Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
People are all aflutter demanding that the governments around the world step in and do something, anything, about the eventual end of oil and fossil fuels. It reminds me of the old saying,
The Stone Age didn’t end because we ran out of stones!
However, now that I’m in the Lake District in England, I’ve had to revise that saying, because around here, near as I can tell the Stone Age never officially ended at all. Oh, not the people, they’re as modern as any … but they use stone everything. Now I was expecting stone houses … and I’d heard of (but never seen) stone roofs. Both of those they have aplenty.
But I wasn’t prepared for stone gateposts …
And while I’ve seen many stone fences in my time, they were always made of stones piled one atop the other. They have lots of those kinds of fences in the Lake District, but also another kind I’d not seen. These are made of single flat stone slabs stood on edge.
I didn’t inquire closely as to how the folks living in the stone houses with the stone fences and stone roofs might have constructed their beds and their toilets, that seemed a bridge too far, and I was afraid of what might be revealed ..
We’ve spent the night in Hawkshead, for no apparent reason other than that the YHA Youth Hostel here has the best rates in the area. And since the gorgeous ex-fiancee and I are both in our middle youth, it worked out fine.
As many people have claimed, the scenery here in the Lake District is gorgeous, and Hawkshead is no exception.
It’s one of the spots for which the term “bucolic” might have been invented.
Hawkshead is in the Beatrix Potter country, and the William Wordsworth country, and man, they don’t want you to forget either one. I guess Peter Rabbit must be big in Japan, because there were a couple of busloads of Japanese tourists at her house in Near Sawrey, and all the Beatrix Potter Official Stockist shops had Japanese translations on their signs. And Wordsworth’s name pops up everywhere, unfortunately sometimes to the detriment of what is assuredly a more interesting and recondite history:
The town has a lovely church which we visited and admired, but the folks here say it’s not that old, it only dates from the 1500s … bummer. Despite that disappointment, I did find Herman Melville’s dale that I mentioned in my last post, and I did follow it down to the lake as Melville said:
In this case, the lake was Lake Windermere, one lake over from the lake pictured above. From the number of sailboats I assume Windermere means “Windy Lake”, so I’m probably wrong about that, folk etymology being what it is … but windy or not, it is one of the most scenic lakes it’s been my pleasure to behold.
The turf around here is all clearly marked by the glaciers of the last Ice Age, with the characteristic rounded valleys and the hills sometimes scraped clean of dirt down to the bone. The glaciers make for a lovely soft kind of landscape, with all of the sharp points ground smooth.
On the northeast side of lake Windermere there’s a charming forest that runs along the lake. In one section there was no undergrowth, just acres of ferns …
Strangely, between the forest and the lake there’s also a place which is a caravan park with permanent residents, called “Strawberry Garden”. It’s in one of the world’s prettiest locations, right on the waterfront. Of course, it’s all marked
PRIVATE
This site is privately occupied by long term caravan owners.
THERE IS NO PUBLIC ACCESS
Here’s a shot of it from over the fence … a stone fence, as you might imagine …
Why did I find this strange?
Well, the site is owned, not by a private individual or a company, but by the National Trust. Says so right on the other sign:
THE NATIONAL TRUST
STRAWBERRY GARDEN
PRIVATE — Access to caravan site and cottages only.
NO UNAUTHORISED ENTRY
It has the National Trust logo on it and everything … I was gobsmacked. The National Trust is in the business of providing stupendous caravan spaces to the fortunate few, while the public is kept out entirely? How does that work? Gotta be some history there I’m unaware of.
We walked a couple of miles along Lake Windermere. It was absolutely stunning. My thanks to all who recommended the Lake District, our time here has been great. The only downside are the roads. Typically, the roads around this area are about one and seven-sixteenths car widths from side to side … in the wide parts … and there are always stone walls on both verges, which tend to focus one’s attention mightily. Add bicyclists and walkers and the odd horse or two, and it’s a Disneyland E-Ticket ride, except with real hazards.
Tomorrow we’re going to see Hadrian’s Wall, and then up into Scotland. The adventure continues. My thanks to everyone for their texts and comments. Unfortunately there are far too many to acknowledge individually, but I do read and appreciate them all. We’re headed for the land of haggis and sporrans, should be fun.
Best regards,
w.
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In addition to her talents as an artist and land preserver, Beatrix Potter was quite the mycologist.
See http://www.anbg.gov.au/fungi/case-studies/beatrix-potter.html and http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/24954/title/Beatrix-Potter–scientist/
My wife is a nut about Peter Rabbit and the Lake District. I humored my wife by looking over a biography and stumbled on her work in mycology. I’m a nut about mycology so we discovered another topic of great interest we could share.
Hey Willis….welcome to Blighty. Its quite amusing to see things we take for granted being seen as ‘odd’……..you don’t have stone/slate tiles over in the ‘States? I did not know that. Enjoy your stay mate.
Had to chuckle at the neolithic reference. And yes, I did once stay in a cottage there with a stone bed! Luckily it had a soft mattress…
Good thing you did not go to the far west of Cornwall where the roads are one and three sixteenths of a car wide, with stone walls and mad locals who drive down them at 60 miles an hour.
About 99% of National Trust properties are open to the public, but about 1% are holiday homes let out in order to generate a bit of extra income. You were just unlucky to have come across part of that 1%. Generally they are a serious force for good. Most of our coast would be inaccessible if it were not for the national trust owned coastal paths.
Hadrian’s wall is a good choice. I walked it as a teenager staying in Youth Hostels along the way. Scotland is a very different place from England. Apart from the populated central belt it is much more sparsely populated with fewer roads. Less pretty but more dramatic. Have fun!
Willis I think you will find that the ‘stone fences’ are called ‘walls’. They vary from region to region and are usually built with no cement. a technique known as ‘dry stone walling’ The sky looks an odd colour by the way, it should be grey.
Ah, I was hoping you’d make it to the Lake District. Stunningly beautiful country and, if you’re a motorcyclist, stunningly entertaining roads. I have fond memories of the area.
The stone roof on the Newgrange Tomb in Ireland still keeps rain out, I believe, despite being > 5,000 years old.
Beatrix Potter is big in Japan as are the “Thomas the Tank Engine” children’s stories. Hawkshead has some shop signs in part Japanese.
It may be worth a trip to Vindolanda when you get to the Wall.
You should have tried going over Wrynose and Hardknott passes for narrow and steep roads. Honister reaches gradients of 1 in 3 (used to be 1 in 2.5 at one time). Its fun at sixty but make sure the brakes don’t get too hot going downhill. You often need to “handbrake” slide through the passing places – mostly single track.
If you find sheep on the road call out “mint sauce”
Our house in Norfolk Virginia (built in 1916) had originally had a slate roof, and my grandparents’ house in New Jersey, built in the 30s, still had the original slate roofing when we sold it in the 80s. Slate isn’t cheap, and it’s heavy, but with minimal upkeep it lasts forever.
If you really want to see rocks, visit the west coast of Ireland. I can remember driving through County Clare and going by field after field with rock walls. It was easy to see where the rocks came from; as far as we could tell the fields themselves were solid rock with only a few lonely blades of grass per acre, making you wonder why they bothered.
TLM:
You say to Willis
You exaggerate. We only go that fast in the winter when the tourists are not in the way.
Richard
Er for Honister read “Hardknott”….
Sorry.
Hi Willes,
Thanks for the great stories. Every evening I am checking WUWT in anticipation of another one.
While in Scotland try to visit the Falkirk Wheel, a modern way to raising and lowering boats.
And I would love to read what you think about Mary Kings close of the Royal Mile in Edinburgh.
Lake Windermere …. it is actually just Windermere. I believe it’s Old English. Mere – mare. Sabe?
Regarding use of stone. It is a Stone Age second coming. Cut down all the trees then graze like heck. That’s where you end up.
One other thing besides stone buildings around … there is of course the extensive Arts and Crafts stuff … am I in Bo’ness or Palo Alto? LOL!
Windy Lake? No, it’s thought to derive from ‘Winand’s Lake’.
If you are limited for time at Hadrians Wall, go to Housesteads fort, with its stone ‘comfort station’, and Vindolanda which was a Roman army supply camp. They are both close to each other. Vindolanda has a reconstruction of what the wall looked like, and some wonderful items excavated from the site, including wooden ‘postcards’ that give a real idea of what the Romans thought.
It is a joy to read your impressions of our country. Thank you so much.
I really like your travel stories Willis. It appears to be true that a good observer makes a good skeptic. I was myself in the south this year near Bath and I did also notice the crazy small country roads and speed of driving of the locals. Apparently there are not so many roads at all and only a few highways, which makes for too much people with a relative far destination on small roads. I think the amount of privately owned property is a reason for that, at least in comparison to my country, the Netherlands. But well that is easy said as we have hardly natural stones so no stone walls around our roads too.
Dear Willis
gald you are enjoying your tour. People will use the nearest and cheapest materials to hand. In the West Country mud was available so people built with cob ( earth) which is one of the most enviro friendly and themally efficient construction methods. Cob needs to be kep slightly moist. unfortunately weekend Londoners install central heating and then wonder why their gable wall has collpased. But it does make the loveliest choclate box cottages.
After that people used stone. Dig a hole, quarry it,build with it. It was the railways and mass production of brick and slate that led to the constuction of the majority of the buildings in the UK.
In North America and Scandinavia timber is abundant. The majority of your early bridges were timber or trestle timber. It is one of my admirations of the American method of construction. Need an extension? A few joists and planks and you have a new room in a couple of days as opposed to the British method of bricks, cement etc and a couple of months. The British love brick and tend to hide timber frame buildings leading to maintenance problems. I regret to say I could write a long monograph on this topic but Mr Watts would probably ban me for boredom.
Just to finsih if you do see stone roofs on your travels the traditional method to attaching the slates is with wooden pegs to the battens. You will also notice that small slates are at the top and the largers stone slates are at the bottom. 1- There is more water flow at the base of the roof and 2 you only want to haul small slates to the top of the roof and not lug large heavy stones.
P.S. Scottish weather is very like English weather but with midges 🙂
This from the English wit Pam Ayres some years ago:
I am a drystone waller,
All day long I drystone wall,
Of all appalling callings,
Drystone walling’s worst of all. 🙂
Willis, you are on my old stamping ground. The west end of the wall is not so obvious to see so I would recommend you follow the A69 east till it connects with the A68 then go north to Scotland that way. It will allow you to see Housesteads (Roman Fort) and the most photographed and geologically interesting part of the wall.
To Richards Courtney
Ahh. Cornish lanes with the green mohican of grass down the middle. You may drive at 60 in the winters otherwise it is 4 mph with a tractor ( who have the courtesy to occasionally pull over) as opposed to the grockles with caravans who cannot see a 2 mile queue behind them.
Roman roads – straight and effiicient
Anglo Saxon Roads – winding and presumably built before and whilst consuming beer, cider and mead.
You probably won’t have time but the Moray Firth is well worth a visit (as is most of the rest of Scotland to be honest.
Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode,
The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.
A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire,
And after him the parson ran, the sexton and the squire;
A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread
The night we went to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head.
I knew no harm of Bonaparte and plenty of the Squire,
And for to fight the Frenchman I did not much desire;
But I did bash their baggonets because they came arrayed
To straighten out the crooked road an English drunkard made,
Where you and I went down the lane with ale-mugs in our hands,
The night we went to Glastonbury by way of Goodwin Sands.
His sins they were forgiven him; or why do flowers run
Behind him; and the hedges all strengthening in the sun?
The wild thing went from left to right and knew not which was which,
But the wild rose was above him when they found him in the ditch.
God pardon us, nor harden us; we did not see so clear
The night we went to Bannockburn by way of Brighton Pier.
My friends, we will not go again or ape an ancient rage,
Or stretch the folly of our youth to be the shame of age,
But walk with clearer eyes and ears this path that wandereth,
And see undrugged in evening light the decent inn of death;
For there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen,
Before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green.
“But I wasn’t prepared for stone gateposts …”
You know what they use to attach gates to stone gateposts?
Stonehenges.
Enjoy Hadrian’s wall, if you get the time there are some good castles dotted around the general area of the wall, Aydon castle near For bridge and Belsay castle to the north east of the wall spring to mind.
Oh, and Durham with its cathederal , castle and river are well worth a visit if you get that far east 🙂
“Before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green” – a subtle joke by G K Chesterton, a North Londoner, since Kensal Geen was (and is) a great North London cemetry.