A Walk to Pooley Bridge

On our last walk before Lockdown, on a beautiful Lakeland morning, we headed from Askham to Pooley Bridge, to see the new bridge which is now open. The previous bridge was destroyed in Storm Desmond, suffering the devastation that so much of Cumbria fell foul to during that disaster. We did much the same walk

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Autumn in Eden

Autumn colours seem to be coming late to the Eden Valley. Many a tree has still not turned, and some are only sampling the glories yet to come. We set out from Kirkby Stephen for a stroll of not much more than an hour, using the disused railway line for half the walk and then

On Skiddaw

I’ve long taken a great interest in the way the Victorians climbed the mountains of the Lake District, for it was in that period that Lakeland achieved its first great burst of popularity. Inspired by Wordsworth and the Romantic poets, Victorians – well, the well-heeled ones who could afford it – came in their droves.

A Walk to Shap Abbey

The church bells were chiming nine as we walked through Bampton Grange, on our short ramble from Bampton to Shap Abbey – a walk we had been meaning to do for a long while. There’s something of the nature of a pilgrimage in walking to some ancient holy ruin – whether you are religious or

No Trespassing in the Lake District

The Holiday Fellowship (HF) has always been a mainstay of the rambling movement. As I recall, its founder, T. Arthur Leonard, was the first president of the Ramblers Association. He set up the HF on the grounds that his previous creation, the CHA, had become too middle-class and was ignoring the holiday needs of working