The two hour walk from Ambleside to Grasmere via Rydal is a
gentle trip heavy with historical significance. For hundreds of years the only
consecrated ground in the area was St. Oswald’s Church in Grasmere meaning that
Ambleside’s dead would be taken on a final journey round Rydal Mount and past
White Moss Common. So called coffin routes
are a common feature of rural Britain, appearing as central parishes tried to
retain control by withholding burial rights from outlying churches. In the case
of the Ambleside to Grasmere route it now exists as a public bridleway and is
frequented by less mobile walkers glad for its moderate inclines.
The Lake District is a place as untouched by modernity as
anywhere in the industrialised Western world can manage meaning these odd
relics of vastly different times can still exist in some form. When a modern walker, following the route,
steers off the tarmac scar of the A591 just after Ambleside, they stroll
through a camping ground and past Rydal Hall, now converted into a hotel and
tea room. The tourist trade sustains the area almost single handed, and
businesses are keen to drive every opportunity but amongst the throng of wi fi
enabled cafes selling lattes and paninis remains hints of a rural tradition. The
path takes in the home of the Rydal Sheepdog trials, and sheep farming is
common throughout the valley. The traditional Herdwick sheep are ubiquitous,
looking on with something approaching bemusement at the hordes of walkers traipsing
across their fields.
The walk is also a reminder that this is a place that
inspires art as it takes in two of Wordsworth’s homes as well as a more recent
woodland sculpture walk and an intriguing ‘Art Yurt’. For both the contemporary
art and crafters and the Lake Poets, the area represents an escape. For one it
is from the modern world, and for the other the rapid industrialisation of
Britain. Wordsworth lived through the Industrial Revolution and escaped it by
heading to the Lakes; the inhabitants of the Art Yurt have seen its ultimate
effects and similarly seek the timeless calm of Cumbria. The Lake District
encompasses the kind of pocket sized wonder that Britain specialises in and
Bill Bryson once espoused. It’s natural beauty that is comprehendible and
personal. The beauty of the fells and tarns is on a scale that fits to the
human imagination and doesn’t bludgeon the individual with the scale of nature.
Peaks can be conquered, Lakes circled and views memorised. For me, these views
represent childhood holidays, roadside cooking and my first experience of
wonder, for Wordsworth they inspired poems of death, separation and grief. Like
the surfaces of the tarns, the views reflect the beholder.
After Rydal Hall the walk continues beneath the craggy face
of Nag scar and presents views across Rydal Water and towards Loughrigg. Here
the walker is reminded of the purpose of this archaic trail. A flattened stone
sits to the side of the path, worn smooth through use and time. It is often
used now as a bench by weary travellers but once it was a penultimate resting
place for the inhabitants of Ambleside. A moment of rest for coffin bearers on
the weary trudge towards St. Oswald’s is now a poignant reminder of the difficulty
of this trip for the original users. It is perhaps a symbol of our humanity
that these are the lengths we are prepared for to give proper respect to the
dead. The importance of a proper end would only matter to a species that sees life
as more than just a temporary state of being. The ancient followers of this
path were fathers, mothers, sons and daughters, with lives and hopes,
beginnings, and endings. Social beings all, with ties to this environment and
their community.
The path finally descends past Dove Cottage and winds towards
the middle of Grasmere. Nowadays it passes shops selling postcards, fridge
magnets and distantly created fudge within local packages before reaching its
final destination in the shaded churchyard of St. Oswalds. Here amongst the
dead of Grasmere, Ambleside, Rydal and elsewhere lies the gravestone of
Wordsworth. A genius whose timeless words have been passed from human to human
for over a century and yet still speak to each reader as if written by their
own hand.
The coffin route reminds the walker of the shared bonds of
humanity that stretch across time and place. There is something universal in
the lengths these old Cumbrians would go to bury their dead, in the simple
wonder that the Lake District can inspire and in the literature created by
Wordsworth and his like. It is, appropriately, a humbling and quiet journey
through some of Britain’s most green and pleasant lands.
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