(above) The Solway Firth from 700 Km (© NASA Landsat) I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,And all I ask is a tall shipand a star to steer her by,And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s songand the white sail’s shaking,And a grey mist on the sea’s…
Wordsworth’s Grasmere Walk
Bring Wordsworth to life on this 5-mile walk through Wordsworth’s Grasmere, visiting the houses he lived in and the poems he wrote. Created from a brief to sell a literary walking holiday through Wordsworth’s Grasmere based at HF Holiday’s Coniston Hotel. A. HAMMERSCAR [Park GR NY 337053. Follow track NE then N to…
Blood on Burnswark Hill
History, for me, becomes most alive when ancient and modern uses are found for the same device. I first realized this when I read about the historical and contemporary uses of the term wall-chalking. During the Great Depression, an estimated 4,000,000 adults left their homes in search of work. These ‘hobos’ roamed the United States,…
A Rose Tinted Spectacle
Anthony Salvin isn’t an instantly recognisable name. Yet many instantly recognisable buildings know the hand of Anthony Salvin. Between 1799 and 1881, Salvin became, according to the famous art historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, the most successful restorer and purveyor of castles in the 2nd half of the 19th Century. Salvin pioneered the Gothic revival in…
Going with the Wedholme Flow
Maybe March wasn’t the best time of year for the first visit to Wedholme Flow. Local legend and Solway Shore Stories author, Ann Lingard recommends summer when you walk into a primitive landscape of heather, sticky red sundew, golden-brown stalks of bog asphodel and the smell of sun-warmed peat. This March Sunday and the aptly…
The Art of Getting Lost
Geltsdale is well known to outdoor enthusiasts in North Cumbria. Four way-marked trails lead walkers into the heart of this Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Its Black Grouse and wading birds attract ornithologists while scholars of industrial archaeology can be found on the quarried flanks of Cold Fell. But for Carlisle artist Laura M R…
A Treasure Hunt Around Grune Point
Sheltering by heavy gorse from a brisk onshore wind, the bowed figure was silhouetted against the pale wintry sky on my walk around Grune Point. There is a place along the curving shingle of the Point where, at low tide, the Irish Sea ends and all that remains is sand. This is where I caught…
Brampton Old Church
Brampton is surrounded by ancient history. Just over a mile to the east of modern-day Brampton stands the surviving nave of Brampton Old Church, perched on a sandstone bluff overlooking a sweep of the River Irthing. Its strategic position was recognised by the Roman Army whose ‘stone road’ or Stanegate ran below the bluff at…