19 MARCH 1927, Page 15

Country Life and Sport

FI:OZEN CACOPIIONY."

Tnivellers in the Lakes of Westmorland and Cumberland .ord with miserable consistency examples of the ruin of the fiery that Wordsworth loved and immortalized. Change, r so-called improvement, proceeds at a rate not exceeded on he South Downs. We all know and accept, some of us even cicalae, the great waterworks and the subsequent afforesta- ion designs, though they have inevitably sophisticated some the wilder scenes. Yet even alteration due to this cause s rather alarming. If votes were taken for the wildest

d loveliest valley, perhaps Ennerdale would appear at the ,1) of the list ; .and it is this Ennerdale against which the test and completest renovation is threatened. The mcdi- ted afforestation plan, excellent in itself, would involve a Id capable of serving heavy traffic and a number of new oases for the workmen engaged. The old character of the Ile would in this event vanish as completely as some of the vpical sheep farms already swallowed up in young pines. ut it is not against such economic developments that I mild protest, or perhaps the Spectator would protest. The cal enemy is the builder. He is reducing some of the favourite aunts of the Lake poets to the level of nascent suburbs, here crude erections stand awkwardly beside half-baked Idways. If architecture may be " frozen music," these has arc " fossilized cacophony " : the noise and clatter of he charabanes are crystallized into loud horrors.