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Rydal the Lake District

Perhaps more, for I am willing that the good little river should have all it can fairly claim; it is the Saint Lawrence of several of the English lakes, through which it flows, and carries off their superfluous waters. In its haste, and with its rushing sound, it was pleasant both to see and hear; and it sweeps by one side of the old churchyard where Wordsworth is buried.

Rydal is a hamlet of few buildings but great interest. Leave 591 by the side road (signed Rydal Mount): there is a little parking on this road. To the R (E) is Rydal Hall (house not open; gardens open daily; car park for visitors), now a conference and retreat centre for the Diocese of Carlisle, formerly the family home of the Le Flemings. Sir Daniel Le Fleming, a pioneer of Lake District topography, wrote here a Description of the County of Westmoreland (1671), the first history of the county, and a Survey of Westmoreland and Cumberland in 1671, one of the earliest topographical descriptions. In 1652 he commissioned paintings of Rydal Hall and garden (out of ye Round Close), of ye grotto (out of ye Little House) and of ye Vale from Rydal Hall to Windermere water out of ye best Chamber window probably the first Lakeland landscape paintings. More of 'ye grotto' later.

The Hall had been newly enlarged and repainted in 1799 when Coleridge and Wordsworth walked through the grounds to visit the Cascades. They were met by a servant who 'came to us ... to reprove us for having passed before the front of the House': a trespass Coleridge thought roughly equal 'with the Trespass on the Eye by his damned White washing!'.

To reach the Rydal Cascades, follow the drive below the house and along in front of it to a stone bridge. Close to it are the Lower Falls; higher up you will see the Upper Falls, spanned by a second bridge. Beside the first bridge is a small stone hut, the Grotto. This is a 'viewing house', built in 1669 and probably the oldest in England. Its large rectangular window, facing the Falls, was designed to frame the view. It provides a perfectly composed living picture and may claim to be the birthplace of the 'picturesque' appreciation of landscape.

The Grotto is now used for prayer and contemplation and is not open (perhaps the present owners might consider a regular hour or day when the Grotto could be open to visitors?). So much has been written about the Cascades that one could compile a complete history of taste from the descriptions. They first became famous when William Mason (in 1775) lamented Thomas Gray's failure to visit them:

His greatest loss was in not seeing a small waterfall visible through the window of a ruined summerhouse in Sir Michael's orchard. Here Nature has performed everything in little that she usually executes on her largest scale; and, on that account, like the miniature painter, seems to have finished every part of it in a studied manner; not a little fragment of rock thrown into the basin, not a single stem of brushwood that starts from its craggy sides, but has its picturesque meaning; and the little central stream dashing down a cleft of the darkest colored stone, produces an effect of light and shadow beautiful beyond description. This little theatrical scene might be painted as large as the original, on a canvas not bigger than those which are usually dropped at the Opera house.

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