IF YOU represented Lake Windermere as an elongated clock face, today we walked from Ferry House at 9 o’clock to Wray Castle at 11, finishing up at Waterhead, Ambleside, at just past the top of the hour, so about a quarter of the way around England’s largest lake.
This didn’t leave any time for drawing, so I sketched our route from the ferry on the return journey to Bowness.
We had hoped there might be a cafe at Wray Castle, a Victorian country retreat built in the style of a toy fort, but it’s closed at the moment after plans to turn it into an upmarket hotel fell through. The National Trust plans to reopen it to the public . . . and open a cafe there.
Beatrix Potter celebrated her 16th birthday at Wray Castle when the Potter family spent a summer holiday here.
3.30 p.m.; View of Windermere from Costa Coffee at Pringles, Bowness.The small, sometimes winding, roads made sketching from the car difficult.
THE LAKE DISTRICT is so often moody, wrapped in clouds and mist, so today, with ranks of cumulus marching across a clear blue sky and sparkling panoramas unfolding before us, our regular journey was a different experience. After so many years of heading along the Leeds ring road to get on the road to the Lakes, the A65 via Skipton, we’ve found a short cut on smaller quieter roads following the ridges between some of the old woollen towns of the West Riding – Huddersfield, Mirfield, Halifax and Bradford – not far away in the valleys below.
It was so clear that already, as we approached Howarth over the moors, we got glimpses of the sphinx-like peaks of Ingleborough and Pen-y-Ghent crouching on the limestone plateau of the Yorkshire Dales National Park.
Coming this way, along the smaller but slower roads, the Dalesman Cafe at Gargrave, 1 hour 20 minutes but only 40 miles into our journey, makes a timely coffee stop. They specialise in ephemera of the 1950s and 1960s so as I tried a local speciality, buttered Chorley cake, the tins and packages of the period brought back memories for us.
I sketched this shrimping net from an earlier period, still with its canvas bag stencilled ‘W EGLON, NEPTUNE FISH STORES, WHITBY, TEL. 60’. I wonder whereabout in Whitby that was . . .
The Eglons of Whitby
A Google search turns up this reference to the Eglon family from the 1891 census (http://mdfs.net/Docs/Whitby/Census1891/Whitby10), when they were living in four rooms in Elephant & Castle Yard, between Haggersgate and Cliff Street, so very near what is still the fish quay at Whitby. I guess that Neptune Fish Stores would have been there or very near.
4 Elephant & Castle Yard (4 rooms)
Eglon, Christopher - Head - M M 41 - Fish Merchant - YKS, Whitby
Eglon, Eliza - Wife - M F 41 - - YKS, Whitby
Eglon, Mary E - Daughter - S F 21 - Dressmaker - YKS, Whitby
Eglon, William - Son - S M 19 - Fisherman - YKS, Whitby
Eglon, Christopher - Son - M 14 - Errand Boy - YKS, Whitby
Eglon, Esther - Daughter - F 12 - Scholar - YKS, Whitby
Eglon, James H - Son - M 10 - Scholar - YKS, Whitby
Eglon, Margaret E - Daughter - F 7 - Scholar - YKS, Whitby
William, born in 1872, must be the ‘W. Eglon’ named on the bag but sadly his business, Neptune Fish Stores (Whitby) Ltd, was wound up in 1969, at a time when the traditional English seaside resorts had lost out to competition from package holidays to the Mediterranean.
Sunset across the Lake
Barn owl from Walney Owl Sanctuary, which along with a Little and an Eagle Owl was proving a hit with visitors to the Tourist Information Centre at Bowness.
I’m certainly getting in holiday mood today, I’m beginning to feel like a different person, as if a burden has been lifted from my shoulders, as we approach the Lakes and leave the distractions of home and work behind. As the rugged peaks of the Borrowdale volcanics come into view a Buzzard circles above the road.
Bowness can be as busy as a traditional seaside town – the Blackpool of the Lake District – but, as we’ve booked in for a few days at the Belsfield Hotel overlooking the Lake Windermere, we can stay after the weekend trippers return home.
There’s a perfect sunset, a clear sky across the lake. In this old hotel, originally the home of a wealthy Victorian industrialist, you have the feeling that you’ve got away from everything; as if you’re aboard one of the old, opulent ocean liners. When we walk down for our meal in the sumptuous dining room, past the reception desk, we glimpse sparkling water through the lounge window. You feel that the whole hotel might be gliding over calm waters. Hopefully with no icebergs on the horizon. The bustling piers where the ferries come and go are hidden away behind the grassy banks of the hotel gardens.
IT’S GOOD to return and re-walk the same route at this time of year as there are changes daily in plant and bird life. The glossy leaves of Bluebell are coming up in the woods around Newmillerdam and on the lake, frozen over only a month ago, there are three Goosanders, a male and two ‘red-heads’ (either females or juveniles).
Also putting in its first appearance (for us on our infrequent visits anyway) is a Great-crested Grebe. We’ve seen the Little Grebe or Dabchick but not its Great-crested relative. By the size of its crests and cheek feathers, I’m sure this is a male. It’s unusual not to see them together as a pair at this time of year. Perhaps she’s already on a nest on a quiet corner of the lakeside.
ABOUT THREE-QUARTERS of the lake at Newmillerdam is ice-covered this morning but there’s room for Tufted Ducks to dive, apparently for freshwater mussels, in a spot ten or twenty yards from the shore between the boathouse and the war memorial, where I’ve seen them diving before.
Can there really be so many mussels in the lake?
Nearer the shore we can see these shells, at least some of which look empty. I’ve boosted the contrast in the photograph because of the glare on the water surface.
Amongst the Mallards there’s a single Pink-footed Goose, which hisses as it pecks at some scraps that a visitor has left on the path.
Barbara picks up this feather which I assume is from the goose but looking at my photograph of the bird, a breast feather like this should be greyer and banded horizontally, rather than streaked vertically, so I think this is more likely to be a feather from a female Mallard.
At first glance, as it dives under, the Dabchick or Little Grebe looks like a diminutive duck but, as it keeps bobbing up briefly, we can see the more pointy bill of the grebe. By the boathouse we see a Goosander, a saw-billed duck (the saw-like edges of the bill help it grip small fish).
I’ve drawn squirrel-nibbled cones on several occasions but, as it was too cold to be comfortable to stop and sketch, I picked these up to draw in the studio later.
As we walk back through the conifer plantations, there’s a twittering all around us in the tops of the trees. Even with binoculars I can see no more than a dark silhouette, possibly with streaky plumage, but the shape and the shallow notch in the tail make me think it’s a finch and the size, about the size of a Blue Tit, narrows it down to Siskin. Siskins visit in large flock during winter and often visit conifer plantations.
IF YOU represented Lake Windermere as an elongated clock face, today we walked from Ferry House at 9 o’clock to Wray Castle at 11, finishing up at Waterhead, Ambleside, at just past the top of the hour, so about a quarter of the way around England’s largest lake.
