In praise of limestone: Country diary 50 years ago

Originally published in the Guardian on 21 August 1967LAKE DISTRICT: If you live in the Lake District it is a good thing sometimes to get away from the wet, almost steamy valleys - so overgrown in August - to the hard, colourless limestone scars which edge its southern limits. "Colourless," is not quite a fair description because up on the tops of the ridges where the bare limestone breaks through and only hazel and yew really thrive, there are paths bordered with pink centaury now and where patches of scarlet pimpernel and purple autumn gentians are open to the sun. A blue sky and sun over these are lively indeed and here, too, are quite different butterflies and birds as well as other creatures, small and large, from those in the central Lake District. Related: A landscape worked down to its bones Continue reading...