The Wainwright Society

The inaugural meeting of The Wainwright Society was held on 9th November 2002 at Ambleside Youth Hostel. This was followed by a walk to the summit of Dove Crag, the walk described on the first page of The Eastern Fells penned by AW fifty years earlier.

The primary aims of the Society are to keep alive the fellwalking traditions promoted by Alfred Wainwright through his guidebooks and other publications and to keep faith with his vision of introducing a wider audience to fellwalking and caring for the hills.

The aims of the Society are articulated through its Objects, which underpin all the Society’s activities. These have included, the purchase of the Wainwright Notebook, annotated maps, sketches and other written material, which have been donated to the Cumbria Archive Centre in Kendal, the replacement of the View Indicator on Orrest Head, support for the Wainwright Exhibition at Keswick Museum and the re-publication of out-of-print books written by Wainwright. The Society has, over the years, raised many thousands of pounds for causes which we believe Wainwright would have appreciated and supported.

‘Louis was absolutely right. It is a wonderful world. We have more blessings than we could ever count…So I will sign off by wishing all my readers many more happy wanderings on Lakeland’s glorious fells in the years ahead, and hoping that, when they are there, they will think kindly of me sometimes.’ Ex-Fellwanderer.

Credit: Photograph of Alfred Wainwright (c) Derry Brabbs
Drawing above is from The Southern Fells, Scafell p. 9