Column by historian Roger Bingham of Ackenthwaite:

UNTIL recently, Lakeland’s drizzly summers were notorious.

Around the Kent estuary, which generally has mild winters, local metrology was summarised as ‘no snow in winter and no sun in summer’.

Similarly, Kendal’s Auld Grey Town image may derive not from its limestone buildings but from its cloudy climate, as it averages only about 1,200 hours of sun annually, compared to the South Coast’s 2,000 hours.

Until this century, the summer of 1976 was the most memorable ‘proper scorcher’.

For three months, no rain fell in Milnthorpe except for a half-hour cloud burst during a rare royal visit, when Princess Margaret squelched round The Square reviewing sodden Scouts and Brownies.

Earlier scorchers were in 1825, when three horses and an 84-year-old man dropped down dead of 'coup de soleil’ at Natland.

The 19th century’s hottest year was in 1859, when the temperature reached 90.4 Fahrenheit, while, in 1891, Bird Park Reservoir dried up just as the River Kent dwindled to a trickle.