Today we decided to go back to Crosby Ravensworth to see if we could find Lancelot Wilkinson’s grave and his wife.  Then head up to Grasmere where James Atkinson married Esther Hartley.

When we got to Crosby it was raining so we donned out wet weather gear and broke out the brolly.  We checked the map of the graveyard for Wilkinson’s’ and found that 6 had been buried there.  Sadly none of them were Lancelot and his wife…failed there.

We drove on up to Grasmere while it was still raining.  When we got there we ask where the church was and were pointed to St Oswald’s.  This is where James Atkinson married Esther Hartley.  A very old church.  We took some pictures and had a look around.  Nothing to link it to the Atkinsons.

This is William Wordsworth where he did a lot of his writing, notably Daffodils.  He attended the church and is also buried here.

We then headed off towards Kendal again.  Jude wanted to take some more photos and find the Holy Trinity Church.  We drove down through Windemere, where Beatrix Potter wrote a lot of here stories.

Just after that we got into another traffic jam and spent quite a while idling along.  Don decided to take another route and let the NavMan sort it out.  Well that was probably a mistake…the NavMan kept telling us to do a U turn!!  We wound our way along some little lanes and up and up.  We ended up a bit misplaced and had to ask if we were on the right track.  We were at the Kirkstone Pass Inn, and yes if we kept going we would eventually get to were we wanted to.  We decided to have lunch (in the car because it was raining and we were in clouds), of cuppa soup and dry biscuits.  Just as we were about to leave, it started to clear.  We were obviously in snow country and quite high up.  It ended up taking us about 6 times the distance to get to Kendal.

When we got to Kendal we found the Holy Trinity Church, took some photos and headed to Mark & Spencer to get some food and back to the hotel.

We had been on the road from 0830 to 1630!!  But a great day!!

Grasmere is in the middle of the Lakes District.  I had a completely wrong idea of the Lakes District!  I thought it was all flat and perhaps swampy with lakes dotted around.  That could not be further from the truth.  It is mountainous with lakes in the bottom of very deep valleys.  Obviously the area was created by glacial action.