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

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Page 202:-
in our maps. It is nine miles long; and at the widest part it is under a mile in breadth. After extending itself three miles and a half to the south-west, it turns at the foot of Place-fell almost due west, and is here not twice the breadth of the Thames at London. It is soon again interrupted by the root of Helvellyn, a lofty and very rugged mountain, and spreading again, turns off to the south-east, and is lost among the deep recesses of the hills. To this second turning I pursued my way about four miles along its border, beyond a village scattered among trees, and called Watermillock, in a pleasant grave day, perfectly calm and warm, but without a gleam of sunshine; then the sky seemed to thicken and the valley to grow more desolate, and the evening drawing on, I returned by the way I came, to Penrith.
Oct. 2. I set out at ten for Keswick, by the road we went in 1767; say (sic) Greystock town and castle to the right, which lie about three miles from Ulls-water over the fells; passed through Penruddock and Threlkeld at the foot of Saddleback, whose furrowed sides were gilt by the noon-day sun, whilst its brow appeared of a sad purple, from the shadow of the clouds as they sailed slowly by it. The broad and green vallies of Gardies and Lowside, with a swift stream glittering among the cottages and meadows, lay to the left, and the much finer, but narrower valley of St. John, opening into it: Hill-top, the large, though low mansion of the Gasgarth's, now a farm-house, seated on an eminence among the woods, under a steep fell, was what appeared the most conspicuous, and beside it a great rock, like some ancient tower nodding to its fall. Passed by the side of Skiddaw and its cub, called Latrigg; and saw from an eminence at two miles distance, the vale of Elysium in all its verdure; the sun then playing on the bosom of the lake, and lighting up all the mountains with its lustre. Dined by two o'clock at the Queen's-head, and then straggled out alone to the parsonage, where I saw the sun set in all its glory.
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gazetteer links
button -- "Greystock" -- Greystoke
button -- "Greystock Castle" -- Greystoke Castle
button -- Guardhouse
button -- Helvellyn
button -- Hill Top
button -- Keswick
button -- Latrigg
button -- Lowside
button -- Penruddock
button -- Penrith to Keswick
button -- Saddleback
button -- Skiddaw
button -- (St John's in the Vale)
button -- Threlkeld
button -- Ullswater
button -- "Vale of Derwent Water" -- Vale of Keswick
button -- Watermillock

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