Online Fellwalking Club - An Atlas of the English Lakes

An Atlas of the English Lakes

Written by Peter Burgess

Tuesday, 07 July 2009

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With the advent of a recent poll examining people's favourite lakes proposed by David Dimmock, it was a good prompt to review an excellent book portraying charts of the English Lakes. Remarkably, despite the National Park's name, most books on our beloved district only encompass the high fells therein. However, John Wilson Parker has gone some way to correct the balance with this excellent atlas.

Front cover

The atlas is an A4 size publication and within its 101 pages the seventeen valley lakes of Lakeland are intricately mapped in wonderful detail. It is probably no mistake that the charts and drawings ooze a certain Wainwright style, but I doubt there are no apologies from the author on that count. Not only will the atlas feel immediately at home in the hands of an AW connoisseur but, if it were published at the Pictorial Guide scale it could become the 8th volume in AW's Lakeland's guides. It completes a definite missing link in the cartography of Lakeland. One aspect I particularly like is the way the page is filled with all sorts of small details. Along with excellent drawings and the charts themselves, there are tables of statistical information on each lake as well as knowledgeable little facts which keep you engrossed and seeking them out on other pages. It really is a voyage of discovery in its own right. Some might not like the larger size book, but an atlas inherently needs to be larger in order to show the details required. The charts in the atlas are based on OS 1:10,560 and 1:10,000 mapping and show shoreline details in amazing detail. For those of you who might be planning a walk of all the Cumbrian Lakes or adventuring from within a boat or canoe Swallows and Amazons style, then I cannot recommend a better book than this. Buy it now, or put it on your Christmas list and put a deposit down on a kayak - it's brilliant!

Exemplar chart

BAA Rating: full rating point [5 / 5]

An Atlas of The English Lakes by John Wilson Parker is published by Cicerone 2002.

ISBN 1 85284 355 1

(UK £16.95) Seen available from Amazon for £15.49.

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"I'd just like to say what a great weekend it has been and thanks to everyone who made it such a great time." Liz Lemal on the Honister 2007 weekend

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