How fast could you swim the width of Windermere if your life depended on it?

The answer – if you are a cow on the way to a Bowness butcher – is seven minutes.

That remarkable time, for a distance reckoned to be just short of a half-mile, was achieved almost 150 years ago.

To put that into context, the fastest a human has swum 800m in a pool is 7min 23.42sec – by the Australian Grant Hackett on July 20 in 2008.

The best by a woman is 7min 59.23sec on August 10 in 2013 by Mireia Belmonte, of Spain.

The Barrow Times, on Saturday, January 18, in 1868, noted: “Last week a fat heifer, which was being driven to the butcher, at Bowness, was ferried across the lake in a carriage boat.

“This was accomplished after some difficulty but as soon as it was landed at Ferry Point – finding itself at liberty, immediately took to the water.

“It swam directly back again to the Ferry Hotel, which feat it accomplished in seven minutes, the distance being nearly half a mile.

“On getting ashore the animal testified its great joy by kicking up its heels and capering about in a ludicrous manner.

“It was, however, soon recaptured, re-shipped, re-landed and consigned to the butcher.”

Today, a social media campaign, or even crowd-funding, might have saved its life - but the Victorians weren’t big on sentiment when it came to farm animals.

There had been a regular service to get people, animals and wheeled vehicles across the lake since the 13 th century.

It was part of the trading route between the market towns of Kendal and Hawkshead.

Among families holding the licence to operate a Windermere ferry service was the Curwens of Belle Isle. Early ferries would have been rowed and would have a flat deck for people and animals.

It was recorded that would of these wooden boats was overloaded and sank on October 19 in 1635.

Some 48 people and seven horses were on the way home from a wedding and fair at Hawkshead in bad weather.

It sank without survivors half way across with the bodies said to have buried side by side in the churchyard of St Martins at Bowness. The first steam-powered ferry came in 1870, operated by George Dixon.

It was hauled along a chain, or wire rope, stretched across the lake and trailing on the lake bed.

A new steam ferry, called Drake, was in service from 1915 and in 1990 the diesel-powered Mallard took over.