Lake District – Ashness Bridge

A view over Derwentwater in the English Lake District from Ashness Bridge, a famous viewpoint painted many times by landscape painters and photographed by just about everybody.

This is one of a series of views with maybe some short films to follow that will aim to show people ways to escape  the stress of modern life. You do not have to visit Ashness Bridge of course, as I describe why a scene appeals to me or the person who suggested it to me, use that to try to find your own favourite places. Beauty and peace are all around us, all we have to do is learn how to find it. As Sherlock Holmes said in to Doctor Watson in one of Conan Doyle’s stories, “You see Watson, but you do not observe.” We must learn to observe.

Getting away from the bustle, noise and stress of modern life in cities and towns is something more and more people find it difficult to make time to do. One of the safest bets for those who go seeking peace solace away from the burden of work and the high pressure society is to head for the hills.

If there is water involved in the landscape, rivers or lakes, so much the better. There are theories about why we humans have such an affinity with water, some say we were once marine mammals, others that it is because  70% of our physical body is made up of water. Whatever the reason most people find being in a pleasant setting near a body of water very relaxing. 

The English Lake District made famous in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by poets such as Wordsworth and Coleridge has plenty of both, plus an abundance of history and plenty of friendly pubs serving good local food and something to fortify the weary traveller . The ancient Ashness Bridge pictured here (foreground) is on the old pack horse trail between the towns of Kendal and Keswick. The latter lies at the northern tip of Derwentwater, the lake seen below the old bridge. People have told me this autumnal scene looks more like a painting than a photograph. I wish I was that talented a painter.