Don't wish for spring.

"The nights are drawing out, not long till spring now" - I've seen this several times across social media already this past week or so and it's not that I won't enjoy spring when it gets here, it's just that I'm not desperate for it to arrive.  These days we seem far too eager to wish our lives away: "I can't wait for summer", "I'll be able to ditch my big coat soon" and "I'm fed up of all the long dark nights" - and yet when summer does arrive it's invariably either too hot, too cold, too wet or too dry and "maybe it will be better tomorrow/ next week/ next year".

Those who know me will tell you that I am definitely not a creature of habit, repeated routines drive me nuts and I thrive on unpredictability, but I do have one routine.  Every Friday night, without fail, it's chippy tea night.  I adore my Friday night bag of fishy chippy goodness and really miss it when we're away from home, in the wilds of nowhere, without a chip shop in sight.  The thing is it scares me how quickly chippy tea night comes around each week; "Friday? Already? Where did the week go?" - like a malfunctioning lighthouse whose beam sweeps faster and faster - I sometimes feel that my life is racing away one large cod and chips at a time.

The way I see it, there's no point in being upset at either the weather or the season - I don't have control over either of those things, so I may as well enjoy wherever we are now and figure out a way to make the most of it.  Take this past week for example; we've enjoyed glorious walks in the sunshine and we've huddled up indoors while it slings it down outside, tossing logs on the fire as the house fills with the smell of jacket spuds and we pore over maps planning the pitch for our next book.

Maybe it's my age (I turned 50 last year) or the fact that I spend a lot of time reading about history, but I find that time flies by fast enough as it is without me wishing it away.  "Where did last year go?", "It only seems like 5 minutes since the millennium", "Is Simon Le Bon really 60 this year?"

If you're looking for a little winter inspiration then here's a few places you could look:

• Woodland Walks and Winter Picnics around Morecambe Bay (a piece wot I wrote for Visit Lancashire
• 5 Wonderful Winter Walks in Cumbria (Arnside Knott, Wetherlam, Grasmere, Smardale and Duddon Valley)
• 20 Things to do in Cumbria if it Rains (Because it ain't always sunny, but it is always beautiful)

Spring is on its way; it will get here in its own sweet time and I promise I will enjoy it down to the very last bluebell, but I'm not going to wish my life away waiting for it to arrive.

We don't smother this blog in adverts or force folks to sign up to a mailing list, but it wold be a big help if a few folks bought our books - they're perfect whatever the weather. Click the pic to find out more about our books & order yours.  😀

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10 Fascinating Facts about Cumbria

Writing a book with the word "History" in the title is bound to put some people off.  We don't all love history.  Hell, *I* didn't even love history when I was at school - I'd be nodding off before you could say 1066.  Our mission is to unearth facts that have the "oooohh" factor - as in "oooohh, I never knew that" - so here are 10 of my favourite fab facts about Cumbria; some are in the book and some aren't, but I guarantee all of them are more fun than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

1.  There used to be a bridge from Bowness-on-Solway to Scotland, but it was demolished due to drunken Scots.

The bridge was over 1 mile long and was used by iron ore carrying trains to avoid the busy junction at Carlisle.  It was badly damaged by icebergs in 1881 after the rivers Esk & Eden froze - as they thawed ice broke off and demolished a third of the bridge.  It was rebuilt but eventually closed in 1921.  At that time you couldn't buy alcohol in Scotland on a Sunday so, each Sunday a number of our Scottish friends crossed the bridge to enjoy a "relaxing sweet sherry" after dinner.  Unfortunately they were prone to having one too many and, after a few folks sadly fell from the bridge and drown as they staggered home, the bridge was demolished in 1933.

2.  George Washington's Granny is buried in Whitehaven

Honestly, there are SO many fascinating things to say about Whitehaven that it's hard to pick just one - but this was the one that surprised me the most.  Mildred Gale - George Washington's paternal grandmother is buried there.  She was born in Virginia but married a shipping merchant who traded on ships between Virginia and Whitehaven (which was a very busy and important port at that time).  She's buried in St Nicholas' churchyard, though the exact location of the grave isn't known.

3.  There's a road which runs parallel to the A6 between Kendal and Shap which used to be one of the most important roads in the country.

OK, it doesn't parallel the whole way - it does criss cross a few times, but the Old North Road is still there and very easy to spot.  Most of it remains accessible and it makes for a lovely walk well away from the crowds.  There's a fabulous road map from 1675 which records all of the main coach roads in Britain - there were only 4 roads noted in the whole of Cumbria and this is one of them. And if a dusty old book from the seventeenth century doesn't impress you then maybe the fact that AW himself loved the old road and was fascinated by its history might persuade you to take a second look.

4.  Grange-over-Sands got its name from an annoyed vicar

You may have noticed that there are two Granges in Cumbria - the one up near Keswick and Grange-over-Sands in the south - but until 1858 they were both just called Grange (a name usually indicating a nearby granary).  When the Reverend Wilson Rigg arrived in the southern Grange, after an eventful coach journey across Morecambe Bay sands, he quickly got fed up of his mail getting misdirected to Keswick Grange, so he changed the name of the town to Grange-over-Sands to distinguish between the two.

5.  There's a rock up above Launchy Gill that was the site of illegal trading

Anyone who's ever trekked from Ullscarf to High Tove will tell you what a bogfest it is - unless they did it when it was all frozen solid (a top tip for those attempting all the Wainwrights).  There are only a few rocks up there and one of them has an interesting history. When the plague hit in 1665 public markets were stopped to try and prevent the spread of the disease, but people still needed money, so the folks of Thirlmere Valley had a plan...  Far away from the eyes of the law they snuck up onto the top of the fell to a place called Web Rock to trade their "web" (woven fabric) and earn money to buy food.  No-one has quite pinpointed exactly which rock it is but there are a few likely contenders.

6.  Kentmere had such rowdy drunks they changed the law of the land

Back in the nineteenth century there were plenty of mines, quarries and mills along the Kentmere valley and, on payday, things could get a bit rowdy.  In 1887 the pub in the village had its licence revoked thanks to the lively goings on.  The owners pursued the decision all the way to the House of Lords and ultimately lost but their case Sharp -v- Wakefield set a precedent still cited today.

7.  The Cumbrian Dialect is a foreign language

Many folks are familiar with the "Yan, tan, tethera" sheep counting language used in Cumbria, but the Cumbrian dialect (now sadly in decline) is pretty much a language in its own right.  During World War Two a local gent who joined the Royal Navy was stationed in Iceland - he spoke with a strong Cumbrian dialect and apparently had little trouble conversing with the locals.

8.  The monks of Furness Abbey engaged in both smuggling and bribery

Furness Abbey is a beautiful place to visit, sadly now a ruin but back in the day it was one of the most powerful Abbies in the country.  The monks built the castle on Piel Island to support their import and export trade which, as they didn't pay any taxes on it, was basically a smuggling operation.  The Abbot is also said to have paid a "ransom" to Robert the Bruce to protect the Abbey.  Some call it a "ransom" others may call it a "bribe".  I bet their confessions were interesting...

9.  George Stevenson planned an enormous bridge from Morecambe to Ulverston

When they were originally planning the expansion of the railways in the region, George Stevenson proposed the idea of running a railway line directly out across Morecambe Bay.  The enormous structure would have connected Morecambe to Ulverston, but the backers of the time understandably got the jitters and backed out of the idea, leading to the current railway and viaduct we see today.

10.  There was once a plan to heat Cumbria using geothermal energy

Shap Granite with its big pink crystals is easily recognisable and was much used in architecture across the country (including the bollards around St Paul's Cathedral in London).  As recently as the 1980s the British Geological Survey carried out test drilling to see if there was enough residual heat deep down in the rocks to provide heat to the county - sadly there wasn't, but then the rock is over 400 million years old.


Our books are PACKED with hundreds of fascinating nuggets just like these so please don't think it's just another boring old history book.  Click here to find out more and buy your copy.

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We also offer a number of guided walks, visitng places with lots of interesting history.  You can find out more about those right here.

#LakeDistrictBid Advent Calendar Day 21 - Because of the history.

Of course I have to mention the history - we wrote a whole book about the history - we could have written more (and we will!) - and I don't want to  give away everything in the book, but here are a few highlights of Lake District (and Cumbrian) history which deserve the recognition of UNESCO.

Castlerigg Stone Circle (Neolithic)

Hampsfell Hospice (Victorian)

Viking dug out boat - dug out of Kentmere tarn and now in Kendal Museum

The history behind St Bees

Old stone way markers

Fishstones - Cartmel (old market site)

Cartmel Priory

The ancient tradition of gurning!

Wray Castle (Victorian)

Shap Abbey (12th - 15th Century)

Site of Roman settlement Kentmere

Wrengill quarry - Longsleddale

Wainwright

To learn more about the #LakeDistrictBid  please click here - where you can also register your support for the bid with a couple of clicks of your mouse (or prods of your screen).

You can grab a mince pie and a glass of sherry and catch up on all the reasons starting from day 1 - just click here or scroll the column on the right to see what you've been missing.  :-)

#LakeDistrictBid Advent Calendar Day 4 - Because of the industry

It may look all green and pleasant now, but the Lake District has had a surprisingly industrial history which has left its mark on the landscape.  Quarries and mines are dotted around all over the region and some of the remnants of that industry are surprisingly pretty.

I've just picked out 2 below: Stott Park Bobbin Mill to the north of Newby Bridge is a superb place to visit to see how the bobbin industry once dominated the region, and Kentmere reservoir which was built to regulate the flow of water along the River Kent so that the 7 watermills depending on it never stopped turning.

Stott Park Bobbin Mill

Kentmere Reservoir

There are dozens of others I could have mentioned - Honister Slate Mine, Shap Quarry, the graphite mines south of Derwentwater (which also left their mark on our language by giving us phrases such as "black market") etc. etc. etc.  We could even go back as far as the Neolithic axe factory in the Langdale Valley - proving that ever since man set foot here, we've been making use of the natural materials all around us.

There's an axe factory in them thar hills!

Please click HERE to register your support for the bid for UNESCO World Heritage Site Status.
Click HERE to go back to Day 1.

Dating Vikings

Kentmere Valley

Just a short blog to say a MASSIVE thank you to everyone who helped with our crowdfunding call a few months back.  The money was raised, handed over to Kendal Museum, the boat was dated and proven to be Viking!  Yay!  This is fantastic news and really helps to put another important block of Cumbrian history firmly in to place.

We got involved when we approached the museum with a view to taking some pictures of the boat for our book.  Naturally there was a charge involved but as we were writing the book on a shoestring we came up with a more creative solution - we asked if they'd allow us to use the photos in exchange for a promise to raise the money needed to date the boat - thankfully they trusted us enough to agree.

Below is the press release from the museum - please take a moment to read it and, next time you're in Kendal, pop along to visit them and see the boat.  In an era of tightening budgets when more and more museums are coming under threat (this happened in Lancashire just this week) we really MUST support them in any way we can. Kendal Museum is one of the oldest museums in the country and has a superb array of artefacts from the Egyptians to the local Vikings - it's a fantastic place to visit and something the town should all be really proud of.

Kendal Museums ‘Viking Boat’

A wooden dugout boat was found in 1959 in the bed of Kentmere Tarn by Mr Leslie Ridding, operator of the drag line excavator at the Cape Asbestos Company diatomite works.  It was donated to Kendal Museum by the landowner and after many years in store it is now on public display.  Another boat was found four years earlier in 1955 (by the same workman) and it is believed to date from c.1300-1320. The earlier boat went for conservation at the National Maritime Museum and is now housed at the Windermere Jetty Museum.

Due to the dating of the first boat it was always thought that the Kendal Museum boat was earlier as it was found deeper, and is of a more basic type. It has always been called the ‘Viking’ boat but has never been scientifically dated……until now.

VIKING boat (Pic taken from our Historic Cumbria book)

Wanda Lewcun, a student on the Kendal Museum Diploma in Cultural Heritage Course last year, and now a volunteer, wanted to pursue the dating of the boat as a project.  Oxford Archaeology North were contacted and they came to examine the boat in June 2015 and a small fragment was removed for analysis.  Denise Druce, the Environmental Archaeology Specialist from OAN found it to be Ash which is only suitable for radiocarbon dating, so it was sent to the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre for radiocarbon dating.  The costs for the project were raised through crowdfunding organised by the author Beth Pipe on her blog – ‘Cumbrian Rambler’, and through private donations.

When the results came back they showed that there is a 95.4% probability that the boat is late 10th to mid-12th century, and is most likely to be pre-Norman conquest.  Morag Clement, Archaeology Curator said “It is very exciting to finally have a date for the boat that links it to the Late Viking Period.  It really is the Kendal Museum Viking Boat.  This date also proves that the boat is several hundred years earlier than the first boat discovered in Kentmere Tarn.”

Fifty five years after its discovery it is on display and accompanies a handful of other Viking age objects that survive from the Kendal area.  

PS If you want to buy our book, which covers 10 sites across Cumbria including Kentmere, then click here.

Make books while the sun shines!

I know what some of you are thinking - you're thinking that you keep reading blogs & watching TV programmes about the Lake District and they always show it bathed in glorious sunshine or shimmering majestically above another inversion, but when you get here it's grey and rains. Well, there's a reason for that, and the reason is that as soon as we get some good sunny days we all grab our cameras and head for the hills (and beaches).

This weekend, after a couple of weeks a magnificent weather, the clouds are closing in and the lakes are getting a bit of a top up, but we've been making good use of that time to shoot some fab pics for the book.  Well, Steve has been shooting the fab pics, I've generally just been getting in his way and cries of "Get out of my blooming shot!" can usually be heard ringing around the valleys.  All the pics below are just the ones from my phone - his are so much better, especially once he made sure I wasn't in them.

To whet your appetite for the book, here's a glimpse of what we've been up to...

We saw an inversion & built a snowman on Stoney Cove Pike.

See - this is what happens when I get in his shot.  :-)

We traced the source of the River Kent and questioned the sanity of the Romans.

You want to build the road where?

We got soaked to the skin on a very bumpy crossing to Piel Island and then got stared at by a sheep.

Look into the eyes, not around the eyes...

We looked for coal on Whitehaven beach, picnicked in the sunshine and ate fish & chips as we watched the sun go down over the harbour (yeah, that was a tough day that was...)

No sunset is truly complete without chips.

We found an iconic bridge and then walked further than we intended just so we could enjoy one of our favourite views.

Trying to imagine what it was like before.

And then I enjoyed a lovely peaceful afternoon at Leighton Moss while Steve tore around the northern lakes for 12 hours or so.  Seemed fair to me.

Oh, and inbetween times we made spoons - turning this...

Via this...

Into this!

Now the weather's closed in again it's back to the editing - still fun, just not quite so picturesque, but at least the cat helps (his attention to detail is so much better than mine!)