Pam Gould - ''From Horror to Beauty: John Brown’s Letter and the Discovery of the Lake District"

Dr. John Brown (1715-66, a poet and clergyman from Wigton) was an energetic writer on topics ranging from drama and poetry to sermons and political tracts, but he never wrote for publication a single word pertaining to his native Lake District. Yet it was a letter he wrote which was a forerunner of  Romanticism, paving the way for the discovery of the region and tourists exploring the English countryside.  How did the Lake District change from a place of 'horror' to a place of beauty? This talk explores the surprising connections between Italian landscape painting, the early English landscape garden and John Brown's famous letter, revealing how he helped generations of visitors see the Lakes in a new way. (Below: 18thC painting of Buttermere and Crummock Water)