UNIQUE notebooks used by fell-walking legend Alfred Wainwright have been secured for public viewing after selling for £8,600 at auction.

The manuscripts, containing detailed notes for Wainwright’s first Pictorial Guide, went under the hammer at Carlisle-based H&H Auction Rooms this morning.

The lot attracted a great deal of attention, but after a telephone battle with another interested party The Wainwright Society, in partnership with a number of private sponsors, was successful with its bid.

Publicity officer Derek Cockell said: “We are delighted at the win because we consider it to be a significant piece of material – it’s one of his early notebooks.

“The winning notebook is an important addition to the official Wainwright Archive at Cumbria’s Archive Centre in Kendal, where it will be housed."

The fells described in the notebook include Dove Crag, which was the first that Wainwright penned for Book 1, The Eastern Fells, in 1952.

And there were also a number of Ordnance Survey maps in the win, which were annotated by Wainwright for his Pennine Way Companion, published in 1968.

It is planned that a number of items from the Archive will be on display at the Society’s annual Wainwright Memorial Lecture to be held at Rheged, Penrith, in November.