The Lake District Woods

Here in the Lake District where they are considered sacrosanct

, it takes considerable courage to remove trees, but the Trust does not hesitate to thin out wooded areas which, because of years of self-seeding, have become over dense. The result is that judicious removal of sapling growth, whose very density would prevent it from maturing into anything either useful or beautiful, has transformed many a previously untidy and often impenetrable screen into a picture, perfectly framed.

Would that more landowners, private and otherwise, could bring themselves to follow this example. For in certain areas, and particularly around the shores of Windermere, nature has been granted too free a hand. The result is an over-lush growth and an abundance of rotting timber whose effect can be claustrophobic rather than pleasing. What was it Tennyson said? That man's the true conservative, who lops the moulder'd branch away.

We were, you rightly say, setting off on a potted tour and I apologize for the digression. Having led with my chin for a few paragraphs and invited the inevitable uppercuts, I must explain that until I drove my friend that day along this road, its short comings had never previously occurred to me as a resident accustomed to using it daily. I had not been seeing it through the eyes of a stranger. And although Lakeland easily disproves the theory that familiarity can breed contempt, I now realize the possibility that perhaps this daily use can dull our perception in certain respects, and the remarks of newcomers can cause us a shocked surprise.

I am not being deliberately hypercritical if I suggest that the road which roughly parallels the eastern shoreline of Windermere, from Newby Bridge at its southern end, to Waterhead at the northern, is to the motoring newcomer, somewhat disappointing. It affords so very few glimpses of this important ten and a half-mile waterway, and even fewer public access points. There is no disrespect intended, or any such nonsense as political bias behind my words when I say that this road which a stranger would expect to be spectacularly scenicis in fact the victim of privilege. For by far the greater proportion of the land between road and lake is in private ownership.

Here stand the proud houses, built using local stone and solid timbers by wealth arising from the Industrial Revolu tion, and those of more recent construction using breeze block and mass produced materials owned by the beneficiaries ofthe Affluent Society. Quite naturally these estates in miniature are jealously guarded, but the result is that much of this shoreline has become semi domesticated and strictly for the few. One could wish for a clean sheet of drawing paper, a newly sharpened pencil and a fresh start, but this would be wishful thinking at its most ludicrous, and we can only hope that we shall have the courage during future years to improve on what we have.

by: Adrian Vultur

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