Tag Archives: Tarn Hows

Fell Walk, General, Ghost Story, Lake District, Legend, Literature, Mountains

Troubled Waters – The Unquiet Graves of Coniston

September 24, 2023 George Kitching 12 Comments

The ghosts of two ill-fated lovers haunt Yewdale Beck, the victims in a centuries-old tale of abduction, murder, and revenge. The spirit of a Victorian smuggler disturbs a young family in 1960’s Skelwith; and Dow Crag is home to an ancient raven, condemned by a Druid to live for millennia.

Under Yewdale Bridge the beck burbles over a bed of smooth stone, its waters glossed with the warm patina of antique pewter, like the dull sheen of old tankards in a tavern, and with just as many stories to tell.

A little way up the lane, The Cumbria Way leaves Shepherd’s Bridge to shyly handrail Yewdale Beck through Blackguards Wood to Low Yewdale, where it forks right to the dappled shade of Tarn Hows Wood, and beyond to the tarns themselves.

On the way, the outstretched limbs of broadleaf trees escape their leafy boas to point bony fingers earthward as if betraying unseen secrets. And over the lush green canopy and carpet of summer bracken, something more imposing looms. The vicious crags of the Yewdale fells rise like chiselled fangs of volcanic fury. Holme Fell is a mauve castle of rugged towers and ramparts, a primeval stronghold keeping eternal watch over the leafy pastures below.

A shower of summer rain softens the light, and as beams of sun slowly re-emerge to spotlight the higher crags of Wetherlam Edge, a rainbow forms over the Tilberthwaite Fells, imparting an air of eerie mystery. And such a feeling is fitting, as the banks of Yewdale Beck are supposedly haunted by the victims of an old and murderous misdeed.

The Giant and the Bower Maiden

Writing in 1849, Dr Alexander Gibson recounts a tale told to him by a racy, terse and poetic “rustic informant”. By Gibson’s time, after a century of neglect, Coniston Hall with its “ivy clad turret-like chimneys” had been repurposed as a barn. Until around 1650, it was the family seat of the Le Fleming family, the Knights of Coniston. When occasion demanded, it was the knight’s duty to raise a small army of men-at-arms to repel marauding bands of Scots or Irish. According to the tale, one of the knights had his efforts galvanised by the arrival of incomer from Troutbeck. The new recruit was a giant of a man, who had recently built himself a hut and taken up residence in “the lonely dell of the tarns” (now Tarn Hows). Standing 9’6” in his stockinged feet, this robust fellow was known as Girt Will O’ The Tarns. When not employed as foot soldier, Will was prized locally as an agricultural labourer.

The Lonely Dell of the Tarns (Tarn Hows)

Now, Le Fleming had a daughter named, Eva who was greatly admired for “her beauty and gentleness, her high-bred dignity and her humble virtues”. Lady Eva, as she was known, had a romantic inclination and loved to row for hours on the lake or stroll through the woods surrounding it. On such excursions, she was invariably accompanied by her favourite bower maiden, Barbara. Eva loved Barbara like a sister, and Barbara herself was so fair, she was capable of turning as many heads as her mistress, but despite a string of local suitors, Barbara only had eyes for Le Fleming’s falconer, a man named (fittingly), Dick Hawksley.

One fine evening, following days of heavy rain, Eva summoned Barbara for a moonlit stroll along the lake shore. As they made their way through the coppiced woods at the head of the lake, Barbara recounted how, on several recent occasions, she had been accosted by Girt Will as she rode to Skelwith to visit her family. Indeed, the last time, he had gone so far as to try and snatch her horse’s rein and might have pulled her from her mount had she not reacted quickly and spurred her steed into a canter. Just as Lady Eva was expressing her shock and indignation at such impertinence, a rustle in bushes cut her short, and in an instant Girt Will appeared. He straightaway snatched up Barbara with the ease that any ordinary man might lift a child, then set off at full tilt into the trees. Barbara’s screams quickly roused Eva from her momentary stupefaction, and she rushed back to the hall to summon help. Dick Hawksley and a few others gave chase on foot, while Eva’s brothers fetched their swords and called for their horses to be saddled.

The pursuers cornered their quarry where Yewdale Beck forms a small pool, known as Cauldron Dub, near Far End cottages on the outskirts of Coniston. With Barbara now a burden and an impediment to fight or flight, Girt Will perpetrated an act of barbaric callousness and hurled his helpless victim into the beck. The beck was in spate after days of heavy rain, and the raging torrent swiftly swallowed Barbara. Dick Hawksley wasted no time in diving in after her. Fleetingly, he reappeared pulling Barbara towards the shore, but the current was too strong, and the entwined lovers were swept headlong downstream. The stunned onlookers quickly divided into two parties, some running along the bank in the hope of affecting a rescue, while the others set off in pursuit of a Girt Will, who had taken advantage of their distraction to hot foot it toward Yewdale.

Any hopes of dragging the lovers from the swollen beck were dashed when they reached Yewdale bridge. The constriction of the channel under the stone arch forced the turbulent waters into a much faster surge, and Dick and Barbara were quickly swept from view.

Meanwhile, their avengers caught up with Girt Will between Low and High Yewdale. Wielding their swords, they succeeded in dodging his swinging club long enough to inflict a myriad of mortal cuts upon his person. Indeed, it was said there was not sufficient skin left on his body to fashion a tobacco pouch. A twelve-foot mound near the path from High Yewdale to Tarn Hows Wood has ever since been known as the Giant’s Grave.

Barbara and Dick remained lost for several days until their drowned bodies washed up on the shore of the lake, still entwined in a lovers’ clinch. The tragic violence of their deaths did not afford a quiet passage to the grave, however, and their spirits are said to haunt the stretch of Yewdale Beck between Cauldron Dub and the bridge.

The Spirit of a Smuggler

Today, below a shifting procession of pregnant cloud and shafts of sun, the waters of Tarn Hows glisten with the steely polish of armour plate, feathered with pinnate patterns of over-hanging rowan leaves and dotted with bunches of blood-red berries.

Beyond the tarns, I leave the Cumbria Way to climb to one of the finest viewpoints in the region, the low summit of Black Crag. Windermere and Coniston Water stretch out towards the Irish Sea like languid slivers of fallen sky, but as clouds gather in the west, Wetherlam and Langdale Pikes fade to grey, the spectral impressions of fells. They mark the bounds of bootlegger country, and it is the ghost of a bootlegger that hijacks my thoughts now.

In 1853, local papers excitedly reported the arrest of local smuggler and illicit whiskey distiller, Lanty Slee. Lanty remains something of a Robin Hood figure in the popular imagination, famous for robbing the excise men of their liquor duties by selling cheap moonshine (known as Mountain Dew) to the poor. In 1853, the excise men uncovered one of Slee’s stills in a purpose-dug cave in a field border to the west of Black Crag.

While the newspapers reported Lanty as resident at High Arnside Farm at the time of this arrest, contemporary historians like H S Cowper placed him at neighbouring Low Arnside. It is possible, he rented both properties at different times, or even together. One person with a special reason for believing Lanty lived at Low Arnside is Gordon Fox. Gordon and his wife, Barbara moved into the Low Arnside Farm in the early sixties, and they would soon come to associate Lanty with a different kind of spirit.

Black Crag Trig Point and Coniston Water

When I posted an article about Lanty, earlier this year, Gordon got in touch to share his story. Here it is in his own words.

“As you know Low Arnside is a most beautiful but remote lakeland farmhouse on the high fells above the Coniston road and was featured in the film, “Miss Potter”.

“In November 1961, my eldest son was almost born in the house due to his early arrival, but we did just make it to Kendal in time.

In order to ‘modernise’ the house ‘slightly’ electricity had been installed and whilst channelling the walls for the wiring the workmen discovered a dagger and a couple of lead bullets which had been buried under the plaster.

“Because of odd happenings in the house, we decided to have a Ouija board session one night and raised a spirit which gave us some very interesting information. The séance comprised my wife Barbara, myself, our friends, Stephen Darbishire, the painter and his wife the poet, Kerry Darbishire. During the course of this session, we raised the spirit of someone called Lanty Slee who told us the house was his and ‘always would be’.

“After a few more answers, he suddenly said that he could say no more. We asked why and his final remark spelt out that it was because of the presence of a ‘pure being’! Naturally we all wondered if he meant one of us. But we named all four of us and each time our question was met with, ‘no’. Then Barbara asked if it was the two months old Matthew peacefully sleeping upstairs and he answered at once, ‘yes’!..at which point all contact ceased.

“All activity in the house also ceased after that, which had recently comprised of him being so delighted with the arrival of electricity that “he” would switch the lights on and off in the middle of the night, to our already tired annoyance as new parents. So, when that all stopped it was a blessing.

“I would add that up until that time none of us had ever heard the name Lanty Slee.”

The Druid and the Immortal Raven of Dow Crag

From Black Crag and Low Arnside, I return by the eastern shores of Tarn Hows, and the high Coniston Fells command my attention once more. Wetherlam and the Old Man each dominate their own portion of the skyline but contrive to hide the majestic rock face of Dow Crag that lies beyond. Writing in 1908, W T Palmer recounts an old legend which claims Dow Crag is home to an immortal raven. Its immortality is a curse rather than a blessing, however, condemned as it is to grow ever older, frailer, and more and more world-weary, while perpetually denied the release of death.

The curse was a punishment, metered out by a Druid, for the raven’s catastrophic dereliction of duty. The bird was the Druid’s familiar. He was charged with watching over Torver as a sentinel. His job was to croak a warning when he saw the Roman army advancing. But the Druid awoke to find the Britons’ camp in flames and legionaries marching forward victorious, the raven perched atop their standard. On returning to his master, the bird faced and angry rebuke for his treachery. But he pleaded that it was not treachery but a terrible mistake. He had swooped down to attack and kill the yellow bird the Romans held proudly before them, but as his talons locked in on their target, he realised it was not a bird at all but an effigy of burnished bronze. Only then did he realise to his horror, he was too late to return and sound the alarm.

“Venerable bird,” said the Druid. “Venerable as myself and as old, I had it in mind to condemn these to die, but instead that shalt live, live on the topmost crag of Dow, till another army sweep away the Roman, and the yellow bird is carried southward over sands”.

The Romans did eventually leave southward over the sands, but to the raven’s eternal woe, the last legion became mired in a swamp on Torver Moor, where the standard bearer and his yellow bird were swallowed up. It is said they lie there still. And unless they are ever exhumed and the bird carried south over Morecambe Bay, Dow Crag will ever echo with the hoarse croaks of its ancient raven.

Fell Walk, General, History, Lake District, Natural History, Nature

Whiskey Man: Lanty Slee – a Legend of Langdale

March 19, 2023 George Kitching 16 Comments

Wainwright described the square mile between Tilberthwaite and Langdale as “one of the loveliest in Lakeland”. In the 1800’s it was home to a notorious bootlegger, famed for his ingenuity, audacity, and ability to outwit the authorities. I walk from Rhunestone Quarry, over Holme Fell, to Tarn Hows on the trail of Lanty Slee.

Mountain Dew

Over Little Langdale Tarn, Lingmoor extends a long flank, dressed in the earthy tones of winter scrub—ochre, umber, and maroon. Where its slopes fall to Blea Tarn, the shadowy Langdale Pikes rise like rough-hewn turrets, carved from the bedrock by elemental forces. To the northeast, low-lying cloud conspires to paint the curve of the Fairfield Horseshoe as the rim of a mighty volcano, plumes of white mist belching from its crater like ash and steam.

The illusion is fitting as these ancient hills were indeed spewed from the vent of a submarine volcano somewhere in the vicinity of the Scafells, then transported, submerged, compacted, pressured, exposed, and sculpted by the relentless effects of tectonic shifts, ice, and water over hundreds of millennia. As Ian Jackson explains so well in his book, Cumbria Rocks, it was this very journey that formed the rippling patterns which make Coniston green slate so alluring. They are the swirling imprint of tides and waves, the watermarks of the deep Ordovician ocean that once covered these hills.

Two centuries ago, quarrying here in Tilberthwaite was rife, excavating fellsides already peppered with copper mine levels, and creating the landscape that Wainwright described as “pierced and pitted with holes—caves, tunnels, shafts and excavations”. But these scars are not a blot. To quote Wainwright again: “Wetherlam is too vast and sturdy to be disfigured and weakened by man’s feeble scratchings… The square mile of territory between Tilberthwaite Gill and the Brathay is scenically one of the loveliest in Lakeland (in spite of the quarries) and surely one of the most interesting (because of the quarries)”.

Behind me, Rhunestone quarry on Betsy Crag has gouged a long gully in the fellside. After decades of disuse, nature is slowly reclaiming this cross-section, softening its splintered sides with speckles of lichen and sprouting foliage from its fissures. A grass walkway divides the gully into two distinct pits. The crumbled remains of buildings nestle beneath walls of stacked spoil, and a long flat slab provides the roof of an arch, the gateway to the higher reaches of the upper pit. But it’s this pit’s lower reaches that have drawn me here, for during a short spell in the mid 1800’s, they produced more than slate. I scramble down a grassy bank, and climb with care down a loose and shifting bed of slippery spoil, damp with morning dew. And I smile at the thought, because Morning Dew (or Mountain Dew) had another meaning here.

In the very bottom, lies a small opening, a cave entrance, crowned with mossy grass and overhung with the spindly branches of a rowan. It’s pitch dark inside, but torchlight reveals a sunken floor submerged in emerald water. In times gone-by, any water collected here would have been distilled into something altogether more potent, for in the tight confines of this cave, Lanty Slee made Mountain Dew.

Lanty Slee was a notorious bootlegger, and Mountain Dew or Morning Dew was slang for his whiskey—although to place an order you supposedly had to enquire whether he’d had a good crop of “tatties” (potatoes). He started operating in a small way in the early 1820’s, and by 1840, he was producing 400 to 500 gallons a year and supplying a good many residents of the Langdale, Tilberthwaite, Yewdale, and Colwith area—much to the consternation of the excise men whose duty it was to shut him down. To evade their clutches, his whiskey-still was constantly on the move, and several quarries and cottages in the area claim to have hosted it for a while.

Little Langdale and Fairfield Horseshoe over Lanty Slee's Cave — Little Langdale and Fairfield Horseshoe over Lanty Slee’s Cave

Tee-total in Tilberthwaite

Indeed, last year as I was returning from a fell walk and approaching one such cottage, a scene reminiscent of Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner unfolded—a gentleman with a “long grey beard and glittering eye” stopped me with a quizzical expression and engaged me in conversation. His was not a dark story of superstition and ancient curses, however, he was extremely convivial and excited to know which peaks I had visited. As a former fellwalker and quarryman, he was full of warm nostalgia for the higher ground, and when I admired his cottage, the conversation got really intriguing.

“Oh, I’ve had those history types round,” he said. “They reckon it’s where Lanty Slee had one of his stills. See those steps over there. There were pipes and all sorts under there, and the floor’s been concreted, but you can tell it’s moved. I’d love to know what used to be down there.”

In 1841, a similar cottage gave up its secret. On the 2^nd October, the Kendal Mercury reported:

“On Tuesday last the Exciseman, having received information of a still being at work, proceeded with the Hawkshead police to a lonely cottage at Tilberthwaite, five miles from Hawkshead, the residence of Lancelot Slee to search for a hidden store, and after a careful examination they discovered the place of the works in a vault excavated under the stable, the entrance to which was by a trap-door at the head of the stall, under the horse’s fore feet.

The stall was kept well filled with straw, and if Lanty had occasion to go in or come out, he had nothing to do but to call the horse by name, and repeat the necessary word, and the docile animal would instantly stand off, or rise up, for the free ingress or egress of his master. The flue of the boiler was ingeniously carried underground into the chimney of the cottage.”

According to the Westmorland Gazette:

“All the traps were hoisted off to Ambleside, whiskey and all; and it is supposed that there were some of the strongest spirits that ever were made, for those that only smelled were sent half sensover. It is said that a Tee-total Society is going to be commenced by the mountaineers, for they say that they can be as good temperance chaps as any when Lanty’s whiskey is done, and he must make no more.”

Whatever they told the reporter, the dalesmen had other ideas. When the seizure of another Lanty’s stills made the papers, twelve years later, The Gazette’s Sawrey correspondent recalled what had happened previously: “A few years ago, when the worm and the still had been taken, and were lodged at Ambleside, a party of dalesmen went by night, broke into the warehouse that contained the apparatus, and, on the proprietor returning from a six month’s sojourn at the tread-mill, he was presented with his much-loved and valuable engines.” Another report suggests this pattern of events had happened at least three times before.

Hodge Close and Holme Fell

From Rhunestone quarry, I double back to the Tilberthwaite/Langdale track and take the footpath that skirts Moss Rigg Wood, detouring into the trees to take a look at Moss Rigg quarry. This is the rumoured location of another of Lanty’s stills. Great walls of chiselled slate rise like cubist sculptures from a deep pit lined with spoil. A screen of garnet and ginger twig—larch and silver birch—softens the angular stone, as nature, here too, reclaims what’s hers.

Beyond the wood, the path brings me to Slater bridge over the Brathay, which Wainwright describes as “the most picturesque footbridge in Lakeland, a slender arch constructed of slate from the quarries and built to give the quarrymen a shorter access from their homes”.

Two thirds of a mile from Stang End, I come to Hodge Close, where old quarry buildings have been repurposed as holiday lets, the Old Riving Shed still named for its former function. Here quarried boulders, known as clog, would be split along lines of weakness, called bate, by rivers working with hammer and chisel.

A few yards further on, the ground drops away dramatically to Tilberthwaite’s most celebrated and visited quarry pit. Sheer walls of slate, iron-red with haematite, plunge to a deep pool of copper green. A charcoal grey tunnel opening sits just above the water line like a huge skeletal eye socket. This feature has given rise to the name, Skull Cave, for when photographed along with its reflection in the water and the image turned on its side, the scene resembles a skull. The resemblance doesn’t stop there. From inside the cave, another opening, less prominent from above, resembles a second eye socket, and the narrow pillar of rock dividing them becomes a nose, giving the impression of standing inside a giant stone skull. No doubt these macabre illusions helped in the cave’s selection for location filming in Netflix serial, The Witcher.

Beyond the pit, a path leads up through the trees, past disused reservoirs, to the flanks of Holme Fell, its lower contours feathered with auburn-branched larches and tinted ginger with rusted bracken; its craggier tops are dressed in chocolate waistcoats of winter heather, like the fleeces of Herdwick yearlings. Norman Nicholson once described the Yewdale Fells as “vicious crags, not very high, but fanged like a tiger”. The image extends to their next-door-neighbour. Holme Fell’s southern face plunges to Yewdale in a series of steep rocky drops: Raven Crag, Calf Crag, Long Crag, and Ivy Crag; but if these are the bared teeth of an alpha predator, the gentle approach from the north is a stroll up the soft nape of its neck. The top of its head is the finest of viewpoints for a landscape washed in the earthen tones of winter: clay red, ochre, russet and charcoal, and hatched grey with spoil. Coniston Water snakes southwestward like a sliver of molten silver; the Langdale Pikes are a slate-grey castle, conjured from Middle Earth; and the old reservoir sparkles like a sapphire amongst the scrub.

Herdwicks and Mrs Heelis

A scramble down the summit rocks leads to the subsidiary peak of Ivy Crag, and a descent to Yew Dale Tarn, nestled below the trees of Harry Guards Wood. I pass Yewdale Farmhouse, with its seventeenth century spinning gallery, used for drying Herdwick wool. The farm was bequeathed to the National Trust by Herdwick Breed Association President-Elect, Mrs Heelis, better-known beyond these parts as Beatrix Potter.

Across the road, a path climbs through the trees beside the crystal cascades of Tom Heights—a hypnotic dance of wood and waterfall. At the top is Tarn Hows, landscaped by the Marshall family in the 1800’s. Along with Yew Tree Farm, it was part of the Monk Coniston estate, which Beatrix Potter bought from the Marshalls on behalf of the National Trust. Once the Trust had raised sufficient funds, it purchased part of the estate from her, but kept her on as estate manager, which led to some colourful clashes with their land agent. Beatrix bequeathed them the remainder in her will. Today, Tarn Hows is one of Lakeland’s top attractions, but for all its serene waters and arboreal splendour, it’s not my primary destination this afternoon. I’m still on Lanty’s trail and a little further up the Cumbria Way lies High Arnside Tarn. Its waters are a draw for anglers, but around 1853, they may have had another use too.

Contraband in Colwith

That year, the seizure of another of Lanty’s stills again made the papers. On Saturday 26^th of March, the Westmorland Gazette reported:

“A remarkable discovery of a cave containing an illicit still and all the appurtenances for the illegal manufacture of whiskey was made on the 12th inst. by Mr. Bowden, officer of inland revenue of this town. The locale of this discovery was on the farm of Mr. Lancelot Slee, High Arnside, Colwith, Little Langdale, about five miles from Ambleside and six from Coniston. The secluded character of the place, and the crafty concealment of the cave, renders it a matter of some wonder how Mr. Bowden contrived to discover and find access to it.

The cave has been evidently hollowed out entirely by labour. It is situated near the edge of a somewhat precipitous bank, the abrupt natural fall of one field of the farm into another. The access to it is not at the side, but perpendicularly through a hole at the surface, covered with a flat stone or flag. This aperture, which no doubt did the double duty of a chimney as well as a door, was covered carefully over with brackens. On descending it was found that the sides and floor and roof of the cave were all flagged, the flags of the roof overlapping each other quite in a clever workmanlike style, so as to throw off the water towards the bank above-mentioned. Strong posts and rafters made this subterranean retreat secure from any danger of falling in. The size of this underground apartment is about three or four yards long by two or three yards broad, and at the end where the contraband work was transacted a man could stand up-right. The mode by which that indispensable requisite, water, was supplied for the distilling process formed part of the ingenious adaptation of the place. A little mountain rivulet was contrived, by a small dam about twenty or thirty yards from the cave, to aid in the illicit production of ‘mountain dew’. When it was wanted the little stream found its way to the cave under a covering of turf and brackens, and having done its office this Alpheus of the whiskey-still sank underground and re-appeared about four or five yards from the cave like any ordinary drain. When not wanted for distilling a stone just shifted at the dam turned it off to another field, as though for the simple purpose of irrigation.”

Local historian, Phil Burrows has made it his quest to seek out the locations of Lanty’s stills, and with the help of the current residents of High Arnside Farm, he thinks he has found the spot where Mr. Bowden triumphantly uncovered this cave. Without a full archeological dig, he cannot prove it, but if he’s right, the stream that Lanty so cunningly diverted would have been an outflow from High Arnside Tarn.

In 1897, The Lakes Herald reported the passing of exciseman, Mr. D. Flattely, and reminisced about the cunning of the bootleggers he’d made a career of chasing. Chief among them was Lanty, who it was claimed could produce a bottle of his whiskey within 5 minutes, anywhere within a 20 mile radius of his home. Indeed, one magistrate was foolish enough to believe he’d got the better of Slee on this score:

“It is related that upon one occasion when Lanty had been in durance over night, and appeared in the justice room next morning, one of the magistrates—I think it was Dr. Davy—said to him, ‘I am told that you are able to furnish your friends with a glass of spirit at any time when desired, but I think we have broken the spell this time.’ Considerable was the merriment as Lanty produced a full bottle from his capacious coat pocket, and holding it up replies, ‘Mappen’ ye’r rang. Will ye hev a touch’.”

While the excisemen occasionally uncovered his stills, they never found where Lanty stashed his bottles. And despite his best efforts, neither has Phil Burrows. In a landscape so potted with holes, perhaps it’s not surprising, but maybe, just maybe, everyone has been looking in the wrong place.

Matters of the Spirit

In 1916, Jonathan Denwood and John Denwood published a book called Idylls of a North Countrie Fair, in which they documented, in dialect, a series of recollections, stories and conversations with colourful local characters at Cumbrian fairs. The 8^th August edition of the Penrith Observer carried a review. The reviewer is a little sniffy at the coarseness of some of the language used, concluding, “The introduction of these words and phrases—there are many of them—mars the pleasure of the reader, and will not let him leave the book lying about for his women folk to read.” However, some of the sketches are so entertaining that he overcomes his prudish distaste:

“the best of them is the account of Lakeland smugglers… This purports to be the reproduction of a ‘crack’ Mr. J. M. Denwood had more than twenty years ago with an old resident of Little Langdale, who professed to know Lanty Slee, a noted smuggler of his time; at any rate he told some capital stories about him which are chronicled in most readable style.

Then there was Whisky Walker, a Borrowdale quarryman, who was an adept both at distilling whisky, in illicit fashion, and in disposing it. He is described as a man who was ‘weel behaved, weel larned, an’ far travelled.’

Then there was this little dialogue about one of the characters of Lakeland whose supposed merits have often been written about, and quite as frequently discounted:

“Was he [Whisky Walker] any relation to Wondeful Walker, the famous Wasdale priest, John!

Ah couldn’t tell ye that.

Did you know Wondeful Walker, John!

No, but Ah knew his dowter at was weddit on t’lanlword at Cunniston, an Ah’ve hard it said he was wonnerfal oald scrat, ‘at nivver did a turn for any of his neighbors widoot he was weel paid. He hed a laal kurk, a laal salary, an’ a big lot o’ barnes, but he mannished to seave a fortun ‘at when he deid com to mair nor his wages he’d iver eddled.

(I knew his daughter who was married to the landlord at Coniston, and I’ve heard it said that he was a wonderful old penny-pincher, that never did a turn for any of his neighbours without being well-paid for it. He had a little church, a little salary, and a big lot of children, but he managed to save such a fortune that when he died it came to more than all the wages he’d ever earned).

Did he aid and abet the smugglers, John!

Ah’ll nut say that, but t’ meast of t’ kurks in them days war used as hidin’ pleaces by t’ smugglers an’ whisky makkers. Ah know a family vault in a country kurkyard ‘at Lanty Slee an’ me hev sleeped in an’ hidden stuff in mair nor yance or twice, fra daybrek till t’ neet fell again.

(…most of the churches in those days were used as hiding places by the smugglers and whisky makers. I know a family vault in a churchyard that Lanty Slee and me have slept in and hidden stuff in more than once or twice, from daybreak to nightfall.)

What, beside coffins, John!

Aye, it t’ wick fwok we war flate on, nut t’ deid uns.

(Aye, it was the living folk we were wary of, not the dead ones.)

Did the priests connive at your doings!

Weel, they war niver agean takkin owt they could git for nowt, nor agean buyin’ a sup spirits on t’ cheap.”

Never let it be said that the 19^th century clergymen of Borrowdale and Langdale were anything less than dedicated to all matters of the spirit!

Sources/Further Reading

All these newspaper reports are available through the British Newspaper Archive, but for those without a subscription, local history writer, Raymond Greenhow has done a fine job of collating all the detail and more into a chronological portrait of Lanty, rooted in fact.

https://scafellhike.blogspot.com/2020/06/lanty-slee-and-his-mountain-dew.html

Phil Burrows has made an intriguing and highly entertaining video about his quest to uncover all of Lanty Slee’s hideouts and his theories about High Arnside Tarn. Well worth a watch:

Ian Jackson’s book, Cumbria Rocks is a fascinating guide to the geology of Cumbria, written by an expert but aimed at walkers. Accessible and readable, it is packed full of brilliant photographs and profits go to the Cumbria Wildlife Trust. It is published by Northern Heritage and available from their website:

https://www.northern-heritage.co.uk/product/search/cumbria-rocks-60-extraordinary-rocky-places-that-tell-the-story-of-the-cumbrian-landscape

The following modern day interview on sirgordonbennett.com gives fascinating details insights into to the process of riving slate:

Coniston Stonecraft Interview

Fell Walk, General, History

Jimmy Hewitson and The Howitzer

April 8, 2018 George Kitching 10 Comments

Coniston, Tarn Hows, Black Fell & Holme Fell

“Some men become national heroes for superlative acts of bravery in service to their country. Others become heroes locally, because they stand up for the underdog when the establishment runs roughshod over them.” Jimmy Hewitson was both. I hear his remarkable story from his grandson, John. It’s a story of courage, compassion and the redemptive power of the Cumbrian landscape.

Courage

On the radio, a mother bravely describes losing her son in the Manchester Arena bombing. She says, “as soon as I heard about the explosion, I knew he was dead”. Some unfathomable maternal instinct tapped into something deeper than radio silence and sensed a severed emotional connection. By morning, she knew for certain that he hadn’t been admitted to any of the city’s hospitals, but it took a full twenty-four hours for the police to confirm her worst fears.

I can’t begin to imagine how those twenty-four hours felt. What that poor woman went through. What she is still going through. Every hour must have seemed an eternity, hoping against hope she was wrong, powerless do anything but wait for that dreadful knock on the door.

Benjamin Kirkby’s mother waited almost a year.

Ben was a Coniston lad and a quarryman. When World War One broke out, Ben, like many of his mates, answered Lord Kitchener’s call for volunteers. He enlisted in the King’s Own Lancaster Regiment (now the Duke of Lancaster’s) and was assigned to 1/4 brigade. Ben didn’t see action until the Somme, on 8th August 1916; after that, he would take no further part in the war. He was killed that day, as were two of his friends, Richard Usher and Sol Robinson. Richard and Sol’s deaths were confirmed within days, but Ben was reported as wounded, then wounded and missing. It was a full eleven months before his parents heard their son was dead.

Benjamin Atkinson Kirkby (courtesy of the Ruskin Museum)

I’ve just come from The Ruskin Museum in Coniston where curator, Vicky Slowe, has been showing me a file of remembrance; it has a page for each of the soldiers. A display case holds some personal artefacts: Ben Kirkby’s commemorative scroll; Richard Usher’s death penny and the official army communique to his parents, informing them of their son’s death. It also holds a painting by Richard of a boat on a lake, presumably Coniston Water. It looks peaceful and serene, evoking a long, lazy, carefree afternoon. A happy memory he held with him, perhaps, in the bitter, bloody turmoil of the trenches.

Ben Kirkby Commemorative Scroll (courtesy of the Ruskin Museum)

Beside the display case is a Matchless motorcycle that belonged to James Hewitson, another local lad who fought beside Ben, Sol and Richard in The Somme. Vicky and I were joined by John Dodd, James’s grandson, who recounted his grandfather’s remarkable story.

Some men become national heroes for superlative acts of bravery in service to their country. Others become heroes locally, because they stand up for the underdog when the establishment runs roughshod over them. Jimmy Hewitson was both. His grave lies in the Coniston churchyard, beside the fine Celtic cross of the war memorial, designed by W. G. Collingwood, who founded the Ruskin museum and designed Ruskin’s gravestone, as well as a series of war memorials including those at Hawkshead, Ulverston and St Bees, and the plaque on top of Great Gable.

Coniston war memorial — Coniston War Memorial (courtesy of the Ruskin Museum)

In 2018, on April 26^th, a new plaque was laid beside the Coniston memorial to mark the 100^th anniversary of the action that earned James Hewitson the Victoria Cross.

Hewitson survived the Somme; by 1918, he had been promoted to Lance Corporal, and his brigade had moved to Givenchy. A photograph in the museum shows a boy, seemingly too young for the military uniform he is wearing, but his courage and daring on April 26th were outstanding. He was recommended for the Victoria Cross in May 1918, and on 28^th June, this report appeared in The London Gazette:

“For most conspicuous bravery, initiative and daring action. In a daylight attack on a series of crater posts L/Cpl Hewitson led his party to their objective with dash and vigour, clearing the enemy from both trench and dugouts, killing in one dugout six of the enemy who would not surrender. After capturing the final objective, he observed a hostile machine-gun team coming into action against his men. Working his way round the edge of the crater he attacked the team, killing four and capturing one. Shortly afterwards he engaged a hostile bombing party which was attacking a Lewis gun post; he routed the party, killing six of them. The extraordinary feats of daring performed by this gallant non-commissioned officer crushed the hostile opposition at this point.”

King George V presented James with his Victoria Cross in France, on 8^th August 1918. It must have been a day of bittersweet emotions for him, as it was the second anniversary of the Somme action that killed his friends.

James Hewitson's Grave — James Hewitson’s Grave

Defiance

When the troops returned home in 1918, the mood was very different from the surge of patriotism that had seen so many enlist, four years earlier. The men bore deep scars, emotionally as well as physically. Today, we recognise post traumatic shock disorder. Back then, it was little understood and was known crudely as shell shock. Soldiers showing symptoms in the trenches had been shot for cowardice or desertion; demobbed squaddies kept shtum and suffered in silence. Many others were conspicuous by their absence.

The survivors were less reticent when it came to demanding change. Across Britain, there was a feeling among veterans that if they were going to risk their lives fighting for their country, they wanted a say in how it was governed. The Representation of the People Act of 1918 gave the vote, not only to women, but to all working-class men.

In a politically opportunist attempt to recapture some patriotic fervour and whip up a sense of triumphalism, The War Office presented many British towns and villages with war trophies. Ulverston received a German tank which stood at the bottom of Market Street until the 1960’s (the roundabout on the A590 is still known as “tank square”).

Coniston was presented with a German howitzer. It’s hard to imagine a more clumsy and insensitive gesture to a community licking its wounds and mourning its dead than to foist upon it the very instrument of its grief. It would be an understatement to say it didn’t go down well with the residents, especially those who had served. One evening, some young veterans were enjoying a pint when the conversation turned to the hated gun. Opinion was unanimous: they’d all spent enough time staring at the front of one of those things; there was no way they wanted to stare at the back of one now. After a few more pints, they decided to do something about it.

Jimmy Hewitson was at home, but such was his standing, they decided to run their plan past him, first. Jimmy’s wife answered the door; her husband had already gone to bed. When they told her what they were planning, she ran straight up the stairs to rouse him. It took no time at all for Jimmy to shout his response from the landing, “Give me a minute to get some pants on, and I’ll give you a hand”.

The howitzer had been placed outside the Ruskin museum. Being a field gun, it was on wheels. The men got behind it and, with a lot of heaving and shoving, managed to push it down the back street, past the Black Bull, over the bridge, and down to the lake. It must have been a struggle to keep something that heavy under control on the downhill stretch. They were aiming for the steep drop into the deeper water, but in the dark, they steered to the left of it, near the stone-built jetty, and pushed it into the shallows. It didn’t sink very far.

A half-submerged howitzer wasn’t quite the act of good riddance they’d been hoping for, so one of them suggested they have a word with Prissy. Priss was the captain of the Steam Yacht Gondola that ran daily excursions up and down the lake, acting as a water bus for locals and a sightseeing experience for tourists. He was only too happy to help and told them to be ready in the morning when he’d sail the Gondola past the spot on the way to her first pick up. The next day, they tied a rope around the gun and threw the end to Priss; he towed the howitzer out into the middle of the lake, where he left it to rust on the bottom.

John was only little when his grandad died, but his older brother recalls hearing the story first hand. John does remember seeing the howitzer exhumed sometime in the very late 1960’s or early 1970’s. It was pulled from the lake, loaded on to a trailer without fuss or ceremony, and swiftly driven away to sit in some private collection.

Purification and Renewal

In his post-war years, James Hewitson dug ditches, cut hedges and repaired roads, but he was hospitalised several times for shell shock and for surgery to remove shrapnel. Like many of his peers, Jimmy’s heroism came at a high personal cost. As a nation, we were ill equipped to help. Shell shock was seen as form of a neurasthenia: a supposed mechanical exhaustion of the nerves (it’s no longer a recognised condition in western medicine). Treatments were experimental and sometimes barbaric. We can only hope Hewitson escaped our worst medical follies. Certainly, he seems to have seen some improvement in later years: he was able to attend two regimental reunions and the museum has a wonderful photograph of him as an old man astride his beloved Matchless motorbike.

On leaving the museum, I walk down through a field of charcoal-fleeced Herdwicks to Coniston Hall, on the lake shore. In the soft grey light of an overcast afternoon, the rugged grandeur of this Elizabethan building appears sculpted from the earth, rough-hewn from Silurian stone, abandoned to ivy, repurposed as farm-house, a wide grassy ramp rising to its once opulent hall stripped of its oak panelling in its rebirth as a barn. Its conical chimneys stand tall and turret-like against a pale wash of sky.

Beyond is the lake, the water gently ridged with ripples, a soft bluish pewter, silver where it escapes the shadows. I walk the shore path to Torver, and most of the way to Brown How. Underfoot, the beach is mud, stone, moss and shale, overhung with a twiggy latticed canopy of naked branches, as if lightly sketched in soft graphite where they spring from heavily shaded trunks. I pass stone boat houses and little wooden jetties where an orange dinghy and an orange buoy are isolated splashes of colour amid the soft, earthy monochrome. To the north, is the high mountain drama of the Fairfield Horseshoe, stark in snow, a skyline rigidly defined, mighty and intimidating. But here, beside the water, is tranquillity.

I think of Richard Usher’s painting. Is this where he came in his head to escape the harsh reality of French battlefields? I think of the lake’s benevolence in swallowing the gun, and I think of James Hewitson’s battle with shell shock; I wonder if he found solace here. Across the beach lies the uprooted trunk of a silver birch, its branches outstretched like limbs reaching out to touch the water. The Coniston war memorial is a Celtic cross. In Celtic mythology, the birch was a symbol of purification and renewal.

Two days later, I’m at Tarn Hows. After some harsh weeks of winter, spring is here, pregnant with the promise of light and warmth. In a few hours, the circular shore path will be thick with sightseers, but at half past eight, I have it almost to myself. The water is a perfect mirror, rendering the dark curtain of trees in ink wash. The shore is a Ruskin watercolour of russet and brown. I pass a bench that bears an inscription: “In memory of Jane Aldworth (1959 – 1995) who loved this place”. Thirty-six is a tender age to die. War is not the only thief of youth. I wonder what happened to her; what comfort she found here. And again, I’m struck by the redemptive power of the landscape. Purification and renewal.

I leave the shore and climb a path that joins the Cumbria Way, which I follow east for a few hundred yards, then turn left to climb to the wilder summit of Black Fell. As a landscape yawns awake from hibernation, it’s possible to experience all seasons at once. Black Fell is a perfect podium for the humble punter. The Fairfield Horseshoe is draped in thin grey clouds, like wisps of Herdwick wool; on Red Screes and the Kentmere Fells, flecks of snow cover mellow tints of autumn. Windermere is a long stretch of sombre silver, Esthwaite Water, a white shimmer, disrupted by the hatched reflections of branches. Tarn Hows is a prelude to Coniston, pale blue beyond; Wetherlam is mighty, dark and wintery, and largely lost in cloud. As I watch, Bowfell and Crinkle Crags are swallowed entirely. And yet above, a summer-like sky is blue and streaked with the slenderest wisps of cirrus. A church bell rings below in Hawkshead, and I shed an outer skin, warm in spring sunshine.

I walk on through a landscape of seasonal transition, of spring skies and winter trees, of distant snow and imminent growth. I pass a farmhouse where a woman skilfully executes a Tai Chi kata. I cross the Coniston to Ambleside road and climb the track past a paddock of belted Galloways to Hodge Close quarry. Sheer faces of rock, tunnelled with caverns and streaked with rich veins of red mineral, fall to a deep pool of copper blue. Many of the King’s Own Lancaster volunteers were quarrymen. Some may have worked here. Now it’s a playground for climbers and divers.

Beyond the quarry, I follow a path up to the old reservoir, an azure jewel in a cloak of russet and straw grass. A boggy expanse leads to the craggier outcrops of Holme Fell. I scramble up a rock step to reach the summit. Coniston Water stretches out below, a languid sheen of white sparkle. I drink coffee from a thermos and think about Jimmy Hewitson and the howitzer.

In January 2014, the then Education Minister, Michael Gove, wrote a piece for the Daily Mail in which he attacked dramas such as Oh What a Lovely War, The Monocled Mutineer and Blackadder for perpetuating “left-wing myths” that depict World War One “as a misbegotten shambles – a series of catastrophic mistakes perpetrated by an out-of-touch elite”. His point seemed to be that criticism of the war and the military tactics somehow “denigrate(s) virtues such as patriotism, honour and courage”. As Philip Hedley pointed out in The Guardian, Gove was so keen imagine a left-wing conspiracy, he conveniently ignored a significant fact: “important source material (for Oh What a Lovely War) came from the Tory MP Alan Clark’s book, The Donkeys, the title of which came from the phrase describing the soldiers as ‘lions led by donkeys’.” Gove was being disingenuous: historians may argue over the donkeys, but the courage of the lions has never been in question.

Mr Gove may not agree with the wide-held view that The Somme was the “epitome of military futility”, but Vicky told me there is some evidence that Sol, Ben and Richard came under friendly fire. I’m not really sure it would have made much difference to their mothers whether it was German, French or English hands that fired the fatal rounds. They’d have been devastated it was anyone.

If you re-read Michael Gove’s piece now, you’ll find he’s keen to draw parallels with modern challenges: “migrant populations on the move, rapid social upheaval, growing global economic interdependence, massive technological change and fragile confidence in political elites” – themes he’s revisited several times since, in the context of the European Union. In retrospect, it reads very like a politician hoping to use the WW1 commemorations to lay the groundwork for a referendum campaign. Whatever your view on Brexit or contemporary politics, manipulating the memory of ordinary men who made an extraordinary sacrifice, is cheap. It’s political opportunism, not a million miles away from placing a German howitzer in front of a grieving population. If you’d pulled a stunt like that on men like Jimmy Hewitson, Michael, I have a sneaking suspicion they’d have told you to jump in a lake.

For a map and directions for the Tarn Hows, Black Fell, Holme Fell walk, visit WalkLakes:

https://www.walklakes.co.uk/walk_111.html

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