Most English towns have begun life after receiving a market charter. Windermere chose to be different. It began life with a railway station, which originally opened in 1848 at the hamlet of Birthwaite...the result was the sudden appearance of a settlement on the rising land above the old centre of Bowness.
The town was originally in the chapelry and township of Applethwaite, but a new parish was created with St Mary's as its church...a church which has a clock but which doesn't chime between the hours of 11pm. and 6am. so as not to disturb the visitors.
Windermere was a small close knit community with plenty of shops to service the village, but as its popularity grew so the shops changed to suit the tourist trade. As to be expected some of the earlier landmarks have disappeared. For example the Leyland drinking fountain which had been located near the old railway station for years is now to be found at the Brewery Arts Centre in Kendal. The drinking trough for the horses still survives and today can be seen in the wall on the main Windermere to Ambleside road. The Baddeley Town Clock is still there too...a memorial incidentally to M.J.B.Baddeley, the famous guide book writer. He died in 1906 and his grave in Bowness Cemetery has a headstone made from rock brought from the summit of Scafell Pike. Also to be seen still is Jordan's Granary in the centre of town.
The parish church of St Martin's is actually in Bowness, and stands close to the lake. Three striking features in the large white interior are the decorated walls and pillars...and its two great possessions...a magnificent east window, and an old wood carving of the patron saint. It is the east window that catches the eye, glowing with crimson and blue. Most of it has been here two generations, but some of it was in the old church. Some was new when the church was made new in the 15th century, and some was brought from Cartmel Priory. It is crowded with figures and is certainly full of colour.
The figure of St Martin is one of the rare carvings of a saint in wood, it is believed to be the work of a local craftsman and to be over 300 years old. It shows the saint sitting on a horse, wearing a strange hat, and dividing his cloak and sharing it with a beggar standing by a stick.
To get the full story, you must visit the bascillica of St Martin in France for St Martin was the Bishop of Tours (eventually). He started as a Roman General who, on capturing the city of Poitiers from the Gauls, took pity on the afforementioned beggar and split his cloak, sharing it with him. Legend has it that the beggar was none other than Jesus Christ and, having been impressed by Martin's empathy, appointed him as a Christian missionary, which posed Martin a problem as he was in the Roman army. Eventually, he took courage and faced Caesar himself to resign, realising, quite naturally, that warfare and Christianity could never go hand in hand. Much to his astonishment, Caesar granted him his freedom and he was commissioned to proclaim Christianity throughout the whole Tourraine. Bowness could not have adopted a more faithful saint.
The sculpture of him is about six feet high and is interesting too because it is one of a very small group of equestrian statues in our English churches....in fact there are only four in England, two of which are in bronze, one in marble, and the Windermere one, of course, in wood. It was in fact lost sight of for nearly half a century, though it was known to have been in the church before its restoration in 1870. In 1915 the 'saint on horseback' turned up again and was presented to the church by one of its friends.
England's largest lake...Lake Windermere has to be the area's main attraction. The rivers Rothay and Brathay pour into the lake. It is ten and a half miles long and just one mile wide (at its maximum point). I suppose it could be said that amongst its most important visitors was a youthful William Clinton who proposed to Hillary here.
The largest island is Belle Isle... once called Longholme. From 1250 it was the seat of the Lord of the Manor, though when the Phillipson's owned the island there was a siege of eight months during the Civil War when it was a Royalist stronghold. A Mr English built the present circular house in 1777, with the Curwen family becoming owners a few years later. It was then that the name 'Bel Isle' came into being... being an abbreviation of Isabel Curwen.
There has been a ferry here since 1575. The then Lords of Graythwaite Manor received six shillings and eight pence per year (today approximately 33 pence) for the right to ferry people across the middle of Windermere.
Close by on the Windermere to Ambleside road is the National Park Visitor Centre, which is open every day, and on Rayrigg Road is the ever popular Windermere Steamboat Museum.
Brockhole, the home of the National Park Visitor Centre was built in the late 1800's by a Henry Gaddum, a wealthy Manchester merchant.
Following his death in 1945, the house was a convalescent home for a while. It was in 1966 that the house was bought by the Lake District Planning Board and subsequently opened to the public for the first time as a Visitor Centre in 1969. Today there are displays, special events and courses, along with regular programmes of lectures on geology, natural history, literary association and farming. The 30 acres of attractive grounds extend to the shore with plenty of room for picnics as well as a large car park, and a nature trail.
Also to be seen is Holehird, built by the Dunlops in the last century and has some beautiful gardens which are open under the auspices of the local horticultural society. Also Elleray - at one time the 19th century home of John Wilson the well known writer. Today it is part of St Anne's School.
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