his native court. The present building is doubtless the last of several which have successively weathered the storms of fourteen hundred years. Probably the first were built of willow wands and clay, like the daub huts still to be found in remoter Cumbria. With the Saxon still stronger in the land a house of timber would be raised. Foundations under the present building show an earlier stone edifice probably built just before the Norman Conquest, which in this stubborn region was not accomplished till almost two centuries after the fight at Senlac. The church stands out among the meadows, and in times of flood is sometimes cut off from its congregation. More than once within the recent past service has had to be suspended on account of rising waters. Present-day congregations may possibly be easily daunted, but I wonder how the friars of old used to manage when Derwent swelled across the meadows! The monks’ road was some feet below dale-level, and probably ran like a millrace. Did the old monks hold service in the belfry? Did they in a body shirk attendance at church, or was a boat hired to take down the votary whose turn it was to conduct worship, and the rest remain at home? We cannot tell now; but had the ancient records mentioned these things instead of others much less interesting to us, their study would attract more attention. Inside the church at Crosthwaite, apart from points of architecture valuable to those who understand, most striking is the effigy of Southey, done in white marble by Lough, the self-taught sculptor from Northumbria. The lines on it are by William Wordsworth. After the monument was in its place, the poet felt this tribute not sufficient for his dead friend’s merits: accordingly he rewrote some of the lines in loftier terms and had part of the tablet newly engraved. This too, remember, by that poet whom his contemporaries asserted to be without sympathy for the feelings of others!
Outside the church in the graveyard looking towards Skiddaw’s triple crown, is the grave of Southey: a plain stone tomb, with no highsounding phrases—fit memorial of him who found the name of poet linked with that of drunkard and libertine, and who exalted it in himself and his school of thought to glorious equality with that of gentleman. There is a font of great age in the church, and effigies and memorials of the Ratcliffe family, extinct with the last Earl of Derwentwater. Beyond the church the road passes between flowery meadows, across slow-flowing Derwent, and on through Portinscale the magnificent, with a glimpse of Derwentwater across its levels, and of course a succession of views of Skiddaw’s everchanging breast. Once there is a vision of Bassenthwaite, but greenery hides it almost as soon as seen. A turning here might carry one miles from sight and sound of twentieth-century life.
DRUID CIRCLE, NEAR KESWICK
Moonlight
For a mile Swineside is fringed—a common whereon not long ago half-wild pigs were pastured; then we hover by the vale of Newlands with its splendid background of mountains. The road sways undecidedly on the watershed: through a tangle of treetops we see farms below; along a far-off hillside are the ruins of a long flume down which water was conducted to drive that tall waterwheel. The skeleton remains, a blur on the pastoral beauty, though watercourse and mine buildings are in indistinguishable ruin. At last, the road throws a branch between banks of meadow-sweet down to rattling Newlands beck; our way sweeps toward cone-fronted Catbells. Shortly we descend into a narrow glen, then zigzag up the flank of the fell. After a hard pull (the day is hot; the distant hills are swinging in vapour) we come to easier angles. The road is delved out of the hillside, the home of bracken and creeping stagshorn, with, by rills almost silent with drought, trees of hawthorn, alder and rowan. Below us—over spears of larch, over chevaux-de-frise of oak and ash and birch, over green and bronze cupolas of sycamore and beech, is the vale of Derwent, from Lodore to the furthest Man of Skiddaw. How sweet and dreamy the blue stretch of water, dappled with shades of high-floating clouds, with emerald islets scattered in bay and reach, with the swift launches and the slow march of oared craft glinting back the sunlight at the dip of every blade! To northward lush fields and verdant woodlands border the mere, with hillsides, soft green and swelling among the levels, but, opposite, sheer and bristling with crags they rise from the water, crowded in by the heathy moors. Then the town on a tousled plain between Derwent and Greta, and beyond, the hills giving place to mountains, Blencathra and Helvellyn, shadows wavering in August’s blue sky. From this corner of Catbells you curve slowly down to Grange; the road is ever fair, but he is an ardent cyclist who prefers to ride all along this incline of beauty.
From Grange it is easy to pass up to the jaws of Borrowdale, in autumn one of the best pictures of Lakeland, when the birches’ silvern bark is half seen, half hid in the thinning leafage; the river is flooding down too, not hiding in pools and filtering under long stretches of white pebbles. Of course you see the Bowder Stone if it is your first visit. It is by a quarry quite close to the foot of Castle Crag.
One can reach Watendlath by a mountain track from Rosthwaite. This is a shallow dip in the moorland, containing a pretty tarn and one or two small farms. Not many years ago a Cumbrian visitor put the following note in his diary: “I came to a village called Watendlath, the most primitive place I ever saw in Cumberland. I entered one of the houses. There was no fireplace, but only logs of wood and turf burning on the floor.” Not here, but still within the Lake Country, I stumbled upon a similar thing. My queries aroused the ancient dame’s curiosity. “You divvent mean to tell me you’ve nivver seen a hearth fire afore? Well, well.” I was eager to know how, minus an oven, she baked bread. The old eyes sparkled with amusement. “Why, I make it in t’ pan ower t’ fire.” I didn’t see the process, but I tested the quality of the product, which was excellent. A century ago ovens were rare in the dales; on baking day the dough was placed in a covered pan, which was laid on the hearth. Fuel was then heaped around and on top of the pan. When sufficient time had elapsed the housewife raked aside the burning embers, opened the pan and took out the baked batch. Had it been possible for any wandering reader to witness the bakery, I would have told the place; but five years after my discovery, wishing to see again the old-time oven, I visited the dale. Alas! the cottage was empty, falling into ruins, and a green mound in the church garth covered my aged dame. The tarn of Watendlath is fed mainly by a stream which comes down the desolate back of Armboth fells, passing through Blea tarn on its way. This beck it is that goes down the thunder-chasm of Lodore. It is an interesting ramble, giving some splendid views of Derwentwater and Bassenthwaite, down to the Keswick road, by Ashness bridge.
FALCON CRAG, DERWENTWATER