Lake District, Highlands and Islands

Today we drove to Buttermere village for a walk around Buttermere Lake. The village and the lake derive their names from a 10th Century Norseman leader named "Buther" and "mere* meaning lake.  This walk has been popular since Victorian times (1837 to 1901).  To get there we drove across Honister Pass, the site of a slate mine.  Slate has been quarried from this area since Elizabethan times (1558). Later in the day we visited Bowder Stone, a four-story tall rock that was a popular tourist destination during the Georgian Era (named after the reign of the kings George I, George II, George III and George IV from 1714 -1830). Tourists have been coming to the Lake District for a long time...

Our day started with a drive to visit a 17th century farmhouse.  Townend was built in 1626 and remained in the hands of the same family for eleven generations (more than 300 years) before it was taken over by the National Trust in 1943.  The house is considered an extraordinary relic for its architecture and furnishings.  There were also 300 years of written records that came with the house. This included bills and family letters that provided a unique look into daily life across those centuries.  We also learned that Woodrow Wilson was a paying guest at the house (before he became President of the United States) while doing family genealogical research in the area. Afterwards, we took a ride on the Lakeside and Haverthwaite Railway steam train.  The round-trip ride started at Windermere Lake and went along the Leven River.   Then we stopped off at the village of Hawksh...

Today we went on a hike for a view over the area near where we are staying.  The mountain, Cat Bells, is considered one of the best walks in the region.  The name derives from a legend that a wild cat had a den or a "bield" (Old English word for den) on the mountain.  "Bield" became pronounced "bells" over time and so today we have "Cat Bells."  Although the elevation is only 1,481 feet, it is one of the highest in the region and views from the top are very nice. In the evening we went to see a production of Pride and Prejudice at the Theater By The Lake in Keswick. The play was a modified version of the book by Jane Austen.  

After another look at the Bluefaced Sheep, we drove to Vindolanda, the site of a Roman Fort that predates Hadrian's Wall.  The museum at the site features wooden ink tablets discovered during archaeological excavations.  These tablets when first recovered in 1992 were the oldest surviving handwritten documents in Britain.  The museum also holds the largest known collection of Roman shoes.   The site has a full-size replica of two sections of Hadrian's Wall including a tower.  There is also a milestone replica near the museum. These were used to mark distances along the roads the Romans built in the area.  We were able to take a short walk to view an actual milestone from the Roman area in its original position not far away from the museum. Some other exhibit highlights for us were the use of the "evil eye" like...

The day started with a visit to the Dryburgh Abbey ruins - located right next door to our hotel. Founded in the twelfth century, not much remains of the Abbey.  It is best known as the burial place of Sir Walter Scott, a Scottish novelist, poet and historian. Next we visited the ruins of Jedburgh Abbey and took a walk around the town of Jedburgh visiting a few antique shops.  Jedburgh Abbey was also founded in the twelfth century and is considered one of the best preserved abbeys along the Scottish/English border.  Its Abbey Church remains intact.  The cemetery had a few interesting headstones and there was an exhibit about the stone masons who built the Abbey. We found some good examples of the stone masons' work in a doorway arch. We then drove on into England and left Scotland behind. Our next desti...