Not to be confused with Seathwaite in Borrowdale, this village was the home for 67 years of the remarkable Reverend Robert Walker (1709-1802 ) known as 'Wonderful Walker'. Born at Undercrag in 1709 the 12th son of Nicholas Walker, one of the valley farmers... the runt of the litter...he was undoubledly destined for the church. He went to village schools at Ulpha and Eskdale, and even 'taught school' at Gosforth, where the building in which he taught still stands at the road-junction at the northern end of the village, now a private house. From there he went to Loweswater, still as a teacher, then on to Buttermere. He would sit up until the 'small hours' by candlelight studying Divinity, even after he had been given the curacy of the knoll-top Buttermere Church...in those days the smallest church in England. However within a year he was asking for an even lonelier ministry and in answer to his wishes was moved to Seathwaite at a stipend of £17 per year where he was to stay until his death at the grand age of 93.
His wife apparently had a dowry of £40 but he refused to touch a penny of it. Instead, proudly independent, he worked ceaselessly ; as a farm labourer, as a practical Christian weaving and spinning (even as he was teaching the village children beside the Communion Table); as a scrivener and lawyer. bringing up his three sons and seven daughters with a sound education.... even as an innkeeper when the Parsonage was turned into a hostelry in his brothers name. Yet he always had time to visit the sick and needy.
His pleasures were simple, an occasional game of whist.....and meat on Sundays. When he died he had saved in excess of £2,000. He is commemorated by a plaque in Seathwaite's church of the Holy Trinity, itself built in 1874 to replace an earlier church. A chair made by 'Wonderful Walker' can still be seen in the church, while an inscription on a stone outside the porch records that he clipped sheep there. He and his wife died in the same year and are buried in Seathwaite churchyard.
Just upstream from Birks Bridge ...famous for its deep clear rocks pools below...is the romantic Wallowbarrow Gorge, where the River Duddon is squeezed between two craggy hills. The stepping stones a short way downstream are described by Wordsworth in one of his sequence of 34 sonnets on the River Duddon. Visitors should also look for the unusual rock which has been shaped by the river over the years and today has the nickname 'Giant's Leg'.
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