The Bowness Ferry

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.