Oil Painting - Seathwaite, Cumbria

Detail from "Summer Day, Seathwaite, Cumbria".
Oil. Alistair Butt © 2013 -
#AB 021319

Just as a change to all the snow, here's one painted from reference material gathered last summer and now drying in the studio before being framed.

A very warm day, with people even out sunbathing while most others being harded walkers were returning (now afternoon) from Scarfell, the highest mountain in England at 978 metres (3,209 ft). The route up to Scarfell (plus others) from Seathwaite is considered the best as can be seen by the number of cars parked on the lane to the hamlet on most days.


Seathwaite also has another clam... in that it's the wettest inhabited place in England and receives around 3,552 millimetres (140 in) of rain per year. In September 1966 five inches of rain fell on Seathwaite and the surrounding fells in an hour, the resulting flood severely damaging the nearby Stockley Bridge, which lies 1200 metres south of the hamlet. Stockley Bridge is an ancient packhorse bridge on the old route between Borrowdale and the Cumbrian coast. The bridge was widened in 1887 and had to be repaired after the 1966 storm. On 19–20 November 2009 Seathwaite received 314.4 millimetres (12.38 in) of rain in a 24-hour period, a major contributor to the 2009 Cumbria and southwest Scotland floods. If confirmed this is a record for the amount of rain falling anywhere in the UK within 24 hours.


The result of all this water is than most of the becks (A beck, in old Norse, is a brook or stream with a stony bed) are crystal clear, as most of the soil has been washed away but it means that every pebble and boulder can be seen on the bed.

This oil painting when ready will be heading up to the Beckstones Art Gallery, nr Penrith, Cumbria.