I was out and about in Hawkshead for much of the summer, recceing for a very different kind of tour, having been invited by HIS Miki Travel UK to meet Japanese tour groups from a coach in Hawkshead, to show them Hill Top, Near Sawrey and Hawkshead as part of their two-day itinerary in the Lake District.
I’m very much a bespoke/small tour kind of gal, looking after solo visitors and groups of four or five at the most, so meeting 10 to 20 weary travellers from a bus and grappling with a microphone was always going to push me out of my comfort zone. Guessing that my guests could be feeling uncomfortable too, handling big British breakfasts, jet lag and long hours of coach travel linking two of our finest cities – London and Edinburgh – with beautiful countryside – the Cotswolds, the Lakes – I wanted the visitors to slow down for the short time they were my guests.
That’s why when guests opted for a short walk around Hawkshead prior to omiyage (souvenir) shopping for specialty foods in Hawkshead, this was our cue to peep into Hawkshead Grammar School, famously attended by William Wordsworth and his brothers between 1779 and 1787, and take a look around St Michael and All Angels, perched high above the village. We soaked up the fabulous vistas that can be seen from the church: Hawkshead, nestled below us, with Latterbarrow, Claife Heights and mighty Helvellyn in the distance.
Settled since Norse times, Hawkshead’s heyday started in the late 1500s when Henry VIII’s men disinherited the monks who’d owned and farmed Hawkshead and the surrounding area for centuries. When merchants took up the wool trade, greatly encouraged by the village’s Market Charter, awarded by King James I in 1608, they initiated a housing boom that has left Hawkshead with a legacy of whitewashed 17th century cottages and intricate alleyways. Some cottages boast cutaway rounded corners, curved to protect the packhorses and the wagons in times gone by; others still have the original pentices, once used for displaying fleeces and yarns. There are also stone steps winding up the outsides of many of the cottages, Lakeland slate doorways, and the two quirky figures that live under the eaves at the Red Lion Inn, calling people to market from the 1500s – all of these features perfect for exploration over the course of a short village walk.
Likewise, time in Near Sawrey offers plenty of opportunities for a stroll, beyond Beatrix Potter’s farmhouse home and cottage gardens in the Lakes. Spotting the village locations of many of the Beatrix Potter stories is always popular, as is stopping for the honesty box where locals sell homemade cakes and honeys in Sawrey, or saying hi to the ginger cat who never fails to meet and greet visitors en route to Castle Cottage, where Beatrix Potter lived with her husband and William Heelis until her death in 1943. Then there’s the surrounding countryside itself, where visitors can meet the local Herdwicks and other farm animals, or head further afield for Moss Eccles Tarn or the hill top which gave the farm its name.
Not all sights need to be seen quickly and we don’t have to see everything, to see enough. Surely, when we’re at leisure, if at no other time, there’s time to stand and stare “beneath the boughs/And stare as long as sheep or cows” or to see, “When woods we pass/Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass” (from Leisure, by William Henry Davis: born 1871, died 1940). Thank you, Miki Travel Ltd/H.I.S London, for trusting me with your treasured guests and for the few short hours I was able to spend in their good company.
“A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.”
