Column by historian Roger Bingham of Ackenthwaite:
GRUMBLES about tourism, Lakeland’s major industry, are perpetual.
In their History of Westmorland, Richard and Fergusson in 1894 asserted that the ‘fever of curiosity’ went back to Dr Brown’s Description of the Neighbourhood of Keswick of 1767.
According to Richard and Fergusson, by the end of the nineteenth century: "Railways and cheap trips have opened the district to everyone.
"The Liverpool man and Manchester man have claimed it as their own and studded the banks of Windermere with villas fearfully and wonderfully made.
"Cheap lodging houses, arising like nightmares, line the foreshore, and steam gondoliers plough the waters."
They said: "Visitors are countless. From the steps of that excellent hostelry, the Prince of Wales at Grasmere, [one witnesses] an ever-lasting procession of four-horse coaches, char-à-bancs, cyclists and pedestrians.
"The language of America is prevalent. The roads bristle with guideposts and Beecham advertises his pills by the lakes and mountains, but most the processionists never wander from the beaten track."
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