Coledale and Buttermere

Footpath erosion is often raised as a matter of concern and there are still wild optimists who think that it can all be repaired. Coledale is only one example of the hundreds of miles of fell path severe wear and tear and there is no way that any very serious headway can be made in restoration. This is really an aesthetic issue rather than one of conservation, as footpaths take up only a small fraction of the vast area of fell land. Given the great number of walkers taking to the fells nowadays, my own view is that there is no solution to this problem.

At the Hause we follow the path for Buttermere southwards, then southwest to the top end of White less Edge, and an astonishing view bursts open. How to describe the impression? It is like the ecstatic climax to a great symphony. I am not saying that it is the greatest view in the Lake District. There are others comparable. But, as the Cumbrian farmer says when something is exceptionally wonderful: 'It'll do!'

Weare still standing among the fells of Skidda w Slate but the distant peaks of the Borrowdale Volcanics seize the attention. And what an array! From the distant east we can see the Helvellyn range: Fairfield, then moving south, Glaramara, Bowfell, Great End, Great Gable, Scafell Pike and Scafell. It is a complex gathering of heights.

This expansive view tells a story which tantalizes the interpreter. It covers changes over an immensity of time volcanic eruptions, folding and faulting, and the effects of Ice Age erosion. The change of course continues, for there is nothing in the whole wide world that stands still. Weather erosion is gradually leveling the hills and silting the lakes. There is no beginning and no end; only change, which to us might be imperceptible. The scene is dynamic. If, from our viewpoint, it appears reassuringly and restfully static it is because we are prisoners of human time. And there is no word in any language to describe how infinitesimal that is in the context of geological time.

If we stand in awe at such a scene as this, is it because we are intuitively aware of an existence, an absoluteness, immeasurably greater than we can even dream of? We stand, fragile creatures of a moment, poised in eternity. What are we? What do we pretend to be? What, in the tremendous universal scheme of things, do we possibly imagine is so vitally important in our busy toils and pre occupations down in our human ant hills?

But we must move on to enjoy the scenic bounty that is offered to us. Below is Buttermere, with the bold Borrowdale Volcanic cliffs of High Crag, High Stile and Ennerdale Granite Red Pike behind; and Crummock Water with Mellbreak behind that; and Loweswater to the northwest. White less Pike is our next destination, hovering at the end of a ridge and saddle before us. From this point it feels as if we might be looking from a masthead towards the prow of a ship. The prow, the Pike, is soon reached and here we are directly above Buttermere, looking down on the whole of its delectable beauty. We descend southwards to it.

The settlement is a small hamlet of two hotels, a tiny chapel, and one or two farmhouses. Father West, in his eighteenth century guidebook states that here 'The life of the inhabitants is purely pastoral. A few hands are employed in the slate quarries' and 'the women spin woollen yarn and drink tea'. On this latter point, did some cynical Buttermerian male chauvinist con the cleric? Considering the price of tea in those days, the ladies may have been gaily drinking away the meagre profit on the yarn! Or was it smuggled tea? In 1784 Pitt the Younger calculated that almost half the tea drunk in Britain at that time was smuggled in.



John Jones writes for lake district boutique spa hotel