Until the mid-eighteenth century, Britain’s barren mountains were regarded
with fear by all thoughtful people. The romantic movement, with its cult of
the ‘sublime’ and of the ‘picturesque’, modified this perception, and the
mountainous regions of Wales, the Lake District, and even Scotland, became
fashionable to visit and to admire for their ‘beauty, horror and
immensity’.
But these tourists never left the well-beaten and recommended path. They did not venture into the hills themselves. Only miners and quarrymen, or shepherds with sheep to find, or pack-horse drivers did that. And when the
first eccentric visitors asked to be guided to the summits the locals were
amazed and bemused.
When Coleridge, wild, unconventional and physically fearless, arrived to
join the Wordsworths in the Lakes in 1799, he immediately set out onto the
high fells on his own. His records of these explorations, in his notes and
in letters, particularly to his beloved but unattainable Sara Hutchinson,
provide a totally new and modern appreciation and understanding of the
mountain landscape.
Helvellyn, Skiddaw and most of the now popular summits were visited by him
alone, without maps or any equipment beyond his notebook in which he
scribbled his impressions and his reactions—‘O joy for me’ he jotted on
first seeing Ullswater from the top of Great Dodd. It was not till the very
end of the nineteenth century that solitary walking on the fells became
acceptable, and then, almost overnight, universally popular and
fashionable.
This book explores and explains the experiences of a true pioneer and one of Britain’s greatest and most remarkable creative spirits.
