During the last 200 years or so, no area of Britain has had more praise lavished upon it than the Lake District. What is it about this north-west corner of England that inspires poets and artists and causes visitors to return time and time again to its familiar beauties? The easy answer is the scenery, but this is not the whole of it - after all, there is fine scenery in other parts of the country and if we begin to particularise then the Lake District loses appeal. For example, there is no mountain in the Lake District which has the majesty of form that Tryfan has in Snowdonia, no ridge anything like as savage as those of the Cuillins and no valley as pretty as Dovedale in Derbyshire.
The truth, one suspects, is that in the Lake District the whole is more than a sum of the parts. Each facet of the landscape is not only attractive within itself but it integrates into its surroundings more than its rivals do in other regions. The eye is led on from one glorious feature to the next in a continuous progression until the scene fades into the faraway blue mountains, and you feel compelled to travel towards them, hoping and expecting more delights. And if you do follow the trail you are never disappointed.
And surely this explains the popularity? The Lake District is in direct contrast with life itself, for a trail in life can so often lead to disappointments. In the Lake District every man is a Hassan: a Pilgrim who must always move towards the Last Blue Mountain.
Photographs courtesy of Cameron's Hillwalking Club
Ever since the time when men ceased to regard mountains with abhorrence, the Lake District has attracted those with talent and vision. Some were fortunate enough to be born here: Wordsworth and Romney, for example, or in our time, Norman Nicholson. Others were off-comers, Southey, De Quincey, Coleridge, Ruskin - these were men of international reputation in the arts. The Lake Poets, and following them John Ruskin, spread the fame of the Lake District round the world, but the fame would have come in any case during the nineteenth century for when Romanticism was at its height what could be more of a romantic ideal than the lakes and crags of Lakeland?
Certainly it has some underlying charisma that affects every succeeding generation. I find it not insignificant that it was in the Lake District that the National Trust was conceived, the first Youth Hostel in Britain and the first Outwood Bound School both opened.