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The Great Gift

On 11th November 2018 Scouts, Explorers and Leaders from the District took on the challenge of scaling 14 Lakeland peaks to commemorate 100 years since the end of the First World War.

Background

A beacon was lit on Scafell Pike on Peace Day in 1919 to signal the end of the war.

In the early years following the war, three very special gifts were made to the National Trust to look after on behalf of the nation.

The landowner of Scafell Pike, Lord Leconfield, gifted the Pike soon after Peace Day “in perpetual memory of the men of the Lake District who fell for God and King, for freedom, peace and right in the Great War”.

Then Castle Crag was given as a memorial to ‘the men of Borrowdale’.

Shortly afterwards, 12 Lake District summits were given to the Trust by the Fell and Rock Climbing Club in memory of the fallen. This included famous climbing crags and a large gift of land surrounding the iconic peak of Great Gable. It was described at the time as the “world’s greatest war memorial.”

This means that England’s highest mountain, is in fact England’s highest war memorial.

In 2018, the National Trust held many events to commemorate 100 years since the end of the First World War.

On Sunday 11th November, remembrance services were held at the summit of some of the 14 peaks gifted to the National Trust.

Our challenge was to reach some of the summits by 11am to join in the commemorations.

Logistics:

We headed up in minibuses on Saturday 10th November and stayed overnight in Borrowdale Institute.

To cater for the different ages and abilities, there were different routes but between all those attending, we climbed the 14 peaks, with each group is on top of one of the peaks at 11am to join the country in remembrance and to lay a wreath for the fallen.

We’ll leave you with a poem written for the first remembrance service held on Great Gable:

“Upon this mountain summit we are met today to dedicate this space of hills to freedom. Upon this rock are set the names of men – our brothers, and our comrades upon these cliffs – who held, with us, that there is no freedom of the soil where the spirit of man is in bondage, and who surrendered their part in the fellowship of hill and wind, and sunshine, that the freedom of this land, the freedom of our spirit, should endure.”