John Fryer Spedding’s Story

The Lake District Calvert Trust was founded by John Fryer-Spedding who, living on the shores of Bassenthwaite Lake in the Lake District National Park, was aware that the landscape he enjoyed so much was denied to many others.

“The National Parks are for all people for all time”, said Harold Macmillan in 1951 when the first park was opened. Not quite. Those who used a wheelchair or had some other disability often had to content themselves with looking at the fells, forests and lakes from a car… or worse, on a postcard.  John Fryer-Spedding decided that could be changed and he enlisted the help of Elinor, Viscountess Rochdale.  Together, they had put together a small group of people and decided to form a trust with the objective of enabling people with physical, sensory or learning disabilities to benefit from outdoor activities in the countryside.  The Fryer-Spedding family also decided to hand over to the Trust a farmstead to be used as accommodation.

It was Old Windebrowe.

In 1794, during his time there, Wordsworth penned a poem as an inscription for a seat on the path to Windebrowe.  It reads:

“Ye, who with buoyant spirits blessed

And rich in vigour want not rest,

Look on this slighted seat – repose

From thoughtless joy and sigh for those

Who, bowed with age or sickness, greet

With thankfulness this timely seat”.

John Fryer-Spedding himself had ‘reposed from thoughtless joy’ and his dream was beginning to take shape.

Another farmstead near the Lake, Little Crosthwaite, was given to the Trust by the Fryer-Spedding family and, in 1978, the Little Crosthwaite Adventure Centre was formally opened.

The centre had a warden, a secretary, an instructor and a part-time handyman.  It owned two horses and had two dinghies moored on the Lake and could accommodate 18 people on a self-catering basis.  It was open for only seven months a year.

Today, the Lake District Calvert Trust has over 40 permanent members of staff, 12 ponies, a catamaran, several dinghies and safety craft, canoes, 6 minibuses, an indoor hydrotherapy swimming pool, an accessible riding school, a first-class stables block … and its guests, who can now visit all year round, can go sailing, canoeing, climbing, abseiling, orienteering, riding, carriage-driving, swimming and bird-watching.  Archery and many other activities are also on offer.  Over 3,000 people a year choose to stay with us and we double that number of swimming and stables sessions are enjoyed.

A message from John on our 50th birthday

“I would like to congratulate all the people who have contributed in so very many ways to the success of Calvert Lakes over the last 50 years.

The idea was started in the cottage at the end of the Tithe Barn at Windebrowe. In the days before the groundbreaking Disability Discrimination Act of 1995 the concept of outdoor pursuits for people with any kind of disability was regarded as “optimistic”, “brave”, even “unlikely to get off the ground”. But enough people believed in it to explore the possibilities further.

An early problem was choosing the name. There were many suggestions, some didn’t get a second chance like “Uphill Bent”! But the cottage where all the early discussions took place gave the needed inspiration.

This cottage was where William and Dorothy Wordsworth lived during 1794–5 as the guest of William Calvert whose younger brother Raisley was very ill. Wordsworth supported him through the last months of his illness and Raisley left a generous bequest to enable Wordsworth to devote his life to poetry.

Raisley’s practical support gave him the opportunity he would otherwise not have had.

Wordsworth’s gratitude is referred to in his great poem The Prelude: “The name of Calvert is still live if words of mine can give it life.”

So three things came together to make Calvert the perfect name for the new Trust: the place where the Trust originated, Raisley Calvert’s gift of opportunity to the budding poet, and the aim of the Trust to offer opportunities.

Through the dedication of so many people over the last 50 years the name of Calvert has become synonymous with opportunity and achievement.”