Green Holme

I've walked this way many times but never explored this cave before. It appears to be connected with a disused quarry hereabouts. There was water in the bottom, so you either had to edge around the side or use the stepping stones across the middle. It being half-term, there were numerous children making spooky sounds that reverberated around the interior!

Storm Arwen in late November 2021 has brought a number of large trees down across the road and left others in danger of falling

Footbridge over the River Rothay, Rydal.

Dove Cottage is a house on the edge of Grasmere in the Lake District of England. It is best known as the home of the poet William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy Wordsworth from December 1799 to May 1808, where they spent over eight years of "plain living, but high thinking". During this period, William wrote much of the poetry for which he is remembered today, including his "Ode: Intimations of Immortality", "Ode to Duty", "My Heart Leaps Up" and "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud", together with parts of his autobiographical epic, The Prelude. William Wordsworth married his wife Mary in 1802, and she and her sister joined the Wordsworths at Dove Cottage. The family quickly expanded, with the arrival of three children in four years, and the Wordsworths left Dove Cottage in 1808 to seek larger lodgings. The cottage was then occupied by Thomas De Quincey for a number of years, before being let to a succession of tenants. The cottage was acquired by the Wordsworth Trust in 1890 and opened to the public as a writer's home museum in 1891. The house is a Grade 1 listed building, and remains largely unchanged from Wordsworth's day. It receives approximately 70,000 visitors a year.

The Grot, or grotto, was built in 1668 by Sir Daniel Fleming and designed as a place to frame and enjoy the spectacular Rydal Falls. It is one of Britain’s earliest examples of a viewing station. William Wordsworth was particularly fond of the Grot, writing about it in one of his earlier poems ‘An Evening Walk’ and visiting with his nephew shortly before his death. From the window, a bridge across Rydal Beck, built by Sir Daniel Fleming in 1682, can be seen. This stone bridge probably replaced a previous wooden structure. The Beck descends as a waterfall, called Low Falls, into a plunge pool and continues through a gorge, which frames the falls and casts shade upon the scene. This small building called the Grotto (listed grade II*), was built by Sir Daniel Fleming in 1668-9. He referred to it in his accounts as the 'Grot' and 'my Grott-House'. It is a simple stone building with a door on the south side and a large window on the north side giving a view of the waterfall, the plunge pool, and the bridge above it. The interior was originally panelled, and Sir Daniel's accounts show that the cost of the panelling and glazing amounted to more than the cost of the rest of the building. Rev. Thomas Machell described it, in 1692, as 'a little grotto... [for] retirement' and the view of the fall from it as 'very surprising'. Sir Daniel had the scene from the window painted in 1682. This building is unique: it is Britain's earliest known purpose-built viewing station. This area became a popular attraction in the later 18th century. The visitor was led along a route to the summer house in such a way that the view of the waterfall was not visible until the door was opened, revealing it framed by the window in the opposite wall. The view from this spot was commended by Thomas Gray in his Journal of 1769 and by Gilpin in 1786, amongst many others. The scene was described in verse by William Wordsworth in An Evening Walk, and the falls were painted by Joseph Wright of Derby in 1795, Julius Ceasar Ibbetson in 1798 and drawn by John Constable in 1806. The scene has been described as a 'beau ideal of romantic and Picturesque scenery'.