Mountain Republic: A Lake District Parish – Eighteen Men, The Lake Poets and the by Philippa Harrison

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ISBN: 9781838931834 Category: Tags: ,

Description

Bounded by the peaks of Scafell, Skiddaw, and Helvellyn, and embracing such well-known landmarks as Borrowdale, Derwentwater, and Keswick, it lies within the heart of the Lake Poets’ landscape and its rugged terrain excites passion in all those who know it. The Parish also boasts a remarkable history. Its 90 square miles were governed, from medieval times, by eighteen annually chosen ‘customary tenants’; ancestors of the people who later prompted Wordsworth’s portrayal of the area as ‘a perfect Republic of Shepherds and agriculturalists’. His fellow poet Robert Southey lived within the Parish for forty years, was an active parishioner and rests in St Kentigern’s churchyard. Here he is given his rightful position as a Lake Poet. In the nineteenth century, the Victorian state killed off the old parish system, sweeping away the egalitarian rule of the Eighteen Men.