Tales and traditions of Cumbrian Yuletides past. Compiled by Alan Cleaver.

Pour a mulled wine, stoke the fire and open A Lake District Christmas for a nostalgic journey into Cumbrian yuletides past.

In the company of authors from William Wordsworth to Hardwicke Rawnsley, Robert Anderson to Sara Hutchinson, join the carol singers of Wasdale, celebrate a Thirlmere ‘merry neet’, visit the Windermere frost fair and take a seat at the Keswick ‘old folks’ do’.

Accompany the postman on his winter round, pity inmates of the Carlisle workhouse, share the terrors of Victorian ghost-hunters, browse letters from the Christmas 1914 truce... and discover 40 words for ‘snew’.

A celebration of traditions in the historic counties of Westmorland and Cumberland, A Lake District Christmas is a variety-box miscellany of seasonal writings, memories, poems, recipes and songs.