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We flew through Heathrow where we stayed overnight at the nearby Crowne Plaza hotel (this has become a favorite). We rented a car for the duration of our stay and drove up to Kendal which is very near the Scottish border and Hadrian's Wall.
We had a brief visit with the Fry's in Woking (our sort of No. 2 mom and dad), a day with our friend Sam from Winnipeg in Oxford and an overnight with Chris (our sort of No.1 son) who was attending university at Nottingham. I'll focus on the visit to Kendal and the Lake District.
The Lake District National Park is a hilly area (the Brit's would say mountainous) jutting into the Irish Sea with the Isle of Mann to the west. Kendal is inland a bit on the southeast side, Carlisle inland a bit to the north east and bounds the top of the Park with the Firth of Soloway, Scotland and what remains of Hadrian's Wall to the north of that. Kendal and Carlisle are a major market towns in the area, but neither is very big — perhaps 25,000 in Kendal.
Kendal is a pretty town in a valley traversed by the Kent River which flows south to the Irish Sea at Morecambe Bay. There are a ton of old buildings made out of the local stone and has come to be known as "Auld Grey Town". In the middle ages the town was a source of woolen cloth — not surprising given the countryside and the many sheep wandering about to this day.
We stayed at Stonecross Manor Hotel in Kendal. For me it was a short walk into the town center which I explored over several days. We had a nice room with a four post bed and could look to the north from our window to see the hills and countryside. Kate had her meetings here. It's quite a comfortable old stone hotel.
Kate was particularly interested in visiting the border town of Carlisle to the north as we've learned that her ancestors, the Grahams, weren't Irish (well they came from Ireland to Canada) but rather Border Reivers in the middle ages (basically hooligans who terrorized the locals). They were kicked out and sent to Ireland. There's even a story about a collection being taken up by the locals to pay to be get rid of them and their ilk. We did make a day trip on Tuesday to Carlisle and did find some evidence of there having been Grahams there. Unlike Kendal, Carlisle seems to be mostly of red brick construction. The drive north took us through farm country - mostly pasture land for more of the many sheep.
Within Kendal itself I've mentioned already the many stone buildings. In several places there's long streets of stone row houses with chimney pots. There's an historic stone "Miller Bridge" across the river that's quite pretty, a nearby historic Trinity Church and Abbot Hall Art Gallery. On the east side of the river on top of a small knoll there's the remains of an old castle.
On Wednesday I drove into the Lake District and took some pictures on Lake Windermere. It was a fall day with leaves turning color and not many tourists around. I gather in the summer time there are lots of people vacationing on the lake. This lake is long and narrow and the biggest of the lot. The picture above is from Bowness Bay on the lake. There's a good sized tourist town there called Bowness-on-Windermere (aptly named). Boating on the lake is a popular summer event. Not so on the day I visited — far too cool for that. But there was a tour boat taking people out for the far colors.
From the lake I headed to the coast for some seaside views.
On Thursday, with Kate and her meeting friends, we drove west to the same Lake Windermere and then north to the village of Grasmere nestled in a valley by a couple of smaller lakes for a bit of touristing, some lunch and a visit to the poet William Wordsworth's Dove Cottage. He was one of the "English Romantic Poets" who popularized a pastoral view of the Lake District and the modest/simple country living that he enjoyed there. Kate knows far more about poetry than me — I get Woodsworth and Wordsworth mixed up! These days the Lake District is still very much a pastoral environment — pastures, rough stone walls and lots of sheep. It's a popular tourist area for those who want to get out of the city and rent rough stone cottages. It's also a popular hiking destination — especially if you can hike out of the valleys and onto the hill tops.
On Friday, Martin and I drove south to the coast to the Leighton Moss Sanctuary, Carnforth. It's a marshy area managed by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. We did some see some birds, nothing terribly interesting but then we didn't have the equipment for birding. There were other fellows who were far better equipped.
My final visit, near Keswick to the north, was the Castlerigg Stone Circle. It's another, but smaller, Stonehenge kind of place. Much more modest but equally mysterious. When this was built: prehistoric times. Why this was built: lost to history.
We drove a car load of Kate's chums from the meeting back to Heathrow Airport on Saturday where we all flew off to our various destinations. For us, it was home to St Marys via Toronto.
