With his life as a newspaper editor behind him, Callum Griffiths moves back to his childhood home in England's Lake District. There is much to recover from, but any chance of peace is brushed aside as the district is overrun by nationalism that little resembles the hopeful land he had known in his youth. Forming a meaningful friendship with a South Korean entrepreneur introduces him to the harsher realities of modern living. Callum decides to use his writing as a way of fighting back against the harshness of the age, and in the process he discovers a new destiny for himself surrounded by the beauty of Cumbria. Bassenthwaite tells the story of a man travelling backwards and forwards at the same time. The past and the future come together in a fashion that reinterprets the present for a better day.