Papers of Alfred Wainwright

Item author: Alfred Wainwright
Item date: 1907-91
(this is an approximate date)
Grant Value: £5,000
Item cost: £135,000
Item date acquired: 2011
Item institution: Cumbria Archive Service
Town/City: Kendal
County: Cumbria

Seventeen boxes of papers of Alfred Wainwright, MBE, the fellwalker, guidebook author and illustrator. His seven-volume Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells, 1955-1966, consisting entirely of reproductions of his manuscript, is the standard reference work to the fells of the English Lake District. Among his 40-odd other books is the first guide to the Coast to Coast Walk, a 192-mile long-distance footpath devised by himself.

The archive includes annotated maps, notebooks, photographs, an extensive slide collection, sketches, page layouts and publishers' proofs books, and early papers from his time as an employee of Blackburn Borough Council.

Item Provenance
Private vendor