Ambleside
Coordinates: 54 ° 26 ′ N , 2 ° 58 ′ W
Ambleside is a place with about 2600 inhabitants in the northern English Lake District and belongs to the county of Cumbria .
The name is derived from the Old Norse á melr sætr = willow near the sandbank.
geography
Ambleside is at the northern end of England's largest natural lake, Windermere , bounded to the west by Loughrigg Fell, to the east by Wansfell, and Red Screes and Fairfield to the north. A road link runs through the village from Kendal in the south to Keswick over the Dunmail Raise pass in the north.
history
The first proven permanent settlement is Galava , a fort built by the Romans around 100 AD. After the Roman occupiers withdrew from Britain, Vikings settled in the Lake District, as can be seen from many Nordic place and landscape names (e.g. the name "Fell" for the mountains) can be recognized. The meaning of the name Ambleside goes back to the Viking Age.
In the Middle Ages an extensive industry developed, which was characterized by sheep breeding and the associated fur and wool processing, as well as mining and ore processing. With the progressive development of traffic routes, more and more tourists discovered the Lake District and came to Ambleside. From the middle of the 18th century, the Lake District and Ambleside were popular meeting places for various artists such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge , John Ruskin , Beatrix Potter and William Wordsworth , who supported an initiative that prevented a railway line from being built as far as Ambleside.
1945 settled the German artist Kurt Schwitters , who after the First World War became known with his MERZkunst - mainly collages, but also poems like An Anna Blume - in the context of Expressionism , Dada and Constructivism as "one-man art movement" (Schwitters), from London to Ambleside via. Schwitters spent the last three years of his life there. In Elterwater he built his third and last Merzbau , the so-called Merzbarn , the remains of which are now in the Hutton Gallery of Newcastle University . He died of heart failure on January 8, 1948, at the nearby Kendal Hospital.
Today, despite its small size, Ambleside is one of the main towns in the Lake District along with Keswick , Coniston and Windermere , attracting numerous tourists each year.
Mountain rescue
Ambleside is home to the UK's most widely used Mountain Rescue Team (MRT). Despite the low altitude of the surrounding mountains, there are always accidents, including by tourists who underestimate the dangers of the mountains and B. go hiking with insufficient equipment or lack of knowledge.
tourism
Ambleside is used because of its central location as a starting point for mountain hikes, mountain bike tours and other excursions in the Lake District.
The Armitt Museum presents 2000 years of Lake District history. It recognizes regional and national artists such as Alfred Heaton Cooper, Beatrix Potter, John Ruskin, Josefina de Vasconcellos, William Wordsworth and Alfred Wainwright , as well as Kurt Schwitters , who lived and worked in Ambleside before his death.
Bridge House
The Bridge House is a more than 300 year old building that was built as a summer house and warehouse over Stock Ghyll (Ghyll = gorge) to avoid property tax as it was not built on land. The house was bought for the National Trust in 1926 and now houses an information office for that organization.
St Martin's College
St Martin's College is a teaching staff training center and is housed in a building founded in 1892 by Charlotte Mason as a college for teachers.
Steamer
On Lake Windermere , steamers , which are diesel- powered , drive between Ambleside and Bowness-on-Windermere , from where you can enjoy the view of the surrounding mountains.
Remarks
- ↑ Lake District Place Names , Robert Gambles, Dalesman Books, Clapham 1985
Web links
- Ambleside Online
- Langdale / Ambleside Mountain Rescue Team
- Armitt Museum & Library ( Memento from December 31, 2005 in the Internet Archive )
- St Martin's College