"Archaeologist, welfare-worker, explorer, genealogist, naturalist, photographer, writer and lecturer ... this familiar and friendly figure, sometimes half-tramp, sometimes professorial, trudging up the fells in foul or fair weather to deliver orange juice or medicinal oil out of her knapsack to some infant arrival in a remote farmhouse; or, at midnight, popping up disturbingly from behind a beck-side drystone wall, where she had been recording the seasonal note of an unusual owl. ... we shall miss more than her erudition: we shall miss her friendly, twinkling eye, her crisp opinions- sometimes inventively ornamented and not infrequently critical- but particularly we shall miss her humanity: her readiness to give a knowledgeable helping hand wherever it was needed."
Lord Rea of Eskdale
(Obituary in the Whitehaven News, February 17th. 1955)

The aspect of Mary Fair which is most relevant to our present project is her abiding interest in all things archaeological and historical, particularly those relating to Eskdale and its surroundings. She wrote many articles for the Cumberland and Westmorland Archaeological and Antiquarian Society (C.W.A.A.S.) whose transactions, published yearly, still provide new information about the past in Cumbria.
It was one of these articles in particular, which appeared in 1938 –“A Group of Remains near Eskdale Green” – that was the inspiration for our project application.