PICTURE IT - THEN AND NOW - THE WISHING GATE
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Drive-by. There is a road off the A591 - Wishing Gate Road - from White Moss Common Car Park to Dove Cottage Townend directly to the gate.
YOU DON'T NEED TO CLIMB THE GATE TO GET TO THE CACHE SITE.
THE CACHE IS NOT HIDDEN IN A DRYSTONE WALL.
In this series we have taken some of our favourite pictures which may be familiar to you also and set you the challenge if you’re up for it of reproducing them, not as a ‘must do’ to claim a find, just an added interest when looking for the cache. We look forward to looking at your pics which you should simply upload to your log in the normal way.
THEN AND NOW.
We've uploaded an old pic this time and added 'our take', easy in some cases where surprisingly little has changed - not so easy in others where things have changed quite dramatically - buildings have gone or been replaced, tracks have re-routed and been replaced with roads, trees have obscured the view etc......
We have placed caches near to where the shots were taken so you may as well ‘have a go’ too. Have fun!
By the side of the old highway leading from Grasmere to Ambleside, now known as Wishing Gate Road, is a gate which came to be known as the Wishing Gate from a belief that wishes made there did indeed come true.
His 1828 poem 'The Wishing Gate' sees the gate as a symbol of human aspirations.
When magic lore abjured its might,
Ye did not forfeit one dear right,
One tender claim abate;
Witness this symbol of your sway,
Surviving near the public way,
The rustic Wishing-gate!
In 1841, hearing, incorrectly, that the gate had been removed, he responded with a second poem, 'The Wishing Gate Destroyed'.
'TIS gone--with old belief and dream
That round it clung, and tempting scheme
Released from fear and doubt;
And the bright landscape too must lie,
By this blank wall, from every eye,
Relentlessly shut out.
Wordsworth Quote:
“In the Vale of Grasmere, by the side of the old high-way leading to Ambleside, is a gate which, time out of mind, has been called the Wishing gate. Having been told, upon what I thought good authority, that this gate had been destroyed, and the opening, where it hung, walled up, I gave vent immediately to my feelings in these stanzas, (his poem The Wishing Gate Destroyed). But going to the place some time after, I found, with much delight, my old favourite unmolested.”
Whilst searching for information on the gate for this series we too got it from a reliable source that the gate had gone and the gap ‘walled up’ - very curious we thought since this source of information was published in 1855, 5 years after the death of Wordsworth in 1850 - so we went to find out for ourselves… The original gate has indeed disappeared, but we found, much to our delight also, that it has been replaced – awaiting your wish!
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Obhyqre