Old Guide Books

 

I must admit to lurking for too long in second hand bookshops and charity stores, searching for old guide books, maps and pamphlets - there is something about them that seems to connect to a recent but disappeared past of longed for holidays, of fresh air, of freedom from work. The one that has held my attention for the last three weeks or so has been by WT Palmer, On Foot in Lakeland, published by the Westmorland Gazette in 1938.  It has several hand drawn maps within, and a wonderful rizla thin fold out map inside the front cover. 

This is not a book for the mimsying walker. Several of the walks are over 15 miles long, and a long weekend would easily achieve 50 miles, centred either on Ambleside or Keswick. A 10 mile walk is described as being perfect for a sunny summer afternoon, with plenty to interest, and a shorter one from Kendal to Levens is ‘a very pleasant Thursday or Saturday afternoon walk’.

A walk in the Buttermere area  includes all the fells to both the south and north of the lake, which would almost be unheard of now, unless the aim was to challenge. I feel I would like to meet these old ramblers, who would think nothing of an extra 5 miles to get to Ambleside or Coniston, after walking the length of the Duddon, uphill, from Broughton In Furness.