button to main menu  Wordsworth's Guide 1810, edn 1835
button title page
button previous page button next page
page 125
This lordly creature seems to know that "retiredness (sic) is a piece of majesty; for it is scarcely ever caught, or even seen, except when it quits the depths of the lake in the spawning season, and runs up into the streams, where it is too often destroyed in disregard of the law of the land and of nature.
Quitted the boat in the bay of Sandwyke, and pursued our way towards Martindale along a pleasant path - at first through a coppice, bordering the lake, then through green fields - and came to the village, (if village it may be called, for the houses are few, and separated from each other,) a sequestered spot, shut out from the view of the lake. Crossed the one-arched bridge, below the chapel, with its "bare ring of mossy wall," and a single yew-tree. At the last house in the dale we were greeted by the master, who was sitting at his door, with a flock of sheep collected round him, for the purpose of smearing them with tar (according to the custom of the season) for protection against the winter's cold. He invited us to enter, and view a room built by Mr. Hasell for the accommodation of his friends at the annual chase of red deer in his forests at the head of these dales. The room is fitted up in the sportsman's style, with a cupboard for bottles and glasses, with strong chairs, and a dining-table; and ornamented with the horns of the stags caught at these hunts for a succession of years - the length of the last race each had run being recorded under his spread-
gazetteer links
button -- Dale Head
button -- St Martin's Church
button -- "Ullswater" -- Ullswater
button next page
button to main menu Lakes Guides menu.