‘A threatening din and clamour’: cultural dissonance in the Lake District’s harmonious landscape

The Lake District’s inscription as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2017 foregrounded the harmonious relationship between culture and nature in the cultural landscape. Looking at the Lakes from a perspective that problematises both harmony (for Prynne a ‘function of money’), and culture (for E.P. Thompson ‘a whole way of conflict’), this article considers the landscape in the contexts of farming, tourism, economic growth and finally COVID-19. I argue that visitor activity following the easing of lockdown restrictions in 2020 and 2021 can be understood as offering a challenge to the dominant narrative of harmony underpinning the region with an uncomfortable apocalyptic revelation of a consumer culture that tourist destinations such as the Lakes more often work to conceal.