Peel Island (formerly known as Montague Island or the Gridiron[1]) is one of the three islands of Coniston Water in the English Lake District, Cumbria. The two others are Fir Island (which is connected to the shore unless the water is particularly high) and Oak Island.[2] It is most famous for being the inspiration for Arthur Ransome's Wild Cat Island. Today, it is a popular tourist destination,[2] and belongs to the National Trust.[3]
Peel Island has belonged to the National Trust since it was given to them by John Montagu-Douglas-Scott, 7th Duke of Buccleuch, along with 11 acres (4.5 ha) of woodland, in 1932.[4] In 1967, Donald Campbell died near Peel Island while trying to set a world water speed record with a speed in excess of 300 miles per hour (480 km/h). The final words of his transmission from his boat, Bluebird, were:
Pitching a bit down here... Probably from my own wash... Straightening up now on track... Rather close to Peel Island... Tramping like mad... er... Full power... Tramping like hell here... I can't see much... and the water's very bad indeed... I can't get over the top... I'm getting a lot of bloody row in here... I can't see anything... I've got the bows up... I'm going... oh...[5]
Peel Island is considered to be the original of the fictional Wild Cat Island in the Swallows and Amazons books of Arthur Ransome.[2] Taqui Altounyan, sister of Roger Altounyan and inspiration for one of the characters in Swallows and Amazons, described Peel Island in her semi-biographical novel In Aleppo Once as "like a green tuffet, sitting in the water, the trees covering the rocks".[6][7] The island also features in W. G. Collingwood's novel Thorstein of the Mere, A Saga of the Northmen in Lakeland. Ransome, at the age of eight, first met the Collingwoods at a family picnic on Peel Island: a chance meeting that would prove to have important consequences in Ransome's later life, with Collingwood's grandchildren providing a model for significant characters in Swallows and Amazons.[8]