1855 - ‘a new guide book is wanted’

After making the steep descent down Red Bank, the tourist might want to linger awhile on the path  at Loughrigg Terrace where the ‘best views’ of Grasmere are to be found.

Harriet Martineau presents the Lake District from the perspective of the Victorian woman traveller and local resident.  She also energetically registers what happened when the region grew more accessible to the wider world through the coming of the railway. Such change called for a new tour manual, she explained, because ‘a great many people come to the spot; and the spot is so changed by their coming, and by other circumstances, that a new guide book is wanted; for there is much more to point out than there used to be; and what used to be pointed out now requires a new description. Such new guidance and description we now propose to give’.

Harriet Martineau,  A Complete Guide to the English lakes, 1855, and A Description of the English Lakes, 1858.