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Lake District railways

The railway came in the 1860s, the thirty-one miles (50km) of track connecting Penrith with Cocker mouth, one of the stations Bassenthwaite Lake having an especially long nameplate. The single-track system, which for some of the way played hide-and-seek with the Greta, needed well over 100 bridges. Along it came coke for the ironworks of west Cumberland and, for Keswick, a trickle of tourists that was to become a flood. Plans for another railway, submitted by the Buttermere Green Slate Company, which was anxious to improve the transportation of slate to the outer world, would deface the Newland Valley and Borrowdale en route. The opposition was led by the Rev Hardwicke Rawnsley, vicar of Crosthwaite, and the railway plan was shelved.

Rawnsley became a pioneer of conservation in the Lake District and co-founder of the organization that in 1895 became the National Trust. Its first acquisition, in 1902, was woodland at Brandelhow, on the shores of Derwentwater. The Keswick district was still a relatively quiet area that periodically heard the toot and clatter of trains.

To a writer in 1901, a passing locomotive was but an occasional distraction to anyone who was trudging across Lathing. 'At long intervals there is a rattle and a brief commotion, a cloud of smoke, a stampede of wood pigeons, and a scuttle of rabbits'; then 'the horrid thing' was gone. Among the Lakeland eccentrics was Millikan Dalton, self-styled Professor of Adventure, who was born in 1867 and lived for a time in a cave on Castle Crag, Borrowable. George and Ashley Abraham, who became known as the Keswick Brothers, and were outstanding climbers, are noted for their photographic record of Victorian rock-climbing and for their superb scenic photography.

Hugh Walpole, the novelist creator of the Herries family, and who had special associations with Borrowdale, died in 1941. His grave, marked by a Celtic cross, is on the terrace at St John's Church, Keswick. He chose the spot himself on a springtime visit, when as he wrote the churchyard was 'scattered with snowdrops'. Walpole added: 'The view from the churchyard was superb In front, the hills, just touched with rose; behind, the little grey street, quite silent (A collection of Walpole manuscripts and memorabilia associated with the writer is to be seen in Keswick's Fitz Park Museum.)

In the spring of 1946, following an accident to a climber on Great Gable, the Keswick Mountain Rescue team came into being. Local Horace (Rusty) Westmorland, a retired army officer and a member of a family who had long found pleasure in climbing on the fells, was its instigator. The team is made up of volunteers.

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