THE National Trust has installed a bench overlooking the Lake District to commemorate the life of a 97-year-old woman who was involved in many Lakeland activities.

Joan Ledger was a stalwart of the Windermere and Bowness Civic Society and volunteered for many years at the National Trust’s Townend property in Troutbeck, at the Cheshire Home at Holehird and at the Hospice shop in Bowness.

She came from the Herbert of Lakeland photographers whose photos were widely published in The Westmorland Gazette.

Her son Julian said his mother was a keen fell walker who used her encyclopedic knowledge of the Lake District to introduce many children to the treasures of the region.

He described her as a ‘polymath’ having studied geology, archaeology, architecture, art, literature and history.

He said she donated her father’s glass photographic plates to the authors of books featuring the first aerial photos of Windermere and for the development of sailing.

Julian added that she worked to protect all that she considered special and fragile in the Lakes and opposed developments that were unsympathetic.

Together with her husband Litton, they modified a self-contained flat in their house on Kendal Road where they hosted many friends and relatives.

Here, they introduced them to the short steep walk up to Post Knott where a bench has now been constructed.

When her husband died in 2017, she sold the property and moved to assisted living in Kendal and later to a care home in Dorchester to be near her daughter Vivian.

Joan died peacefully at the age of 97 on June 20 2022 having lived a long, rich and varied life.

Her family will gather at the bench on Post Knott at Bowness to remember her life on May 21 at 11:30am.