Posted by Duncan on September 24, 2013 at 12:21:30 user Duncan.
In Reply to: Re: Belle Grange as Beckfoot - putting the pieces together! posted by Roger Wardale on September 24, 2013 at 04:33:08:
I agree re: Watbarrow Point - it does rather look the part and again is "in the right place" more-or-less. I like the way The Mount interacts with an actual house (and a house on the road up the west side of the lake, with its own coppice and close to wooded slopes, etc.)
The Mount does appear wooded in all the 20th century maps I've looked at; I've seen one early 19th century map that shows it as the only non-wooded bit along the shore there, but that's far too old of course. Interestingly, I read something about Lakeland wrestling which told a story just about contemporaneous with that map about a wreck at a Windermere regatta and about "two plucky girls of Belle Grange" who rowed out to the rescue. Of course these people must have been quite unknown to AR as it was far too long ago, but I like the idea that he might have heard the story somewhere.
I've also read the text of an old Lakeland book (which is online somewhere) that details skating on Windermere (I assume during the Great Frost - certainly very late 19th century) and tells the "hot pot falling through the ice" story and appears to set it in Belle Grange Bay.
All of this is quite fascinating but doesn't necessarily help! (Oh another contemporaneous account of skating on Windermere referred to "Belle Grange Nab" which must have been an alternative local name for The Mount, and also talked about the many coves on the Eastern shore of the lake south of the Ferry, where smoke from charcoal burners could be seen through the trees. I'll have to find the links and share them.