The 1844 proposed railway would have gone this far, but for reasons of cost the line terminated at Windermere when opened in 1847. Yet expansions of other lines around the Lake District led to speculation in 1875 about extending the line from Windermere to Ambleside, with an eye on further expansion. Robert Somervell, a local shoe manufacturer, raised a protest and soon gained the pen of Ruskin for his cause. Ruskin wrote letters to the papers , and in 1876 wrote a preface--which you have read--for Somervell's A Protest Against the Extension of the Railways in the Lake District.
Vetted?
No