Here we strike the quarry road leading from the Railway Station
over Banniside Moor, a smoother route, practicable (as ours
is not) for ponies, but longer. Here are slate-sheds, and the
_step_ where the sledges that come down the steep upper road are
slid upon wheels. The sledge-road winds round the trap rocks of
Crowberry haws (the grass-grown old road rejoins it a little
higher) and affords views, looking backwards, of Coniston Hall
and the lake behind. Five minutes above the slate-sheds the road
finally crosses Crowberry haws, and Lowwater Fall comes into
view--a broken gush of foam down a cleft 500 feet from brow to
base.
A shepherd's track leads to the foot of the fall and to the
Pudding Stone, a huge boulder--not unlike the famous Bowder Stone
of Borrowdale--a fragment from the "hard breccia" cliffs rising
behind it, namely, Raven Tor high above; Grey Crag beneath,
with the disused millrace along its flank; and Kernel Crag, the
lion-like rock over the copper mines. Dr. Gibson, the author of
_The Old Man, or Ravings and Ramblings round Conistone_, writing
half-a-century ago, says:--"On this crag, probably for ages, a
pair of ravens have annually had their nest, and though their
young have again and again been destroyed by the shepherds they
always return to the favourite spot." He goes on to tell that
once, when the parent birds were shot, a couple of strange ravens
attended to the wants of the orphan brood, until they were fit to
forage for themselves. On this suggestion, Dr. John Pagen White
has written his poem in _Lays and Legends of the English Lake
Country_, fancifully describing the raven on Kernel Crag watching
from prehistoric antiquity the changes of the world around it,
through past, present and future, to the crack of doom!
From the Pudding Stone experienced climbers can find their way up
the ledges of Raven Tor to the top of Lowwater Fall. We follow the
sledge road, and in five minutes reach Saddlestones Quarry, with
its tram-lines and tunnelled level, and continually increasing
platform of "rid" or débris.
Ten minutes' walk from the quarries brings us to Lowwater, with
glimpses of Windermere in the distance, and Leverswater nearer at
hand under the summit of Weatherlam. It is worth while turning off
to the right hand to see the great blocks of stone that lie in the
margin of the tarn, and at the head of the fall.
As we climb the zigzags to the highest quarries, over the slate
which stands out in slabs from the sward, the crags of Brimfell
and Buckbarrow opposite seem to rise with us. It is here, on a
cloudy day when the tops are covered, that the finest impressions
of mountain gloom may be found; under the cloud and the precipices
a dark green tarn, savage rocks, and tumbling streams; and out,
beyond, the tossing sea of mountain forms.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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