THE popularity of extreme sports is rising, and nowhere faster than in the Lakes, from gruelling ‘iron man’ marathons to feats of open water swimming and lung-busting cycle challenges, writes JANE RENOUF.

However, the Lake District has been the natural home of extreme sports for well over a century, if we think back to the Victorian pioneers of the ‘new’ sport of rock climbing. Their extraordinary daring and skill is dramatically captured in Views From The Edge, an exhibition of photographs taken by the famous 'Keswick brothers,' George and Ashley Abraham which is running at Ambleside’s Armitt Museum until next spring.

The photographs have been selected from more than 700 of Abrahams’ glass plate negatives housed by the Armitt and owned by the Fell and Rock Climbing Club of the English Lake District, of which Ashley was the first president in 1907.

The two boys had grown up just as rock climbing was gaining popularity as a sport for young men. Both became serious climbers, under the tutelage of the legendary Owen Glynne Jones. Being excellent photographers too, they soon combined both talents to take outdoor photography to levels rarely seen before. However, taking a camera on the crags in dangerous and difficult conditions was risky in itself, laden with brass and mahogany camera, tripod and glass negatives weighing over 20lbs. Add to that heavy woollen garments, leather hobnailed boots, long, unwieldy ice axes and thick, heavy hemp ropes and photography on the rock face becomes an almost unimaginable feat.

What makes the Armitt’s exhibition even more fascinating is the unique insight into each image provided by the Langdale climber Bill Birkett, who combines a lifetime’s knowledge and personal experience of Lakeland rock with his talent as an author. Bill’s narrative accompanying each picture highlights the particular difficulties and conditions of each climb and his lively prose breathes new life into these old photographs, whilst expressing the sheer and enduring elation as common to climbing today as it ever was.

“The exhibition is a wonderful opportunity for the Armitt to bring out some of the treasures it doesn’t have space to display permanently,” curator Deborah Walsh said. “Looking at these extraordinary pioneers, and particularly reading about their evening exploits at the Wasdale Head Inn, I was reminded of how young most of them were, in fact they were more like boys simply having fun on the crags.”

The Armitt Museum and Library is open Tuesday-Saturday, 10.30am-4.30pm and the downstairs gallery displays include Beatrix Potter: Image and Reality as well as Kurt Schwitters - The Ambleside Legacy. It also features the life of educational pioneer Charlotte Mason, founder of Charlotte Mason College in Ambleside in addition to a treasure trove of historic artefacts relating to local people and places.

For further information telephone 015394-31212.