featured content
Some achievements deserve proper recognition
In life, some numbers are more significant than others. The birthdays of loved ones, the anniversaries of special occasions, the milestones we all reach.
For a select group of people, the number 214 has a similar importance.
It’s the number of Wainwrights, the hills and mountains of the Lake District. (reckon we need to do something with this - not every fell is a Wainwright)
The Wainwrights were first described in A Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells back in the 1950s & 60s and, since then, many have made it their mission to conquer – or ‘bag’ – them all.
It’s no easy task. Time is one factor, as is the weather and the landscape. Clouds that rapidly descend to obliterate your visibility, bogs that suck you up to your knees, vertiginous peaks and crests. And of course there’s one essential all baggers must carry with them – a dogged determination to finish the job.
Conquering the Wainwrights is an achievement that deserves proper recognition. This remarkable map allows you to do just that.
Like the fells themselves, it’s made of sturdy stuff. It’s printed on heavy museum-quality archival stock using long life pigment inks – and heat-mounted on aluminium reinforced Kapa board. It’s framed by Youdell’s in Kendal, while the pins are sourced from artisan pin-maker, Moore of Pennsylvania.
More than a map, it’s an object of genuine beauty – one that lists the fells and elegantly brings to life, with a gently shelving line, their different heights. The map itself is fragmented with small triangular shapes, giving it a pattern that’s redolent of triangulation points and peaks.
Above all else, this is an interactive map, one that allows the owner to celebrate each fell bagged by moving a pin from the outside dock to the conquered peak.
The result is an object that is both work of art and, like the Wainwrights themselves, an ever-changing landscape.