A rare limited edition map of the Lake District on which Windermere doesn’t appear is to go on sale for charity at a hotel in the heart of the town.
The map was created in 1843 before the building of the railway, and with no station, there was no town of Windermere at the time.
Now high-quality copies of the map are being sold at the Cedar Manor Hotel to raise funds for the Calvert Trust.
The original linen-backed map, once folded but later framed, is a family heirloom belonging to Windermere resident Stewart Greaves. Hoping to have a wider audience for the fascinating piece of local history, he had the original scanned and copied to a very high specification.
“It is a marvellous piece of map-making,” said Stewart. “It shows the road which used to cut across Thirlmere, before the dam wall was built, and numbers underneath the key towns indicate the distances from London. The map was created before the railway came to the Lakes, so there is no Windermere town, just the lake and the village of Bowness.”
Jonathan Kaye, owner of the Cedar Manor, is now displaying a framed copy of the map at the hotel. “Our visitors, especially the ones from America, are absolutely fascinated in the history of the Lake District,” he said. “This is particularly interesting for us because our town doesn’t appear. In fact, our hotel wasn’t built until 11 years later, in 1854.”
The 10 mile long railway line from Oxenholme which opened on 20 April 1847 was originally built as the Kendal and Windermere Railway and at its southern end connected into the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway. The town of Windermere developed around the station.
`Cedar Manor wasn’t built when the map was drawn
An American print and online news magazine recently listed the Cedar Manor in its top ten of “adorable English inns and cottages”.
Sales of the map will benefit the Lake District Calvert Trust which runs challenging outdoor adventure breaks for those with disabilities. Jonathan Kaye and his wife Caroline are long-time supporters of the Trust; Caroline ran the London Marathon in April to raise funds for them. They also host one of the 61 painted Go-Herdwick fantasy sheep which stands under their eponymous Cedar tree at the entrance to the hotel. Named Beatrix, she was painted by Kendal artist Thuline de Cock.
A spokesman for the Lake District Calvert Trust said: “We are delighted to have the continued support of Caroline and Jonathon at Cedar Manor. The Calvert Trust works with over 3000 disabled children and adults each year. To enable us to keep the centre running we need to fundraise around £450,000 every year. Please be assured that if you purchase one of these maps, your donation will be helping to change lives.”
She added: “We are very grateful to Mr Greaves for helping us this way.”
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