St. Bega’s church, at the foot of Ullock Pike

One of my favourite places, when Ann and I go up to the Northern Lakes, around the Keswick Area, is the remote church of St. Bega’s, down on the Eastern Shore of Bassenthaite Lake… travelling up the A591 from Keswick, you take a small road to the left before the Ravenstone Hotel, and park up a short way down…

The track down to the church

There is a short walk down the boundary wall of Bowness Farm, to the church, but it is really worth it, especially is the weather is fine. once past the next farm gate, you enter into a wooded area, and the track across the bridge of ‘Skill Beck’ leading to the church.

St. Bega’s

The church’s beauty, is in the isolation of the site… and it is always open to the public (or it has been whenever we have been…) We did meet a young couple, with a couple of kids, and they told us, it was the husbands 40th birthday, that very day, and their 9th Wedding Aniversay… They had married in St. Begas… What a super connection, and an equally super memory !!!

The path to the church

Of course, being a graveyard hound, myself, on my local Everton Cemetery Page, I love to look and research a bit into the graves here in this ‘forgotten’ graveyard… and am revisiting some graves on the far side, at the moment looking into the Slater Family from a farm, further up Lake Bassenthwaite.

The four Slater Family Headstones

If ever you ever manage to get up to the Northern Lakes… make time to visit this wonderful church… and get yourself some great images, both visible and I.R., sit by the lake or simply walk the fells… as behind Ullock Pike, viewed in the top image… you can always try a hike up ‘Skidaw’, which lies behind Ullock Pike…  Both Ann & I (with our Staffordshire Bull Terrier ‘Beau’) many years ago walked to the summit of Skidaw.

Step this way… 

Gateway to the Fells…