Recording the changes

  One of the most often asked questions to me regarding the Wainwrights in Colour project is "Have you seen many changes since AW's day?" The usual answwer to this is "tree growth" in many of the views where AW indicated small trees in the foreground these have now usually grown up to such a height that they can obscure the view in part or in full. On other ocassions there is evidence that the rock scenery has changed with portions of crags having broken away to change the profile of the rocks face. The most dramatic of this so far has been on Gavel Pike, Seat Sandal.
  However, in a painting that I have completed today there is evidence where man's intervention has "re-shaped" the rocks. It is on the summit of Gowbarrow Fell. In the early '50's the summit sported a small pile of stones as the summit cairn, nowadays these rocks have been gathered together and formed into a Trig Point. In the past I hadn't taken much notice of these columns and for some reason assumed that they were constructed around the first few decades of the 20th Century. Obviously not, and with a bit of research it appears that they continued to appear right up until 1962.

Gowbarrow Fell.

What makes Gowbarrow fell unique in all of the 214 fells is the fact that this is the only fell where since AW's visit the cairn has been replaced by a Trig Point. it also gets sketched twice, once for here in the Gowbarrow Fell chapter and once again in the Little Mell Fell chapter.