Travel
The Fitz (1835)
Main Street featuring the marble statue (1875) in Roman style portraying Cockermouth’s notable resident, Richard Southwell Bourke, sixth earl of Mayo, M.P. for Cockermouth 1857-68. The statue was erected after Mayo was assassinated in 1872, whilst visiting the Andaman Islands as Viceroy and Governor-General of India. The statue was discombobulated by a lorry in 1964. Ben Stiokes, the cricketer, is also a famous resident but so far no statue. Also from Cockermouth: Fletcher Christian, Master’s Mate on HMS Bounty and leader of the mutiny (1789).
Cockermouth’s fine buildings remind of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries when the town was one of the earliest of West Cumbria’s boom-towns developing its water power to process then export coal and minerals from the West Cumbria mines. Cockermouth seems to have been rowdy with plenty of inns and a court-house. Sea-going sailing ships were loading at the quay first used by the Romans; there were blast furnaces roaring, a tweed mill, brewery and financial buildings. Even earlier, the Normans built Cockermouth Castle as part of a line of castles including Brougham, and Egremont defending the border with Scotland.
Cockermouth gets its name as the confluence of the rivers Derwent and Cocker, a situation that has frequently brought flooding in the town.
Acorn Bank gardens is a little haven situated in the fertile Eden Valley, between the Pennines and the Lake District. The famous oak trees border the river and the garden is protected from the storms by a high brick wall, which retains the warmth of the Cumbrian sunshine for the benefit of the horticulture and helps protect from the worst of the storms.
Acorn Bank’s orchard has a fine collection of specialist and heritage apple and pear trees, pollinated by bees from hives maintained by the Penrith Beekeepers Association. This orchard was inspirational when I first visited it more than ten years ago, both the beauty of the ancient trees and the possibility of apple trees bearing fruit this far north. Acorn Bank’s herb garden is particularly extensive and the plants are labelled clearly; the salad selections were informative. There’s also a working watermill which is restored and operated on summer weekends by Acorn Bank Watermill Trust. The warmth of the inner courtyard is a fine place to enjoy coffee and cakes baked locally, unfortunately it wasn’t clear whether these used some of the flour ground at the watermill.
Derwent Water
Derwent Water
Late Spring Bank Holiday Week in the Lake District, England’s first holiday weekend since the third lockdown. Traditional landscape photography avoids people but I’ve deliberately featured holidaymakers in this set. After many long weeks of lockdown and deserted streets: it’s been heartening to see people enjoying themselves with a responsible degree of bustle and busyness. And there are precedents on including people in “landscapes”: you need look no further than John Constable’s “The Hay Wain” (1821), one of the most popular paintings in London’s National Gallery.
Fishing vessel Golden Bells SR28, coming in to port at Girvan
Port at Girvan
Day out in the hired car to enjoy Fish and Chips at the port of Girvan on the Firth of Clyde. My route took me through Dumfries and then Galloway Forest Park.
Girvan and the Ayrshire coast benefit from warmth from the Gulf Stream, which was particularly apparent coming down from Glentool Forest in the Galloway Forest Park. After miles of winter landscape, suddenly I noticed the lush green growth of spring, promoted by the warming effects of the Gulf Stream.
Geologists know Girvan as pretty much the southwestern end of the Southern Uplands Boundary fault, which is noted for many geological anomalies as it runs through Scotland.
The people I met in Girvan had all come “down” from Glasgow, enjoying their first trips out since the lockdowns and staying for a week. I needed to return, but I rued choosing the coastal route which leads to Stranraer as it was chokka with lorries and trucks.
Hermitage Castle
Big countryside this, long valleys and high rounded hills with an emptiness that I don’t usually associate with the UK. Some sheep farming and the rest forestry, which looks pretty unattractive when half the valley has been stripped. Straight roads and some impressive corkscrews, for the delight of motorbikers. Note the bikers shivering in Hawick though, they unlike me in a hired Corsa, were getting everything from the weather: sunshine, hail, sleet and just grey.
Hermitage Castle - “Guardhouse of the bloodiest valley in Britain” - was a particular interest to see as it was the northern stronghold of the Dacre family of Cumberland in the fourteenth century. This was the time of the Reivers: robbers and bandits preying in “The Debatable Lands” north of Carlisle. So Hermitage Castle - and its bloody battles - are the part of the medieval history of Cumberland and so, Cumbria. Hermitage Castle keep is an impressive building and a novel design with two large arches. The shell of the building survives, meaning although it changed hands many times, it was never sacked. The location is tactical too, it commands a bend of the river named Hermitage Water, just above the small town of Newcastleton. Maybe it’s a bit fanciful as there’s not a direct metaphor but the fells stripped of trees is reminiscent of the bloody battles of this area of the past.
