Lost Lanes North sample by Jack Thurston

No.1
POETRY IN MOTION
An intimate journey into the heart of Lakeland taking
in some of its best-loved lakes and tarns
For the steady stream of Romantic poets and their
admirers who made the journey to Dove Cottage,
the damp, cramped home where William Wordsworth
and his sister Dorothy spent eight years of
“plain living, but high thinking”, the road from
Ambleside was the finishing straight of a journey that
might have taken several days or more. The likes of
Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Thomas De Quincey
would have walked along the road, but today’s A591
is so busy with motor traffic that it’s fit for neither
walking nor cycling. The car is a modern development
that would have shocked, and likely horrified,
the sensitive, poetic souls who came to the Lakes as
an escape from the noise and the stink of city life at
the start of the Industrial Revolution.
There is a good alternative route in the form
of a quiet lane and an off-road track on the far
side of Rydal Water and Grasmere, from where
there are sublime views across to Nab Scar and
Heron Pike. Grasmere heaves with tourists but it
is a short detour off the route if you want to make
the pilgrimage to Dove Cottage (an essential
port of call for any Wordsworth fan A). After
this gentle lakeside warm-up, the hard riding
begins with a lung-busting climb up Red Bank
and over to Great Langdale. This is one of the
Lake District’s great mountain crucibles, with
the jagged line of the Langdale Pikes dominating
the skyline. There’s plenty of time to savour
the view on the stiff climb out of the valley. At
the top, in a hanging valley between Great and
Little Langdale, is Blea Tarn B. Wordsworth
described it in The Excursion, “A quiet treeless
nook, with two green fields, a liquid pool that
glittered in the sun, and one bare dwelling; one
abode, no more!” This was the dwelling place of
Wordsworth’s The Solitary, a man so plagued by
loss and tragedy that he chose to live apart from
society. The house is still there and the tarn is
swimmable on a fine day.
Little Langdale sits at the foot of Wrynose
Pass, a connecting route to Ride No. 2 and the
Western Lakes. A good bridleway leads through
the woods towards Coniston. Along the way are
remnants of old mines and slate quarries and it’s
well worth turning right just after the ford to
take a look at Cathedral Cave C, a spectacular
chamber in an old slate quarry. Leave your bikes
at the bottom of the path but take a bike light with
you in case you want to venture deeper.
After rejoining the road in High Tilberthwaite,
look out for Touchstone Fold D, a slate sheepfold
made by the artist Andy Goldsworthy. He is best
known for his installations out of rocks, ice,
leaves or branches, which he photographs as they
change with the passage of time and the force of
START & FINISH: Ambleside • DISTANCE: 33 miles / 54km • TOTAL ASCENT: 890m
TERRAIN: Mostly lanes, a few sections of good gravel track. Moderate.
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