Bridge House

Some time ago I booked a few concerts taking place across the Lake District as part of the Lake District Music Festival, now in its 40th year. That took me to Ambleside today for two concerts in the parish church either side of lunchtime. They were both excellent.

The church is an impressive Victorian building with a good acoustic, and featuring an unusual mural inside (extra).. During the Second World War the Royal College of Art decamped from London to Ambleside with 150 students. The mural was painted in 1944 by Gordon Ransom and depicts the annual rush bearing procession in the town (before church floors were tiled they were bare earth and covered in dry rushes each year). The faces are those of local people.

The main image - probably the town’s most well known structure - is Bridge House built in 1723 over Stock Ghyll. The bridge led from Ambleside Hall to its orchard, now a car park. The little upper room accessed by steep steps was the apple store (my keyboard keeps wanting to use a capital A and a capital S, I wonder why :-) I sometimes do hanker for less commercial times).

I wouldn’t usually visit Ambleside in the summer. It’s a tourist honey spot very congested with traffic. I was tired anyway, so did not linger.