After another busy break with the family in the Lakes, I managed to squeeze in a brief stop off at Castlerigg. Unusually for me, I was armed with a camera as I invariably have the bad luck to fnd myself in the ideal photo op with no means to grab the image! The weather had been typical April, overcast to rainy to drizzly and i wasnt holding out much hope. As Castlerigg is fairly accessible – ie having visited the lakes many times and seen many signs pointing in its direction from the town centres, i wasnt expecting much – TMA photos in the Gazeteer didnt impress me much and JC suggested that CR would present differing monuments depending on the viewpoint, so I went off with a quite blase attititude. As we approached, the weather began to deteriorate, and having taken the wrong turn out of Keswick (despite all the signs!) we came at it after a long drive. Several circuitous turns later, the sky had closed in and it had begun to rain heavily. The lane next to the monument was packed with cars, and my heart sank as I realised that it would probably be a busy venue. I climbed out of the back of the car, trying not to look like a rubberneck and sallied fort – sure enough, there were a few people taking pics and a couple of new agers ligging around taking in the vibe. Despite all this, I was hugely impressed, and scurried off through the mud to a vantage point where i could grab a shot in good ligh before the heavens opened. I had pinched the new digital camera from the office, and had been hammering away snapping right and left and by the time i reached CS the batteries were on their last legs! I grabbed a shot – apologies for blandness and duplication! – and they quit out, so i was grateful for the shot.
Overall, the site was absolutely stunning, framed by Blencartha and Skiddaw still topped with snow and dressed with a garland on brilliantly coloured lichens, the stones sat on that windy hillside as if they had always been there. The impression of monumental scale and the feeling of 'oneness' with the landscape was awesome. it was if the pancreator had paused here, while labouring to form the surrounding landscape and set down a mug of tea on the new tabletop of earth and left a ring behind, indelibly marking the ground for all time.
As with all the (few) sites ive visited, it left me with a lasting impression, not a visual bu an emotional one – of ancient time and huge scope and weight, the feeling that I was transplanted to a time before time and the ground had barely ceased its tremors as the last stone had been raised. Fantastic.