“I do not know in all my own country, still less in France or Italy, a place more naturally divine…” said the Victorian art critic and social theorist John Ruskin of the view of the River Lune from near Kirkby Lonsdale’s St Mary’s Church. The scene is gorgeous: beyond the sweeping, lightly wooded curves of the river are the verdant hills on the western edge of the Yorkshire Dales National Park.
It’s generally believed that Ruskin, who lived at Brantwood on the shores of Coniston Water, was inspired to visit the site by an 1820s painting of it by JMW Turner.
