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w king s how is a birkett but not a wainwright but it had terrific views so well worth a visit whichever your hill list of choice high spy from king s how looking south to bessyboot and glaramara brund fell wainwright s summit of grange fell looking back to king s how frogspawn looking back to king s how looking back to king s how you can probably tell that i was quite taken with king s how high seat on the right ether knott is the steep sided knoll left of centre knolls about in this area i was intrigued by one of them thinking it looked well worth a visit it s called ether knott and is actually the true summit of grange fell great crag from brund fell i don t seem to have taken any photos between brund fell and great crag i do remember that the path very cleverly skirted one particularly boggy looking area from great crag grange fell watendlath and high seat i haven t been to watendlath in a very long time i could combine a visit with an ascent of ether knott now there s an idea for the future a similar view this one shows all of the knolls of grange fell including king s how on the left more knolls around dock tarn ullscarf beyond dock tarn i could hear the croaking of frogs or toads or both as i passed mating toads i think that toads usually mate in water they certainly lay their eggs in bodies of water and not just in a puddle like frogs are want to do my guess is that she is heading for water and he is shall we say impatient willygrass gill eagle crag and sergeant s crag the descent was through trees again also on a well made and fairly steep path bessyboot and stonethwaite beck a little cafe in a barn at rosthwaite rude not to indulge i still had some tea in my flask but this seemed like too good an opportunity to miss teabread and tea and lovely scented hyacinths i used a wide angle setting on my phone for this photo to get the flowers in as a consequence it looks like i was on half rations on the contrary it was a pint mug of tea and a huge slab of cake i think this was advertised as borrowdale teabread in lincolnshire when i were a lad we called it plum bread i m not sure why because no plums were involved in any way i was reminiscing with the lady in the cafe about my mum s plum bread and how good it was with a slice of cheese she enthusiastically agreed and then produced a whopping slab of red leicester she opined that some jam was needed to complete the treat and kindly offered to supply that too but i thought i already had enough to be going on with what a treat it was too i shall definitely be looking to visit this little cafe again castle crag and king s how i left stonethwaite to follow the river derwent toward grange but with an eye to climb castle crag too and to get one more tick for the day in contrast to the hills from earlier in the day i ve been up castle crag on numerous previous occasions looking south from my ascent of castle crag i d stopped on both brund fell and great crag for a swallow of tea but i must have been conserving it and still had some in my flask so i stopped again naturally it started to rain almost the moment i sat down a similar view from the top it had turned wet still castle crag is a tremendous viewpoint and it would have been a shame not to take advantage derwent water from castle crag king s how from castle crag war memorial castle crag in fact as i sat it even brightened up a bit so worth a wait derwent water again heading down beside broadslack gill grange farm house and barn mid seventeenth century grange crags behind slate wall alongside holy trinity church grange holy trinity church grange war memorial i was really struck by the intricate carving on this war memorial it s listed the memorial is thought to have been designed by william gershom collingwood 1854 1932 who designed several memorials including the cross to john ruskin at coniston and first world war memorials at grasmere coniston and hawkshead amongst others in case you were wondering this is the same collingwood whose grandchildren provided the models for arthur ransome s swallows and amazons he was also the father of r g collingwood the historian all grist for the mill but better yet there are more war memorials at i m going to list them because i can see this is going to be a new set of things for me to visit and collect yipee coniston otley hawkshead st bees lastingham grasmere ulverston and possibly rockcliffe and carlisle interior holy trinity church grange unusually the church doesn t seem to be listed but i liked the simple interior the commandments not unusual to find the commandments on the east wall of a church behind the altar but i don t think i ve seen any boards so cleverly shaped to fit the space available thou shall not just a short distance away is the equally tiny methodist chapel grange methodist chapel which had local history displays and also these gorgeous illustrations borrowdale flora and fungi by selina thorp these are enlarged copies of the oil pastel originals i m a sucker for both vibrant colours and for intricate details so i loved these back in my school days i was always drawing pastels were my favourite way to add colour i think because i found pastels easier to use than a brush i still have a set in fact not that they ever see the light the river derwent from grange bridge the river derwen t and castle crag from grange bridge another memorial in memoriam w hodgson he prayeth well who loveth well both man and bird and beast for the dear god who loveth us he made and loveth all september 1878 the text is from coleridge s the rime of the ancient mariner i walked along the road back to the car park but then felt i ought to walk a little further to see the bowder stone whilst i was nearby the bowder stone the bowder stone a fragment of rock daffs standing stone victorian advertising a great day despite the changeable weather and a route which i shall definitely do again no walk stats i think i forgot to turn my app off and so got all of my journey home mapped and logged too so i didn t save it finally two novels a confusing novel i often listen to episodes of radio 4 s a good read during one of them the guests and host harriet gilbert were united in their praise of death and the penguin by kurkov i decided to reread this book since i don t have the earlier novel i couldn t remember much about it from my first reading but then i rarely can perhaps if i knew more about ukraine in the immediate aftermath of the break up of the soviet union it would have made more sense to me but then again perhaps not a heartbreaking novel i ve read quite a few paul auster novels in the case of his new york trilogy several times the last one i read was in the country of last things which i found unremittingly bleak and i decided not to read any more since when i ve picked up both man in the dark and moon palace secondhand so much for my resolve i found man in the dark compelling almost unputdownable but be warned it has a brutal twist grange fell great crag castle crag gossip from the forest august 16 2026 mark richards 13 comments quince flowers a short spring flowers walk around home the pepper pot a hazy view willow catkins a constellation of blackthorn blossom about to erupt arnside tower green hellebore green hellebore flower daffs hazel catkins male hazel catkins male and tiny red female too violets tbh and little s i was almost home when i bumped into tbh and s who were heading out for their own stroll to the cove and across the lots naturally i joined them cove sunset gossip from the forest i bought this one a while ago principally because i enjoyed her previous book a book of silence this book alternates chapters recounting visits to particular uk woodlands often in the company of others particularly her son who if memory serves provides a photograph of each location and retellings of traditional fairy stories running through the forest chapters is an argument that fairy stories are intimately linked to forests and forest dwellers i m not sure i entirely swallowed her arguments but i really enjoyed thinking about them and the stories and woodland journeys are terrific highly recommended gossip from the forest two rivers two walks saharan skies august 8 2026 august 6 2026 mark richards hiking nature 4 comments and other odds and ends dallam tower whitbarrow the river bela the first full weekend in march did i want to join tbh and a for a short walk and a cafe lunch of course dallam deer park the deer shelter and milnthorpe the walk was around dallam deer park very pleasant too rivers and roads cafe lunch was at rivers and roads in milnthorpe also very pleasant to be honest i ve misremembered the name of the cafe thinking it was two rivers due to the proximity of both the bela and the kent hence the blog title never mind over lunch tbh announced you could get a haircut everyone in the family understands that this when applied to me at least is code for you look like grizzly adams you scruff so i went to the barbers for a short back and sides and a beard trim i told the others not to wait since this seemed like a perfect opportunity to walk home along the estuary and around the coast i m not sure if i ve ever done that before it s all on paths i m familiar with but i may not have strung them together in a single walk before the river bela and milnthorpe bridge whitbarrow scar the river kent scout scar eastern fells in the distance you can pick out skiddaw if you know where to look the sands were very firm so i followed the bela all the way out to the kent and then followed the kent downriver scout scar and heversham head sandside and the kent estuary haverbrack and sandside i ve often stood on haverbrack and admired the views of the estuary i can t remember coming this far out to enjoy the view in the opposite direction heading towards storth i thought the sky and light looked quite odd here more oddities were to come arnside knot it was becoming increasingly gloomy so although the walk along the old branch line to arnside and then the walk through and beyond arnside is very enjoyable i didn t take any more photos for a while aside from a failed attempt to capture two collared doves on the foreshore at arnside the view back down the estuary from between arnside point and park point humphrey head and saharan skies as i turned from the estuary on to the cliff path along the edge of the bay the light to the west was very odd it was really striking much more so than these photos suggest i took a lot and these few are the least worst humphrey head and saharan skies by applying a filter i found i could make the photos look much more like i remember but that feels like cheating somehow the sliver of red sky and its reflection above and below humphrey head put me in mind of the eye of sauron fanciful i know but it really was very striking humphrey head and saharan skies when i got home stil full of excitement about the unusual red skies tbh told me that she had heard that it was due to saharan sand in the atmosphere i don t know if that s true but i love the idea green hellebore meanwhile in the woods at far arnside spring was in full swing with the usual appearance of a few green hellebore plants and a mass of daffodils marvellous daffs at far arnside a cherry orchard and sunset this mass of white blossom is too early for blackthorn i assume someone one cove road must have a garden entirely hedged with cherries it looks fabulous anyway the walks were roughly two miles and nine and both highly enjoyable although the company was better for the first horse near heald brow the following day i did my wet weather walk around the perimeter of the village eaves wood the row lambert s meadow burtonwell wood woodwell heald brow etc so that i m never too far from home if it turns really wet i took this one photo not the best of days arnside sunset the following friday evening i was in arnside again probably buying fish and chips kent viaduct on the saturday we were in newcastle meeting the kids and my in laws for lunch the tyne we d arrived early to see a show at the baltic which has of course just finished we had a look around anyway there was an exhibition about the oceans which ought to have been up my street but actually didn t do much for me and a more intriguing exhibition of films which we didn t really have time to do justice to a film artwork more films the dale from by the pepper pot didn t go far on the sunday can t remember why not sunset at the cove from a mid week wander embedr flickr com assets client code js two rivers two walks saharan skies the gathering tide august 7 2026 august 5 2026 mark richards 6 comments farleton fell from farleton knott after the success of my walk on hay fell i decided to repeat the trick the following evening after work i didn t do it much again after these two outings my loss a rash of coltsfoot flowering around a pond a small lime kiln my ascent route and again farleton fell looking back to warton crag haverbrack river kent whitbarrow heversham head gummer how and the lakeland fells beyond middlebarrow arnside knot beetham fell haverbrack scout hill howgills in the distance middleton fells hills above kirkby lonsdale ingleborough farewell sun late light over the hills of home decline and fall brilliant gathering tide nature writing based on walks in our area highly recommended the gathering tide hay fell benson knott august 6 2026 august 6 2026 mark richards hiking walking 8 comments two tops 319m on the left 317m on the right a short post about a short walk which finally fulfilled my intention to climb hay fell or benson knott or both as you can see above it has two tops so maybe it deserves two names anyway it has both names on the os map i ve always thought of it as benson knott but i notice that online quite a few people refer to it as hay fell so maybe they re right i d already climbed most of the way to the top by the time i took this first photo can t think why i waited so long actually i may have been concentrating on trying to keep my feet dry the going was pretty wet large cairn the post also continues two ongoing themes to whit the creative use of odd moments and small hills with disproportionately good views i had a training day in kendal i knew it would finish relatively early the forecast was excellent but it was the beginning of march so time would be short and a small wander was needed with that combination of factors a walk up here seemed an obvious idea looking to the other top gummer how black combe coniston and langdale fells all visible beyond the weather was superb and the splendid views just made me wonder why i d waited so long the helm dead centre bowland fells on the left then farleton fell arnside knot sizergh fell the end of scout scar the howgills lambrigg fell between here and there eastern fells the lump of high ground in the middle must be hugill fell trig pillar in yellow heading down towards dockergarths plantation whin...