A Year in the Lakes: The Listed Buildings of the Lakes
A forthcoming book by Michael Swords Studio
Over the course of the Lake District National Park Listed Building Condition Survey, our small team is travelling throughout the National Park assessing approximately 2,000 listed buildings, structures and monuments, along with mapping and planning routes remotely.
From remote field barns and parish churches to bridges, inns, farmhouses, schools and industrial remains, the survey offers a unique opportunity to explore one of Britain's most celebrated landscapes through its built heritage.
A Year in the Lakes is an ongoing book project that grows directly from this work. Through field notes, photography, historic research and observations from the survey, it seeks to tell the story of the Lake District as a working landscape shaped by farming, religion, industry, transport and stewardship over centuries.
Rather than focusing solely on scenery, the project explores the places people built, inhabited, repaired, adapted and cared for. It asks what the Lake District's buildings can reveal about the communities that created them and the landscape they continue to shape today.
