Popular Culture
The children's book Swallows and Amazons, and sequels Swallowdale and Winter Holiday, are based loosely on life before World War II around a fictional lake derived from a combination of Windermere and Coniston Water. The BBC made a series of Swallows and Amazons in 1962; parts of this were filmed at the Huyton Hill Preparatory School boathouse (now Pullwood House) on the North-West shore.
Windermere is mentioned in the Necromandus song, A Black Solitude.
In the horror novel The Pike (1982) by Cliff Twemlow, a 12-foot (3.7 m) long pike in Windermere goes on a killing spree, and the consequence is a boom in the lake's tourist trade. Two attempts have been made to film the novel.
The area is also featured as an arena in the popular arcade videogame Tekken.
In November 2009, several scenes were shot on Windermere for the soap opera Coronation Street. The filming centred around Pull Wyke Bay and Pull Wood House on the North-West shoreline. The scenes, featuring the newlyweds Gail and Joe on their honeymoon, were aired in January/February 2010.
Belle Isle features in The Wardstone Chronicles: The Spooks Mistake. Rather than the large house though, Belle Isle plays host to a folly which is used by the Water Witches in the area. It is a place widely avoided by the locals, due to the high levels of witch activity.
Some people believe that there may be a lake monster, similar to the one alleged to live in Loch Ness, and anomalous photos have been taken of the supposed creature;, it has been affectionately nicknamed "Bownessie."
The novel Giant Killer Eels by Stuart Neild is set in the Lake District and features Bownessie-like monsters in Windermere and Lake Unsworth.
Read more about this topic: Windermere
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“Books of natural history aim commonly to be hasty schedules, or inventories of God’s property, by some clerk. They do not in the least teach the divine view of nature, but the popular view, or rather the popular method of studying nature, and make haste to conduct the persevering pupil only into that dilemma where the professors always dwell.”
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