Sale Fell, Ling Fell and Binsey

Bassenthwaite from Binsey

Wednesday, 28 February 2024

Sale Fell           359m     21mins    39mins

Ling Fell           373m    24mins    43mins

Binsey.              447m.   20mins    36mins

After yesterday's wind and rain and a similar forecast for late morning today, we decided to minimise getting soaked again and climb a couple smaller Wainwrights on the way back to Scotland. We left the Keswick Hostel at 9:00am, Keith had unusually decided to give the hills a miss, he was feeling quite unwell and discovered after a weekend with his walking club that there was a COVID alert. John and I headed to Sale Fell and Ling Fell which are located behind the Pheasant Inn at the head of Bassenthwaite. It was a place we visited for Saturday lunch over many years at the start of our Langdale week when the children were young and a Lakeland pub lunch was a treat for us all. 

We parked at Brumston Bridge and climbed Sale Fell first, the clouds were scudding in over Skiddaw and the Northern Fells at a rapid pace but we figured we would be safe from rain for a quick up and down. The strong westerly wind made the descent almost as long as the ascent. The short sheep-shorn grass was a delight to walk on, providing a bounce and having none of the bogginess of yesterday. Skiddaw was topped by clouds as were the fells down to Grasmoor.

On arriving back at the car, I swapped my windproof jacket for a waterproof one. We walked across to the start of the Ling Fell path and kept to the Corpse Road for the ascent so that we could get a view over to Cockermouth and the coast. We hit the wind head on and it took our breath away. The summit trig point was no place to linger so we made a direct descent down another grassy path. It had barely gone 11 a.m. when we arrived back at the car. What now? After a drink, we decided to pop over to Binsey, a mere 4 miles away to claim a bonus hill. 

Binsey is the most northerly Wainwright and a gentle plod up from Binsey Cottage on the Ireby Road. There were three cars there already. Even in February, the Lakes are a magnet for hillwalkers. It was another simple walk and a jog down, by noon, we had completed three Wainwrights and avoided the rain, just. There was a road closure at Ireby that added about 10 minutes to the journey home but I dropped John in Selkirk and was home before 5pm despite the traffic delays on the Edinburgh Southern bypass.

Ling Fell from Sale Fell

Broom Fell from Sale Fell

Embleton from Ling Fell

Sale Fell from Ling Fell

Ling Fell and Skiddaw in the cloud

Skiddaw from Binsey

 

Loweswater Fells

Keswick skyscape

Tuesday, 27 February

Ascent:      625 metres
Distance:   10 kilometres
Time:         2 hours 58 minutes

Burnbank Fell       475m
Blake Fell.             573m
Gavel Fell.             526m

The day had broken with grey fells outlined against a greying sky. The forecast was not auspicious, just terrible, even for the Lake District. We had decided to climb four smaller hills near Loweswater, some of the least visited hills in the far northwest of the Lake District. We had never abandoned planned walks and we saw no reason to change the habit of the past thirty-five years of hillwalking days.

It was a thirty-minute drive over Whinlater Pass to Loweswater. The rain that was steady as we left Keswick had become full flow by the time we parked at the Maggie's Bridge empty car park. Even putting on boots and waterproofs was an act of pre-soaking. Keith had his two phones with route maps safely encased in waterproof cases so I left my phone and maps in the car. Within minutes of starting water was seeping through my recently reproofed jacket and into my gloves. 

We reached Watergate Farm on Loweswater and found a path that ran steeply through the afforested Holme Wood and eventually brought us out at Holme Beck. We were now exposed to the full force of the wind-driven rain as we began to climb the pathless east ridge of Burnbank Fell. It captured all the ingredients that can make hillwalking such an exercise in advanced purgatory. Water running down the cuffs of my jacket had filled my gloves, a cold finger bath for all ten digits. Water had penetrated my jacket and all three layers of Merino vest and thin fleece tops, my shoulders were shivering but at least I didn't have to faff about looking at map and compass, Keith was doing that as we plodded on unaware of anything in the poor visibility..

Burnbank Fell was where some fence posts met, what was Wainwright playing at by describing this as a hill worthy of carrying his name? We took some bearings for the next hill, Blake Fell, we were on the summit ridge now and could follow the fence which occasionally would shift direction by a few degrees. Keith decided the weather was too bad to be bothered collecting a Birkett top at Sharp Knott. We knew this meant it was really bad, he never misses a top no matter what their classification in the lexicon of hill lists. The wind seemed to have shifted so it could continue to hit us in the face. This is where we decided that our fourth hill of the day, Hen Comb, should be deleted from the planned route. I could pick it up in more clement conditions with another three hills.

That left us with another kilometre and a half to Gavel Fell and the rain kept coming. Keith stopped to add another waterproof over his existing four layers. There was no need to stop for drinks, you could lick the rain running down your face. Reaching Gavel Fell was the highlight of the day, if only because we were about to descend from the wind and horizontal rain. We followed a fence down to the bridleway and stopped by the gate, the rain had abated and it was a chance to empty my gloves of water, take a drink and attempt a conversation. It was only 25 minutes from the car park and we charged down the short grassy track, minds bent on a hot shower and respite from one of the wettest and windiest days I have encountered. Keswick was pleasantly dull and dry.

Watergate Farm, Loweswater

Blencathra

Blencathra from Doddick Fell

Monday, 26 February 2024

Ascent:      1024 metres

Distance:    13.5 kilometres 

Time:          4 hours 45 minutes 

Blencathra                       868m.  1hr 48mins

Atkinson Pike                  845 m. 2hrs 2mins

Mungrisdale Common     633m.  2hrs 25mins

Keith had organised another winter trip to the Lake District, staying at the excellent Keswick Youth Hostel. I drove down with John from Selkirk. We agreed to meet at Scales Farm below Blencathra at 10:30 am. The forecast was for a bright cold day with a 30mph northerly wind, it wasn’t wrong. There were several options for the ascent and we chose the path up Doddick Fell. Blencathra was in the clouds and the snow level was down to 700 metres. Crossing the Scales Beck involved some tricky scrambling on the slippy exposed slate before we began the steep grassy path that followed the apex of the ridge. At least we were sheltered from the strong northerly wind until we reached Doddick Fell where we took a few minutes before entering the jet stream to search for the Birkett top that Keith intended to collect and then wending our way up the zig-zags to Hallfell Top, otherwise known as the summit of Blancathra. There was no cairn just a windswept high point of this massive and impressive mountain. 

We immediately set off for Mungrisdale Common, one of the quirks of the Wainwrights. You descend 200 metres and ascend maybe 10 metres to reach it, Presumable Wainwright had his lunch there one day and decided it was a mountain, just lower than everything around it. 

As the number of classifications of British hill lists expands with Marilyns, Nuttalls, Birketts, Hewitts, Dodds and Tumps; all with rules about heights and drops to adjacent hills, you can't help but admire Wainwright's artistic license of defining hills His rules are completely random depending more on the Ribble Bus routes and Wainwright's bloody-mindedness than any pseudo-scientific blending of the imperial and metric systems.

To celebrate this we had a lunch break at the small collection of stones that are supposedly the top (or bottom) of Mungrisdale Common. Keith, in his obsessional manner, found the accurately measured top about a hundred metres away using an app on his phone. After 15 minutes of eating food and taking a drink while the freezing northerly wind sapped any warmth out of us, we began the long climb back from Mungridale Common to the snow slopes north of Blencathra. It involved a long traverse through soft snow to Blencathra and then a pleasant descent via Scales Fell to Scales Farm. 

We had timed it perfectly and arrived at the Keswick Youth Hostel at 4pm. As always, the nomenclature fails to reflect the clientele at this time of the year. The only question was whether there were more seventy-year-olds than sixty-year-olds. Most of the guests had been hostelling since the days when no cars were allowed, there were 20 or so bunks in a room and the warden was a taskmaster who made you peel potatoes or clean the outside toilet as part of the payment. Nowadays, £15 a night for a warm room, a kitchen and beer on draft seems like the sort of place that Youth might fancy but for the fact it is full of yesteryouth.

Ascent by Doddick Fell

Blencathra in cloud

Heading to Atkinson Pike

Looking back from Mungrisdale Common

Mungrisdale Common

Skiddaw from Blencathra 

Blencathra from Scales Fell

 

Universities: the facts about fiction

Headlines in the Sunday Times, Times and Telegraph over the last few weeks have focused on how British students are failing to get places at University because of the massive increase in foreign students taking up places. These stories were ramped up by GB News, never slow to escalate its prejudices, saying that 'it made their blood boil', yet another literal fiction. These claims all fit the post-Brexit tendency of the government and its fourth estate behemoths to blame the foreigners or better still the EU for the ever-mounting list of catastrophes As is often the case the excellent 'More or Less' programme on Radio 4 subjected these claims to their verification experts. By the simple expedient of examining facts rather than accepting the wished-for fiction as the default narrative, the story toppled.

The number of UK students going to English Universities increased by 19,135 in the five years from 2019 to 2024, a 4.85% increase. The number of International students from outside the EU increased by 15,000 or  34.8% over this period but this was more than offset by a reduction of 20,000 students from the EU countries meaning a net reduction of 5000 students from overseas. Many of the International students are now enrolled on one-year induction courses rather than degree courses that most European students had previously enrolled for.  

It could be argued that Universities, by charging higher fees than had been possible before when EU students had paid the same fees as UK students, had found a way to fund more UK students. However, in the process, they have dumbed down the entrance requirements and qualifications on offer to International students and opened an alternative route for in-migration. This is not a narrative that we will hear from either government ministers or the universities. 'Follow the Money' is the silent motto for them both. Their moral compass is calibrated to between 100° and 140°, that is to students from Southeast Asia and the Middle East, just like funding for most of the government's infrastructure investment.

The Burrell Collection

Entrance to the Burrell

The Burrell Collection Museum opened in Glasgow's Pollok Grounds in 1983. We lived nearby and it became a regular haunt for taking our young children out or for Aileen to visit during the week whilst the children were at playgroups and nursery. When combined with the walks in the wonderful woodlands that it overlooked through its expansive glass curtain and its open-plan cafe it was an ideal place to take our weekend visitors. Our children learnt to ride their bikes on the newly laid tracks that now provide access to the expensive car park. I ran through Pollok Grounds two or three times a week on my way home from work and then again at the weekend. 

Sir William Burrell was the son of a Glasgow shipping owner who became a successful businessman when he took over his father's business. He was also an art aficionado and Glasgow councillor. His bequest of the collection made in 1944, which he insisted also belonged to Lady Constance, his wife, was to the city of Glasgow. It included the funding for a new building to house the collection in a location with no pollution and ideally within 4 miles of Killearn in Stirling. It took many years trying to satisfy these conditions before the Glasgow city fathers agreed on a site on the grounds of Pollok House, which was gifted by its late owner Sir John Maxwell-Stirling, founder member of the National Trust for Scotland. It was less than 4 miles from, not Killearn, but Glasgow City Centre. 

The Burrell Collection of 9000 items includes Chinese art, 200 tapestries, French Impressionist paintings including Degas, Cezanne and Manet, paintings by the Glasgow Boys, Egyptian stone carvings and Greek vases and ceramics. It is an eclectic collection made possible by the immense wealth from selling his cargo ships during the Great War. Burrell employed agents throughout Europe to scour for artefacts that he was interested in. He was a shrewd collector and struck hard bargains in the 1930s and 1940s when a worldwide depression and wars had driven down competition for art collections. This included portals from Hornby Castle in Yorkshire that Burrell bought from Randolph Hearst, the American newspaper magnate, who had bought them for a castle he owned in Wales before his wealth had been depleted by the Great Depression.  

The museum closed in 2016 for an extensive refit that cost £16m and took 6 years to complete, partly because of Covid. It was opened by King Charles, one of his earliest engagements after ascending the throne in 2022. Aileen and I had been looking forward to its reopening for a couple of years and it was one of her wishes after coming home from the hospital but sadly she was unable to travel. I took myself there today, a wet Monday when I thought it would be quiet. I was the first in at 10:00 a.m., and twenty minutes later as I wandered around an empty downstairs gallery, the attendant told me she had never known the museum with so few visitors. I had always loved the spaces and light in the building and today I was free to enjoy the collection without the noise and intrusion of other visitors or supervising three energetic and curious children. It gave me time to reflect on how one man could afford and collect so many artefacts from so many parts of the world. Seeing Rodin's statue also got me thinking about how philanthropy used to work for the benefit of local communities in the days before moonshots. 

I spent the first hour absorbing the exhibits and then joined a guided tour of some of the highlights, most of which I had already admired without having to listen to the reciting of dates and well-rehearsed stories of the volunteer guide. Nevertheless, there were some interesting asides. It was 1 pm before I left for a quick walk around the North Wood in the rain. It had been a good way to spend the morning and revisit one of our favourite places in Glasgow, the Burrell was the Art Fund Museum of the Year, 2023.

Warwick Vase in the foyer

Ming Dynasty, Figure of Luodon set against the North Wood

Boudin: Atmospheric Skies

Cezanne; Chateau de Medan

Manet: Women drinking Beer

Tapestry Fight between aHeron and Falcon

One of many Iranian Tapestries

 

A Corridor Gallery

Rodin: The Thinker