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Friar's Crag is a small wooded promontory on the eastern shore of Derwentwater, about ten minutes' walk south from Keswick boat landings. It is one of the most visited viewpoints in the Lake District. It is also, in the opinion of John Ruskin — who knew European landscapes as well as any person of the 19th century — one of the most beautiful views in the world.
Ruskin wrote that three scenes had made the deepest impression on him in childhood: the coast near Genoa, the valley of Chamoix, and the view from Friar's Crag. He first saw it as a small boy, and the memory remained specific and charged for the rest of his life. The bronze medallion portrait of Ruskin set into a rough Borrowdale stone at the point of the promontory is the acknowledgement of that connection — the view and the man who most precisely articulated what makes it remarkable.
The promontory extends perhaps thirty metres into the lake, the path narrowing through oak and birch to the rocky point. The view south along Derwentwater opens as you reach the end: the wooded islands in the middle distance, Derwent Island to the left and St Herbert's Island further south, the lake broadening then closing again as Borrowdale narrows toward its head. The fells — Castle Crag, Grange Fell, the flanks of Scafell Pike beyond — frame the far end in a composition that feels considered, as though the landscape arranged itself for the purpose.
On a still day the reflection doubles everything: the islands, the fells, the sky, the colour of the oak woodland on the far shore. On a windy day the surface breaks into movement that changes the character of the same view entirely — less a mirror, more a living thing.
In late April and the first two weeks of May, the woodland path to Friar's Crag is covered in bluebells — the native Hyacinthoides non-scripta, which flowers earlier and smells more distinctly than the Spanish bluebell that has colonised many English woods. The combination of the bluebell carpet, the fresh oak canopy coming into leaf above it, and the lake visible through the trees below is one of the finest spring experiences in the northern Lakes.
The bluebell timing varies by about ten days either side of the first of May depending on the weather in the preceding weeks. A late cold April pushes it toward the second week of May; a warm March can bring it forward to mid-April.
The memorial stone at Friar's Crag was placed in 1900, two years before Ruskin's death, by the Lake District Defence Society — a precursor body of the organisations that would eventually become the Campaign for National Parks. The bronze medallion portrait was cast from a photograph taken at Brantwood. The inscription reads simply: The first thing which I remember as an event in life was being taken by my nurse to the brow of Friar's Crag on Derwentwater.
The memorial is small and easy to miss in the context of the view it commemorates. This feels appropriate. Ruskin did not need a large monument.
From Keswick boat landings, the path south through the lakeside meadow reaches the entrance to the woodland in about five minutes. The path through the wood is uneven underfoot — root-crossed and rocky — but perfectly manageable without special footwear. The promontory point is reached in another five minutes. Return by the same path or continue south along the shore toward Great Bay, adding another twenty minutes to the walk.
The walk is suitable for most visitors, including older walkers. Pushchairs can reach the edge of the woodland but not the rocky point.
Friar's Crag and Derwentwater are covered on the 8 Lakes Morning Tour and 8 Lakes Afternoon Tour.