Grange-in-Borrowdale
OS Grid ref:- NY 252175
The highly attractive village of Grange-in-Borrowdale stands in a magnificent landscape at the foot of scenic Borrowdale and is backed by the soaring splendour of craggy peaks.
Its graceful narrow double arched pack-horse bridge, picturesquely spanning the rock strewn River Derwent, dates from 1675 and links the village to the Keswick road.
The bridge is overlooked by a small Methodist chapel constructed of the local blue slate, which was built at the end of the nineteenth century. Grange is grouped around an open space which forms its centre and provides bed and breakfast accommodation and tea gardens.
The author Hugh Walpole, writer of the Herries Chronicles, lived nearby at Brackenburn House from 1923 to 1941. Some of his manuscripts are housed at the Keswick Museum.
Grange-in-Borrowdale, the square which forms the village centre
The village has an interesting history, it once belonged to Furness Abbey, when it was a grange or granary, from which it acquires its name. Before the road was built through Borrowdale in the eighteenth century, Grange and the other scattered and remote villages of Borrowdale could be reached only on foot or on horseback through a difficult terrain. the famous Bowder Stone lies around three quarters of a mile from the village.
Holy Trinity Church
Holy Trinity church dates from 1861.The money to build the church was raised by a local woman, Margaret Heathcote. Standing at the edge of the village, on the Grange and Braithwaite road, blue slate slabs set on end form a fence around it.
The church has a photograph of its benefactor, Miss Heathcote, in the porch The two panels in the Church sanctuary which relate the ten commandments were painted by her. The most striking feature of the building is the barrel shaped ceiling with its dogtooth patterned beams.
