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

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Page 139:-
[moun]tains. Most of these remain, and will remain. I only regret that the ancient cottage, with its accompaniments, is superseded by the modern house with its five windows in front. I should have preferred at Mardale Hill the ancient cottage with its antiquated windows, its lowly roof fringed with moss, and its chimneys smoking through the trees, as the abode of quiet and the home of solitude.' The change here so eloquently lamented has, unfortunately, too often been the case in numerous other instances, which the stranger will have been obliged to notice.
The traveller may, by several ways, each exhibiting scenes worthy of admiration, pass out of this vale. One mountain path leads up Riggendale, over High Street, and down Troutbeck Hundreds, to Ambleside or Low Wood Inn,

  Kentmere
KENTMERE,
  Nan Bield Pass
  Kentmere Hall

Or he may follow the course of the stream flowing out of Small Water, over the pass of Nanbield, then down a steep descent into Kentmere, a narrow vale, watered by the Kent, which expands into a tarn one mile long, abounding with trout, perch, and wild ducks, and margined by swampy grounds. The houses are scattered throughout the dale. At Kentmere Hall, an ancient tower, that unwearied apostle of the north, and sincere confessor of the gospel, Bernard Gilpin, some time rector of Houghton-le-Spring, in Durham, was born. Near the
gazetteer links
button -- "Kentmere Hall" -- Kentmere Hall
button -- "Kentmere" -- Kentmere
button -- Mardale
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