Countrystride #30: BUTTERMERE - Tales from the secret valley

...in which we take a stroll down memory lane along that finest of lakes – Buttermere – journeying from the bluebells of Rannerdale to Gatesgarth, a farm with a remarkable history. As we wander, with Angus Winchester, Professor Emeritus in the Department of History, Lancaster University, who was bought up in Lorton Vale, we talk about fact and bloody fiction in 'the secret valley'; the tragic charms of Buttermere's famous Maid; the crucial role Gatesgarth played in establishing the Herdwick breed; and the unlikely reason behind the name Innominate Tarn.

• Angus' book The Language of the Landscape is available from Handstand Press at handstandpress.net/product/the-language-of-the-landscape/

Gatesgarth Farm from Low Raven Crag.

Angus atop Robinson.

Rannerdale bluebells. (c) Val Winchester.

Dick Hall and Angus' grandfather camping near Crummock Water around 1904. (c) Angus Winchester.

Edwardian picnic on the shore of Crummock Water (on the edge of Lanthwaite Woods near the salmon ladder). From the age of Angus' two great-aunts (the two girls on the left) probably around 1906). (c) Angus Winchester.