Landscape

Another Lake District Books Miscellany

April 10, 2013

Recently, as I’ve been walking around the Lake District taking wintry photographs (even though theoretically it’s been Spring!) I’ve been reading more about the geology with a view to getting a better understanding not only of the character of the mountains but also of the ways in which in the centuries before tourism our ancestors [...]

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The English Lakes – The 18th Century and Today

May 14, 2012

Back in the late-1760s the poet Thomas Gray travelled twice to the Lake District. The first visit was very short but he was so impressed that he returned a couple of years later and wrote extensively about about it. Sadly, he died in 1771 but in 1775 his account was publish as a “Journal of [...]

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England’s Landscape: The North West

February 10, 2012

This book, by Angus Winchester and Alan Crosby was published in 2006 by English Heritage. It is No. 8 in a series covering the regions of England and includes chiefly the three historic (as distinct from current administrative) counties of Lancashire, Westmorland and Cumberland. This is a comprehensive coverage of landscapes of many types. The [...]

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Two Northern Rivers – Kent and Ribble

February 1, 2012

Today I’m looking briefly at books featuring two rivers in the Northwest. The two rivers are very different in scale, and one of them is a bit outside normal geography for a site dealing with Lake District books, but both have a fond following among people who love the North of England countryside. The River [...]

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Lakeland in Black and White – Poucher and Wainwright

January 5, 2012

This morning I pulled from my shelves a copy of the 1953 edition of Country Life’s Picture Book of The Lake District. I was interested to find out how many of the photographs were taken by W. A. Poucher, having just spent some of my Christmas/New Year relaxation reading Roly Smith’s biography of him, A [...]

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Penrith and the East Fellside

September 29, 2011

Recently I mentioned Michael Ffinch’s book, Portrait of Kendal and the Kent Valley. Here today is another from the same series published by Robert Hale in 1985. From Greystoke to Temple Sowerby and from Lowther to Lazonby, not missing out the central town “Market Penrith”, the middle reaches of the Eden Valley and its tributories [...]

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“Portrait of Kendal and the Kent Valley” by Michael Ffinch

August 26, 2011

This 189-page book was an outstanding 1983 contribution to the Robert Hale series of Portrait Books. Michael Ffinch also authored volumes in the same series on the Howgills and the Penrith area which I hope to cover here at a later date. Kendal comes first in the title, and its character and history are pictured [...]

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Exploring Lakeland Rocks & Landscape

August 18, 2011

This (in my experience at least) is a new departure in books about Lake District geology, and a welcome one. Published in 2008 by the Cumberland Geological Society it is not filled with abstruse technicality supplemented by a few illustrations (the style of many geology books I’ve seen) but is based on giving the reader [...]

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