Peel Island (formerly known as Montague Island or the Gridiron) is one of the three islands of

Coniston Water Coniston Water in the English county of Cumbria is the third-largest lake in the Lake District by volume (after Windermere and Ullswater), and the fifth-largest by area. It is five miles long by half a mile wide (8 km by 800 m), has a ...

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 ...

Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in North West England, bordering Scotland. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local government, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. Cumb ...

. The two others are Fir Island (which is connected to the shore unless the water is particularly high) and Oak Island. It is most famous for being one of the inspirations for

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 ...

's Wild Cat Island. Today, it is a popular tourist destination, and belongs to 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 ...

History

Peel Island has belonged to the

since it was given to them by

John Montagu-Douglas-Scott, 7th Duke of Buccleuch John Charles Montagu Douglas Scott, 7th Duke of Buccleuch and 9th Duke of Queensberry, (30 March 1864 – 19 October 1935), styled The Honourable John Montagu Douglas Scott until 1884, Lord John Montagu Douglas Scott between 1884 and 1886 ...

, along with of woodland, in 1932.

Wild Cat Island

Peel Island is considered to be one of the origins of the fictional Wild Cat Island in the 1930 book ''

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, ...

'' and its sequels, by

. Taqui Altounyan, sister of

Roger Altounyan Roger Edward Collingwood Altounyan (1922–1987) was an Anglo-Armenian physician and pharmacologist who pioneered the use of sodium cromoglycate as a remedy for asthma. His family relocated to the United Kingdom where he studied medicine and star ...

and inspiration for one of the characters in ''Swallows and Amazons'', described Peel Island in her

autobiography An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life. It is a form of biography. Definition The word "autobiography" was first used deprecatingly by William Taylor in 1797 in the English peri ...

''In Aleppo Once'' as "like a green tuffet, sitting in the water, the trees covering the rocks". The island also features in

W. G. Collingwood William Gershom Collingwood (; 6 August 1854, in Liverpool – 1 October 1932) was an English author, artist, antiquary and professor of Fine Arts at University College, Reading.Obituary in ''The Times'', ''Mr W.G. Collingwood'', ''Artist, Autho ...

's novel ''Thorstein of the Mere, A Saga of the Northmen in Lakeland''. Ransome, at the age of eight, first met the Collingwoods at a family picnic on Peel Island: a chance meeting that would prove to have important consequences in Ransome's later life, with Collingwood's grandchildren providing a model for significant characters in ''Swallows and Amazons''.

Accident

In 1967,

Donald Campbell Donald is a masculine given name derived from the Gaelic name ''Dòmhnall''.. This comes from the Proto-Celtic *''Dumno-ualos'' ("world-ruler" or "world-wielder"). The final -''d'' in ''Donald'' is partly derived from a misinterpretation of the ...

died near Peel Island while trying to set a world water speed record with a speed in excess of .

References

{{coord, 54.31690, -3.08526, type:landmark_region:GB_source:enwiki-osgb36(SD295918), display=title Islands of the Lake District Uninhabited islands of England Colton, Cumbria