Changes to the landscape of the Lake District

Except for a number of the dale churches and the fortified pele towers there was little or no building in stone before the early part of the seventeenth century. The most important reason for this would seem to be the general poverty of the area in medieval times. The farmhouses of the period before about 1650 were simple structures of clay and timber; they were not built to last and therefore there are no surviving examples for us to see. An excavated example from the Lune valley, outside the National Park to the southeast, indicates the general style, with a wooden cruck frame, walls of dried mud plastered over a thin timber framework and signs of a roughly thatched roof.

Domestic building in stone before 1600, where it did occur, concerned only the upper echelon of medieval society and even then was confined to the southern Lake District and in particular High Furness, comparatively unscathed by the Scots raids which prompted the building of pele towers in more vulnerable spots. Amongst the few examples of these early nonfortified dwellings are Con is ton Hall, cruckframed and with cylindrical chimneys, Hawkshead Old Hall and Graythwaite Hall.

The rebuilding of the Lake District

Increasing prosperity in the seventeenth century, allied to the emergence of the rural middle class yeomen farmers known as 'statesmen', led to the great rebuilding in stone of many of the farmhouses and (somewhat later) cottages of the district, in an authentically regional style which still embellishes many a dale.

The statesmen were essentially tenant farmers who had acquired the right to hereditary tenure by signing up for military service in the troubled border regions; their wealth was based on a smallholding together with the right to graze the extensive fell pastures. The building style was based on the concept of a long, low building which included farmhouse, byre and store all in one.

Originally the human and bovine quarters were separated merely by a narrow passage, and the entire construction was single storey, with the bower or sleeping quarters beyond the kitchen. Such a house plan showed few changes from its prehistoric and Dark Age forerunners. From the early eighteenth century onwards, however, an upstairs bedroom approached via a staircase in a projecting wing became more common.

Lake District farmhouses

The exterior of these statesman farmhouses, whilst it conforms to a general pattern, also varies with the underlying geology to such an extent that variations in rock type are immediately apparent in the visual impact of the farmhouses on the landscape. The overall pattern, however, remains that of a low building of extreme length, usually externally roughcast or whitewashed, and with a slate roof which, in the case of the earlier examples, is probably the successor to a heavy stone flagged roof which needed the support of fairly massive roof timbers. Stone flags were increasingly relegated to use for floors only from the mid eighteenth century onwards, and within a hundred. Years flagged floors were becoming less common.

Local variations derived from geological differences because almost without exception these farmhouses were constructed from stone won from very local quarries ¬include the roughly worked, angular blocks from the Borrowdale Volcanics in the central core of the district, the sandstones of the Penrith area, more amenable to the mason's touch, and the light grey carboniferous limestone of the Kendal and Ulverston areas and also of the northern fringe, notably in Hesket Newmarket, Caldbeck and the surrounding hamlets.

A classic example of a statesman farmhouse formed from the angular rocks of the mountain core is that at Dalehead, in its remote location at the limit of human settlement in Martindale. Long, low, roughcast and with the date 1666, indicating the date of rebuilding, inscribed on one of the stone buttresses which once supported a spinning gallery, Dalehead is a worthwhile though difficult detour for visitors to Ullswater.

Troutbeck farmhouses

Somewhat more accessible is the unique collection of statesman farmhouses in the village of Troutbeck, not far from the tourist honey pots of Windermere and Ambleside. There are over a dozen farmhouses dating from the seventeenth century, and though some have more recently suffered dereliction or have been altered significantly, the majority retain their original plan and their sense of place.

Town End at Troutbeck

By far the best known of the Troutbeck farmhouses is the former home of the Browne family, Town End, now cared for by the National Trust. Built in 1623, Town End not only has the classic external attributes of the statesman farmhouse, including in this case the tall cylindrical chimneys characteristic of Westmorland, but has also retained period furnishings, including piece5 of furniture carved by members of the Browne family. Across the road is Town End's barn, a bank barn of a type restricted to the Lake District and the Yorkshire Dales, twostorey and with a ramped entrance to the hay store on the upper floor.

A gallery connected the two floors and this has been described as a spinning gallery, though this may not have been its purpose at the time it was constructed.

Spinning galleries in the Lake District

Spinning galleries are found in a number of locations in the Lake District, including the Con is ton area (Yew Tree Farm on the road to Ambleside), Cartmel Fell (Pool Bank Farm and Hodge Hill), Troutbeck, and Low Hartsop in the upper Patterdale valley.

They constitute an impressive and historically important link with the domestic woollen industry which was so significant a part of the rural economy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The purpose of the galleries was to provide a covered area for the drying of Herdwick fleeces and for the subsequent spinning of the fleeces into wool which could then be taken to the fulling mills of the district.

The importance of the spinning galleries was that they increased the potential income of the statesmen at a time when the smallholdings, small enough to begin with, were being further subdivided through the system of hereditary tenure into parcels of land which were barely sufficient to support farming families.

Once widespread in the district, spinning galleries are now a rarity, but one which is well worth seeing. The best, perhaps, are those at Hartsop, which illustrate the range of sophistication which was achieved in their design, from the comparatively simple, roughly shaped stone structure at Mireside to the superficially more attractive wooden balcony, with its reminders of the black and white architec¬ture mote common further south, at Thorn House. The spinning galleries here, and their parent slate farmsteads below the green slopes of the eastern fells, probably date from about 1700, though it is difficult to date individual examples too closely.

Accommodation in the Windermere Bowness

Modern day accommodation in the Lake District is a far cry from the draughty farmhouses of the 1700s, and visitors today can enjoy a wide range of boutique hotels, guesthouses and comfortable bed and breakfast accomodation, plus some of the best hot tub hotels in England, near Windermere and Bowness.

By 1790 the Gentleman's Magazine was able to conclude that in the Lake counties 'the houses (or rather huts) of clay, which were small and ill-built, are mostly thrown down; instead of which, strong and roomy farmhouses are built' . Yet whilst this was true of the middle-class farming community, the rural lower classes existed for the most part in less comfortable conditions until the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, when the rebuilding of cottages and considerable building of new artisans' dwellings was prompted by increased demand for labour in the quarries, mines, and mills, which were still in many cases prosperous.

These cottages often replaced less durable predecessors constructed of clay and wood, and were usually constructed of solid, thick walls of lime washed rubble or slate blocks, with small windows and doors set deeply into the walls as one source of protection against the winter weather.
The great age of rebuilding still has a dramatic impact on the landscape of the dales, where the whitewashed statesman farmhouses stand out amongst the valley pastures yet harmonise with the patterns of field and fell side, and on the more urban landscape of the villages and hamlets, where the vernacular architecture of farms and cottages is an important cohesive element in the scene.

Yet there is a much more widespread legacy of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the landscape of the fells and dales, namely the dry stone walling which was a consequence of the enclosure movement. The enclosure walls account for the majority of the stone walls which survive on the fells, though more ancient boundaries including those of monastic estates and medieval deer parks can also be traced in places.

The Cumbrian Commons

The enclosure of the Cumbrian commons largely took place between 1760 and 1800, with some 50,000 acres enclosed during that period. The process was easily achieved on paper but rather more difficult to put into practice because of the mountain topography. Walls, often still in good condition, traverse many of the high fells, running along the summit ridges and often then plunging down fell sides along lines defined more on the map than in the landscape. A good example is the wall which comes steeply up from Martindale onto the southern flanks of Wether Hill on the High Street ridge, runs south along the ridge almost as far as the top of High Raise and then veers dramatically westward down a savagely eroded rocky ravine into the Rampsgill Beck valley.

Things to do in the Cumbria

Exploring the architecture and old houses in the Lake District may not be everyone´s cup of tea when they are planning their holiday, but there are plenty of other things to see and do in the Lake District. Discover the beauty of Windermere by boat, sail Coniston Water, walk in the fells and enjoy wonderful local Cumbrian food and drinks at one of the many superb hostelries around the Lake District. Hotels today offer visitors hot tubs, spa suites and a wide range of superb facilities in the Lake District.

The history of the fells in the Lake District

These walls, which Hugh Walpole described as 'running like live things about the fells', were built by wallers who would often camp out on the fells for several days at a time, painstakingly constructing the walls with their hogg holes to let the sheep through, their large stones or 'troughs' projecting on both sides to stabilise the wall, and their 'cams', stones laid vertically on top of the wall at its normal height of 4ft 6in. The cost was eight shillings for 6m (7 yards) of wall in 1845.

Despite the standard method of walling which was employed, regional characteristics persisted, largely as a result of differences in the raw material, from the rounded pinkish boulders of Eskdale granite through the friable grey slabs of the limestones to the massive angular blocks of the Borrowdale Volcanics. Whatever the rock, the result is a highly significant contribution to the attractiveness of the landscape.