The Lake District: Possibly My Favorite Part of England?

It rained today and is still a bit overcast here. Time to get a cup of tea and enjoy a bit of England!

Last year, on my dream trip to England, I had initially tried to get to the Lake District. After calculating the travel time, I realized it made more sense to stay in the Southern part of England and save the Northern part for another trip. So this year, the Lake District was at the top of the list!

On day two in the Lake District, we took a local bus to an easy hiking trail, Rydal Cave and Water Circular. It was so lovely! We had a gorgeous sunny day. Everything was very green, the water was clear and blue, and wild foxgloves were all over the place!

After this, we took a bus to Beatrix Potter’s house, Hill Top. Beatrix Potter is one of the greats in my mind! She was a renaissance woman. Not only have her children’s stories and watercolor artwork become classics a hundred years later, but she was also an entrepreneur, one of the first people to really take advantage of a brand, developing Peter Rabbit as a copyrighted brand. She was also an amateur mycologist who made discoveries about mushrooms which were not verified until decades later when more powerful microscopes confirmed her hypothesis that other scientists discredited because of her gender and youth. She was a conservationist, almost singlehandedly responsible for the preservation of the Lake District at a critical point when it could have gone toward development. She conserved local sheep breeds and won many prizes for her Herdwick sheep. Perhaps the most amazing of all, she did all of this as a single woman whose family was very protective of her and concerned about propriety. She did eventually marry when she was in her 50s. This is an amazing biography about her (probably the most enjoyable biography of anyone I have ever read!) and here is a great picture book about her.

It was so neat to see her house, which has been preserved with all her furniture and belongings. They have the original dollhouse that inspired The Tale of Two Bad Mice. She had so many collections of interesting things, miniatures, items from nature, artwork, etc. She used her house and the nearby towns as settings and backdrops for her stories and illustrations, so it was fun to spot a scene while walking around.

The garden was often featured in her illustrations as well. There were gardeners actively working around the tourists. It held both practical kitchen garden crops and beautiful flowers, including foxglove that towered over my head. It only needed Peter Rabbit, Jemima Puddle-Duck, and Tom Kitten to complete it (and I’m sure these would all have been happy to be there if there were not so many people around).

On day three in the Lake District, we went to William Wordsworth’s house. This home is still privately owned by his descendants, but some of the rooms were open to the public. The main thing that interested me was how gorgeous the views from all his windows were! Artists always seek out beauty.

His gardens were also quite lovely, and I enjoyed sitting in the summer house (where he would often write) for a brief rest. You could easily imagine him and his family enjoying a pleasant day in the garden.

From there, we went up to Keswick (the “w” is not pronounced) and over to hike the Cat Bells. This hike had amazing, panoramic views everywhere. The bus only ran on the hour so we had exactly 3 hours to do a hike that that was estimated to take 3 hours. We were making decent time, but eventually had to tell each other to stop taking pictures to give ourselves a little more margin. Really, any view was gorgeous, even on an overcast day so we had to tell ourselves that the pictures we got were good enough! There were sheep along the way and more ferns, foxglove (have I mentioned how much I love foxglove?), and stone walls to separate sheep herds.

We stopped at Ambleside village for dinner. We had the serendipitous pleasure of discovering Matthew’s Bistro at just the right moment. It was mostly reservation only, but we happened to snag one of their open tables and enjoyed their dinner special. I was tempted to order the pasta labeled “a Proper Fell Walker’s Portion” since we had worked so hard, but opted for a delicious beef stew. We enjoyed toasted brie and chutney as an appetizer and sticky toffee pudding for dessert.

Overall, the Lake District lived up to my expectations and I’d happily visit again for the natural beauty and cottage house charm!