Reading the Lake District: An insight into Encounters Heritage Holiday

By Jade Cookson, Travel Designer & Lakes Expert

Our inspiration for creating literature inspired heritage walks came from a simple truth - the Lake District has long been a place not only to be seen, but to be read. Read ahead to discover why!

The Lake District is a walker’s paradise. Home to England’s highest peak, its largest mountain range, and its largest natural lake. Around eighteen million people visit each year, on average that is around 50,000 visitors a day!

Ascending Alcock Tarn on the Wordsworth Way

Long before postcards and social media, it was literature that captured the spirit of the Lakes. First came the ‘early travellers.’ Writers such as Daniel Defoe (Robinson Crusoe, Moll Flanders) and Thomas Gray (‘Elegy in a Country Churchyard’) all came to write about the district, which at the time, was still largely inaccessible to the everyday adventurer.

One of the first to do so was travel-writer and diarist Celia Fiennes (1662-1741), who rode her pony side-saddle through the counties of England, including Cornwall and Westmorland. In Cornwall, she writes of the long, steep hill in Fowey, and the ‘universal smoking’ habits of the locals. At the other end of the country, Fiennes dines on char and oat cakes at Windermere before ascending the Kirkstone Pass, noting the ‘inaccessible’ and ‘barren hills.’ Fiennes didn’t venture far; in fact, she neglected to visit the majority of Cumberland. But Fiennes was one of the first, a pioneer if you will, of this new kind of literature.

After Fiennes came more writers, who struggling to articulate what they saw, leaned on emotionally loaded terms like ‘rude’ and ‘awful.’ Daniel Defoe went as far as calling the Lake District ‘the wildest, most barren and frightful of any place’ he had seen, although there is some debate that he ever really visited!

Picturesque Aesthetics

The Picturesque movement emerged in the Lake District in the 18^th century, encouraging travellers to value landscapes for their irregularity, variety, and rugged beauty.  During his 1769 tour, Thomas Gray used a Claude glass, a tinted, convex mirror that would give the impression of a classical painting. Gray famously fell backwards while using it, too engrossed by the vision to look where he was going.

Then came Father Thomas West, whose Guide (1778) revolutionised tourism in the Lakes. West identified specific ‘stations’, viewpoints where travellers were encouraged to stand, turn their backs to the scene, and view it through a Claude glass to achieve the perfect composition. Some of these viewing places, like Claife Station on Windermere, have been fully restored and still exist today.

Our Beatrix Poter themed loop will take you up to Claife Heights and then onward to Hill Top, Beatrix Potter’s home, so you can experience this unique piece of history for yourself.

Claife Heights Viewing Station, Windermere.

Wordsworth Country

All of this is without even mentioning the later impact of Romanticism, which opened entirely new ways of exploring and understanding the landscape. At the heart of the movement were William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey, all of whom lived in the Lake District and drew poetic inspiration from their homes. For them, the landscape was a source of emotional and spiritual depth, supported by memory, people, and place.

It’s often estimated that Wordsworth walked around 175,000 miles during his lifetime, roughly ten miles a day for nearly fifty years! A figure that feels entirely possible when you consider the sheer scope of his work, and the lengths he goes to when capturing the emotion in the landscape. To the Romantics, the act of walking was central to how they observed, thought and wrote.

Wordsworth’s sister, Dorothy, played a vital role in his creative output. A keen walker herself, Dorothy kept daily journals and wrote with remarkable sensitivity. It was Dorothy who, in 1802, first recorded the famous daffodils at Glencoyne Bay on Ullswater, observations that later found their way into William’s poem ‘I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.’

Last year, the Lake District saw the opening of a new long-distance route, The Wordsworth Way. The Way traces Wordsworth’s footsteps along some of his favourite walks, stretching from Glenridding to Ambleside and taking in key locations along the way, including his homes at Grasmere and Rydal, as well as other well-known literary houses, such as Fox Ghyll and Fox How.

My handy guidebook can be used as an accompaniment to the route, with extracts from journals and poems to read as you walk. Our walks through Ambleside will take you along the final leg of the Way, giving you the chance to experience it for yourself.

Walking the Wordsworth Way in April 2023 with my dog - choosing locations for my guidebook!

20th Century Literature

In the 20th century, the Lake District became a creative haven for many literary household names. Arthur Ransome wrote his classic Swallows and Amazons while living at Low Ludderburn above Windermere. If you're heading to Coniston, you can seek out the real‑world inspirations for Ransome’s famous Wild Cat Island - Peel Island on Coniston Water and Blake Holme on Windermere, both of which influenced Ransome’s childhood classic.

Beatrix Potter, author of The Tale of Peter Rabbit series made her home at Hill Top Farm in Near Sawrey after purchasing it in 1905. Her love of the Lake District shaped her stories and guided her later conservation work, which helped preserve 4,000 acres of land and 15 farms, including Troutbeck Park Farm, which she owned and managed, bequeathing to the National Trust upon her death in 1943.

 Hill Top at Near Sawrey, Beatrix Potter’s home (1905-)

‘There’s no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing.’

No figure has shaped modern walking culture in the Lakes more than Alfred Wainwright. His hand‑drawn Pictorial Guides popularised the 214 fells now lovingly known as ‘The Wainwrights’. Over two million copies later, summiting every peak has become a rite of passage for locals and visitors alike. Some take on the challenge by running them all in one go - the fastest known time by John Kelly being an impressive 5 days, 12 hours, and 14 minutes, while others take years to tick off each peak at their own pace.

Today, walking in the Lakes takes many forms. There’s the adventurous type, whose pursuit of leisure is in ‘bagging’ peaks on risky ridge climbs. There are the old school ramblers, faithful to long-distance trails, leather boots, paper maps, and pork pies. You’ve got the walking converts, the walker-talkers, the group hikers, solo soul-searchers, the Duke’s of Edinburgh, and those who could go 10 miles without knowing where they’ve been, or what they have seen. Somewhere in this mix is the inquisitive walker, the curious adventurer, who pauses, looks closely, and wants to understand what they are seeing. It is for this walker that the Lake District truly reveals itself.

Wetherlam from Swirl How, sister summit to Coniston Old Man.

Across centuries, the district has been read as much as it has been seen. Each traveller, diarist, poet and guide writer has added their own linguistic layer that shaped our experience of the landscape. From Fiennes, to West, Wordsworth, Ransome, Potter and Wainwright, among many, many others, every word has influenced how millions now understand and explore this special place.

In short, language hasn’t just described the Lake District, it’s created it. Every fell, crag and tarn carries not just its own geological history, but a story written by those who’ve walked (or ridden, ran, cycled, or swam) before.

Want to know more?

Head to https://www.encounterwalkingholidays.com/lake-district-heritage-walks to learn more about our heritage themed walks.

Enquire now – email info@encounterwalkingholidays.com or call 01208 871066.