Читать книгу Cycling in the Lake District. Week-long tours and day rides онлайн

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Similarly the picturesque Tarn Hows may look as though it has been there forever, but it too is man-made. It was created in the mid-19th century for James Garth Marshall, MP and owner of nearby Monk Coniston Hall, as part of a series of landscaping projects he commissioned once he gained full possession of all the surrounding land after an enclosure act of 1862. In 1930 the Marshall family sold much of their land to Beatrix Heelis of Sawrey, – better known by her maiden name, the writer and illustrator Beatrix Potter – who then sold the half of this land containing the tarn to the National Trust and bequeathed the other half to them along with other land and properties in her will following her death in 1943.

Looking back it is fortuitous that the National Trust became such an important landowner and the Lake District National Park was established just at the right time. As the declining mining and quarrying were at risk of being replaced by other detrimental industries and as mass tourism was about to boom, these bodies came into being and were able to protect the landscape from unrestricted planning; some would say somewhat over-zealously. But the attraction of the Lake District is its beauty and its easy accessibility and if it was not for its considered conservation by these two bodies it is doubtful whether so many of us would find it such a magnet.