The Wettest Spot In England

To the visitor who follows the course of Borrowdale from Keswick upward, new glories are unveiled at every turn, until, after passing Rosthwaite, he sees the valley divide itself, on either side of the great central mass of Glaramara, into a long, narrow glen. In the left-hand recess lies the small hamlet of Stonethwaite, backed by the cliffs of Eagle Crag; but however tempting that prospect may be to the wanderer, it is to the right hand that his steps must be turned if he would find the perfect sojourning-place amoung the hills. For here, at the foot of the Styhead Pass, is the cluster of farm and cottages known as Seathwaite, famed in guide-books as “the wettest place in England,” and here, in “Rain-gauge Cottage” itself—on the principle that the safest place is under the target—should the pilgrim make his abode. It is a beautiful but much-maligned spot; for because the largest amount of rain is measured here, it is assumed that rain forever falls, whereas what actually happens is that the rain falls not oftener, but more copiously than elsewhere, and thus more meteorological business is transacted in a given time.

At Seathwaite, then, one cannot do better than spend a week or two, for as a centre and starting-point, from which to reach the chief summits of the Scawfell Range, it is only surpassed, if surpassed at all, by Wastdale, and it is more fortunate than Wastdale in having no hotel.

The Rainiest Month.

It must be admitted, however, that August is seldom a favourable month for the mountains, for it is usually either too hot or too wet; and this year the weather has been not merely rainy, but treacherous and incalculable—luring one to the hills with the promise of a calm day after a long spell of storm, only to turn and rend the wayfarer when exposed to the full fury of the squall. Thus, on one occasion, during a fortnight recently spent at the rainiest place in this rainiest month, we had scrambled to the top of Esk Pike, which stands at the head of Eskdale above the central plateau of Esk Hause, and is one of the best watch-towers in the Lake District. No outlook could have been fairer. Twenty-four hours of deluge had sated, it seemed, the frenzy of the rain-god, and the sun shone brightly on the hundreds of little rivulets that were racing down the hillsides to join the torrent below. Now at last, we flattered ourselves, we had “a find day.” But no; for in half-an-hour all was suddenly changed; black clouds, blown up from seaward, were surging round the Gable, and had already swallowed Scawfell, and in a few minutes more we were battling on our downward course against a tornado of wind, hail, and rain which lasted for into the night. Yet there is a pleasure even in such struggle with the elements, especially to him who is well-shod; and often, when trudging downward and homeward, through rain and mist and desolation, we have felt inclined (with apologies to W. E. Henley), to exclaim:

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I think whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable sole.

A Garden in the Wilderness.

Yet desolate, almost wintry, as the general aspect of the mountains has often been in this most unseasonable season, there are nooks among the hills where crowds of wild flowers, unseen and unsuspected by the passing tourist, are still blooming, in a month when on the plains below the time for flowers is growing late. Climb up, or down, into one of those deep fissures known locally as “gills,” and notice the vegetation on either side of the stream; though two thousand feet above sea-level, there is a very paradise of plants. Most prevalent, perhaps, is the Alpine Lady’s Mantle, which, with bilberry, forms everywhere a green carpet on the slopes, against which stand out conspicuously tall spires of golden rod, purple foxgloves, festoons of yellow saxifrage, cushions of white sea-campion, and rich patches of wild thyme. There, too, is mountain sorrell and rost-root, that strangest of the stonecrops, with its glaucous hue, and butterworts, with leaves now faded to a sickly yellow, like starfish studding the wet rocks; while here and there are tufts of hare-bell and hawkweed, devil’s-bit scabious, and St. John’s-wort, or a stout stalk of Angelica. These are but some of the more noticeable flowers in this mountain rock-garden, and doubtless there are many others that a skilled eye would detect.

Pilgrims of the Fells.

This, however, is but a diversion, a dallying in upland bowers, for it is to the summits, especially those of the Great Gable and Scawfell Pikes, that the majority of pilgrims aspire. No day in August is so we but that a party of two of pedestrians will arrive at Seathwaite, to try their luck on the fells, and on a fair day there is quite a procession up the pass. And this leads to the remark that the condition of the mountain paths in the Lake District might well engage the attention of local authorities; the Styhead track, for example, has long reached the state of being in parts boulder-strewn, in parts a water-course, in parts a bog, and everywhere show traces of long years of neglect. How much better it would be to keep these paths, which do not deface the scenery, in proper repair, than to plan carrigage-roads which would give little satisfaction to any but passing motorists!

At Seathwaite the primitive solitude is as yet undisturbed; the raven and the buzzard still haunt the crags overhead; and at evening, when the last batch of returning climbers has passed down the dale, one may see the heron flapping slowly across the fields in the twilight, and hear the brown owls hooting in the wood. To the meteorologist Seathwaite may be the wettest place in England; to the nature-lover it is the sweetest.

Henry S. Salt

The Daily News and Leader, September 3, 1912, p. 6