Cumberland in north-west England, now part of the county of Cumbria, includes the Lake District. Ruskin wrote extensively on the area's topographical and geological features and in his earliest architectural writings wrote on its domestic architecture in comparison with that of Switzerland.
Ruskin 's first visits to Cumberland were made with his parents as part of the family's annual tours in 1824, 1826 and 1827. On each occasion they continued on to Scotland. Further visits took place in 1830, 1837 and 1838. The tour of 1837, which also encompassed Yorkshire, and the Derbyshire Dales, provided the grounds for his first published work. This comprised a series of papers published in J.C. Loudon's Architectural Magazine under the psuedonym, 'Kata Phusin' ('According to Nature'). These writings, which displayed a largely picturesque analysis of architecture, were later published in book form as The Poetry of Architecture (1893), under the supervision of W. G. Collingwood. The visit of 1838 to Ambleside occurred when Ruskin was in love for the first time with Adèle Domecq, daughter of John James Ruskin's business partner. He visited Ambleside again in March 1847, kindling memories of the visit of 1838, through an unrealised interest in Charlotte Lockhart, granddaughter of Sir Walter Scott and daughter of Scott's biographer, for whom Ruskin was writing a review of Lord Lindsay's Sketches of the History of Christian Art. Ruskin moved from Denmark Hill in London to Brantwood on Coniston Water, in the Cumberland Lakes, following the death of his mother in 1871. He remained there until his death on 20 January 1900, and is buried in Coniston churchyard.