Capturing the Mountains Find!
I am writing this entry on behalf of Reading Detective June.
"Capturing the Mountains: The Lake District Through the Lens of the Abraham Brothers" was published in 2008 and includes an introduction by Sue Steinberg, Ashley Abraham's granddaughter, who also compiled this historic collection of photographs.
This is a collection of superb Lake District photographs from the late Victorian/Edwardian era, of climbing and outdoor scenes, taken by Keswick's renowned climbing photographers, George and Ashley Abraham.This book revives over 100 Abraham historical photographs of the Lake District, in large-format classic black and white.The Abraham brothers of Keswick were pioneer rock-climbers and professional photographers, whose mountaineering shots are known to all serious climbers. As well as the dramatic climbing shots, there are more gentle scenes of Grasmere and Derwentwater, sheep and shepherds, tarns, fells and launches...all seemingly unchanged in a century. Every exile from the Lake District will be transported back in time. Reproduced with fresh clarity thanks to digital technology, the photographs have been painstakingly gathered from all quarters; from art galleries, private collections and libraries, as well as from hotels and even pubs. Their enduring quality will evoke nostalgia in all those who know them already, and will fascinate the young from all over the world as they discover this beautiful region for the first time.
George and Ashley Abraham were founding members of the Fell and Rock Climbing Club of the Lake District and the club still possess many of their original photographs. The Abraham's photographic shop in Keswick, built in 1887, was taken over in due course by local mountaineer George Fisher; the modern shop still contains many memorabilia, including photographs, from the Abraham's era.
It is fascinating to see the climbing clothes and equipment that these early rock cllimbers used - very different to the lightweight gear that is available to mountaineers today. For anyone who enjoys the mountains this is a great coffee table book to inspire the intrepid or to reminisce on past climbs or just wish you could get up there with them. These days walkers and climbers have become a regular part of the Cumbrian landscape but in these early photographs we see the beginning of a sport which helped to open up the landscape to many more ordinary people.
6 September 2009 from Mary Rossall
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Finds
- Grange-over-Sands: The Story of a Gentle Township
- The Silent Traveller: A Chinese Artist in Lakeland
- Red Ike
- Cumbrian Privies
- Ethel Fisher's West Cumbrian Dialect titles
- The Embalmer's Book of Recipes by Ann Lingard
- Nella Last's Peace
- Riding the Stang by Dawn Robertson
- Life on the Fell - a pictorial chronicle of a Lakeland community
- About Scout Scar
- William Wilberforce - A Summer Diary 1779
- Beatrix Potter - the unknown years
- Smoke over Shap by Margaret Potter
- Songs of a Cragsman by George Basterfield
- The Grasmere Dialect Plays
- The Grizedale Experience: Sculpture, Art & Theatre in a Lakeland Forest
- An Atlas of The English Lakes
- How Hall. Poetry and Memories. A Passion for Ennerdale by Tom Rawling
- Stumpy, Hero of the Lakes
- The High Places by A. Harry Griffin
- The Highest House in Wathendale
- Kendal by Roger Bingham
- Secrets and Legends of Old Westmorland
- Reminiscences of Wordsworth Among the Peasantry of Westmorland by Canon Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley
- Little Gods by Jacob Polley
- A Lakeland Summer
- Hunter of Harter Fell by Joseph E Chipperfield
- And Nobody Woke Up Dead
- An accessible paradise
- The Fleming Family novels and Graham Sutton
- Excursion to Loweswater. A Lakeland Visit 1865
- Writing on the Wall
- Beyond Scafell by Alan Robinson
- Rogue Herries by Hugh Walpole
- Kendal In The Nineteenth Century by A Wainwright
- In There Somewhere
- The Bondwomen by W G Collingwood
- "Ah'd Gaa Back Tomorra!"
- A Cumbrian Copper by Ray Huddart
- The Arsenic Labyrinth by Martin Edwards
- Old Will Stories by Dudley Hoys
- The Shield Ring by Rosemary Sutcliff
- T'Bacca Queen by Theodora Wilson Wilson
- Furness and the Industrial Revolution
- The Shadow of Black Combe
- The Painted Letters of Percy Kelly
- Ivver Sen
- Lakeland in the 1830s
- Wasdale Climbing Book By Michael Cocker
- Riding High by Barbara Sneyd
- Deborah in Langdale
- Early Recollections of Grange
- Hazard's Way by Roger Hubank
- Yan, Tan, Tethera
- Talk of the Town
- Capturing the Mountains
- Hope On, Hope Ever
- Mildred Edwards: Our City Our People 1889 - 1978 Memories
- Lakeland Limericks
- Surrounding loveliness
- Haweswater by Sarah Hall
- Coast to Coast by Jan Minshull
- Sunshine To The Sunless
- Geese, cattle wallopers and secret Irish paths
- Anarchists, Angels and wet Bank Holiday Mondays
- A more unconventional kind of find...?
- Skiddaw Summit by Kathleen Jones
- Thorstein of the Mere: A Saga of the Northmen in Lakeland
- Wednesday Early Closing
- Smoke Across The Fell
- The Sand Pilot of Morecambe Bay
- The Chronicles of Boggerthwaite
- Carrock Fell
- Feet in the Clouds
- Hercules and the Farmer's Wife
- Shepherd's Warning
- The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices
- I've been so busy reading I haven't had time to blog!
Recent posts
- Thank you!
- Coffee and books at the Bluebell Bookshop
- Mary learns to blog!
- Lucky 13!
- Grange over Sands get reading
Help the team
Have you got something to contribute? You can contact us to report your clues and you can comment on our blog posts. It doesn't matter where in the world you are!
This area is my mother's homeland as it were. I lived in London but it was my job to drive everyone going climbing up to Hawkshead. The Rock Climging Club was more of a rescue team in the 1970s -is this the same group?
Memories of childhood, none of us could afford to go back and live in the Lakes.Not even Barrow!
Hello Jane,
Thanks for your comment and hope you are enjoying reading about our finds. I'm not sure if the club you remember was the Fell and Rock Club but as you say many members of the climbing fraternity were, and still are, volunteers for the Mountain Rescue teams. They do a fantastic job and give up an enormous amount of time to help in mountain rescues, often in terrible conditions. Although they depend totally on donations they have to pay VAT and this has become quite a contentious issue recently with a lot of media interest. In the days before the Mountain Rescue teams were formed the local farmers often went out on the hills to rescue missing walkers and I mentioned this in my find 'Surrounding Loveliness'.
Your final comment is another contentious issue in this part of the world! The price of property means that many of our young people have to leave the area as they cannot get a foot on the property ladder. The many second homes means that small cottages are priced out of the market for local people so young people have to either continue to live at home, rent expensive houses in the main towns or leave the area altogether.
Hope you continue to enjoy reading about our finds.