WAINWRIGHT'S INN (A TRIBUTE TO ALFRED WAINWRIGHT)
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A short walk along the river from Wainwright's Inn to a wonderful view of the Langdales.
“One should always have a definite objective, in a walk as in life”, wrote A.W., “It is so much more satisfying to reach a target by personal effort than to wander aimlessly”.
Alfred Wainwright born in Blackburn in 1907, left school aged 13 to work as an office boy in Blackburn Borough Engineer’s Department. When he was 23, he managed a week’s holiday in the Lake District during which he climbed to Orrest Head in Windermere and the stunning panoramic view that unfolded before his eyes kindled a love affair with the Lake District that shaped the rest of his life. For his earliest walks he had no mountain boots, just town shoes, and no anorak. He usually wore a lightweight macintosh and his flat cap. He didn’t carry a compass and had no idea how to use one.
A.W. returned to the Lake District many times, engineering a move to Kendal in 1941, taking a pay cut in order to be nearer the Lakeland fells. His love of fell-walking neared obsessional, as he set out alone in all weathers to climb the many peaks in the Lake District. In 1948 A.W. became Kendal Town Borough Treasurer and in 1950 had a house built on Kendal Fell. A.W. was also Honorary Clerk and Curator to Kendal Museum from 1945-1974, giving up some of his spare time for 30 years to look after the museum collections. The museum has a re-creation of his office as it would have been in his day, and on display are some of his original pen and ink drawings including original pages from his famous ‘Pictorial Guides’, maps drawn when he was a child and his original map of Westmorland. There are also some personal items on display including his walking jacket, spectacles, rucksack, heavily darned socks and his famous pipe!
In 1952 A.W. walked to the summit of Dove Crag on the Eastern fells of the Lake District and on his return, already dissatisfied with the accuracy of existing maps, he wrote the initial pages of his first Pictorial Guide. In 1953 A.W. set himself the task of climbing every Lakeland fell and his notebooks, originally written as an aide memoir for his old age and never intended for publication, lovingly handwritten with painstakingly accurate maps and beautifully drawn views became the basis for the his seven Pictorial Guides which became an instant success when the first book, ‘The Eastern Fells’ was published in 1955. By 1966 all seven books were complete, detailing 214 separate Lakeland fells and the series of remarkable guides have given inspiration to all true fell walkers for the past forty years and for his labour of love, as he called it, he was awarded the MBE.
Spring 2005 will mark the 50th anniversary of the publication of A.W.’s first pictorial guide to the Lake District. The Wainwright Society plans an ascent of all 214 fells in the guide books within the space of one week 14th – 21st May. But isn’t it ironic that A.W. forerunner of today’s Grumpy Old Men, who gave short shrift to other fell walkers not imbued with his purist spirit, has been responsible for bringing hundreds of thousands to the hills?
In 1972 A.W. devised the Coast to Coast Walk, which traversed what he described as ‘the grandest territory in the North of England’. It stretches across 190 miles from ST Bees Head on the West coast to Robin Hood’s Bay on the East, passing through the Lake District, Yorkshire Dales and North York Moors. The C2C came second in a search by Britain’s best-selling walking magazine to find the 50 best walks in the world – ahead of treks to Everest Base Camp, the tour of Mont Blanc and the Inca Trail of Peru. Number one spot went to Milford Track on the South Island of New Zealand.
A.W., a modest and humble man, died in 1991 three days after his 84th birthday, having admirably given away most of the money from his legacies and copyrights to animal-rescue charities, also having bought a small estate near Kendal for an animal shelter ‘Kapellan’.
A memorial to A.W. can be found at Buttermere, his ashes having been scattered above the village on his favourite Lakeland fell, Haystacks, as was his wish:
“And if you, dear reader, should get a bit of grit in your boot as you are crossing Haystacks in the years to come, please treat it with respect. It may be me” - Fellwanderer A.W.”
This series of caches aims to chart some of the milestones in the life of Alfred Wainwright and can be found under listings as follows:
Kendal Fell
(A TRIBUTE TO ALFRED WAINWRIGHT)
Orrest Head
(A TRIBUTE TO ALFRED WAINWRIGHT)
A Fellwanderer’s View
(A TRIBUTE TO ALFRED WAINWRIGHT)
Innominate Tarn
(A TRIBUTE TO ALFRED WAINWRIGHT)
A.W. Memorial
(A TRIBUTE TO ALFRED WAINWRIGHT)
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Haqre n ynetr syng fyno.