There is no wealth but life

Today we visited Brantwood, home of John Ruskin, on the eastern shore of Coniston Water. In view of the fact that we’re life members of the Friends of Brantwood, it is a place of pilgrimage for us every time we’re in the Lakes and it never fails to work its magic on us, so apologies for the rather long entry today!

We parked at the Monk Coniston car park and walked the mile and a half to Brantwood across wildflower-bedecked meadows, diverting to the road only when we needed to avoid traversing a field full of cows! First port of call on arrival was the Terrace Café where we had lunch, sitting outside on the terrace and drinking in the views of Coniston Water in front of us.

We then strolled around the various gardens around the house. One of the lower garden paths is lined with azaleas, both the scented yellow ones and some striking peachy orange ones. The dividing fences between the various parts of the garden are covered with straggling honeysuckle and clematis, and a wide variety of cottage plants abound in the flower beds. The path through these gardens takes you down to the little jetty which was built for Ruskin’s rowing boat, “Jumping Jenny”, and which is where the National Trust steam yacht ‘Gondola’ still stops on her tours round the lake, as do the Coniston launches.

We then headed to the upper gardens behind the house. The bluebell wood was just past its best, as were the rhododendrons, but nevertheless everywhere looked enchanting in the dappled light, and the scent of the yellow azaleas wafted on the air. Wildflowers grew in abundance – yellow poppies, greater stitchwort, violets, daisies and cow parsley are just some I can remember. 

We then returned to the jetty so that I could get some shots of Steam Yacht Gondola when she arrived at 3.15 pm. Gondola was originally commissioned by the Furness Railway Company in 1859 as an attraction for tourists arriving in Coniston by train. She was laid up during the First World War and was eventually retired in 1936. She gradually deteriorated and came close to being sold for scrap, having broken her moorings in a severe storm in the winter of 1963/4. Instead, she was bought and deliberately sunk to slow down her deterioration. She was underwater for ten years because sufficient funding proved difficult to obtain. 

Eventually enough money was raised to pay for a major re-building programme, which was undertaken by Vickers Shipbuilders in Barrow. The splendid new Gondola was launched in 1980 with the serpent ("Sid") being a nod to the typical Venetian gondola, and with the Duke of Devonshire's arms once again on the hull because his ancestor was chairman of the Furness Railway Company in 1859.

In 2008 she was converted to run on environmentally friendly biomass and in 2016 the rotting Sid the serpent was replaced, and parts of the interior panelling were re-fitted, by our old friends Peter Hall & Son of Staveley, whose skilled chief craftsman Ian Sugden spent five months carving and gilding the new Sid from a block of English oak.

In extras you can see a couple of shots from our walk to Brantwood; one of Coniston Village and the Old Man of Coniston fell on the other side of Coniston Water, and one of Bank Ground Farm; the rest are of the Brantwood gardens and Gondola.