Its dramatic landscape has inspired writers down the ages and drawn thousands of visitors every year hoping to find solace amid the area’s hillsides, crags and verdant valleys.

But moves to protect the appearance of the Lake District for future generations have led to a bitter exchange between the area’s farmers and a radical wing of the environmental movement.

The arguments intensified after the Lake District was designated a World Heritage Site by Unesco earlier this month, in a bid to protect the centuries old landscape shaped by hill farming.

The move was condemned by some environmentalist, such as the writer George Monbiot, who accused Unesco of trying to turn the Lake District into a “a 230,000 hectare Beatrix Potter-themed sheep museum”.

Mr Monbiot said World Heritage Status would reinforce the area’s appearance as a “sheep-wrecked wet desert” and make it harder to reintroduce a greater diversity of plant and wildlife.

But Lakeland hill farmers have now hit back, claiming the “rewilding” vision of some environmentalists would leave the area covered in bracken, to the exclusion of everything else.