Books Cumbria : History : Lake District History : An Excursion to the Lakes in Westmoreland and Cumberland 1773

An Excursion to the Lakes in Westmoreland and Cumberland 1773
William Hutchinson
£12.00

William Hutchinson's spirited account of his 'summer's excursion' to the Lakes in 1773 has a good claim to be the first published guidebook to the district. It is essentially a picturesque tour, varied with detailed accounts of the ruined castles, stone circles and other antiquities to be found en route.
A solicitor from Barnard Castle, County Durham, Hutchinson was a versatile man of letters who could turn his hand with equal facility to poetry, fiction, playwrighting, and historical research as well as sketching out the illustrations for his books.


This edition includes the whole of the 1773 Excursion, published in 1774, together with the Cumberland section of his 1774 Tour through Part of the Northern Counties (1776).

Publisher : Bookcase
Published : March 2016
Pages : 166p
Format : Paperback; 209 x 146mm
Illustrations : Black & white photographs throughout
ISBN : 9781904147923

An Excursion to the Lakes in Westmoreland and Cumberland 1773
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Review


Book review by Steve Matthews of Bookends.

Wigton he found "a neat little market town". The church with its gothic and antique tower he said "was supposed to be a thousand years old". He was visiting in 1774, before today's church was built. The Solway Plain was "varied with all the happy colourings of meads, cornlands and woods, interspersed with villages and villas".
He was impressed with Carlisle: "The streets are kept remarkably clean, the principal of which is very spacious, and contains many modern and elegant houses." The castle, with its broken walls, he found deserted: "its garrison consisted of one poor invalid".
He was excited by Corby Castle, "seated on the brink of a stupendous cliff". Here the River Eden seemed "adorned with a thousand beauties; every turn and every avenue affords a rich sylvan scene, where, amidst the hanging shades of oak, bold rocks project". He inspected the fine grounds, the canal and the grottoes and was much taken with the echoes: "the chambers form a fine echo, and the adjacent eminences give several distinct repeats as the sound follows the channel of the river."
Brampton was "a little market town situated under lofty hills". He ventured up "a formidable mount called the Moat" and went to view the rocks at Geltsdale.
Lanercost Priory he found "an august pile, situated in a fertile plain, washed by the River Irthing, on every hand environed with woods, which add greatly to the solemnity of the situation". The overgrown ruins, the solemn atmosphere and the graves of ancient noble families moved William Hutchinson to melancholy reflections as he considered "what small estimate will he not put on earthly things?"
He was overawed by Naworth Castle: "the doors almost cased with iron, and moving with bolts and rumbling hinges, give a thundering signal of every visitor's approach".
He left Cumberland following the military road into Hexhamshire.
William Hutchinson was a wonderful traveller. Slightly pompous, rather full of himself, but observant and keen to report on the landscape and the antiquities he saw. At times he falls into a reverie as he meditates on distant times and the passing of the years.
This middle-aged attorney from Barnard Castle was one of the first to publish a tour of the Lakes. In fact he described almost the full course of two circular tours from his home and described his route over the Pennines and through Penrith as well as the journey back through the north of Cumberland. The first excursion was undertaken with his brother, who was a student and an artist. The second tour was made two years later after his brother had died.
On "Hullswater", sitting in the middle of the lake in the Duke of Norfolk's boat he listened astonished as each of six brass cannon were fired in turn and the sound of each shot reverberated seven times around the surrounding hills. In Keswick he sailed on Derwentwater at night, was fleeced by the boatman, saw the Lodore Falls and the Floating Island and complained about his drunken landlord. He also climbed Skiddaw, mush against the advice of his fearful guide, in a thunderstorm.
There is a pleasure in reading the reflections of an able, ordinary man, with his prejudices, passions and enthusiasms as he travelled through familiar places almost two hundred and fifty years ago.
Antony Seward in his appropriate and thoughtful introduction to Hutchinson and his times adds to the enjoyment of this armchair excursion into the past of the two counties.