Tatton Park.Taken at the end of our visit, when it had stopped raining.
The last of our many stately home visits in 2025. Curiously, whilst I have vivid memories of all of the other places we popped into, my memory of the grander rooms at Tatton Park are very sketchy. I remember the helpful volunteers who found us a locker to store all of our wet gear in whilst we looked around, and the guides who told us entertaining stories in many of the rooms. Also the basement rooms and the museum down there, but only some details of the main rooms have stayed with me.
Tatton Park – visitors entrance.Clock, 1780, Ormolu, Brass and Tortoiseshell.One of many cabinets of porcelain.
I do remember that there was a lot of pottery and porcelain.
Interior, Tatton Park.Eighteenth Century cabinet. Ebonised, Ivory, Mother-of-Pearl, Tortoiseshell.Red room.
And a heck of a lot of paintings. One of the guides was humorously disparaging about the quality of a collection of portraits of local landowners displayed on the upper floors. But they also have two Canaletto paintings of Venice….
A Canaletto.Another Canaletto.
My photos don’t begin to do justice to the incredible quality of the light in the paintings, but I see that Tatton Park is gearing up for an exhibition this year about Canaletto and about Samuel Egerton’s trip to Venice, so you can go and experience them for yourself. It was at least nice to be allowed to take photos after seeing eight (or maybe seven) Canaletto’s at Alnwick Castle earlier this year but being denied that privilege there.
More paintings.The library.A very intricate chess set. Unknown origin apparently.Light switch!A cup, just for chocolate.
I don’t know why, I was rather taken with the decadence of having a cup (and a Willow pattern pot next to it) purely for drinking chocolate.
The Maurice Egerton Collection.
Maurice Egerton, the last Baron here, was something of an adventurer, an aviator in the early days of mechanised flight and much travelled. In the basement of the house, there’s a museum dedicated to his travels. There’s something captivating about collections of fairly disparate objects and I took a lot of photos. The machine in the middle of the photo above, for example, is a magic lantern projector.
Carved Walrus tusk.
There were musical instruments, various tools and blades, aeroplane parts, combs, etc, but I think this intricately carved Walrus tusk was probably the item I’d have liked to filch.
The basement rooms, or some of them at least, are connected by rail tracks, which must be fairly unusual.
Wine cellar.Bubbly.An ornate gate.ElectricBrougham c 1906. Henri Binder, Paris.State Coach, 1840.Benz, 1900.
Maurice Egerton was also a keen motorist and they still have a couple of his cars at the house. As we left, the house was closing. We walked back to our car and set-off for our drive back to Lancashire. We’d packed a great deal into our three days in Cheshire, thanks to the generosity of our friend J. Hopefully, we’ll be back before too long.
The last hoorah of our Cheshire trip – a tour of Tatton Park. In danger of falling sixth months behind yet again, and somewhat overwhelmed by the number of photos I took, I’ve opted to split our visit over a few posts, because if I try to cram it all into one, I might never finish. Meanwhile, here I am saving time, by explaining how I’m going to save time…
Anyway, Tatton Park has a huge deer park, which we drove through, but didn’t explore further. It was raining a little as we arrived, but the forecast was for things to get worse rather than better, so we decided to do the gardens first and leave the house till later. I think the walled kitchen garden, with its many glasshouses, was the largest I have ever seen and very well stocked. (Veg were on sale elsewhere).
An archway into……the rose garden.The tower garden.
There are numerous follies and monuments dotted around the gardens. This tower can stand in for them all here.
The Japanese garden.The Japanese garden.
You can’t enter the Japanese garden, but a path takes you right around it and I was particularly taken with it.
Gunera.TBH with a multi-coloured Polar Bear.
There were a number of these large and colourful polar bears placed in the gardens. I forget why. They were very popular with younger visitors. And with us. I seem to remember thinking that a large proportion of the people visiting that day were probably grandparents with their grandchildren. As TBH pointed out – it was the tail-end of the summer holidays, so doting relatives were probably being pressed into childminding.
TBH with a multi-coloured Polar Bear, in Charlotte’s garden. The carving at the centre of the maze.The Fernery and the Conservatory.
I had thought that the Japanese Garden was going to be my highlight of the day, but then we visited the indoor bits of the garden.
The Fernery.Tree Ferns.An indoor waterfall.Looking back along the Fernery.
The Fernery was stunning. The ‘waterfall’ was hardly spectacular but it did give the sound of running water, which I think counts for a lot. This would surely be my favourite bit of the garden? Except, the conservatory houses a collection of Bromeliads and Orchids.
In the Conservatory.
Anyone who has followed the blog over time will know that I am very keen on Orchids, both the wild ones which appear on our home patch and the many pot-plants we have dotted around the house.
Bromeliads.
But I’m also fascinated by Bromeliads. I took a lot of (mostly not very successful) photos of Bromeliads (on 35mm film, it was a long time ago!) when I walked the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, which is on the edge of the Amazon. (Have I ever mentioned that I once travelled to Peru?)
An epiphytic Bromeliad.
To be honest, having done a little lazy research, I have discovered that my knowledge of Bromeliads was even more limited than I suspected. For example, I had assumed that they are all epiphytic, growing on other plants, but I now know that this is not the case and other species are terrestrial. For example, Puya raimondii, The Queen of The Andes, which has flower-spikes which can be up to 15 metres tall. Also, Bromeliads are one of the most recent plant groups to have evolved. A mere 100 million years ago. And – the pineapple is a Bromeliad. And I wonder how it is that I can’t keep up to date!
A flowering Bromeliad.
It’s colourful flowers like these which I remember from Peru.
A flowering Bromeliad.An orchid.Orchid.The Italian Garden.The House.A border in the Italian Garden.
Having already eaten our packed lunch in the garden, we headed to the cafe for a cuppa, ransacked the secondhand book store (one way or another, National Trust book shops did well out of me last year) and then ran to the house in pouring rain – it was definitely time to be indoors!
We were on our way home, but had places to visit on route i make the most of our final day in Cheshire. Hare Hill is adjacent to Alderley Edge. In fact there’s a permission path across the parkland at Hare Hill which connects the two.
Although there is a house at Hare Hill, it doesn’t belong to the National Trust, just the parkland and the garden. The highlight of the garden is the former Victorian walled kitchen garden which was converted (in the 1960s I think) by it’s last private owner, Charles Brocklehurst, working with garden designer James Russell.
Walled Garden, Hare Hill.Walled Garden, Hare Hill.Equestrian wire statue, Christopher Hobbs. One of two.Pergola and shelter.
The National Trust’s website suggests that the garden would be a great place to enjoy a picnic, or read a book or just drink in the peace and observe nature. I think that’s absolutely spot on, and I would love to come back for a longer visit.
Looking out at the garden.White planting, with Hornet.
The planting in the walled garden is predominantly of white flowers, thought to be in tribute to Brocklehurst’s twin brother, who died in a riding accident. When I took this photo, however, I wasn’t really focused on the flowers, it was one of many failed attempts to get a decent shot of the Hornet seen in the top right corner. We don’t see them at home, and although I have seen them in France, I was amazed again at just how large they are. This one led me a merry dance and refused to settle down anywhere for a photo.
Southern Hawker.
Fortunately, the garden was absolutely buzzing with insects and some of the denizens were much more cooperative. Distribution maps suggest that we ought to spot Southern Hawkers around home, but I never have. The only photograph of a Southern Hawker on the blog is from our garden and is, with hindsight, quite clearly a misidentified Migrant Hawker. In my defence, it’s from a long while ago and I didn’t own a copy of Smallshire and Swash’s marvellous field guide ‘Britain’s Dragonflies’ back then. Anyway, I shall be on the look-out for them from now on: what stunning colours!
Small Copper.Scarlet Lily Beetle.Hoverflies. Google lens says ‘Marmalade Hoverfly’, which is wrong. Probably a Syrphus species I think.Obligatory garden visit, plant-I-liked-the-look-of photo.Around the walled garden is a woodland garden.With several ponds. A towering Hydrangea (?)
I should have asked TBH to stand beside this shrub, it was immense. We both loved it, but I’m not sure it would fit in our garden.
Hare Hill statue.
Not a huge site. We were there for roughly an hour and walked about a mile on our tour. But it is definitely a really tranquil spot. We chatted to a couple of staff (or volunteers?) and they were full of enthusiasm and affection for the place. I’d love to come back for a longer visit, perhaps combined with a walk to and around Alderley Edge.
It would be remiss to visit Macclesfield and not climb ‘the Matterhorn of Cheshire’. So, after our walk on Alderley Edge and our trip to Lyme Park, we squeezed in a short walk to ascend Shutlingsloe.
In Macclesfield Forest.
It’s not really a ‘small hill’ at 506m, (well, by global standards all of our UK hills are pretty small beer, but this would tower over Arnside Knot for example) but given that we parked at nearly 400m, it was hardly an onerous climb. We parked, incidentally, near to Bottom-of-the-Oven, which I have to mention, merely for the brilliant name. Our drive down from Disley had been a real trip down memory lane for me, passing extremely familiar landmarks like Windgather Rocks and Shining Tor which still seem like old friends even though it’s such a long time since the Peak was my regular stomping ground.
On the flagged path heading towards Shutlingsloe.
The photos may be deceptive, since the weather looks gorgeous, but once out of the forest we were exposed to a very fierce wind.
Axe Edge Moor pano.
We tried to find somewhere sheltered near the top, because the views were breathtaking, but we just couldn’t get out of the wind.
Manchester, Macclesfield Forest and Shining Tor.
The views were really extensive, so it’s a bit disappointing that what was obvious to the naked eye doesn’t show up quite so well in my panoramas. For example, to the north we could not only see the skyscrapers of central Manchester, but also the Pennine hills beyond the conurbation, presumably Winter Hill and its neighbours.
The Roaches, The Cloud, Sutton Common and lots of more distant hills.
To the south and west the views were even more extensive. Sutton Common, with its telephone tower was obvious and The Cloud, by Congleton, also distinctive, but beyond that were more hills. The Sandstone Ridge in Cheshire or something in North Wales? Further south still we could pick out what must have been hills in Shropshire. Not for the first time I wished that TSS and the EWO were with us, as they both have an uncanny knack of putting names to distant hills.
A view of ‘the Matterhorn of Cheshire’ from our descent route.
We took a slightly different route back to the car and after losing some height finally found a very sheltered spot. We’d eaten in the cafe at Lyme Park (the NTs delicious Curried-cauliflower pasties, a real find) so we still had our packed lunches which we now enjoyed sitting in the evening sunshine. The weather had been a bit mixed through the day and by leaving our walk until the evening I think we may have had the best of the weather, and also found Shutlingsloe, which I have to assume is usually pretty popular, relatively quiet and uncrowded.
Another day, another National Trust property! Lyme park is more familiar to me than any of the other properties we could have visited in that area – mainly because it’s on the edge of the Peak District and I’ve walked through the grounds a few times. Back in my Manchester days I occasionally caught a train out to Disley either to walk or to cycle and there are several paths through Lyme’s large deer park. I think I met my Mum and Dad there once for an orienteering event, but if I did, that was a very long time ago, so I could be wrong. Until this visit, I also thought that I’d toured the house before, but since nothing inside looked remotely familiar, I’m now doubting myself.
Lyme Park, Chapel.
I might not have included a picture of the chapel, except that tucked away in a corner…
Saxon Cross?
..was this bit of stonework. The National Trust’s online inventory doesn’t reveal much about it, but gives the material as sandstone and the date as 900. So…part of an Anglo-Saxon Cross? There are two medieval cross-shafts still in situ at Bow Stones on the edge of the deer park. Could this be part of the upper part of one of those?
Lyme Park Library.An ornately carved chair.
As with other properties we visited, a came away with a multitude of photographs, but could go again and end up with a completely different collection of images because the place is stuffed full of things to see. Perhaps even more so at Lyme Park because every surface is so elaborately decorated.
Dining RoomOrnate mantel and woodcarving, Dining Room, Lyme Park.More woodcarving.Another fancy fireplace.Lyme Park, interior.Another fancy fireplace.
I seem to have been particularly taken with the over the top fireplaces.
Harp, 1829, Sebastien Erard.Wall panelling with portraits.Stainedglass.Corridor with frieze.Plaster cast frieze, 1813-1820 Clocks!
One of the former residents of the house had a passion for clocks and the house now contains a virtual museum of old timepieces. The inventory lists 46 items for Lyme under horology, and I’m not sure if that includes all of the clocks on display – I would have guessed at more.
Bracket clock, Claude Duchesne, 1730-1735.Longcase Clock, Wiliam Grimes, 1685.…with Marquetry.Limewood Carving, school of Grinling Gibbons.
One room has several of these limewood carvings, each depicting some abstract concept, in this case ‘The Arts’ I think. Naturally, I took photos of them all.
Plaster cast ceiling.Wallpaper.St. George’s Cross and a severed arm. Seen everywhere at Lyme.
The family which formerly owned Lyme were granted their land and status after the Black Prince’s standard was lost and then recaptured at the battle of Crécy along with a severed arm which had been holding the flag. Hence this crest which is seen in many places around the house.
The Long Gallery.Lion’s head? Carving on the paneling.
There were lots of these heads on the panelling in the Long Gallery, each one different. Again, I took a lot of photos!
Yet another fancy fireplace.Cabinet and Table.A fireplace, just for a change.The Knight’s Bedroom. Courtyard.Italian Garden.
We didn’t venture around the extensive deer park, but did really enjoy the formal gardens. The pond from which Colin Firth famously emerged in the BBC adaptation of ‘Pride and Prejudice’ was dried up, so I missed my chance to recreate the scene.
Large White Butterfly.Lyme Park.The Orangery.Inside The Orangery.Inside The Orangery.The Rose Garden.Exploring the gardens.Colourful planting.Dahlia?More flowers.A team of gardeners hard at work.Sundial.Carving on sundial.
It had been a really enjoyable visit and we still had one more thing to cram into our very full day…
Druidical totem-pole, entrance to Alderley Edge car park.
We packed a lot into the next two days, so I’m going to break up the days otherwise the posts will be mammoth. Which is not going to do a lot for my quest to catch up, but there we go!
And the reverse of the same sculpture.
First up, a little wander around the woods on Alderley Edge. This ought to have been a trip down memory lane, because I’m sure I must have visited it back in my Manchester days, but if I’m honest I didn’t recognise any of the views.
View from Alderley Edge pano.
Views are infrequent, because of the trees, but when you get a view they are extensive. If you zoom in you’ll see a host of tower blocks which I assume must be in central Manchester.
View to the Peak District from Alderley Edge.TBH on the path below the edge.TBH on the path below the edge.The path below the edge.
It was a bit of a grey day, but lovely walking.
Another view from the edge.Some old git playing silly b*****s in the woods near Alderley Edge.
Not having the kids with us, somebody else had to try out the balance activities on offer – it would have been rude not to!
All of the this was a brief interlude on route to our next stop, which was somewhere much more familiar from my years living in Manchester…
The first of three splendid days in Cheshire thanks to the massive generosity of our old pal J, who lives in Macclesfield. She was on holiday and left us a key so that we could crash at her house. What a superstar.
I say three days, but this was actually more of a half day, because it took us a while to set-off, as ever. As a result, we didn’t quite manage to see all that Dunham Massey has to offer, but we did see all of the house and the formal gardens (not the extensive deer park).
Entrance through the stables.
Having arrived at around lunch time, the first order of the day was to find a comfortable bench in the garden to enjoy the glorious sunshine and to eat our pack-up.
Forest shieldbug, on TBH’s water bottle.
We were joined by a guest.
Another view of Dunham Massey.And another.The canal border.Dunham Massey.Doorway detail.Doorway detail.Inner courtyard.TBH enjoying the furniture on display.
We booked into ‘Origin’, a ‘durational sound installation’, which involved lying on a mat on the floor, watching coloured lights and ‘deep listening’. Because we were a bit pushed for time, I was a bit sceptical at first, but when the 40 minutes were up I felt incredibly relaxed and was a bit disappointed that it had finished. Since I’m so far behind with the blog, I’m afraid you can’t go an sample it yourself, because it finished back at the start of November. Maybe there’ll be something similar next summer?
Orrery, eighteenth century, Thomas Wright.
An orrery, apparently is a mechanical device which attempts to mimic the movement of the planets. I don’t know how accurate this one is, but it’s very elegant.
The Crucifixion (after Jacopo Tintoretto)1671, by Grinling Gibbons.
It’s a shame that this was behind glass and that my photo hasn’t come out too clearly. It seems astonishing to me that it can even be possible to render such a complex scene so convincingly in three dimensions. A bit of lazy research reveals that Grinling Gibbons is ‘Britain’s most celebrated wood-carver’. (He was Dutch). Or, more hyperbolically, ‘the Michelangelo of wood-carving’. Certainly, he is, in my limited knowledge, the leader in a field of one, since I couldn’t name another wood-carver.
I’ve seen his art in other country houses and I’m always hugely impressed.
Angry boars bowl.
It turns out that the National Trust have an online inventory of items they own, in many cases with photographs, which can be searched. It’s fascinating, but slightly troubling since now that I’m aware of it I’m sure that it will swallow large chunks of my time as I get absorbed looking for interesting stuff I’ve spotted. Dunham Massey has a particularly rich collection with 25,489 entries. I’m afraid that I gave up looking for this, what…bowl, tureen?…I couldn’t see it amongst all of the silver and there was nothing this fancy in with the pewter items.
State bed, 1680. The ostrich and heron feather plumes were replaced in 2007.
I believe that one of my great-grandmothers worked as an ostrich feather curler for a milliner, when fascinators were all the rage. Not much call for that today. I like a hat, I’ve acquired two new ones of late, but I’ve never had one decorated with ostrich feathers.
Stags in Bradgate Park.
Bradgate Park, in Leicestershire, belonged to the Grey family, like Dunham Massey. Although it was a bit of a drive from where we lived, it was my favourite childhood destination for a weekend day out. So, I was drawn to these silver stags. It turns out that the sculpture has a fascinating history of its own. (Which, even though the article is from the National Trust is disappointingly not linked to the National Trust’s inventory – can’t help thinking that they’re missing a trick there).
Dunham Massey interior.Ethiopian silver gilt filigree oval box. Gift from Haile Selassie.
The Grey family were friends of Haile Selassie. I’ve had an interest in him since learning at school of his 1936 speech to the League of Nations about the Italian invasion of Abyssinia. There’s also a brilliant Wilfred Thesiger book, which tells, in part, of his childhood in Abyssinia and his own friendship with Ras Tafari (who became Haile Selassie when crowned emperor). I can’t lay hands on the book at present, but maybe I’m thinking of his autobiography ‘The Life of My Choice’?
Ethiopian shield. The hatchment of Elizabeth Billage, Countess of Stamford and Warrington (d.1854)Dunham Massey interior.Eighteenth Century side table. Walnut and scagliola.
As a card game enthusiast, I was taken with this table. I assumed that it had a marble top, but apparently it’s scagliola, which is essentially imitation marble made with gypsum plaster. It fooled me!
The butler’s room?The kitchen.Back outside.Magnificent planting.
The gardens were superb, bursting with colour and interesting plants.
Spanish Flag.
I took lots of photos of individual specimens which I shall never get around to planting in our own garden, whatever my intentions. I think this was my favourite.
The Orangery.The Bark House.The Mill.
We were too late for a tour of the mill. We will have to come back, what a shame!
Another view of the Mill.The water wheel.The stables again.
This has been a year of National Trust property visits for us and I’ve really enjoyed them all. (Spoiler alert, guess what we did with our remaining two days in Cheshire*?) The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree and our daughter A asked for National Trust membership for Christmas and was enjoying it at Cragside in Northumberland just yesterday.
(*Before a pedant, like me, puts me right, I think Dunham Massey may actually be in Greater Manchester. Meh.)
For the final day of our bank holiday weekend the consensus was that we’d already done enough hill walking. Curious decision! The rest of the party all had their eye on a bit of swimming. In particular, the DBs wanted to check out the potential of the rope swing they had spotted the day before by the river Cocker.
A short walk from the car park, we found this relatively deep pool, and agreed that it looked like a good spot for a swim. A and I were quite quickly in the water. At which point, the DBs declared their intention to ‘go a bit further’. The lure of the rope swing was clearly irresistible.
Rope swing fun.
A and I had a good swim, accompanied by the sounds of splashing and laughter from the DBs upstream. TBH faffed about but didn’t quite commit to a swim. This photo and the video below are actually from later in the day, when it transpired that the boys had not fully scratched their flinging-themselves-into-the-river itch.
B somersaulting into the river. Video – click on the image to watch on flickr.
Anyway, once we were all reunited, we walked a little further, along the shore of the lake, looking for a sheltered spot, out of the fairly strong wind, for lunch. We didn’t really find one, but eventually stopped by this popular section of ‘beach’.
A Crummock Water swim – very choppy.
TBH announced her intention to go for a swim and invited us all to join her. The wind was quite fierce and there was some debate, but eventually we were all in the lake. It was choppy and so not as pleasant as the swim in the river had been, but I didn’t manage much swimming this summer, the water wasn’t too cold, so it was still counted as a bit of a bonus. And at least, in the wind, we were soon dry once we emerged.
The DBs in the lake.S up a tree.
Before we headed back to the car, there was still time for the DBs to do some tree-climbing and, as I said, some more swinging, flinging and swimming.
How he got there. Video – click on the image to watch on flickr.
The first forty seconds or so are pretty uneventful, just S contemplating his moves, so best to skip that part, but I thought his eventual ascent was fairly impressive. It must be nice to be that supple and agile!
We had a terrific weekend and there seems to be plenty of enthusiasm for something similar next summer, if we can fit it around their other, rather grander plans. I’m not sure a static caravan will cut it next time however, since it seems likely that we will be a party of eight, with their respective partners joining us too. Any bright ideas about where we could book gratefully received!
On the Sunday of the Bank Holiday weekend we had a wander up Mellbreak. By the River Cocker, the DBs had a play with a rope swing and filed away the location of the swing, for a plan they were hatching.
Heading towards Mellbreak.Whiteside and Grasmoor across Crummock Water.
The first part of the ascent was very warm work. Then the next bit was steep and loose. Some members of the party were less than impressed, and not too shy about expressing their disapproval, but somehow or other we all managed the climb without loss of life or limb.
S in a precipitous spot. Loweswater and Darling Fell and Low Fell beyond.Fruit pastille stop. Grasmoor, Whiteless Pike, Robinson, Fleetwith Pike and Crummock Water. Whiteside and Grasmoor across Crummock Water.Approaching the north top of Mellbreak.Mellbreak summit from the vicinity of the north top.
Mellbreak only has the one Wainwright but the north top is both a Birkett and a Synge, as is the fairly insignificant bump Scale Knott which we bagged during our descent, more by good luck than judgement.
Robinson, Fleetwith Pike, High Stile, Red Pike, Crummock Water and Buttermere.
There was some dissent about the slight detour we took to visit Scale Force, although I think the consensus was eventually that it was well worth the small extra effort.
Scale Force.
Of course, the DBs had to clamber up the greasy rocks at the side of this small fall to get a better look at the longer drop above. In honesty, it didn’t look very challenging, but there were a lot of people about and I opted for discretion more because I was worried about the potential audience for my inelegant scrabbling than about the climb itself. Next time. I’ve visited Scale Force before, but not for several decades, so I can’t remember if I struggled up there on those previous occasions.
Robinson and Fleetwith Pike.Grasmoor, Whiteless Pike, Rannerdale Knotts.
The walk back along the shore of Crummock Water was very pleasant, although it did feel like quite a long way. It can’t have been that far, since the entire route was only a little over 8 miles.
B and TBH beside Cogra Moss. Sharp Knott, Blake Fell beyond.
Perhaps because my Wainwrights progress is prominently on display on a map hanging on the wall at the bottom of our stairs, with the ticked-off summits colour-coded by year in pencil-crayon* shading, TBH is aware that I’ve made a lot of headway in the South and East of the Lakes, but am a little behind in the North and West, and has decided to help me out. Hence her suggestion for a location in the North-west of Cumbria for our Bank Holiday weekend trip.
*Note: pencil-crayon, not wax. This hill-bagging business is serious stuff!
You’d think then that I would obligingly pick a Wainwright-heavy bagging-fest for our first walk of the weekend. But looking at the map, the closest hills to our accommodation were the fells around Cogra Moss. Since I visited the area west of Loweswater last year I’ve been very conscious of the fact that Cogra Moss is a significant body of water in the Lakes which I had never visited. I was also struck that day by the very shapely Knock Murton and have wanted to return to climb it. And so, I chose a route with only a solitary Wainwright and that not a new one. And so it was that we set-off from the car park at Fell Dyke heading toward Cogra Moss. It turned out to be an excellent choice.
Sciara flies. “Dark-winged fungus gnats.”
Wikipedia says, “Commonly known as Dark-winged fungus gnats.” Commonly known? How commonly? I don’t remember any of my acquaintances ever casually slipping dark-winged fungus gnats into a conversation, recently or otherwise. I must be keeping the wrong company! Apparently, they are considered a pest in mushroom farming. I thought they were quite striking in this profusion. It’s the larvae which eat mushrooms, not the adults, who are content with nectar.
A ‘wooly bear’?
I assumed that this quite small hairy caterpillar was a ‘wooly bear’, that is a Garden Tiger Moth caterpillar. However, pictures online show those having some orange and white colouring as well as the black. White Ermine Moths have hairy black caterpillars too, but also not entirely black. Things are further confused by the fact that caterpillars change as they mature, sometimes quite considerably. So…who knows?
Unfortunately, when we reached the point in the forestry where the path departed to climb Knock Murton, we missed it. Realising my mistake, I turned back, but when I did find the path it was obvious why we had missed it – tree-felling had blocked the route and as a result the path must have fallen into disuse and was barely evident on the ground. We could have looped around the far end of the forestry and taken an off-piste route to the top, but TBH is not keen on pathless terrain. So we didn’t. I was tempted to call the post ‘Not Knock Murton’, which has a certain ring to it. Ah well, another time!
Instead, spotting a sketchy path heading southwards I opted to replace Knock Murton with an unscheduled visit to Godworth, an alternative Birkett (and a Synge, a double whammy). The path seemed to actually continue southward, heading for Croasdale, but as we considered turning back, S spotted an even sketcheir path branching off towards Godworth.
Climbing Godworth on a very sketchy path.
On Godworth, a very early lunch was taken. Walks with TBH and A invariably involve a very early lunch, otherwise they both get hangry.
Crag Fell and Grike above Ennerdale Water from Godworth.Low Pen and High Pen with Blake Fell beyond from Godworth.
The onward path from Godworth toward Lamplugh Fell (tops Low Pen and High Pen in the photo above) started out with great promise, but became less and less obvious as we continued. By the time we reached Low Pen we’d pretty much given up on it.
Knock Murton.Looking back to Godworth.Fox Moth Caterpillar.
I think Fox Moth caterpillars have probably appeared on the blog more often than any other kind of caterpillar. I don’t know if it’s because they are particularly common, or just that they stand out so clearly on our fellsides. They are a good example of the changeability of caterpillars as they age: this is a relatively immature example I believe, older specimens look markedly different.
Pupa.
Google lens wants to persuade me that this is a Crane Fly pupa, but I think they pupate underground and this was found on some heather, so I suspect it may be wrong. On the other hand, I don’t have an alternative identification.
Knock Murton and Cogra Moss from Low Pen.Sharp Knott and Blake Fell.Gavel Fell.Another Fox Moth caterpillar. Fruit pastille stop on the ascent of Blake Fell.
Fruit pastille tops are a new innovation, which I thoroughly approve of. The kids seemed quite keen too.
TBH and A approaching the top of Blake Fell.
Lots of lakeland fells on display in the background. Fleetwith Pike stands out, just above and right of A’s head. TBH and I walked the long ridge right of that, from Great Bourne to High Stile in October. (Actually, we walked a bit further, but High Stile is the last hill on that ridge that you can see in this view. We also did Pillar the following day, which is right of High Stile, towering over Starling Dodd*.) To the left of TBH Grasmoor looms over Mellbreak. Notice the exceptionally steep northern shoulder of Mellbreak, we tackled it the day after this walk, which decision wasn’t universally popular, but more of that in my next post.
*I’m aware that this is a useless direction, if you don’t know which is Starling Dodd. Quite possibly on a par with Ted Lowe’s famous snooker commentary “for those of you who are watching in black and white, the pink is next to the green”. Obviously, Starling Dodd is the one directly in front of Pillar, so that’s all cleared up!
The DBs enjoying the view to the west Cumbrian coast.Knock Murton and Cogra Moss. Marred by forestry.Happy family summit photo.Blake Fell from Sharp Knott.
You can pick out the excellent path which descends from Blake Fell towards Sharp Knott in the photo above.
Another fruit pastille stop, on Sharp Knott.
The DBs are playing noughts and crosses here, by scratching on pieces of slate. Who said the ipad generation don’t know how to make their own fun?
Later, on our way down, they challenged TBH to some javelin practice…
Stick throwing competition.Knock Murton and Cogra Moss.Knock Murton seen across Cogra Moss.Blake Fell and Lamplugh Fell across Cogra Moss.The DBs doing their thing.
There were a couple of benches on this diminutive islet, I suspect for fishermen. The pontoon stopped short of the shore, my guess is to stop grockles like us doing exactly what the DBs have done here. They went back and forth a few times, but somehow neither managed to fall in. I filmed them just in case…
The DBs doing their thing.Video – click on the image to go to flickr and watch their derring do.
So – a superb route. Blake Fell from this direction becomes the centre of attention, as befits the highest hill in the group. It would have been even better, no doubt, had we managed to get up Knock Merton, but that will wait for another day.
Some stats: MapMyWalk gives around 6½ miles and 420 metres of ascent, which both seem about right. Blake Fell is the only Wainwright, but Godworth, Low Pen, High Pen, and Sharp Knott are all Birketts and all new to me. Curiously, they are all Synges as well, except for Low Pen. Both lists are subjective, barring the fact that they both have a lower height limit of 1000′ (I think). There are far more Synges than Birketts, so this exclusion might be unusual, but on the whole I think I agree – High Pen is a worthy inclusion, but Low Pen doesn’t have much to add.
“Don’t look now, they’ve all got chips. Wait for them to get out of the car. Wait for it, wait for it…”
We were out again later, for a fish and chip supper in Workington. The lady in the shop was incredibly patient as we chopped and changed our order repeatedly. We drove down to the shore to eat them and would have gotten out of the car, but thought better of it when the chap in the neighbouring vehicle wound down his window and almost instantly had the company of local thugs, otherwise known as Herring Gulls, flying into his car to strongarm him out of his grub.
Workington Docks.A view over Workington to the fells.Crucifixion Cross on The Howe. With the seemingly inevitable Cross of St. George. Admiring the view from The Howe along the coast towards St. Bees Head.
The Howe, which has pretty good views, is a slag heap apparently. The unusual crucifixion was apparently built as a memorial without planning permission, but I gather it now has leave to remain.
Descending the Howe. Criffel in the distance?Late light on the beach.
Beating The Bounds 
