Main content

Blencathra: The People's Mountain

Blencathra in the Lake District has been known as the Mountaineers' Mountain and now the People's Mountain. Helen Mark climbs up it with film-maker Terry Abraham to find out why.

Terry Abraham could be likened to Alfred Wainwright in his love of the Lakeland fells. Blencathra was known by Wainwright as the 'mountaineers mountain' and he devoted more pages to this fell than any other in his pictorial guides. However, since the proposed sale of the mountain in 2014 it has become known as the 'Peoples Mountain'. The owner, the 8th Earl of Lonsdale, put the mountain up for sale at a price of 拢1.75 million and a community group called Friends of Blencathra was set up in a bid to raise enough money to buy the mountain. In 2015, the mountain was taken off the market but the sense of ownership felt by the local community remains. Helen Mark meets Terry and the local people who live within the shadow of this iconic peak.

Available now

25 minutes

Last on

Sat 6 May 2017 06:07

Broadcasts

  • Thu 4 May 2017 15:00
  • Sat 6 May 2017 06:07

Podcast