KYQ4: Langdale Estate, Loughrigg Fell and the Amritt Museum

Langdale from Loughrigg Fell

I was making the best of my annual Lakes holiday despite being unable to attempt any longer hillwalks. I had planned to climb 20 Wainwrights earlier in the year, but things change. I walked on the first two days, but aggravated my groin strain, and my legs and hips were aching, something I had never known in the past.

On day 3, I spent 4 hours on a tour of the Langdale site with Andy, the head of grounds maintenance, as he narrated a detailed and personal history of the Langdale Estate from its days as a gunpowder factory selling its products to the United States to the present day. The 35-acre estate was then bought by a local businessman, Richard Hall, who built the Pillar Hotel and converted former industrial buildings into cottages. He allowed two huts to be rented to rival climbing clubs from Lancashire and Yorkshire, and they competed to find new routes on Gimmer and other local Crags. He also made available an old barn to Kurt Schwitters, the German Dadaist, who was responsible for the Merz movement that was a precursor of Pop Art. In 1947, Schwitters began to create what became the Merz Barn, the slate wall of which has now become an exhibit at Newcastle University. Andy's talk was authentic and revealing and should be captured on YouTube. He told me he was cooperating on the production of a book, but it would never inspire the imagination in the way of Andy's oral presentation as we walked around the estate, firing questions that gave Andy the scope to produce real-life answers.

The next day, I agreed to meet with Mark for a gentle walk around Grasmere, no hills allowed. I met him on the Loughrigg Terrace overlooking Grasmere on the flank of Loughrigg Fell; we had walked in from opposite directions. I have been up Loughrigg on dozens of occasions. Wainwright devoted 16 pages to it in Book Three of his Pictorial Guide. Loughrigg Fell he wrote has "a bulk out of all proportion to its modest altitude: but no ascent is more repaying for the small labour involved in visiting its many cairns, for Loughrigg has delightful grassy paths, a series of pleasant surprises along the traverse of its summits, several charming vistas and magnificent views, fine contrasts of velvety turf, rich bracken and grey rock, a string of little tarns strung out like pearls in a necklace and a wealth of stately trees on the flanks." Wainwright could certainly string out a sentence.

Start of Loughrigg Terrace

Grasmere from Loughrigg Terrace

Needless to say, we climbed Loughrigg Fell up the steep, well-made path from the terrace. There were two others at the summit, a full-on fell walker who ranted on about how he had walked all the Lakeland hills in dire conditions. Mark was quiet, but I could tell he wanted to escape. I decided to put an end to the lecture by telling the walker that Mark had completed 23 Wainwright rounds. He stopped talking, aghast that he was a mere novice. We were able to have a friendly chat with the Indian lady who was standing nearby and wanted a picture taken at the summit. Mark then suggested returning to Ambleside by all the cairns that Wainwright had eulogised about. It took about two hours as we zig-zagged along the velvety turf, wallowing in the vistas and magnificent views.

Windermere from Loughrigg Fell

Velvety Turf

I had a notion to visit the Amritt museum in Ambleside to study the life of Kurt Schwitters, so we headed back in that direction. My groin and legs were giving me some distress by the time we reached Rothay Park. I was thirsty and hungry, so I dropped into the Apple Pie Cafe for lunch, washed down by a carafe of water. The Amritt was quiet with only a handful of visitors, despite two excellent exhibitions of Beatrix Potter and Wainwright. There were only a couple of Schwitter's paintings in the museum, but the other exhibitions held me for a couple of hours. A video of Wainwright was playing, and I found myself laughing aloud along with a lady who had entered the room. She was on a mission to complete the Wainwrights that her late husband had started but were unfinished. She had her doubts about whether she had the endurance to do this, as she was born in the same year as me. She was in the Lakes to visit his ashes at Black Sail, and I sensed that she was looking for some company. I might have offered to help, but I doubted whether I would be able to walk in the next couple of days. Mark, not for the first time, had taken me to the limit.