Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley's entry for May in his Months at the Lakes includes a surprising description of a visit to Arnside Knott. The view from Arnside Knott is beautiful and ever-changing with the seasons. It's a view I love and I was delighted to read that Rawnsley loved the Knott, too.
Pools of quiet bluebell colour reflected the Maytide sky in the far distance, and rivers that seemed to have lost their way wandered aimlessly through the vast plain that waited for the coming of the tide from the far Morecambe Bay. One river alone seemed to know her own mind - that was the Kent. She was pouring her silvery water with a fine swirling rush along close under the scar, and was evidently determined to eat away the samphire and grass plot between us and the south-eastern headland. Then flung back by the limestone bluff, she turned herself to the south, and passed out into the waste of glamour and glory that stretched illimitably as it seemed to the blue-grey hills of Lancaster on the one side and the smoke cloud of Furness beyond dark Humphtey Head on the other.
But the chief beauty of the prospect from above Arnside Knott was the wonder of the flying gleam and purple shadow upon the hills out west. Far beyond Cartmel fells the eye ranged on to Walney Scar and Coniston Old Man, and following the rampart of the hills northward to the east, saw clearly Wetherlam, Crinle Crags, Bowfell, Scafell, the Pikes, and an indistinguishable mass of lilac blue and deep cobalt where Helvellyn melted into High Street faded into the Pennine range.
Pools of quiet bluebell colour reflected the Maytide sky in the far distance, and rivers that seemed to have lost their way wandered aimlessly through the vast plain that waited for the coming of the tide from the far Morecambe Bay. One river alone seemed to know her own mind - that was the Kent. She was pouring her silvery water with a fine swirling rush along close under the scar, and was evidently determined to eat away the samphire and grass plot between us and the south-eastern headland. Then flung back by the limestone bluff, she turned herself to the south, and passed out into the waste of glamour and glory that stretched illimitably as it seemed to the blue-grey hills of Lancaster on the one side and the smoke cloud of Furness beyond dark Humphtey Head on the other.
But the chief beauty of the prospect from above Arnside Knott was the wonder of the flying gleam and purple shadow upon the hills out west. Far beyond Cartmel fells the eye ranged on to Walney Scar and Coniston Old Man, and following the rampart of the hills northward to the east, saw clearly Wetherlam, Crinle Crags, Bowfell, Scafell, the Pikes, and an indistinguishable mass of lilac blue and deep cobalt where Helvellyn melted into High Street faded into the Pennine range.
