button to main menu   West's Guide to the Lakes, 1778/1821

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Page 203:-
Oct. 3. A heavenly day; rose at seven, and walked out under the conduct of my landlord to Borrowdale; the grass was covered with a hoar frost, which soon melted and exhaled a thin blueish smoke; crossed the meadows obliquely, catching a diversity of views among the hills, over the lake and islands, and changing prospect at every ten paces. Left Cockshut (which we formerly mounted) and Castle-hill, a loftier and more rugged hill behind me, and drew near the foot of Wallow-cragg, whose bare and rugged brow, cut perpendicularly down above 400 feet, (as I guess, though the people call it much more) awfully overlooks the way. Our path here tends to the left, and the ground gently rising, and covered with a glade of scattered trees and bushes on the very margin of the water, opens both ways the most delicious view that my eyes every beheld. Opposite are the thick woods of Lord Egremont, and Newland valley, with green and smiling fields embosomed in the dark cliffs; to the left, the jaws of Borrowdale, with that turbulent chaos of mountain behind mountain, rolled in confusion; beneath you, and stretching far away to the right, the shining purity of the lake-reflecting rocks, woods, fields, and inverted tops of hills, just ruffled by the breeze, enough to show it is alive, with the white buildings of Keswick, Crosthwaite church, and Skiddaw, for a back-ground at a distance. Behind you the magnificent heights of Wallow-crag: here the glass played its part divinely; the place is called Carf-close-reeds; and I choose to set down these barbarous names, that any body may enquire on the place, and easily find the particular station that I mean. This scene continues to Barrowgate, and a little further, passing a brook called Barrow-beck, we entered Borrowdale: the crags named Lowdore-banks began now to impend terribly over the way, and more terribly when you hear that three years since an immense mass of rock tumbled at once from the brow, barred all access to the dale (for this is the only road) till they could work their way through it. Luckily no one was passing by at the time of this fall; but down the side of the mountain, and far into the lake, lie dispersed the huge fragments of this
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gazetteer links
button -- Barrow Beck
button -- "Barrowgate" -- Barrowgate
button -- Borrowdale
button -- "Carf Close Reeds" -- Calfclose Reeds (?)
button -- Castle Hill (?)
button -- "Cockshut" -- Cockshot Wood
button -- "Lake of Keswick" -- Derwent Water
button -- "Lodore Banks" -- High Crag
button -- Keswick
button -- "Newland Valley" -- Newlands Valley (?)
button -- Keswick to Borrowdale
button -- Skiddaw
button -- (St Kentigern, Keswick)
button -- "Carf Close Reeds" -- Calfclose Bay (?)
button -- "Wallow Cragg" -- Walla Crag

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