Lake District 2023 13: Grasmere

Welcome to the latest post in my series about my holiday in the Lake District. After Brockhole the regular mode of transport changed from boat to bus and the focus of our explorations shifted away from the immediate vicinity of Windermere. There is a very comprehensive bus service in this part of the world, and my parents car remained parked in Ambleside from our arrival on the Saturday until the Thursday morning when I was given a lift to Oxenholme The Lake District station. If I find myself staying in Ambleside again I will book to Windermere and catch a bus into Ambleside, avoiding car use altogether.

THE TOPE CONNECTION

One of the books in Rebecca Tope’s Lake District series is called “The Grasmere Grudge”, so I was interested to see the place for myself. There are more places connected with this series of books to come.

THE BUS JOURNEY

We had long wait for the bus due to epic quantities of car traffic using the road (I reckon a lot of people had had the ‘cunning’ idea of delaying travelling to the Lake District until the Tuesday after the bank holiday and that is why it was so hugely busy on that occasion – we saw fairly heavy traffic on other occasions but nothing quite like this), and the first bus was too full to admit us. The second which arrived very shortly after was very sparsely populated and we got seats in the open topped section, which made for a very enjoyable journey through a very scenic area.

GRASMERE

Grasmere is where the poet Wordsworth along with many relations was buried, and there is some good riverside walking (the river in question being the Rydal) there as well. The church at Grasmere is at least the third to have stood on that site, there having been churches there since the seventh century.

PHOTOGRAPHS

Here are the photographs…