# #163: Walla Crag – A short history of Lake District guidebooks

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/countrystride-336307/163-walla-crag-a-short-history-of-lake-district-guidebooks
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/countrystride-336307/163-walla-crag-a-short-history-of-lake-district-guidebooks.md
Podcast: [Countrystride](https://stenobird.com/podcast/countrystride-336307)
Published: 2026-05-15T05:10:17+00:00
Episode link: https://countrystride.podbean.com/e/163-walla-crag-%e2%80%93-a-short-history-of-lake-district-guidebooks/
Audio file: https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/benwu3cyf64shxrx/countrystride-dispatch-164.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/countrystride-336307/episodes/163-walla-crag-a-short-history-of-lake-district-guidebooks
Duration seconds: 3371

## Resource

...in which we climb Walla Crag in the company of academic and Back o’ Skidda’ resident Dr Liz Woodham for a deep dive into the history of guidebooks dedicated to fell-walking in Lakeland. Striding out from Surprise View, we set the historic context for the emergence of the walking guidebook – the earliest travellers seeking low-level views from Thomas West’s formative Guide to the Lakes (1778), and the use of paid mountain guides, often shepherds, taking well-heeled visitors on mountain adventures. ‘Roving Laker’ Harriet Martineau’s Complete Guide to the English Lakes(1855) was among the first to speak to fell-walkers, Liz tells us, with an ascent description of Fairfield that was – like the woman herself – quietly revolutionary. On the long climb of Cat Gill we discuss the forgotten Victorian colossus of Keswick, Henry Irwin Jenkinson, who compiled the most authoritative guide of its era, his Practical Guide to the English Lake District (1872), in just seven winter months (he would go on to consult on mountain rescues, and organise the Latrigg Fell Mass Trespass of 1887). Entering the age of M. J. B. Baddeley, we turn to his evergreen (tiny type) Thorough Guide to The English Lake District – first published in 1880 and still selling nearly a century later. We consider the democratisation of travel, and walking, in the age of rail, and the changing nature of the guidebook, as fells received dedicated chapters and publishers augmented directions with maps. Atop breezy Walla Crag we talk about the contribution of The Rev. H. H. Symonds – committed to “rescuing scraps of natural beauty” – who published a kind of ‘campaigning guidebook’ in his classic highbrow Walking in the Lake District (1933), and the very different books of his contemporary, outdoors advocate W. T. Pa…

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