subject: Loughrigg Terrace The Lake District [print this page] Hest Bank Ambleside St John's in the Vale following each other, their shadows under them, and their returning back to the stones on the shore, chirping with the same unwearied voice.
For Loughrigg Terrace, a far more spectacular walk of almost the same distance, continue along the road to Dale End Farm, once the house of Mr Benson, the Wordsworths' landlord at Dove Cottage. After 300yds the roads enters a wood and starts to climb steeply. This is Red Bank. Take the gate by the cottage on the corner and follow the path uphill past the front of the cottage for Loughrigg Terrace, a beautiful raised footpath which traverses the slope of Loughrigg Fell some 150ft above the lake. The views over Grasmere Vale are fine and there are several seats.
In Book IX of The Excursion the Terrace seems to be 'the grassy mountain's open side' where the Pastor stands to speak to his companions, summing up the philosophy of the poem at its end. The Lady offers a verbal landscapesketch of part of the scene:
Behold the shades of afternoon have fallen Upon this flowery slope; and see beyond The silvery lake is streaked with placid blue; As if preparing for the peace of evening. How temptingly the landscape shines! The air Breathes invitation; easy is the walk To the lake's margin, where a boat lies moored Under a sheltering tree.
The Terrace was a favorite walk of the Wordsworths, who would make a circuit of Grasmere or, more ambitiously, of Grasmere and Rydal Water, crossing the Rothay by the stepping stones just s of Rydal. The walk could be extended by climbing Loughrigg Fell above the Terrace: from the Fell, Dorothy noted on the evening of May 18 1800, 'the prospect exceedingly beautiful . It was so green that no eye could be weary of reposing upon it.' On May 29 she was there again:
I lay upon the steep of Loughrigg, my heart dissolved in what I saw, when I was not startled but recalled from my reverie by a noise as of a child paddling without shoes. It turned out to be a lamb, 'seeking its mother.'The lakeside at Loughrigg was a paradise of wild flowers: on June 27 1800 the Wordsworths 'rowed down to Loughrigg Fell, visited the white foxglove, gathered wild strawberries'. From the E end of the Terrace, paths continue E to Rydal and Ambleside, or zigzag down to the lakeside and Bainriggs.
