St. Michael and All Angels, Torpenhow
Moss Force seen from Newlands Hause
Afternoon Tea in Keswick
The View from Watendlath
Each day of our trip to England had a character all its own and today was no exception. Mostly the character was determined by what we saw and that was true on day 12 but the weather played a bigger part today than it had on any other. It had rained a few times but it never really affected our plans, until today. It was raining when we got up and it continued to rain throughout the day.
As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, some days you see things that you want to see and other days you see things someone else wants to see. Today, our first stop was totally for me and I’m grateful that the others were willing to see it with me. My great, great, great grandfather, William Hartley, (born 1778) lived in the little town of Torpenhow for at least part of his life. We visited the church of Torpenhow, called St. Michael and All Angels. It’s a pretty little church with portions (notably the semi-circular arch on the right in this picture) dating to the early 12th century.
Our original plan had been to go for a bit of a tramp in the Lake District. The rain continued to come down, however, and that wasn’t going to happen. From Torpenhow we drove to Buttermere, a pretty, little lake in a pretty, little valley. We made our way to the car park where we would have started our hike, stopping a couple times to enjoy the view. We could barely see across the lake and couldn’t see the top of the hill we had talked about climbing. We turned back and headed through Newlands Hause, north of the town of Buttermere stopping briefly at the pass. Only the nutty Hartleys got out to get “a better view.” You can just make out the waves of rain, lashing from right to left across this photo of Moss Force.
We went to Keswick, which was a bit crowded with people who, like us, were brought in out of the rain. Still, we found parking spaces and took this opportunity to enjoy a proper afternoon tea. It’s something you want to do when you visit England but the timing hadn’t worked out up until now. It was also a nice thing to do on a rainy, windy day. Bryson’s Tea Room turned out to be the ideal place, as well. We ordered “tea for two” times four (since there were eight of us) and were happy to have warm tea, savory sandwiches, rich, creamy sweets, and (as much as anything) a comfortable place out of the rain.
After our yummy meal, we wandered around the shops in Keswick for a while. It was still raining but we decided to visit one more Lake District beauty spot before heading back to our hotel. We drove up the narrow road on the east side of Derwent Water to the hidden vale of Watendlath, with its beautiful little tarn and rushing beck (which was seriously rushing today) passing under a stone packhorse bridge. It was still coming down pretty steadily but I think everyone was happy to have visited and seen what view could be seen, which made up for in beauty what was lost in distance.
All in all, it was very little like what had been planned but everyone agreed that it had been a good day.