Drawing 250: The Solitary, Blea Tarn
Direction of view: WNW
Notes: Best taken mid-morning, to get sun on the large right hand wall of the house.
The scene also appears on page 205 of Westmorland Heritage (a different and smaller drawing of the same scene); and page 172 of Wainwright in Lakeland, where the same original sketch has been used.
Comments: I first took this picture on slide film in the autumn of 1991, probably on 3rd November, on a day which was concentrated on photography rather than walking. Other sketches probably photographed on the same day were 86, 310, 219, 160, 307 and 196, and almost certainly this was a day with Peter Messenger, looking for autumn colours.
Taken for the digital project on 6th February 2012. See Drawing 1 for comments.
AW notes that this house was immortalised as “The Solitary” in a poem of that title by Wordsworth:
…to the south
Was one small opening, where a heath-clad ridge
Supplied a boundary less abrupt and close;
A quiet treeless nook, with two green fields,
A liquid pool that glittered in the sun,
and one bare Dwelling; one Abode, no more !
It seemed the home of poverty and toil
Though not of want: the little fields, made green
By husbandry of many thrifty years,
Paid cheerful tribute to the moorland House.
