Old Cumbria Gazetteer

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	viewpoint, Conishead
site name:-	Conishead Priory
civil parish:-	Ulverston (formerly Lancashire)
county:-	Cumbria
locality type:-	viewpoint
coordinates:-	SD304757
1Km square:-	SD3075
10Km square:-	SD37
evidence:-	descriptive text:- West 1778 (11th edn 1821)
source data:-	Guide book, A Guide to the Lakes, by Thomas West, published by William Pennington, Kendal, Cumbria once Westmorland, and in London, 1778 to 1821.   goto source Page 43:-  "... the views from the house [Conishead Priory] are both pleasing and surprising. They are at once grand and ele-"   goto source Page 44:-  "[ele]gant, rural and marine. On the eastern side, you have a fine aestuary, spotted with rocks, isles, and peninsulas, a variety of shore, deeply indented in some places, in others composed of noble arched rocks, craggy, broken, and fringed with wood; over these, hanging woods, intermixed with cultivated inclosures, covered with a back ground of stupendous mountains. As a contrast to this view, from the other end of the gravel walk (between two culminating hills, covered with tall wood) is seen, in fine perspective, a rich cultivated dale, divided by hedge-row trees; beyond these, hanging grounds cut into inclosures, with scattered farms, and above them all, a long range of waving pasture ground and sheep walks, shining in variety of vegetation. This sweet pastoral picture is much heightened by the deep shade of the towering wooded hills, between which it is viewed. Turn to the left, the scenery is all reversed. Under a range of tall sycamores, an expanse of water bursts upon the eye, and beyond it, land just visible through the azure mist. Vessels traversing this bay are also seen in a most picturesque manner, and, from the lower part of the house, appear sailing through the trees, and approaching it till they drop anchor just under the windows. The range of sycamores has a fine effect in this sea view, by breaking the line in the"   goto source Page 45:-  "watery plain, and forming an elegant frame to a very excellent picture. By turning a little to the right, the prospect changes. At the head of a sloping inclosure, and under the skirts of a steep wood, a sequestered cottage stands in the nicest point of beauty." "There is a great variety of pleasing views from the different meandering walks and seats in the wood: one at the hermitage, and another at the seat in the bottom of the wood, where Ulverston and the environs make a pretty picture. From under the shrubbery (on the eastern side of the house, and from the gate at the north end of the walk, behind a swell of green hills) if the afternoon sun shine, the conical summits of distant mountains are seen glistening like burnished gold, and pointing to the heavens in a noble style. But as this sweet spot is injured by description, I shall only add, that it is a great omission in the curious traveller, to be in Furness and not see so wonderfully pretty place a place, to which nature has been so profuse in noble gifts, and where art has lent its best assistance, under the regulation of an elegant fancy, and a refined taste [1]." "[1] And where it is not too much to go on in a language of a still higher kind,-" "Here hills and vales, the woodland and the plain, / Here earth and water seem to strive again; / Not chaos-like, together crush'd and bruis'd, / But, as the world, harmoniously confus'd."
	indexing
person:-	author  : West, Thomas
date:-	1778
period:-	18th century, late
period:-	1780s
item:-	guide book; Guide to the Lakes

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