The Bowder Stone is a huge rock, about 30 feet high, 30 feet across and 90 feet in circumference, weighing about 2,000 tonnes, a few miles south of Keswick in the English Lake District, not far from the roadside in the valley beyond the southernmost tip of Derwentwater. It may get its name from Balder, son of the Norse God Odin. Geologically, it is part of the Borrowdale volcanic succession of rocks, perhaps fallen from a higher outcrop when the Borrowdale glacier retreated. It has been a tourist attraction for ages. A poster dated July 1859 (reproduced at the nearby car park) announces "Mary Thompson begs leave to acquaint the Ladies and Gentlemen visiting the Lakes and Mountains near Keswick, that she continues at the Bowder Stone House, and attends upon all Parties desirous of Seeing and Examining that Immense Fragment of Rock, supposed to be the largest in the World, and which resembles a Ship lying upon its Keel." The main difficulty compositionally in depicting the Bowder Stone in print is to find an angle that avoids the huge, sturdy metal staircase from the ground to its top. In my prints of it, the staircase is on the far side. These prints are on 1000mm x 700mm heavy Snowdon paper. The different colour variations really sing next to each other, so hanging two or three next to each other looks amazing.
