button to main menu   Ford's Description of the Lakes, 1839/1843

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Page 95:-
  Bowscale
  Mosedale

at the elbow of that mountain mass which comprehends Skiddaw and Blencathra as its summits, and the Dodd, Carrick and High Pike, Bowscale, and Souter Fell, as the buttresses. The water-mill, and the green-swelling conical fells behind, form a pretty enough picture. At Bowscale, in the gorge of another opening, the road crosses the Caldew, where it issues out from its birth-place in the wild and solitary regions of Skiddaw Forest, solitary in all but its abundance of grouse, which is strictly preserved by the Earl of Egremont, the lord of the manor. Mossdale, where there is a Quakers' meeting-house, at the foot of Carrick Fell, is not more pleasantly situated than Grisdale; indeed, the tourist now comes upon a portion of country wild and desolate in the extreme, yet interesting to the geologist. On the left is Carrick Fell, its front strewed with immense masses of rock and rivers of debris which encroach on the way below: on the right is a dismal swamp of peat-moss, bounded by the heavy uniform ridge of Greystoke Park on the east side. After toiling over the common for five miles, leaving this dreary scene, you descend for a mile through a lane bordered with fertile lands and hedge-rows planted with trees, amongst which the blue curling smoke betrays at intervals the low-roofed cottages and farm-steads. Almost at the end of this lane you pass another Friends' meeting-house and cemetery, placed in a scene of quiet and peaceful solitude. A wild brook washes across the road, and with the wooden bridge for foot-passen-
gazetteer links
button -- "Caldew" -- Caldew, River
button -- "Carrick Fell" -- Carrock Fell
button -- "Hesket New Market" -- Hesket Newmarket
button -- (meeting house, Gillfoot)
button -- (meeting house, Mosedale)
button -- "Mungrisdale" -- Mungrisdale
button -- "Skiddaw Forest" -- Skiddaw Forest
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