Friars' Crag, sometimes spelled Friar's Crag"A stargazing walk to Friar's Crag, Cumbria"
''The Guardian'', 12 May 2012 or Friars Crag, is a promontory overlooking

Derwentwater Derwentwater, or Derwent Water, is one of the principal bodies of water in the Lake District National Park in north west England. It lies wholly within the Borough of Allerdale, in the county of Cumbria. The lake occupies part of Borrowda ...

near

Keswick, Cumbria Keswick ( ) is a market town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Allerdale Borough in Cumbria, England. Historic counties of England, Historically, until 1974, it was part of Cumberland. It lies within the Lake District National ...

, in the English

Lake District The Lake District, also known as the Lakes or Lakeland, is a mountainous region in North West England. A popular holiday destination, it is famous for its lakes, forests, and mountains (or ''fells''), and its associations with William Wordswor ...

. It is a popular site with visitors and was acquired for the public by the

National Trust The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...

in the 1920s. As well as its natural beauty, Friars' Crag is known for its literary and artistic associations with, among others,

Robert Southey Robert Southey ( or ; 12 August 1774 – 21 March 1843) was an English poet of the Romantic school, and Poet Laureate from 1813 until his death. Like the other Lake Poets, William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Southey began as a ra ...

J. M. W. Turner Joseph Mallord William Turner (23 April 177519 December 1851), known in his time as William Turner, was an English Romantic painter, printmaker and watercolourist. He is known for his expressive colouring, imaginative landscapes and turbulen ...

John Ruskin John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English writer, philosopher, art critic and polymath of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and politi ...

and

Arthur Ransome Arthur Michell Ransome (18 January 1884 – 3 June 1967) was an English author and journalist. He is best known for writing and illustrating the ''Swallows and Amazons'' series of children's books about the school-holiday adventures of childre ...

Background and description

The 7th-century priest and

hermit A hermit, also known as an eremite (adjectival form: hermitic or eremitic) or solitary, is a person who lives in seclusion. Eremitism plays a role in a variety of religions. Description In Christianity, the term was originally applied to a Ch ...

Saint Herbert Saint Herbert (also Habern, Herbern) (dates of birth and death unknown) is a saint who is said to have once been the bishop or abbot of Marmoutier, France and archbishop of Tours The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Tours (Latin: ''Archidioecesi ...

lived on an island in

. Friars' Crag derives its name from its use as an embarkment point by monks making a pilgrimage to the island."Friars Crag"
VisitCumbria. Retrieved 6 February 2020 Both Friars' Crag and St Herbert's Island are now owned by the

."Derwentwater"
Visit Keswick. Retrieved 6 February 2020 The crag is at the end of a promontory about half a mile south of the modern boat landing-stages at Keswick, and is reached by a footpath along the eastern side of the lake. Friars' Crag has been valued as a beauty spot since at least the 18th century. The poet

said of it, "If I had

Aladdin Aladdin ( ; ar, علاء الدين, ', , ATU 561, ‘Aladdin') is a Middle-Eastern folk tale. It is one of the best-known tales associated with ''The Book of One Thousand and One Nights'' (''The Arabian Nights''), despite not being part of ...

's lamp, or Fortunatus's purse, I would here build myself a house".

painted the view from the crag in either the late 18th or early 19th century. The art critic and social reformer

wrote of the spot: Ruskin, a pioneer of the protection of the unspoiled beauty of the

, said that the view from Friars' Crag "is one of the three or four most beautiful in Europe". In October 1900, nine months after his death, a monument to Ruskin was unveiled at the side of the path to Friars' Crag.Rawnsley (1901), p. 207 The driving force behind the erection of the Ruskin memorial was

Hardwicke Rawnsley Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley (29 September 1851 – 28 May 1920) was an Anglican priest, poet, local politician and conservationist. He became nationally and internationally known as one of the three founders of the National Trust for Places of H ...

, one of the three founders of the National Trust. He died in 1920, and in his memory the trust raised money to buy Friars' Crag and the surrounding land. A memorial to him was installed in 1922.Rawnsley (1923), p. 256 The children's author

incorporated Friars' Crag into his ''

Swallows and Amazons ''Swallows and Amazons'' is a children's adventure novel by English author Arthur Ransome and first published on 21 July 1930 by Jonathan Cape. Set in the summer of 1929 in the Lake District, the book introduces the main characters of John, ...

'' (1930), where it is given the name "Darien", the look-out point for the young crew of the ''Swallow''.

Notes

Sources

* * * * * {{cite book , last= Shelbourn , first= Colin , title= Waterside Walks in the Lake District, year= 2004, location= Wilmslow , publisher= Sigma Leisure , isbn= 978-1-85058-805-4