A gentle stroll today, nursing our tired legs from previous heroics. Here is Wansfell, gazing northward at a line-up of Red Screes, Kirkstone Pass, Stony Cove Pike, High Street, and Ill Bell—quite the roll call.
Kirkstone Pass, that lofty col between Ambleside and Patterdale, lent its name to an inn that once basked in the dubious glory of being “the highest inn in England,” courtesy of the early Ordnance Survey. Alas, this claim was downgraded to third place and now the inn has seemed to have given up altogether, apparently shut for good. Perhaps it tired of the rankings game.
In 1858, one Rosa, in her “summer wanderings,” waxed lyrical about a boulder there dubbed the “Church stone,” a rock towering over its peers, shaped like a miniature church, and stirring all sorts of romantic notions in its desolate setting. Whether this rock survived road “improvements” or is just considered non-descript in modern eyes remains a mystery to me. Rosa also rhapsodised about the pass’s peculiar echo, capable of inflating a mere whisper into a shrill whistle that supposedly startled deer and awakened buzzards. It is doubtful this marvel can compete with the hum of engines and the smug insulation of our modern vehicles as we hurtle up the pass without so much as a thought.
Source
Rosa’s summer wanderings, by the authoress of ‘Floreat Ecclesia’ (Rosa Raine). Repr., with additions, from the Churchman’s companion. 1858. https://books.google.com/books/about/Rosa_s_summer_wanderings_by_the_authores.html?id=xQkHAAAAQAAJ
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