"An easy woodland trail though lakeside forestry, close to the home of a troubled 19th-century genius."
Walk directions
With your back to the lake, turn right, across the car park, looking for your first purple-topped post. The path leads up into the woods. Initially the going is steep, including sections of steps, but soon it swings away from the beckside, over a rise then levels off. As the going becomes easier, maintain a less steep ascent to a junction of tracks.
Turn right here, to cross a stile and continue up the hill. The purple-topped posts draw you on into a clearing that accompanies a line of electricity transmission poles. The path levels again across the clearing, before descending briefly to cross first a tiny beck then a much larger one.
Ample purple posts lead you into a gentle ascent beneath broadleaved trees to a rough stone-built hut in the woods.
Just beyond this a yellow footpath arrow tempts you downward, but ignore it. Instead turn right with another purple-topped post amid former coppice stands. Follow the path descending more steeply before levelling off with views across the lake to the Coniston fells beyond. Rising again briefly, the path then dips back down towards the little beck and a stile. Over this a purple-topped post leads you on to a wooded promontory
The obvious route descends to the left, almost as far as the lakeshore before swinging round to the right into a picnic area by the road with a fine view across the lake. Find a little dip across the beck beyond the last picnic table to emerge in the parking area
Parking
- Machells Coppice car park, on eastern shore road just beyond Brantwood
Toilets en route
- None on route, plenty in Coniston on other side of lake
About the walk
Background John Ruskin (born 1819) came to nearby Brantwood in 1872, and stayed there until his death in 1900. The son of a wealthy Scottish sherry merchant, he had been encouraged to paint and write poetry as a child, and went on to Oxford University as an amateur scholar. While there he began to... write about art and architecture, and was inspired by developments in geology. He became a vocal proponent of the works of J M W Turner (1775–1851) – huge impressionistic pieces that had proved critically unpopular at times, and was clearly influenced himself by Wordsworth’s views of the natural order of things. Influential Artist The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a group of emerging artists in the London of the late 1840s, were also clearly influenced by Ruskin’s developing ideas, but personal relationships between them eventually broke down. John Everett Millais (think Ophelia, drowned in a pond) even eloped with Ruskin’s wife Effie. Her family secured an annulment to her marriage in 1856 so she could marry Millais. Ruskin was a man of monumental intellect, but prone to appropriately huge changes of mood. He abandoned art all together in the 1850s and wrote about politics instead, developing ideas that would influence the British Labour movement, Leo Tolstoy and even Mahatma Gandhi. Local Mentor Perhaps it was unhappiness that drove Ruskin to the shores of Coniston Water. Certainly much has been written about his sexuality and this seems to have been a lingering area of particularly wistful contemplation. But at Brantwood he settled into a few less pious tasks. He wrote and developed ideas about garden design, he wrote about heritage and architectural preservation, and put into context contemporary ideas that today we might label ‘The Big Society’. Crucially from a Lake District point of view he mentored a number of important local followers, including W G Collingwood (1854–1932). Collingwood studied Lakeland history, becoming an advocate for a view of the Scandinavian influence in culture that moved away from populist images of Viking raiders towards a more benign presence, still expressed through dialect and traditional farming methods. The Ruskin Museum in Coniston owes much to Collingwood’s work.
"An easy woodland trail though lakeside forestry, close to the home of a troubled 19th-century genius."
Walk details
1hr
Difficulty:
Easy
Gradient:
Flat
Distance:
1.5 miles (2.4kms)
Ascent:
230ft (70m)
Walk directions
With your back to the lake, turn right, across the car park, looking for your first purple-topped post. The path leads up into the woods. Initially the going is steep, including sections of steps, but soon it swings away from the beckside, over a rise then levels off. As the going becomes easier, maintain a less steep ascent to a junction of tracks.
1 of 5
Turn right here, to cross a stile and continue up the hill. The purple-topped posts draw you on into a clearing that accompanies a line of electricity transmission poles. The path levels again across the clearing, before descending briefly to cross first a tiny beck then a much larger one.
2 of 5
Ample purple posts lead you into a gentle ascent beneath broadleaved trees to a rough stone-built hut in the woods.
3 of 5
Just beyond this a yellow footpath arrow tempts you downward, but ignore it. Instead turn right with another purple-topped post amid former coppice stands. Follow the path descending more steeply before levelling off with views across the lake to the Coniston fells beyond. Rising again briefly, the path then dips back down towards the little beck and a stile. Over this a purple-topped post leads you on to a wooded promontory
4 of 5
The obvious route descends to the left, almost as far as the lakeshore before swinging round to the right into a picnic area by the road with a fine view across the lake. Find a little dip across the beck beyond the last picnic table to emerge in the parking area
Parking
- Machells Coppice car park, on eastern shore road just beyond Brantwood
Toilets en route
- None on route, plenty in Coniston on other side of lake
About the walk
Background John Ruskin (born 1819) came to nearby Brantwood in 1872, and stayed there until his death in 1900. The son of a wealthy Scottish sherry merchant, he had been encouraged to paint and write poetry as a child, and went on to Oxford University as an amateur scholar. While there he began to... write about art and architecture, and was inspired by developments in geology. He became a vocal proponent of the works of J M W Turner (1775–1851) – huge impressionistic pieces that had proved critically unpopular at times, and was clearly influenced himself by Wordsworth’s views of the natural order of things. Influential Artist The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a group of emerging artists in the London of the late 1840s, were also clearly influenced by Ruskin’s developing ideas, but personal relationships between them eventually broke down. John Everett Millais (think Ophelia, drowned in a pond) even eloped with Ruskin’s wife Effie. Her family secured an annulment to her marriage in 1856 so she could marry Millais. Ruskin was a man of monumental intellect, but prone to appropriately huge changes of mood. He abandoned art all together in the 1850s and wrote about politics instead, developing ideas that would influence the British Labour movement, Leo Tolstoy and even Mahatma Gandhi. Local Mentor Perhaps it was unhappiness that drove Ruskin to the shores of Coniston Water. Certainly much has been written about his sexuality and this seems to have been a lingering area of particularly wistful contemplation. But at Brantwood he settled into a few less pious tasks. He wrote and developed ideas about garden design, he wrote about heritage and architectural preservation, and put into context contemporary ideas that today we might label ‘The Big Society’. Crucially from a Lake District point of view he mentored a number of important local followers, including W G Collingwood (1854–1932). Collingwood studied Lakeland history, becoming an advocate for a view of the Scandinavian influence in culture that moved away from populist images of Viking raiders towards a more benign presence, still expressed through dialect and traditional farming methods. The Ruskin Museum in Coniston owes much to Collingwood’s work.
