Rusland

Here is St Paul's Church, Rusland, situated somewhere between Lake Windermere and Coniston Water in the southern Lake District. It stands on its own at the foot of extensive woodlands half a mile from the village. It's a tranquil, isolated, beautiful spot.

The author and journalist Arthur Ransome and his second wife Evgenia lie buried in the churchyard. Evgenia was Trotsky's secretary, and Ransome met her while working as a foreign correspondent covering the Russian revolutions of 1917. He had a long love affair with Russia, originally travelling there in 1913 to study Russian folklore. For many years he wrote for the Manchester Guardian, contributing a Country Diary fishing column, but it's for his Swallows And Amazons series of children's books that he's most famous.

View of the Rusland Valley from the churchyard: oak woods, green pastures, scattered hamlets and gently rolling fells — the essence of peaceful, rural England.