The perfect introduction to Wainwright's Lake District world – a stay in a cozy cottage overlooking the walking delights of Coniston

Alfred Wainwright once compared Coniston in the southern Lake District to Zermatt, high in the Swiss Alps, and said they all seemed to have a particularly strong affinity with their nearest mountains.

Okay, the Old Man Of Coniston can rise to just 2,635 feet, while the Matterhorn at Zermatt rises to a loftier 14,692 feet, yet there is some truth to the great walking writer's fanciful comparison.

The village of Coniston, population 928, somehow feels like it belongs to the mountain.

This close bond has a long history, with the industry supplying the glue.

For many years copper and slate were mined on the eastern slopes of the Old Man, dating back to the time of Elizabeth I, when the first copper mines were established, brought in by German miners.

Tom stayed in a 'mountain cottage' (pictured) in Coppermines Valley, above the village of Coniston

These Germans turned out to be more than just rolling up their sleeves when working on the copper seams. It is also believed that they introduced the recipes for local sausages that would eventually become known as Cumberlands.

Whatever the truth of this, copper mining began in the 1560s and continued until the 1950s.

Slate is still quarried and it is possible to buy beautiful silver-green slabs at Coniston Stonecraft, a workshop on the path to the old man behind the Sun Hotel.

This tucked-away company is located in old railway depot buildings for copper ore and slate; songs used to come from Broughton-in-Furness.

Meanwhile, the Sun Hotel was where Donald Campbell is said to have stayed the night before his fatal 300mph crash in Bluebird K7 during his attempt to break the world water speed record at Coniston Water in 1967.

Alfred Wainwright once compared Coniston (pictured) to Zermatt in the Swiss Alps, Tom reveals

The Old Man of Coniston has seen copper and slate mining since the time of Elizabeth I. Above, an abandoned slate mine on the mountain

LEFT: A hot tub in a mountain hut. RIGHT: Tom felt 'safe and sound' in his rental home in Coppermines Valley

You can learn all about this at the Ruskin Museum, just off the main street, close to the gurgling waters of Church Beck and a busy group of inns that mark the village center at a crossroads with a bridge.

There is a mangled piece of the ill-fated ship at the back in a special Donald Campbell section.

The museum's name comes from another historical spirit: John Ruskin, the social reformer and essayist (1819-1900), who so loved the local landscape that he bought a country house across Coniston Water.

Called Brantwood (about a 45-minute walk along the lake from the village), this building is open to the public and offers an intriguing insight into Ruskin's somewhat peculiar life.

Tom said the holiday home and the roaring fire seemed 'far away from anywhere in the “Swiss Alps” of Britain'. In the photo: the living room in one of the houses

During his trip, Tom visits the Ruskin Museum – a 'rich source of local history'

Tom is the author of Lost In The Lakes: Notes From A 379 Mile Walk Around The Lake District

The Ruskin Museum is a rich source of local history. The root of the name Coniston goes way back to the Old Norse Konigs Tun (king's settlement), referring to a Viking king named Thorstein.

Displays also show the early days of mountaineering and the Fell & Rock Climbing Club, founded in 1906 and based in Coniston.

If the fit is good and the weather is good, it would be rude not to climb the Old Man. This I did, enjoying beautiful views over the glistening tarns to the Irish Sea and south to Morecambe Bay.

Then I descended into the village and had a pint of Bluebird beer in the quaint Black Bull pub.

I was in good historical company. The poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote that he 'dinned on oatcake and cheese, with a pint of ale, and two glasses of rum and water sweetened with preserved gooseberries' at the nearby Blacksmiths Arms, Broughton Mills, during his own walking tour of the Lakes in 1802 .

Back at my holiday home in Coppermines Valley, where the fire was roaring, I felt as if I was a world away from anywhere in Britain's 'Swiss Alps', safe and sound with the 'benevolent giant' (Wainwright's words) of the Old Man who loomed over it.